Thank you for the reviews!
xxx
We land in the middle of our tent, limbs entangled like a pair of overenthusiastic schoolboys while he pulls uselessly at my clothes. "Off," he instructs gruffly. "Let me see you." I know I would want this just as badly without the alcohol, but it certainly doesn't hurt to have a little liquid courage at times like these. My fingers shake as I pull off my jumper, but I'm relieved to see that his gaze darkens considerably as it rakes over my pale skin hungrily. His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows.
Emboldened by this, I unbutton my jeans and push them down until they pool around my ankles so I can kick them across the floor. I stay still for a moment and bite my bottom lip, hesitant to look up at him in case its judgment I see there, or something worse. I know my cheeks are flushed when I finally do.
"You're beautiful, Draco," he murmurs almost reverently and to my embarrassment, I blush even more. Hard liquor has always made it impossible for me to hide my emotions, and my pale skin certainly doesn't help. He nods at my pants and I laugh breathily.
"You horrible glutton." I slide them off until my cock bobs free, pink and already slick with pre-come.
I decide his sharp intake of breath is a good sign.
He extends his hand out to me and I take it, his fingers curling into mine as my free hand goes to his fly. I look at him, searching for something, but he merely nods, and I sink to my knees. I'm naked, and he's still completely clothed… and I find this far more erotic than I think I should.
I fumble with the zip for a few moments before sliding his jeans down over his hips. His cock strains against the fabric as I pull it down over the hard flesh and breathe him in. It's been too long since I got involved with a man, even just for a night, and I can feel myself slipping back into habit. I know what it takes to make a man want more from me than I give them, just after one night, and I do it because I like having the power to deny them.
This though, is Harry Potter. I'm not sure I'm in familiar territory anymore.
His fingers slide through my white-blonde hair and he groans as I run my tongue over the head of his cock, already glistening with pre-come. "Fuck," he says, and I am encouraged. I take his entire length into my mouth with my cheeks hollowed and my tongue doing a wicked dance around his prick. He seems to be already on the verge of losing his composure, if he hasn't already, and when I look up at him, he moans.
They always love it when I look up at them with my lips wrapped around their cock. It undoes them.
I can feel him trying to keep himself from going over the edge completely as his hand falls heavy on my shoulder. "Get up." He jerks his chin at the cot, and I fall onto it on my back, my long limbs stretched out and my expression shamelessly wanton.
Later, when he's saying my name and my fingertips are running over his shoulders, I realize that this isn't just sex. After all we've been through, after all these years, that would be impossible. It might be hate, or it might be infatuation… perhaps a combination of the two… but nothing can ever be that simple between Harry Potter and I.
When he shudders over me, he says my name, and I know with a horrible, panicked certainty, that it's me who wants more from him than I think he can give me.
I'm still terrified when we fall asleep, tangled in each other's arms.
xxx
"Oh my god."
I wake to the sound of Angelina's voice reverberating through our tent and sharp morning light on my face. "For Christ's sake, Angie… let me through. We've all the same bits- fucking hell." I blink the sleep out of my eyes and find myself staring at Charlie who in turn is staring at us, still nestled in each other's arms and just as naked as the day we were born. We'd not bothered with a blanket the night before, obviously, and I'm certain he can see absolutely everything from where he's standing.
Lucky bastard.
"Essentially, yes," Potter says sleepily next to my ear, "that does cover it." I pinch his thigh.
"How did this happen?" At my smirk, he corrects himself quickly and turns a bit red around the ears. "I mean… I know how it happened, but…" Angelina gently steers him out of the tent with a knowing glance in my direction as though she'd shoved us in bed together herself, and I suppose in a way she had. It's very Slytherin of her, and I'm duly impressed.
Harry stirs next to me and flops his arm over his eyes to block out the light. I sit up and move toward my side of the tent wordlessly, afraid to say anything, but I feel his eyes on my back as I go. "Last night…" he murmurs sleepily. "It really happened."
"I assure you, I'm just as distressed about it as you are," I say dryly, an impassive look on my pale face.
He says nothing for a moment, and I wonder if he's drifted off back to sleep. It would certainly make a swift exit a little easier. "Then let's just pretend that it didn't." His voice sounds gruff with sleep and I know if I turn around, his hair would still be deliciously mussed from when my fingers had run through it the night before. He'd also have a small bite mark where his neck meets his shoulder and marks on his back from where my fingers clawed at his skin as he fucked me into the mattress…
For my own sanity, I keep my eyes focused on the contents of my trunk. "Yes," I murmur after brief pause. "That would be wise." It's the only honest thing I can think of to say.
I dress quickly and leave the tent without another word. I'm not sure if Harry's fallen asleep – because he is Harry now… not Potter – or if he's decided that silence is the best approach to an awkward situation like this one. Either way, I've no complaints.
Aside from the fact that I'll likely never sleep with him again. It's a fairly large inconvenience, given that I can't get last night out of my head.
Of course, last night meant nothing. Nothing. It was just a decent fuck.
I think maybe if I tell myself that often enough, I might even start to believe it.
xxx
"I should've taken that Romanian bloke up on his offer instead."
"Mm," Angelina murmurs in what I assume she thinks is a suitably sympathetic tone. It isn't. We're currently near the edge of the paddocks while she polishes her orphaned Chinese Fireball's scales to a shine. Its protruding eyes stare at me in a most disconcerting manner. Apparently, she's getting her ready for her first hunt in preparation for rejoining her herd. If she does it properly, and impresses the older dragons, they'll let her back in. If she doesn't… well. She simply doesn't have room for failure. I know better than most what that's like.
I never thought I'd feel any empathy for a dragon, but then again, I never thought I'd do half the things I've done in the past few days.
Or the past few hours, for that matter. Waking up in Harry Potter's bed had never quite made it onto my bucket list.
"I could have just let him fuck me in one of the bathroom stalls and called it a night," I continue on irritably, determined to get a reaction.
"And here I thought you'd be more tolerable once you'd been properly shagged." I scowl at her, though she seems oblivious. "Who're you writing to?"
She's been surprisingly silent about finding Harry and I in bed earlier in the morning, though I've no doubt she had her fun with Charlie about it after their quick exit. "My mother." I pause. "She worries when I don't." I've yet to make it past the greeting, of course, because I've no real news to tell her, aside from the fact that her son has just finished sucking The Chosen One's dick.
"That's sweet." She pauses and scratches a bit of dirt off of the Fireball's scales. "So when are you going to tell him that you're in love with him?" I blink up at her from where I'm sitting a short distance away and frown, my eyes narrowed and, hopefully, bemused. This is the first real interest she's shown in the conversation, and while I do enjoy my own company above all else, it had been getting a bit one-sided.
However, I'm not sure this is an improvement.
"Probably never," I intone coolly, "as I'm not."
She grins. "You're a horrible liar, Malfoy. The only one you have convinced is yourself." She pauses and pats her dragon. "Priscilla doesn't even believe you, do you sweetheart?" The reptile huffs a little fireball in my direction, and I flail backward as though attempting to imitate a crab.
Angelina laughs.
"Don't be such a cow," I advise her petulantly, my letter now ruined and crumpled in my fist. I pause for a few moments, knowing that I oughtn't say what I'm thinking while being simultaneously aware that I'm going to anyway. "He suggested that we pretend it didn't happen."
She pauses in her ministrations for a brief half-second and sighs. "Idiots."
I can't help but agree.
xxx
Harry's mumbling to himself and waving his hand around as though swatting flies when I walk into the tent, causing me to stop and consider if going any further would really be wise. "Um," I say intelligently, my gaze flicking between him and the exit.
It's too close to call as to which I desire more at the moment.
"They'll shut us down, those bastards." He fixes me with a heated glare, not unlike the one I was given the night before, though I very much doubt I'm about to be thrown up against a wall at any time in the near future. The shocking lack of walls in this camp does make that a bit difficult.
"Mm," I murmur in what I hope is a sympathetic tone. I'm not sure I've ever managed to sound sympathetic in my whole entire life, so I'm not sure how successful I actually am. Luckily for both of us, he seems to be too deep in his own despair to really pay much attention to me. We'd all be short one disastrous shag if that happened to be true all the time.
He sighs dejectedly. "They're cutting our funding. In half. The damn Wizengamot needs to 'cut federal spending' and apparently, this program is not nearly important to stay alive, while The Troll Humanitarian Program is, regardless of the fact that one nearly killed me in my first year. Had it succeeded, you'd be kissing Voldemort's feet and bending over the nearest hard surface every time a Death Eater with a taste for a tight arse happened to pass by."
The words tumble out before I can even think of stopping them. "It's not nearly as demoralizing if you act like you want it." He pauses in his rampage then with his hand half-raised and his mouth half-open. It'd be comical if it were taken out of context, but as it is, I'm feeling a bit too miserable to really summon the energy required to laugh.
"Did they…? Christ, Malfoy… you didn't-" His face has turned horribly pale. I can almost manage a smile at that. He'll be a humanitarian to the last, and it's some comfort to realize that some things will never change.
"Didn't say anything?" I do manage a harsh laugh at that. "What did you expect them to do to me after I couldn't kill Dumbledore?" My voice is a mimicry of his from the night before, when he'd uttered those same words. "I was useless to them then, in every way except one."
I try not to let them, but the memories flood back into my mind… of being forced to do unspeakable, filthy things while my screams were met with laughter and the sound of my mother pounding on the door, trying to break through to save her son. I close my eyes briefly, steeling myself against them. When I open them again, Harry's watching me with a strange look on his face that I can't read, and I'm certain I don't want to try.
If it's pity, I want none of it.
"Have you tried an appeal? Perhaps a petition?" I ask conversationally, as if I'd not just bared my soul to the last person I'd expect to understand how truly disgusting and wrecked I am on the inside.
He hesitates. "No. Charlie wants to weigh our options first. He says we won't go down without a fight."
I sniff affectedly. "Of course not. You Gryffindors never do." I attempt a slightly disparaging tone, though his expression doesn't change in the slightest.
"I've another meeting with him now," he says finally. A muscle jumps in his jaw as he glances at me again.
"I'm sorry," he says. It's a true apology and one not meant to be interpreted as sympathy or kindness, though for the life of me, I can't figure out what he's referring to: the night before or our entire lives before that. Perhaps it's the fact that he never saved me. I'm not sure the thought ever crossed his mind to try.
I'm still trying to understand what he meant by it when he leaves without saying another word.
xxx
When Harry still hasn't come back at half past ten and I've just started to wonder if I ought to raise some kind of alert that The Chosen One might be missing, Angelina pops her head into our tent, nearly startling me into rolling off of my bed. "We're going to the lake," she informs me without bothering to start off with a greeting like most normal people might.
"I haven't any swim trunks," I say with a scowl, which only earns me a snort from the witch.
"You don't need any. Come on." I frown as the tent flap swings closed again and get to my fight, though I know I'll regret it if I follow her. Of course I do anyway, because I'm nothing if not self-destructive these days.
We make our way out to the lake in silence, though I can practically hear her smirk in the dark. It's only when we reach the edge of it that I figure out why.
Lee and Harry are already in the lake, soaking wet, and naked.
Angelina plows into the lake with a whoop, pulling off her shirt as she goes, apparently not shy in the slightest about flashing her breasts around. It could be worse, I suppose. While she's in the company of three fully grown men, two of them are gay, so there's really not much harm in it. Most men's fascination with breasts has always perplexed me, even when I was thirteen and discovering them for the first time.
I should have understood a little better why from the way I was always much more interested in watching the other boys in the Quidditch changing room.
I'm still standing on the edge of the lake like a numpty when Angelina calls me in. "Don't be a pansy, Malfoy. There's only one person here who wants to see you naked."
"Fuck you," Harry advises her tersely.
She grins. "I was talking about myself, actually. But your defensiveness is very informative, Harry…" He splashes her irritably and her braids swing in the moonlight as she tries to get away.
I sniff primly and grasp the hem of my shirt between my fingers with some hesitation before pulling it over my head. I'm immediately freezing and I wrap my arms over my chest to keep out the cold night air. Angelina snorts and moves toward me. "I'm giving you ten seconds before I drag you in, Malfoy."
"She's sweet, isn't she," Lee murmurs, though he can't seem to keep his eyes off of her, the poor bastard.
I huff and roll my eyes, but I do acquiesce and slip out of my trousers and pants. I'm pleased to note that Harry colors considerably as his gaze rakes over my naked form. He even bites his bottom lip as I wade into the water.
"Like anything you see?" I ask derisively, eyes fixed on his face. The red on his cheeks is visible even in this semi-darkness. "I'll take that as a yes."
We splash around for a bit, relishing the cold water on our skin. It's a nice contrast to the scorching heat we work in during the day, I have to admit. "Wicked scar," Lee informs me as he jerks his chin at my chest. "How'd you get it?"
I glance at Harry. "I got in a fight with a powerful wizard."
He snorts. "I take it you lost."
"Clearly." I'm careful to make sure my face reveals nothing… no regret, no malice, and no ill will. I suppose I can only be relieved that no one's commented on the black scar on my forearm, aside from Angelina, but humiliation is much easier to bear when there's only one person there to witness it. And as long as that person isn't Harry Potter.
"Lee's jealous," Angelina informs us all.
"Shut it," he says, before yanking on her wrist to draw her closer. She laughs and rests a hand casually on his shoulder. I turn away, as I'm certain I don't want to see anymore.
Harry moves in a bit closer to me, apparently having no desire to watch the mating rituals of heterosexuals either. I've been friends with Pansy long enough to know in detail exactly how it goes, and I've never had any wish to participate. "A powerful wizard?" he murmurs, his eyes dark and sweeping over my shoulder… drinking me in.
"Of a sort," I amend, turning away. His hand catches my wrist.
"Malfoy…" he says. I pull my hand out of his grasp with a pained look on my face.
"Don't," I mutter. "Don't ask me to act like last night didn't happen and then…" I bite my bottom lip and look down. "Please. I can't." I know exactly where this will go if I let it. We'll have a short fling until my time here is up, and then we'll go our separate ways again because he won't want to be seen in public with a former Death Eater. With me.
And I can't blame him in the slightest.
The only problem is that while I know he might be ready to let me go when it's time, I'm not sure I would be, so I do the only thing I know how in situations like these. I grab my clothes and walk away, pulling them on as a I go in as graceful a manner as I can muster.
When Angelina shouts after me, I ignore her. Harry doesn't follow me.
I can almost convince myself that I don't care.