Draco has never really handled vulnerability well. Weakness is something he's always kept a tight rein on. The first time anyone ever really saw him at his worst, he was sixteen years old, and Harry Potter cut him nearly in half.

The second time, he was twenty-seven, and Harry Potter had kissed him into a wall and given him the most intense orgasm of his life.

Draco is also not a big fan of pattern.

That, along with everything else, is why he sits up so abruptly in the bed the moment he's conscious enough to be considered awake – memories come roaring back all at once – Merlin, he'd actually cried, not just in front of him but into him, and—

Oh, Merlin, the occlumency. He'd dropped the occlumency. What had he been thinking? Potter probably saw everything, right into the bloody tangle of his naked soul – Draco is gripped with a sudden wave of dread and fear – Merlin, he probably saw everything to do with his father, with his insecurities—

There's a hand on the side of his face, gripping his chin and pulling it down.

Harry is sprawled out in the bed next to him, sheets pulled over his stomach, smiling sleepily up at him.

"You're panicking," he says, voice thick and uncoordinated as the fog of sleep lifts. "Stop panicking."

"Potter—"

The hand slides around to the back of his neck and pulls him down into a kiss. There's a rough stubble on Harry's face that scratches across Draco's jaw. For a minute Draco's mind blanks in the pleasant way it always does when Harry kisses him, and when it kicks back into focus, Draco feels the paranoia creeping back up. How much does Harry know? How would he even begin to approach asking—?

"And now you're overthinking," Harry mutters into Draco's mouth before rolling over on top of him. Potter has a few inches and at least a dozen pounds on him, and the weight that presses Draco back down into the mattress is firm but not uncomfortable. "Turn your brain off for a while, Malfoy, it's Saturday." He kisses him again.

Draco is not sure how Potter can know what he's thinking. "Are you using legilimency?" Normally Draco would be able to sense it, and he doesn't sense anything out of the ordinary.

"'Course not," Harry mutters, mouth trailing off Draco's and down along the curve of his jaw, the crux where it meets his throat. "Just body language. Or the filium. Don't know."

Harry starts kissing along his neck – sleepy, clumsy kisses moving along his pulse point, and Draco would like to keep being alarmed, but it's getting more difficult. "What's filium?"

Potter's mouth stops for a moment, which Draco notices almost more than the sudden lapse of silence.

"Nothing," he says after a moment, no longer sounding quite as sleepy. Draco knows at once that it isn't nothing. "Misspoke. How's your back?"

Draco hadn't even noticed it, which he supposes is— "Fine," he says. "Potter, about last night…"

Draco trails off and looks down at Potter, though he's not quite sure why Potter looks back up at him mildly as he starts dropping kisses across Draco's collar bone.

"What…" Draco begins, but trails off again. "How much do you know?"

"Well," Harry answers mildly, trailing his kisses lower, "I know your father's a homophobic dickhead."

Draco swallows, though whether from the sudden feeling of vulnerability or the fact that Harry's mouth is moving closer to his nipple, he's not quite sure.

"I know you haven't really forgiven yourself for being gay, or forgiven him for training you to hate yourself for it."

"Fuck," Draco whispers. He really did bear all.

"And I know that I don't feel any differently about you now than I did eight hours ago."

Draco furrows his brow, but keeps his eyes trained on the ceiling.

"Well, no, that's not quite true," Harry says. "I think my respect for you has deepened not insignificantly. Back in school, I was so ready to blame you for everything you were. Now, knowing what I know now, I'm amazed you turned out halfway normal, let alone so brilliant, growing up with a father like that."

"Harry—"

"You're incredible, Draco Malfoy," he interjects, "and I—"

His sentence falls short. Something Draco can't quite name twists in his stomach and he looks down at Harry, who's halfway down Draco's stomach and staring back up at him, green eyes shining through long black bangs.

"You what?" Draco asks, not quite sure if he wants the answer.

Harry's face goes through a range of different emotions one after the other, none of which Draco can quite pick up on. After a moment, he moves back up Draco's body and bends to kiss him, as surprisingly gentle and effortlessly intoxicating as ever. Draco makes a soft sound against Harry's mouth, wondering what else he knows, wondering what filium is, wondering—

"Hhaaa—"

With a gentle roll of his hips, Harry's cock – hot, half-hard by the feel of it – slides along Draco's stomach. Harry swallows the moan it pulls out of him by deepening the kiss. Draco's entire body thrums with arousal, dulled by the early morning.

Harry, usually so vocal, usually speaking at length, is strangely silent – a not unwelcome change, Draco finds. There's a different sort of intensity that starts to hum under Draco's skin – quieter, warmer, deeper somehow, seeping all the way into his bones. And Harry kisses him so warmly, and slides his arms around his back, and moves gently against him, trapping Draco's cock between them.

Draco curls his body upward against Harry's in response, his own hands lifting, nails raking upward along the exposed skin of Harry's back. It's a gesture that pulls a low sound out of him, has him rock his hips more firmly. Blood rushes toward Draco's pelvis, hot, intoxicating, overpowering in a very different way than he'd become accustomed to.

He feels Harry's hand on his thigh – warm, calloused, but without much pressure. Draco lifts his leg up, tenting the scarlet bedspread, and Harry's fingers glide up, back down, around slightly—

Draco takes in a sharp breath as Harry's fingers probe at his entrance. Little arcs of electricity race up his spine, and it's nothing like the dizzying pleasure-pain he's had before.

Harry makes a low, hungry sound. "Still so wet and open," he whispers, gently curling his fingers in deeper. Draco's body reacts with a jerk, and he throws his head back, thighs falling open, rolling the small of his back upward for him.

"Harry," he begs, aching.

"Ssh." Harry bends down and kisses him heavily, and words leave again. He settles down between Draco's thighs and lines up—

"Harry—!"

Potter's kiss trips and falls from his lips, and he moans open-mouthed against Draco's jaw as he buries himself inside him. Draco feels hot and pliant and oh, Merlin so full, so exquisitely full, stretched but not torn, open and soft and yes, perfect, yes yes yes.

One hand around his waist, the other bracing on the headboard. Harry moves, but not roughly. There's no frenzy, no lovely-painful brutality, just a soft intensity that is burning through Draco with surprising speed.

Draco knows this is different. They've fucked before, more times than Draco can readily recall. This is not one of those times. This is not fucking.

Harry finds Draco's mouth again and kisses him desperately. Draco's hands rake up his back and tangle in his hair as he answers the kiss. He rocks his hips in time with Harry's, and he feels the intensity building, burning through his blood.

It's not fucking, but it's good. Merlin, it's good. Draco's legs start to shake, his hands tighten in Harry's hair. Harry, for his part, begins to pant; his movements don't become harder, but they do rock deeper, God, deeper, and the headboard thumps weakly into the wall, and Draco holds onto him for fear of floating away on the current of it all.

Harry's nails dig into the skin of his hip. Draco's bucking becomes less even, more frantic, because Merlin it's so good, Draco feels like he's coming apart at the seams. And when Harry pauses to angle himself up just so—

"Aa—aaaaaaahhh—!"

He doesn't speed up – he doesn't need to – after learning to love fast and brutal, Draco is undone at gentle and intense, and he's close, he's close, he can feel every muscle in his body tightening, bracing.

"Draco—"

Harry keeps his deep and gentle rhythm right through Draco's climax, which is equally low and intense and impossibly, inescapably perfect – the only sign of Harry's own orgasm is the way his movement seems to stutter, the tightening grip on his hip and – oh, yes – the added heat spilling into him in pooling waves; he can feel Harry coming inside him, and it intensifies those last few waves of his own climax before, trembling, he collapses again, head thrown back, heart pounding, though not from any particular exertion.

Harry kisses him again, deeply, intensely, and Draco answers in kind with as much energy as he can muster. The moment lingers a while, and then Harry pulls out of him. At once, Draco feels strangely bereft.

He rolls off Draco and collapses on his side next to him. Draco doesn't feel the thrumming buzz of sub space, but he certainly feels good – warm and uncoordinated, and oddly at peace.

"I don't think we've ever had sex when I wasn't tied up," Draco says, and Harry immediately busts into laughter, and Draco laughs along with him, though he couldn't say why if asked.

"I think you're right," Harry laughs, rolling onto his back. "We should, every now and then. Nothing wrong with a bit of vanilla. Cleanses the palate."

"That's lemon sorbet, philistine," Draco says, and Harry laughs again, louder, and Draco joins him, again. And if it's at all strange that he and Harry Potter are giggling like school children, post-coitus, in a stripe of golden sunlight, Draco does not feel like acknowledging it.

"Lemon sorbet," Harry says. "Christ, you're so bloody posh it's a miracle you can dress yourself in the morning."

"I refuse to apologize for class," Draco answers, gathering up his strength and climbing out of bed. "Where are my clothes, by the way?"

The bed shifts behind him. "Hey."

Warm hands on the small of his back, his hips. Draco turns around. Harry is sitting on the edge of the bed now, hands making appreciative movements across his hips and waist. Despite the hair, which is inexplicably even messier than normal now that he's slept on it, and despite the sleep still in his eyes, Harry looks lovely as he smiles up at him.

"You know I'm glad, right?" he says. "About last night, with the occlumency."

Draco frowns. "Glad? Why?"

"Because it means you trusted me enough to let me in," Harry answers. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm angry as fuck that your father is such a prick, and I hate that you felt so awful, but I'm glad you were able to open up about it."

For a while, Draco's not quite sure how to feel about that. He stares at Harry uncertainly as his hands trace the curve of his hipbones. "That's a weird thing to be glad about."

"It doesn't feel weird," Harry says. He tugs Draco forward by the hips and kisses his stomach. "I told you months ago, and it hasn't changed since. You were never going to be like my other submissives. I want the collar, yes, the commitment, but I don't want it if it doesn't come with every other part of you."

Draco remembers that, of course – he never really forgot – but the context feels different now. Harry's really doing this – he really, genuinely wants and is pursuing a real romantic relationship.

It doesn't feel as strange as it used to, but it still feels strange enough to make him hesitate.

"I don't…" Draco begins, haltingly. "I'm not sure if I want that. I don't know what I want."

"After a lifetime of internalized homophobia, I suppose I can't blame you," Harry says. "But like I said, I'll chase you until you tell me not to. I can wait. I will. You're worth the wait."

Draco cannot exactly say why the sentiment leaves him utterly dumbstruck.


"Anyway, I don't have anything formal yet," Blaise says. "Thought it would be best to at least run it by you first, before we put any ink to parchment."

"Hm," Draco says. He's caught up staring at the restaurant's skylights and the way it lets in the strange angles of moonlight. Or to be more precise, he's caught up in his own head, and the moon just happens to be a convenient thing to look at.

"I get a sneaking suspicion you're not paying attention."

It is, unfortunately, the comment that actually manages to draw Draco's attention away. "What? No, I mean – it's fine, I'm sure it'll be fine. We'll have our lawyers talk."

Dining with Blaise is always nice – or at the very least, it's nicer than dining with his father. Blaise always insists on the hole-in-the-wall-with-a-surprisingly-good-brisket rather than his father's choice of whatever-is-the-most-expensive. And more vitally, they can talk without Draco hating himself.

"How's your not-relationship going?" Blaise asks.

Startled, Draco look up from his leg of lamb. Blaise fixes him with a knowing expression.

"Don't even try to act like you weren't thinking about it," Blaise says. "I was around for your crush on Theodore; I remember how it looks."

Draco makes a dismissive sound, though there's not a lot of effort behind it.

"It's not a relationship," Draco says. Then he pauses, and adds, "Still."

Blaise answers with an unimpressed grunt. He takes a sip of wine. "And I'm not supposed to read into what a good mood daydreaming about him has got you in?"

"I wasn't daydreaming."

"Defensive? It must be getting serious."

"Fuck off."

"Pay your half of the tab first."

Draco saws with great deliberateness at his leg of lamb. "I'm not defensive. And it's still not a relationship, but it's going…"

Blaise raises both eyebrows and bends forward in exaggerated conspiracy.

"Fine," Draco finishes, somewhat anticlimactically. "Good. Nearly great."

"Nearly great," Blaise echoes. "Merlin's sagging bollocks, that's high praise coming from you. You must be head over tits for him."

"I'm not!"

"Gonna tell me who it is?"

"Fuck off," Draco says again.

"So it's someone we both know."

Draco groans. "Blaise—"

"And it's got to be someone with some history, otherwise you'd probably be fine telling me. Oh, God, it's not Theodore, is it?"

"No! Merlin, no."

"McLaggen? You were in correspondence with him earlier this year, weren't you?"

"He's married with three children!"

"Not my place to judge," Blaise deflects.

"Stop guessing. If I wanted to tell you, I'd just tell you."

"Well fine," Blaise snips, carving off a chunk of brisket. "I didn't want to know anyway."

"Clearly," Draco says. "Have you ever heard of filium?"

Blaise nearly chokes on his bite. He starts coughing so hard that Draco is nearly ready to pull out his wand and clear his airway.

"Merlin, Draco," Blaise wheezes once the piece of brisket is no longer in his windpipe. "Filium? Ligabus filium?"

"I – yes? What is it?"

"Who told you about ligabus filium? What kind of relationship is this?"

"I – I read it," Draco lies.

"Bullshit you read it, there isn't any respectable textbook in the world that will talk about ligabus filium. Draco, are you—" Blaise stops suddenly, gives him a measuring look. "Is this a BDSM relationship?"

"No!" Draco lies again.

"Holy shit, it is!"

"Blaise!"

"You're into BDSM?"

"Keep your voice down!"

"Merlin, no wonder you looked like you were about to pass out when I took you out onto the floor that first time," Blaise says. "If I'd known you were turned on instead of uncomfortable—"

"Blaise, I will hex you blind."

"I'm just saying, I could have given you names!"

"Tell me what ligabus filium is or I'm going to punch you in the throat."

It takes several more infuriating seconds for Blaise to stop laughing, and several more further for him to gather up the wherewithal to answer. In the interim, Draco does his best to glare a physical hole in the side of his head.

"It's – Merlin, Draco—" Blaise laughs, shakes his head. "No one really knows exactly what it is or how it works. It's really rare."

"Is it a spell?"

"No, not really," he answers. "It's not so much an act of magic as it is an artifact of it. It's the result of prolonged and repeated legilimency, coupled with other types of BDSM-related magic. It sort of just happens to Doms and subs who've been together for a while, but not always. In fact, not in the vast majority."

Draco furrows his brow. "What does it do?"

"There's no specific set of effects, or at least not any that have been well-documented," Blaise says. "It happens so rarely, and there's always some variation between each case. I think I've only seen it once or twice after four years running Nox. It appears as a sort of blue thread around the wrist of the Dominant and the throat of the submissive. From my admittedly limited understanding, it creates a sort of permanent mental link."

Draco is not quite sure he likes the sound of that. Granted, he's not quite sure he dislikes it, either. "A permanent link?"

"I heard it described as a sort of low-level psychic radar that's exclusive to the Dominant and their submissive. A mutual, perpetual awareness of each other's mental state, and any particularly strong thoughts or emotions."

Draco looks away. He's certainly never felt anything like that with Harry. Had Harry been feeling things like that? Draco's mind goes back to the conversation they'd had two days ago, when Harry was barely awake, muttering things about Draco's mental state he would have had no immediate reason to know.

"Can it…" Draco begins. "Does it ever form lopsidedly?"

"Fuck if I know," Blaise answers. "Fuck if anyone knows, really. This is really rare stuff we're talking about."

"Right," Draco sighs.

A permanent mental link with Harry Potter. At first brush, it sounds so far past ridiculous that it circles right back around into practical.

"I think it is permanent though," Blaise continues, "once it forms solidly. And I'm fairly sure it only appears with really strong emotional bonds."

Draco is so deep in his own thoughts that he doesn't realize, for a while, that Blaise is giving him a knowing look that's so smug Draco considers punching him in the throat anyway out of pure spite.

"So I guess it's going very well," Blaise says.

"Fuck off," Draco answers.

"So are you the one who gets tied up or does the tying? I'm going to guess you're the one getting tied up."

Draco sends a hex flying into the side of his head.

"Fuck!"