Chapter 4—The Pool

Either way, Draco thought, as he casually stripped off his clothes and watched Harry, who stood in the pool, resolutely facing away from him, I win. If he stays like that, I get to see his arse. If he faces me, I get to see his cock.

He had an earlier wank after the dream to thank for the fact that he didn't sport an erection now. Given the ripple of muscles across Harry's back, however, and the curve of his arse, visible through the extremely clear water, that could quickly be remedied. He sat down on the nearest set of stone steps that led into the pool and watched Harry in interest, waiting for him to get bored of this game and turn around.

Luckily, Harry found his voice before Draco got tired of looking at his arse. "Yes, I mind, Malfoy," he said tightly, twisting his head to look over his shoulder. "I mind everything you've done to me since you abducted me, you bastard."

Draco caught his breath in delight. The spark of fury in Harry's eyes made them look very similar to the way they blazed when he caught a criminal. It was more of a reaction than he'd managed to stir from Harry since his capture. Privately, he celebrated. It had taken him less than a day to crack the façade, and given how stubborn Harry was, he'd thought it would take longer.

The sight made him start to harden again. Harry's eyes shifted unwillingly towards the twitch, and then he snapped around so that he was facing the opposite side of the pool once more. Draco hadn't thought his face could get any redder. Evidently, he was wrong.

"Now, Harry," said Draco. "I've given you bed rest, a good breakfast, a bath. Can you say I've done anything that wrong?" He slipped from the steps into the water, and paused a moment to enjoy the soft, constant swirl of it against his skin. He'd had to hire a private expert to make the water move like this, and it had cost several hundred Galleons. It had been worth every one. "If you'd just relax and enjoy this, you might find you like it. Shocking, I know."

"There was also the dream," Harry said in a low voice.

Draco smiled and kicked off from the bottom, swimming towards Harry. Harry started as he floated up beside him and wrapped his arms around his torso. Draco stifled a moan. The expanse of warm, wet skin under his hands was wonderful. Knowing that he'd waited nearly two years to touch it only made it better.

He felt considerably less pleased when Harry elbowed him hard in the side, making him release his hold. Harry shrank backwards against the stones, his eyes narrow now, and still sparking. Draco winced and rubbed the forming bruise, then shook his head.

"The dream was of me doing nothing but touching you," he pointed out calmly. "I meant what I said, Harry. I wouldn't descend to rape." Why should I? That's hardly a way to get a lover to stay with you, and I want him to stay with me. "I want to know the pleasure of fucking you, and I expect to have it before too much longer, but it won't be against your will."

"You have no right to touch me." Harry's voice was a low scream.

Draco regarded him patiently. "Harry," he said, "I may have missed something, but I did my research carefully, and I don't think I did. Have you had a lover since your Weasley girl died?" With carefulness aforethought, he had decided not to insult any of Harry's dead friends. "Have you had a date, for that matter?"

Harry's face crumpled as if he'd eaten a lemon. "I don't take it up the arse, Malfoy, if that's what you're asking."

"How would you know?" Draco asked, now sure that the answer to both his questions was "no." "You dated Weasley for a few weeks, if I remember correctly, maybe a month." He'd had to work hard to capture those memories of sixth year, but once he became obsessed with Harry, it was easier. Every prior memory of him stood out with preternatural clarity, then. "And that was eleven years ago, Harry, and nothing since. I don't think you really have any idea whether you're gay or straight."

He took a step forward, now careful both because of the bruise and his erection, which was hard enough to ache. Harry retreated a corresponding pace backwards. Draco rolled his eyes, and with an effort held himself still.

"Eleven years without someone touching you," Draco said softly. "And you're surprised that you reacted so strongly to that dream, Harry? It doesn't have that much to do with sexual preference, you know. You're touch-starved. Anyone touching you at this point is going to feel so good you won't know what to do with yourself."

"People have touched me," Harry said tightly. "People pat me on the back, and sometimes I get a hug." He shook his head, as if the statement sounded ridiculous to him, and then demanded, "And even if that was true, why the fuck would you care? You don't have a right to interfere in my life, Malfoy."

"Someone has to." Draco's own irritation was rising, now, but he had known he'd have to get through barriers like this, and he had all the time he needed. Harry wasn't going anywhere. He softened his voice. "You deserve better than what you have right now, Harry, and you need it. No one else seems that interested in giving it to you. The other Aurors just see the amount of work you do. The Ministry will bleed you dry and then wonder why you collapse or kill yourself one fine morning. People who might still care about you in the wizarding world care about the Boy-Who-Lived, not the man you are."

"None of that matters," Harry whispered. Draco knew it was rage that made his voice so soft, not realization of the truth, which was a pity. "This is the life I chose, Malfoy. Maybe what you say is true, but it's still my choice. If I want to bleed myself dry, as you put it, then that's what I'll do."

"Who talked to you after your friends died?" Draco asked.

Harry's eyebrows came together now. "What kind of question is that?"

"A fairly simple one, I'd think," said Draco. The part of Harry's life he'd had the most trouble learning about was the few months right after he killed the Dark Lord. The newspapers were full of the happy, cheery official story, and quotes from interviews with Harry where he said that he knew he had to do the right thing. He hadn't established a visible routine at the time, and everyone else's perceptions of him were too blinded by preconceptions. By the time he became an Auror, he was already the closed-in man he'd been for the last decade. "Who talked to you? Who did you confess your grief to? Whose shoulder did you cry on? There must have been people eager to comfort you."

Harry stared at him a moment longer, then said, his voice icy, "You really think I'd approach the people who only wanted to comfort the Boy-Who-Lived, Malfoy? You're not the captor I thought you were."

And that told Draco the truth of his long suspicions. He nodded. "You just put your grief behind a stoic mask," he said. "And everyone else watched you, but they couldn't see a break in it, so they concluded that you really did let all your pain out when you killed the Dark Lord. When, in fact, you've just caged it up, and never dealt with it at all." Mentally, he adjusted his plan to better Harry's life a little. It would have to include sessions with a Healer, unless he could persuade Harry to talk to him. Draco had studied enough to know what basic necessities someone so starved of them as Harry was needed, but he didn't know all the mental aspects in detail.

"I dealt with it," said Harry. "I've moved on."

"No, you haven't."

"God, I hate you." And there was passion in Harry's voice, which Draco was prepared to count as a step forward. "You don't know me, Malfoy. You might think you do, after two years of spying, but it takes more than that to get inside a person's head. And you might as well know right now that this isn't going to work. I'll never surrender to you, go to bed with you, or do anything else that you want me to."

"Yes, you will," said Draco, and reached down into the water. Harry scurried backwards again, seeming terrified that he'd go for his erection. Draco gave him an amused smirk, but filed away the notion for later. Among other things that might prove interesting to expose Harry to was the sight of someone else wanking, since he refused to do it himself so far. He was actually pulling his wand from the strap that held it along his inner thigh, though. "Because you need it so much, Harry, that you'll have to. You're touch-starved, but also starved for stimulation of your mind, for companionship, for someone to talk to. Your body wants them, even if your mind insists it doesn't need them."

"Malfoy, stop—"

By then, though, Draco had already aimed his wand, and intoned a soft, "Silesco."

Harry's muscles went limp, and Draco moved forward, catching him before he could slump into the water. He laid his wand gently on the edge of the pool, then reached for one of the bottles of shampoo on the stones.

Harry was trying to whisper something, though Draco knew it was difficult with his mouth as slack as it was. "Don't…touch…me…"

"That's not possible, Harry," said Draco quietly, and began to comb his fingers through Harry's hair, before scooping up a handful of water and dashing it over his head. "Just be quiet and enjoy."

"You're…mad."

"Not mad," Draco pointed out calmly. "Obsessed. There's a difference."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

No, there bloody well isn't, Harry thought bitterly.

But just then, Draco began combing the shampoo into his hair, and he felt the sensation as an overload that nearly fried his nerves.

Oh, shit. Ancient memories were rushing back, of what had always happened to him when Ginny ran her fingers through his hair. It had nearly drugged him with pleasure, so sensitive was his scalp. Even the harsher tugging tended to send him deeper into a haze, rather than awaken him from it.

And no one had touched him like that in longer than eleven years, so if Malfoy's (insane) theories were correct, the result was going to be even more intense than it used to be.

Harry panted softly. The warmth of the pool seemed to have moved inside his head. With every pull, every loop of Malfoy's fingers around a particularly stubborn curl or snag, every scratch on his scalp from blunt nails, the warmth grew deeper and the daze grew worse.

Then Malfoy poured a handful of hot water over his hair to wash the shampoo out, and Harry moaned. Malfoy noticed immediately, of course, and paused in what he was doing, his hand tracing a trail of sparks around the side of Harry's cheeks.

He didn't say anything, which was what Harry had half-feared, but, of course, being Malfoy and a bastard, he did something worse. He brought his second hand up and dragged it through Harry's hair, sometimes petting, but mostly sinking his fingers deep and deliberately half-clawing.

Harry's eyes were covered with a faint film that had nothing to do with fog on his glasses. And he was hard again, damn it. There was no way that Malfoy, who was supporting Harry against his chest and shoulder, would miss that.

He didn't comment on it, though, instead finishing with Harry's hair, and then beginning to use a bar of soap on the rest of his body. He paused when he reached his nipples, and then his fingers were closing on them, pinching as he had in the dream. Harry felt them harden, and his body responded, his groin tightening so much it hurt. Throbs of painful pleasure gathered halfway down his chest, and the enforced languor of the spell in his muscles only increased the feeling.

"Harry," Malfoy whispered, and blew a puff of air across his ears. His breath was cool compared to the warmth of the water that had been running across them, and Harry shivered convulsively. Perhaps the spell was wearing off, a little, he thought in futile hope. "Would you let me make you come? I'd like to." His hand hovered, then darted beneath the surface of the water and closed on Harry.

Harry bucked into the hand, a breathy groan breaking past his lips. It just felt so damn good, and it was so damn unfair. He could feel his balls drawing up from just that simple touch.

In a panic, he fought his rising orgasm, and won a breathless moment free of it to spit, "Don't touch me, Malfoy."

Yes, the spell was fading. He had command of his own muscles a moment later, and he used it to pull himself free of Malfoy's arms, roughly, though he really would have liked to turn and knee him in the groin. He gritted his teeth as his erection hurt wildly for a moment, but at least he was free.

Of course, that still left him balanced on the edge, and he had no idea how he would get out of the pool without coming. He controlled his breathing and bent over, bracing himself with one elbow on the stones.

"I meant it," Malfoy said, into the silence.

Harry glanced up. He couldn't remember hating anyone in the last decade as much as he'd hated Malfoy right at that moment. Even Dark wizards who hurt dozens of other people weren't targeting him personally, unless Harry came too close and they wanted to frighten him away. Malfoy had introduced himself into Harry's life for that sole purpose, and Harry hated his incomprehension of that fact almost as much as he hated the basic fact itself. Why did Malfoy care?

"Meant what?" he asked, and hated, too, how breathy his voice was.

"That I won't fuck you until you're ready." Malfoy tilted his head to the side. "I don't count this, really, because I still asked your permission. But should I tell you how I'd like to do it?"

He gave Harry no chance to refuse. "In a bed, of course. That's the proper way. We'd have all the time in the world, and I'd suck your cock first. I usually prefer to tease my partners, to keep them on the edge for hours. In your case, I don't think I should. Besides, I've been waiting years for you.

"Can you imagine it, Harry? My mouth around you, warm and wet like the water is, but with even more suction? Pulling on you, draining you, tugging your come out of you?"

Harry shivered. "Malfoy," he said weakly, "stop."

"No, I don't think I will," he whispered. "That's probably something you've never experienced, either, have you, Harry? But that's all right. You can imagine it well enough, I think.

"You don't need to save anyone else when you're flat on your back, having your cock sucked." Harry wished he would stop saying that. The sound of his voice lingering over the "k" sounds was driving Harry insane. "Or maybe you'd prefer to be sitting upright, while I kneel between your legs. You'd probably like that better, wouldn't you, Harry, as much in control as you like to be? I don't even mind when someone grabs at my hair, though I don't like having my face smashed into my partner's groin. But you could guide me back and forth, and sometimes I'd only lick at you, and sometimes I'd curl my tongue and my teeth both around you and suck as if I were making you give me your blood instead of your come, and I'd cup you with my tongue and hold you still for a moment while my lips worked at you, and I'd breathe words that you wouldn't be able to hear, but which you could feel—"

Harry sobbed, feeling as though someone had punched him in the stomach with a handful of white fire, and came.

He'd forgotten what it was like, this pleasure, rushing down through his groin and then spreading out through him, sending sparks spinning across the inside of his eyelids, hanging him between heaven and earth before tossing him violently back down. And he certainly didn't remember shuddering as though he were having a fit before, or half-shouting, his neck arching so far back his head hurt as he emptied himself.

The pleasure left him hollow, and he shook, head bent, arms folded across his chest. The warm water felt cold now.

Malfoy's arms curled around him and dragged him close, and Harry promised himself that if the bastard said one word in a smug or triumphant voice, he would dredge up the strength to turn around and punch him.

Instead, Malfoy just whispered, "I knew you'd be beautiful," and then called out, "Trippy!"

And that was absolutely all Harry heard, as either his own exhaustion or the release or another spell swept him up and dropped him again—into sleep, this time.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Draco ran the back of his hand gently over Harry's cheek, marveling. He knew he couldn't possibly look healthier already; besides, the flush he had was probably just from the heat. But his face did seem to have relaxed, and his lips were parted as he slept, instead of pressed together so hard his teeth ground, the way he usually looked when he was in bed in his flat.

Of course, it wasn't going to be that easy to make him come again. Harry would be warier next time, and most likely incredibly angry when he woke up. But, for now, Draco felt both extreme smugness that it had happened and a surge of protective feeling that he knew stemmed from causing Harry an orgasm with his voice alone. No one else could do that.

No one else will ever have the chance.

Trippy appeared beside the pool with a crack. "Master Malfoy is wanting Trippy?" she squeaked.

"Yes." Draco switched his attention to her. "I want you to dry Harry off, help him into pyjamas, and then put him into my bed. I'll be in shortly, when I've dried off myself."

"Master Harry is being a better boy?" Tripped asked hopefully, as she took the sleeping and sated man from Draco's arms.

"Eventually, he will be," Draco murmured, watching as Trippy bore Harry towards the pile of towels. Then he settled back against the side of the pool and snaked his hand beneath the water. He had himself to take care of.

Not that it was going to take much, when he had the image of Harry bending double behind his eyelids.

And then he could anticipate at least a few hours of sleep with Harry in warmth and comfort before Harry woke and, doubtless, tried to kill Draco at finding that they shared a bed.

Draco smiled. He was looking forward to it.