Author notes:

Italicized words are character thoughts

Italicized & boldfaced words are dream sequences or memories

Boldfaced words are in text reading materials (like books or letters)

000 Represents a shift in character perspective

0~0~0 Represents a shift in scene (often followed by the date the new scene takes place if it is on a different day than the prior scene)

Chapter 9: Knowing is Half the Battle?

Saturday, 1/18/1997

Draco stared blankly at the door to the Room of Requirement as his mind struggled to catch up with what had just transpired. He had come here, unaware that the room was occupied, and found Potter writhing on the bed, calling out filthy suggestive things and very clearly dreaming that he was being fucked by Draco. Then he came, woke up, saw Draco, looked like his puppy had just been killed in front of him, and then fled the room before Draco could say anything.

"Right." Draco looked around himself as if to assure himself that all of that was real. The tousled state of the bed sheets and his still painfully hard cock would suggest that yes that had really just happened. "Bugger."

His hand reached down and grazed the bulge that was distorting the well ironed lines of his tailored trousers. "What is happening to my life?" He asked no one in particular. "And why the fuck am I still hard!?" He demanded angrily, twining his fingers through his hair as he flopped himself down onto the now vacant bed in frustration.

If Draco thought that a quick lie down would relax him and banish his unwanted arousal he was quickly disabused of that notion. For as soon as he collapsed onto the bed a rush of Potter's scent rose up around him. Draco knew his smell from their many quidditch fumbles and corridor fights, it was a salty citrus mixture of sweat and fruity school soap that was somehow both common and uniquely Potter in a way Draco wasn't sure he could explain.

The sheets were still warm where Potter had lain and they felt slightly damp from his sweat. Draco could feel Potter's warmth radiating through his back and his thoughts flickered back to the scene that had caused such heat.

'Does Potter dream like that every night?' He wondered, blushing at the realization that his longtime rival might be cumming every night with Draco's name on his lips. Unbidden visions of Potter squirming and clutching desperately for the sheets while begging for Draco's cock invaded his mind.

His pants were down his thighs and his hands were vigorously working his cock before Draco realized what he was doing and by then he couldn't stop himself. His mind replayed everything Potter did and said while Draco wanked himself savagely. Potter groaning and biting his lower lip. 'Don't stop.' His back arching suggestively. 'I want you.' His lips parting. 'You're so beautiful.' His arse grinding against the sheets. 'Don't stop. Just fuck me already.' Thrusting wantonly at the air. 'Deeper!' Thrashing erratically. 'Cum into me Draco!'

And Draco came, in long white spurts across his torso and the sheets still damp with Potter's sweat. As the lustful fog that had clouded his mind cleared Draco remembered the look in Potter's sated green eyes when he woke and how they had turned cold with loathing when they saw him. How Potter had looked ill and fled from the room rather than face Draco.

Draco felt suddenly very cold. He laid there unmoving for several minutes just staring at the ceiling and wondering what the fuck had happened to his life that he was now wanking to fantasies of Harry Potter in the same room that he had formerly used to serve the Dark Lord.

"How the bloody hell am I supposed to face Potter now?" He asked the room bitterly, as though this whole mess was the room's fault for bringing him here. But the room of requirement gave him no answers.

0~0~0

'Shit, fuck, shit!' Harry cursed mentally as he fled the room of requirement. 'He saw me. He heard me. He knows.' Harry felt sick to his stomach. He was all the way back to the fat lady before he realized that he was still in his pajamas and that he hadn't cleaned himself from the dream. Embarrassed, he waved of his wand and cast scourgifying and drying spells on his pants. He wasn't proud of how good he'd gotten at that.

He crawled through the portrait hole, blissfully thankful that the Gryffindor common room was still empty. He had no idea what time it was but he knew it must be early if no one was up. He wanted to know why Malfoy was in the room of requirement at the crack of dawn. How had he known Harry would be there? How had he gotten in? Harry hoped fervently that Hogwarts immune apparation wasn't going to be some other as yet unknown Veela horror that he was going to have to put up with. He made a mental note to look at that damn Veela memoir again later. He had promised Dumbledore after all.

Harry tried to push the memory of the dream from his mind as he climbed the steps to the 6th year boys' dorm, but the images, sounds, and remembered sensations wouldn't be blotted out.

The feel of their heated bodies grinding against each other, the sound of their pleasured moans, the taste of his kisses, the skill of his tongue, the grip of his hands around their joined members, and the filthy things dream Harry had said to him. Harry flushed just thinking about it.

Hardest of all to banish was the remembered sensation of fullness. He now knew what it felt like to have Draco's cock inside of him. 'I can NOT start thinking of him as Draco!' Harry silently admonished himself as he tried fervently to ignore that these thoughts were reinvigorating his spent cock.

Harry hated his traitorous body almost as much as he hated this bloody Veela curse. Why had he never come that hard thinking of Ginny or Cho? Harry had never felt as good touching himself as he had felt in that dream and he was afraid of what that meant.

Cursing his stupid body, his stupid dreams, and this highly troubling train of thought Harry treated himself to an agonizingly cold shower. There he remained until long after his fingers were pruney and his body was so cold he shivered painfully. He only left when the bathroom began to fill up with the rest of the boys from his dorm.

0~0~0

Draco took meticulous care fixing his clothes and coiffing his hair when he finally managed to rouse himself from the now twice sexed bed.

His emotions proved the larger challenge to set to rights. It took a nearly continuous self-pep talk to force himself down there stairs down to the Great Hall for breakfast, but he couldn't afford to be seen breaking habit. He wouldn't lose face to Potter.

'Stupid Potter.' He cursed him. 'It was totally natural for me to respond that way to seeing someone moaning like that, begging for my cock, calling out my name as they cum. It would be stranger if I didn't react.' He tried to reassure himself.

'It means nothing. It has nothing to do with him and everything to do with the situation. It could have been anyone. It just HAPPENED to be Potter. He caught me off guard. It was early. My defenses were down. I haven't wanked in months thanks to the stress of that bloody mission and now this stupid bond. Yes, that's it.' He felt momentarily encouraged by this train of thought.

'I was just frustrated, on edge. Anyone would have done. I only thought of him because he was there and seeing him was got me wound up in the first place. Not that I was wound up about HIM. It was the situation. It could have been anyone. I'm NOT attracted to Potter. I don't want to shag Potter. I don't want to see Potter writhe beneath me and beg for my cock and scream my name.'

At was at the point in the downward spiral of his inner monologue where his cock started stiffening again that Draco realized that his rationalizations were making things worse instead of better and he gave up trying to reassure himself in favor of safer topics for thought like breakfast.

'I'm going to have the driest toast and the blackest coffee Hogwarts house elves can make.' He promised himself. How that was going to help anything he didn't pretend to know, but if felt good to have some plan of action. He waited outside the doors to the Great Hall until he felt one hundred percent certain that he had fully composed himself.

It was better to miss breakfast entirely and invite speculation of that kind than it was to show up with anything less than his usual Malfoy composure. He could explain away missing a meal as a lack of hunger. There was no adequate explanation for showing up frazzled or Merlin forbid aroused.

As he entered the room his eyes immediately shot to the Gryffindor table. But there was no telltale mess of black hair. Draco tried to convince himself that he was relieved rather than disappointed by Potter's absence as he took his usual seat at the Slytherin table, but the way his eyes continually drifted to Potter's empty seat belied his true feelings.