PART FIVE/SIX
"I need to speak with you," Potter informed him, his eyes very green. The secretary was nowhere in sight and neither was Theodore. "In private."
"Pardon?" Draco sent a keen glance about the environs of Potter's comfortably boring office, seeking out his small charge. He was entirely unprepared to have Potter's fingers latch on to his forearm. He glared at them. "Excuse me? I can't stop, Potter, I've a schedule to keep, so whatever it is will have to wait."
His first startled thought had been of Theo, and if he was well, but this was St Mungo's and Potter the best paediatrician in it: that couldn't be.
"No! Come on!" Potter had got hold of Draco's elbow. He was dragged across the lintel without another word spoken. The door shut itself behind them and Draco heard faintly the ping of privacy wards going up. He instantly spun to face the closed exit, vaguely alarmed. Potter was planted before the brass knob like a small but determined mastiff.
"Well?" He raised a brow at the perplexing Potter, nonplussed but attempting not to reveal it. Potter was often willful; Draco was accustomed. "Potter? What's so urgent you have to tow me about?"
"This way," Potter said quickly, ducking his chin and not meeting Draco's eyes. He darted forward. "Over here now. Through this door. Hurry."
Another door appeared in the panelled wall, a nondescript one that looked as though it led to a loo or an examining room. Potter yanked on that matching brass knob and Draco stared dumbfounded when it swept open silently, gaping wide. It wasn't a lavatory at all. It was a huge and comfortably furnished study, all old leather and books everywhere and a nice cushy carpet in blues and burgundies across a dark polished floor. With a lovely garden view through a series of floor-to-ceiling plated glass windows, the room was immensely inviting.
"Go on now," Potter urged, and gave Draco a tug on the arm plus a little push at the small of his back so he stumbled unwillingly across the sill. Potter was immediately at his heels, breathless voice in his ear. "You see, it's like this: I'm not wasting another moment, Draco. We're having this out right now, this instant. Your mother, she stopped in to speak to me, you know? No, you don't know, clearly, but I'm telling you now. It can't go on—and I'd no idea. None, Draco, which is utterly, completely mental of you. Mental!"
"Where?" Draco asked slowly, staring about him. "Is this, exactly? Having what out, Potter? What's this about Mother?"
It wasn't at all surprising Potter had a door in his office that led to somewhere very private indeed. He and Bill both had access to their homes direct from their offices on Diagon; it was a matter of course for a busy professional. It was only that he'd never been to Potter's, nor even suspected it existed. Grimmauld Place was all he knew and Potter was rarely there and never entertained the likes of the Malfoys there. Claimed he hated it and it wasn't fit for company, much less family. So…this here. Here before his eyes was another facet of Potter's intensely private life, a piece of Potter he could brood upon when he had the time. "This—here," he gestured. "This is yours?"
"Yep. Godric's Hollow," Potter replied easily, tugging the second door shut behind them. "My parent's cottage, restored. Do you like it?"
"Yes," Draco said instantly, because he did, very much. "It's…very nice." It was, too. It felt…it made him feel content, the room. As if he could make himself comfortable and stay for a while…not that that was a likely turn out.
"Ahem." He cleared his throat. The recollection that Potter had brought him here specifically to speak frankly struck him with full force. His eyes shuttered as he edged about to face the man directly. His Mother had been mentioned, which couldn't possibly bode well. "Ah," he shrugged uncomfortably, a frisson working its way up his spine. "Right. You said you wanted to speak to me privately?" His first concern reared its ugly head for a second time; he clenched his hands into ready fists. "Is it about Theo? Is he alright?"
"No." Potter waved his expressive hands in Draco's face, smiling wryly. Draco blinked rapidly but could only register confusion. "That's not it."
"No? What does that mean? Er, where is the scamp, Potter?" Draco snapped back swiftly, staring about him covertly and trying to peer through an archway that looked to open up to a huge open-floor kitchen, all tile backsplash, copper pots and monumental Aga. "What've you done with him, then? Is he here? Is he...he is well, Potter?" Doubt worried at him, despite Potter's odd smile; of all things, he couldn't bear to lose his nevvie. "No mishaps swimming? Hasn't fallen and hit his head or anything?"
"No! I meant—he's fine, Draco; sorry to have you fretting." Potter caught hold of Draco's sleeve again and literally pulled him over to the couch, like a tug with a Muggle tanker. Draco went along, but only for courtesy's sake. And because Potter-touch was so insidiously beguiling, of course. "Teddy's perfectly well; didn't mean to imply otherwise." For the space of a long breath they fought a silent battle over the matter of Draco sitting his arse on that sofa. He resisted mightily. Potter gritted his teeth and attempted to shove at Draco's shoulders, to no avail. "Your mum's got him now," he went on, narrowing his gaze at Draco behind the lenses. "Stopped in to see me and took Teddy along when she left. Sit down, do."
"No, thank you. To see you, you say? Why would she want to see you, Potter?"
"Please, Draco. I think you'll rather want to when you hear what I have to say."
"Fine, if you insist. But be quick about it, Potter. I really do have commitments to keep." Draco sank down at Potter's urging, his knees watery, his senses tingling. He placed his hands squarely atop them to keep them from visibly knocking before Potter's sharp eyes. It was relief affecting him, of course, nothing else. It was reassuring at least to hear Theo was healthy and hale, and apparently off with his own interfering busybody of a mother. Theo was a dear boy and Draco…well, he'd be lost without him, actually. Having someone to love other than just Mum and Aunty was a relief, an out to the infernal pressure. Someone he could adore and spoil and care for unreservedly without having to hide it, that was. "Oh!"
Love. His Mother. His Mother, on the subject of love. "Oh, no, Potter," he said blankly, staring up wide-eyed at his oblivious mate.
"Draco."
His jaw dropped, his throat clogged; he swallowed dryly.
"It's not?" Paling abruptly, Draco recalled his mother's line of questioning of earlier, of how he'd essentially fallen to pieces under the brunt of it. "She didn't dare—did she?" That wicked, wicked sparkle he'd caught sight of out of the corner of his one wildly rolling eyeball as he'd fled with Theo."Oh, no, no, no! She wouldn't have!"
"Er…yes, actually." Potter had the grace to look elsewhere and blush slightly as Draco's eyes widened ever larger in shock. He humped a slim shoulder at his guest. "She did—has, rather. Just now, a few minutes before you arrived. Said I should know, said she was amazed I didn't know. Told me flat out I basically had my head up my arse, almost as far as yours was, and she wasn't having it, not any longer. Any of it." He shrugged again and Draco could feel the residual warmth travelling across the two inches that separated him from Potter. He inhaled but that didn't mean he was really breathing, oh, no. "And I…I agreed, Draco. Enough's enough. This is stupid."
With a cry, Draco went rocketing off the sofa like someone shot point blank with a Muggle bullet.
"Fuck!" he roared and promptly made a beeline for the innocuous door that led back to the dubious safeyy of Potter's office. "Fuck no, Potter—I'm not doing this! Not now. She had no right!"
He yanked furiously at the handle but it wouldn't budge, and then levelled his wand at it, ready to blast the entire business to pieces. He wasn't merely Wizard, he was Veela. If he wished it, the door would disintegrate as if it had never been.
"Won't work," Potter warned calmly from just behind him. Close upon him; far too close. "Well, maybe it would, for you, but…don't, please. Don't break my door down, Draco, and." Draco heard a huff, a sigh. "And don't go."
"Ngh!"
"Please don't go." And then Potter was somehow not merely directly behind Draco, but shoving his shorter length down Draco's flinching back and tremulous legs, his glorious heat permeating right though the layers. Two broad, long-fingered hands flattened obstinately upon the panelled wood of the obstinately shut door, one planted firmly on either side of Draco's person. White Healer's robes shifted with Potter's motion on the fringes of Draco's vision, encircling his own sober businessman's grey like a small shroud.
Or perhaps angel wings. If Potters were ever angels, the persistent buggers. In Draco's private heaven, they would be.
He shivered, Veela rising. Just noticeably enough to cause Potter to edge closer, to lower his voice to that impossible-to-resist octave only he could achieve and hum a heady invitation straight into Draco's buzzing brain. Essentially, to flay a nerve-wracked Draco Malfoy wide open right where he stood, at bay.
"Draco, turn round and face me, please. We must talk. You owe me that."
"No," Draco replied steadily enough, his wand descending limply to lay long at his thigh, pointing uselessly at the carpet. "There's nothing to talk about." He was barely conscious of its smooth weight or his own fingers curled desperately about it, he was so bathed about in the scent, the feel of Harry. His marvellous lovely Harry—who wasn't and would never be his. "Leave off, Potter. I have to go. I'm late enough already."
He glared furiously at the innocent door as if to burn a hole right through it.
"Draco."
"Allow me to go, please. This is pointless."
"No."
A whisper, the barest possible, and the arms reaching out past his own lax ones tightened, clamping cautiously about him, right at elbow-height. His wand fell unheeded with a little thump. Draco could've sworn much-coveted lips were brushed ever so carefully against first one sore aching shoulder blade where it jutted and then the other. He shut his eyelids, helpless to resist the ghostly touch. Blasted wing buds; Potter was kissing them. Or where they'd been, at least, up till Draco's latest potion infusion.
"No, it's not."
"Potter. Potter, I'm warning you." Draco stiffened into corpse-like rigidity. It couldn't be helped he was reacting to Potter's proximity but then again…perhaps the situation might somehow be salvaged? No 'might' about it, really—it rather had to be, and as soon as possible. He would be forced to have Potter in his life for years to come, after all. Be called upon to see the man regularly, to shake his hand, even to spend his remaining Christmas mornings furtively watching him unwrap gifts and hoping like hell that whatever he'd given him wasn't too revealing. "This is foolish, whatever it is you think you're doing."
"Far from it."
He—he was the foolish one, Draco was sure. He wanted those Christmas mornings to come. Hell, he wanted whatever moments his ever-shortening days in this vale of tears would allow. He'd wish to smile fond-politely whenever Potter might come along upon his small family in his mum's beloved gardens, scooping up Theo and twirling the giggling boy into delighted shouts. He'd still, fascinated, solely to watch the show. But keep himself well away and distant every time Potter would grin blissfully and idiotically at he and Theo, Mum and Aunty Drom across the breakfast table in just that peculiar way he had: wide like the sea and open-eyed and dazzling Draco's heart into a swoony tailspin over the toast. As if Potter were honestly delighted to be included in; as if being an honorary Lupin and a Tonks and even a Malfoy was the best single thing that had ever happened to him, after being a Black and a Weasley. Oh, but that beautiful singular smile, the exact one which unerringly extracted Draco's heart from his chest and laid it throbbing at Potter's always-dancing-away feet.
But that wasn't all. Not by a long shot, no.
All the years to come he'd have Harry near enough him physically, on his periphery, lightning flashing wild and sure on his own lonely event horizon. He'd surely lay a hand on his fellow Wizard now and again in passing, of course, but not anything like when he'd touched his enchanting mate just that one time, ever so brilliantly. The one moment of all Draco's moments where he'd ever felt complete, a total entire man, all of a piece and blissfully desired in return. No…he'd only thought Potter had been wanting him too and then only for the merest blink of an eye. Been delusional, rather. Stupid Veela, taking things for granted.
And then Potter had said—Draco shuddered. Froze fast between Potter's arms.
No, Draco.
Potter had yelped in honest distress. Had batted away at him, pushing off Draco's smothering hands and searching lips, the nimble ankle Draco had twined about Potter's to trip him closer. Had danced away on those blithe feet of his in a panic, the butt of his wand rising ominously, familiarly, in capable hand and then in a flash Lovegood was there, jabbering on and on in the midst of Draco's abrupt bereft-ness, and then the needle had jammed rudely into his bared forearm and it was a brilliantly confusing, exquisitely agonizing blur for a few moments till clarity dawned.
"Please let go," Draco whispered. He could not, for the life of him, stay in that memorable moment. That hideous moment when he'd known, when he'd come to his senses and found himself cold and abandoned in Creatures A&E Intake, behind curtains drawn. When he'd realized what 'no, Draco' really meant to the thing he'd become. "Oh, please. Potter. I'm asking."
"Turn around," Potter insisted, "turn around, Draco."
But Potter was already darting about Draco's motionless form himself, hands off the door to grasp at Draco and then never removing those wicked fingers from the sanctity of Draco's person, keeping close enough to ensorcel his hapless, hopeless Veela in his spell of sweet oblivion, Nimue to Merlin.
"No, never mind," Potter panted in his ear, moving fast. "I'll come to you if you won't face up to me, contrary git. I'm here—don't you see me, Draco, see that I'm right here, before you? Been all along, never have I left you. Don't you get it, Draco? You're not that thick, are you? Are you?"
"Thick?" Draco could not help but echo softly, stuck fast in a bell jar of cold treacle. He blinked. Once, twice. "Thick? No. Not particularly." His lips parted and pressed round the words as if they were foreign to him; they felt numb as the rest of him. He licked at them; they were bone dry. He watched Potter curiously from under the shadows of his lashes, from beneath the lead-laden weight of his drooping eyelids, as if Potter were a poisonous serpent and might bite at him, strike him down where he stood. This dear man, this Wizard Draco adored but couldn't for the life of him begin to comprehend. It made no sense, Potter trapping him now, here, this moment, two years after the main event. And this must be…this could be…this wasn't. Of course it wasn't. "No. I don't think so."
It was sane word, 'no'. If repeated often enough, it might instill some of its impeachable quality in a world gone topsy-turvy.
"Seems like you're pretty dense to me, sometimes." Potter was all green eyes and smiles before him, his back up against the door, his hands settling soft on Draco's collar. "Now, especially."
Draco resisted. Not easy, with the Veela pressing outward, eager to take whatever Potter offered and make off with it. Drag Potter back to its lair and—oh, no. Not going there. He'd learnt his lesson, thanks ever so. Once was plenty.
"No, no, Potter," he scowled, taking refuge in his ready temper. "Leave go. I have work. I must go."
"I said. " Potter's face assumed an air of unbearably smug patience, as if Draco were the slower one of the two of them and Potter a genius. "I had said 'not like this,' Draco, that time. I did not say no to you, not ever, you stupid thing. I didn't."
"You did," Draco murmured. He couldn't shift in the slightest, though Potter was the lesser and Veela could move mountains, if inspired. "I...remember." No, cancel that, he could. With glacial motion his painfully clenching hands were to be found trailing up the smooth reaches of Potter's hips, unfurling like flowers and laying themselves wide across the rounded humps of Potter's buttocks. So warm and so taut. Draco swallowed. "You said no," he murmured throatily. "I heard you loud and clear. It was the only thing I really recall, so I know it was true—it is true. You said no. Don't deny it."
Potter snorted.
"If I did," he shot back snappily, "it was only because we were in the middle of the Paediatrics waiting room in a busy hospital of a Sunday evening, you fool, and I had emergency patients waiting on me and you! You practically had me stripped nude in two seconds flat, and I—"
"What?" Draco's neck was bending against his will, his chin lowering by arctic degrees, his eyes drifting completely shut of their own volition so he could scarcely make out his Potter. No matter; every inch of him knew precisely where every inch of Harry was. "You...what? Hmm?"
"I thought it was only…some weird contra-chemistry, maybe," Potter humped a shoulder, twitchily, grimacing sour. "From the med fumes floating about in Mungo's. At first. Or a misplaced curse, rebounding, from your work. That you mustn't have meant it, Draco. How could you have, I thought? Come on, out of the blue like that? My specialty's children's ailments, Draco, not Creatures—certainly not Veela. And you, Mister-I'm-So-Cool-Malfoy? I'm So-Malfoy-Malfoy? You never—you were always only ever courteous to me, kind to me, maybe teasing me a bit now and again but always bloody polite, and you never said." He gulped. "A word. Otherwise, about anything more...before then."
"How could I?"
"You could." Harry stared up at Draco curiously. Frowned and watched him carefully, narrow-eyed and squinty. "You could've said any time after Teddy. After it was sorted, how we'd all be a family. I was waiting for it, expected it, actually. But you never did, not once. And then you went and got yourself on the strongest Veela suppressant available as soon as you'd snogged me. Literally, like within ten minutes. As soon as you could do, Draco. What was I to think, then? I thought it was glitch, an error. A mistake, never meant to happen. I thought you didn't want me. Naturally enough."
"You didn't want me."
It had all seemed so obvious. But maybe Veela were a little dense, at times. Being rather single-mindedly focussed on the one thing, the true thing. The only.
"I wanted you." Draco flushed deeply at Potter's hasty assertion. "I want you now."
"Liar."
"No…" Potter smiled. Went up on tiptoe and poked his inquisitive nose into Draco's neck, so his spec frames dug into Draco's Adam's apple uncomfortably. "No, never say that. Snog me again, right now, this second, and you'll soon see. Try it, Draco. I dare you."
