A/N: So, I was going to wait a little longer to post this chapter, make it a regular with another week, but it feels too much like the second half of Chapter 10 for me to wait that long. So, have it a little early! Hope you enjoy.

Just a WARNING, however: this chapter contains discussions of consent, dubious consent, and significantly biased thinking and mindsets surrounding the subject. Please be aware that they are by no means my own, and if you think this might be triggering for you, please read with caution.

Chapter 11

The first time he met Samuel Ipetsky, Harry was barely a child in the modelling world. Not even months after his first photoshoot, his first real photoshoot, and Dot was drowning beneath offers – not to shoot Harry, but to photograph Harry Potter.

Maybe that was why. Maybe that was the reason Dot chose Sammy. Despite being a part of the Wizarding world, a part of the ranks that knew the name Harry Potter and what it meant, he wanted Harry as a model more than the Saviour. That was enough for Dot. It was enough for Harry, too.

The building, tall and sleek. The workers, efficient and professional. The studio, a juxtaposing white backdrop, and heavy lighting, and the radiance of sunlight through wide, open windows for the 'natural' effect. It was familiar, was becoming familiar, even if the location changed, and yet Harry was still curious enough to poke his head through half-open doors when he arrived simply to look.

That was how he met Sammy for the first time.

He was tall – a little taller than Harry, which in the modelling industry wasn't saying much and was becoming an increasing regret of Harry's. He was bright – his smile, his laugh, his animated voice as he chatted with his fellow workers and directed them in set-up. He was a presence – and Harry's eyes were drawn to him whether he wanted them to be or not.

Sammy noticed him. Like a magnet drawn to a lodestone, he paused mid-conversation with a worker dressed in monochrome black, and turned towards Harry. He stared. Then he smiled, and his whole face lit up with enthusiasm as he quickly crossed the room.

"Harry! It's such a pleasure to meet you. Let's make something great, shall we?"

His hand was warm when Harry took it. His shake was firm. If anything, that moment had been Harry's first real step into the world of modelling, and it had set him on a path he hadn't ever seen for himself. Harry unwittingly made a choice in that moment, and even years later he was undecided as to whether it was the right one or not.

Harry landed with a heavy thud, and the weakness of his knees couldn't keep him on his feet for long. He slid to the floor, his belly twinging only slightly as was both familiar and inevitable with Apparition. He hurt just a little, and though not from the Apparition, the hurt was familiar too.

"Shit," was cursed sharply at his side, and he glanced towards where Draco too had fallen to his knees as his side.

A part of Harry knew he should be embarrassed. A part of him even was, because that Draco had seen him, that anyone had walked in on him and Sammy, was rightly mortifying. But he wasn't. Not really. He should be perhaps a little angry, too, at Sammy for disappearing and leaving him not only in a state of undress but decidedly vulnerable in the face of his potential embarrassment. But he wasn't really that, either.

Harry felt only numb. And hurting. Somehow both at once.

Through the darkness, he could only barely make out Draco's features. The pale oval of his face, the equally pale shade of his hair, his dark clothes that seemed to blur into the surroundings. And yet, even with his near invisibility, Harry could feel the heat of his anger. He'd seen it just briefly, too. After his intrusion, after the blank shock that he'd seen on Draco's face when he'd first glanced towards him – after all of that, Draco had been furious.

Harry wasn't sure which part informed him of that. He hadn't even known he was familiar enough with Draco's expressions – or lack of expressions – to perceive fury to the degree he had. Maybe it was in the hard lines of his face, Draco's angular features made sharper by the darkness and the anger that tightened his jaw, muscles bunching just visibly through the shadows of The Corner's back rooms. Maybe it was the way he'd shot a glare so venomously towards the space of Sammy's absence that it surely would have struck him dead had he still stood there. Or maybe it was the iron-hard clasp of his hand on Harry's shoulders as he'd pulled him into Apparition.

Iron-hard, but not tight. Firm, but somehow it hadn't been demanding. It hadn't been confining and restrictive. Harry couldn't feel intimidated or dominated in Draco's grasp, not when his fingers trembled just noticeably.

Harry wasn't sure if Draco still trembled. He'd dropped his hand from Harry's shoulder and edged backwards a shuffling pace on his knees. The dark smudges of his eyes were fixed upon Harry, and all Harry could do was sit and wait, sprawled in his state of undress with his jeans dropped and all but forgotten in his lap.

And think.

I wish he hadn't seen.

Where the thought came from, Harry didn't know. He wasn't quite sure what triggered it, but instead of embarrassment, instead of anger, what welled forth was regret and something like shame. He wasn't ashamed to be fucking Sammy, not even really to have been found doing so, but that Draco had been the one to walk in on him? Somehow, it burned in places Harry hadn't even considered.

"Sorry," Harry found himself mumbling, dropping his gaze towards his lap and the crumpled jeans resting in his limp clasp. His eyes stung a little, the spell that let him see without his glasses objecting to its long-term use, but he didn't care. Besides, the stinging… for some reason, Harry didn't think the twinging in his eyes was entirely because of the spell. Sniffing didn't alleviate it in the slightest.

"Why?" Draco asked quietly.

Harry sniffed again before raising a hand to press his thumb and forefinger into his eyes. "Sorry you had to see that."

"Had to see…"

"I know it's not unexpected." Harry pressed his fingers into his other eye, and it helped a little, but they still stung. "I mean, no one with a grain of awareness can really overlook that a good chunk of photographers and stylists sleep with their models, but…"

"It's disgusting."

Harry flinched. Venom dripped from Draco's voice, thickened with a resurgence of anger. "Yeah," he said quietly, dropping his hand back into his lap and training his gaze onto his knees. "Sorry."

Draco was silent for a moment. The he huffed through his teeth, muttered something under his breath, and edged so slightly forward that he may not have even bothered to move at all. "Not you, Harry," he said harshly.

Harry picked at his jeans. "No," he said mildly. "I am."

"I didn't mean –"

"I pretty much lost all right to dignity when I gave it to Sammy. Again."

"That wasn't what I –"

"Imagine what the Wizarding world would think of their Saviour if they knew." Harry snorted, but it didn't come out quite right. He plucked at a loose thread in the denim of his jeans, tugging it free. Von would hate him for doing so, he noted detachedly, but he couldn't bring himself to care. "It doesn't exactly fit with the image that I'm supposed to have. Though I suspect people have speculated. Really, how could you not? And Sammy's pictures, the ones he'd taken of me – they don't leave much to the imagination, you know? I'm surprised there hasn't been a story about it already –"

"Stop."

Draco's interruption cracked like a whip. Harry didn't glance towards him, but he fell silent. Eyes downcast, he couldn't quite bring himself to look at Draco, to raise his gaze and interpret what Draco's shifting in place, his shuffling, the curses under his breath and his muted hisses, meant. The shame was still there, the regret just as strong, and it only sunk its teeth in further the longer he sat with it.

"Sorry," he found himself saying once more. He didn't even rightly know what he was apologising for.

Draco didn't reply, but his shuffling ceased. As Harry set in bottled silence, swathed in a dark cloud that had nothing to do with the darkness shrouding the unfamiliar room, the pause of utter silence hummed like static between them. Then, with a heavy sigh that seemed to draw all remaining anger from Draco's voice, he said, "Why are you apologising again?"

A smile touched the corner of Harry's lips, niggling slightly but failing to manage more than that. He hitched a shoulder in a shrug. "I don't even know."

Another sigh, and then Draco was straightening. He murmured a nearly inaudible "accio", and Harry caught the vague lift of his wand from the corner of his eye as he did so. A moment later and he was all but forced to glance up, because Draco had shuffled on his knees to his side and draped the warmth of an incredibly soft blanket around his shoulders.

Harry hadn't even realised he'd been shivering slightly in the cool room, but Draco had.

"I'll make some tea," Draco muttered, rising fluidly to his feet. Harry could only stare after him, his eyes stinging even more fiercely now, and draw the blanket a little more tightly around his shoulders. Surprisingly, that simple weight, the warmth that had to have been magical, and the smell that clung to it in a faint echo of Draco, was remarkably comforting.

The first time Harry realised Sammy was more – more than his photographer, more than the friend he'd become, more than the colleague of sorts who was a little handsy in his affection but not in a bad way – was in the middle of a dinner. A dinner with just Sammy.

A touch on the shoulder had been friendly, affectionate, and companionable, because that was who Sammy was. That he stared so intently was because he was a photographer, because that was his job, because he was focusing not on Harry but upon his model. The accidental touch on the leg, the moments when he'd lean in close to whisper or laugh in Harry's ear, the offhanded comments:

"You take gorgeous pictures, Harry."

"Has anyone ever told you…? No, never mind."

"I'll bet you're popular."

That last had been confusing. Harry wasn't familiar with the intricacies of romancing or sex, had only ever dated two girls in his life and both relationships had ended anticlimactically and in vastly opposing outcomes. What Sammy had said – was it about Harry's modelling? That he was famous because he was the alleged Saviour? That he was, for whatever reason, accepted as a companionable person?

Harry hadn't known until dinner, until after dinner, when Sammy had touched his shoulder. When he'd stared intently. When he'd leant into Harry's ear, breath a curl of warmth, and whispered so surprisingly. Not until he'd kissed Harry a moment later, and all the little bits and pieces had clicked into place.

Harry hadn't known he liked Sammy. He hadn't known he'd wanted to be kissed. He hadn't known that dinner was more than simply dinner. But apparently Sammy had known, and that was good enough.

Harry cradled the mug in his hands. It nearly burned his skin, but not in a bad way. The coils of steam curled gently into the air of the dimly lit living room, the tea as of yet untasted, but Harry didn't mind. Simply holding the warmth felt good, in a way, even if it also felt a little painful. He was colder than he'd realised, though the weight of the faux minx blanket around his shoulders, the Warming Charm that he could feel working its magic, eased it a little bit.

Across from him, Draco sat with his own cup, staring blankly at the rising steam though with the blankness of not really seeing it. He slumped back in his seat, deflated and neglecting the poise that Harry had always known him to possess. He was still the same Draco, but it was a version of him that Harry had never seen before. In a way, it was oddly reminiscent of the apartment Harry found himself in.

The lines of the kitchen were sleek and refined, but minimalistic and not without a degree of wear and tear. The living room was polished, but it was a little small, a little cluttered, and there was a mug sitting atop a coaster on the coffee table, a stack of papers slightly scattered beside it, a remote for a boxy television looking on the brink of sliding off the corner.

The dining table was a little scratched and scuffed at the edges, despite the heavy, respectable wood of its make. The chair Harry sat in had squeaked slightly when he sat down. The blinds didn't quite fit the window, there was a hint of weathering to the glass, and throughout the conjoined rooms that Harry could see from where he sat were elements of life, of disrepair, of carelessness that seemed to suit the version of Draco that sat across from him.

Harry had looked with vague curiosity, absorbing it all in a sweeping glance when Draco had flicked one of the overhead lights on, but he'd let his interest dissipate. This was Draco's space, and prying, even when he'd been effectively invited inside by being Apparated into the midst of it, didn't feel right. Instead, Harry fixed his gaze upon an inexplicable little pile of ash on his side of the table. He'd been staring at that ash for a long time after he'd retreated from staring at Draco's blank face.

Neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke. Harry didn't know what time it was; he knew it was late, and a part of him worried that he should be in bed if he wanted to look halfway presentable for the photoshoot lined up for the next day, but the other half overwhelmed his concerns with resigned acceptance. Besides, Draco was with him. Draco was the one who would take the photos, who would edit them, and would understand the meaning behind the blemishes that he touched up. There was that small mercy, at least.

Even so, Harry wasn't sure how he felt about it. Shame and regret welled within him once more at the very thought, and he sunk a little further into his chair in a fruitless effort to escape from it. He didn't know what Draco had been doing at The Corner, didn't know why he'd been in the back rooms, but he regretted it. He hadn't wanted… he hadn't wanted Draco to…

"How long has it been going on for?"

Blinking, Harry shook himself from his stupor and dragged his gaze from the little pile of ash. Draco himself hadn't glanced up from his mug, though from the glassiness of his eyes as they reflected the dimmed light, he barely saw the empty table he'd shifted his attention to.

"How long as what been going on for?" Harry asked, though he already knew entirely too well what Draco referred to.

"Ipetsky," Draco said. "You and him. How long?"

Harry lowered his gaze to his tea. He had to swallow past a thick lump in his throat to reply. "A couple of years."

"A couple of years."

"Mm."

Flickering his gaze up briefly, Harry saw Draco's lips thin. "A couple of years being since he first started shooting you."

Harry nodded.

Though Draco didn't glance towards him, he replied as though he'd seen the gesture. "And it's been consistent."

"Relatively."

"Do you care for him?"

Harry didn't know why Draco asked. The questions might have been construed as intrusive, and Harry thought that quite a few people might even consider them too much, but he didn't care. With the shame, the inexplicable apology he felt towards Draco – for walking in on him? For having to see what he'd seen? – Harry felt as though he owed it to him.

"I… care for him," Harry said slowly, because it wasn't exactly untrue.

"Then you're lovers?"

Harry bit the inside of his lip. He fidgeted with the mug in his hands for a moment, his semi-scalded fingers tingling with renewed movement. "I wouldn't say lovers, exactly."

"You're not exclusive, then?"

"I'm not."

"Does Ipetsky know?"

Harry shook his head. That much he was sure of. He wasn't quite sure what he and Sammy were to one another, but they weren't lovers. They weren't exclusive. They weren't anything like boyfriends. But even so, he knew Sammy wouldn't like the idea of him sleeping with someone else. Or several someones. Not at all.

This time, Draco seemed to be shaken back from his reminiscing. When Harry lifted his gaze again, the glassiness had retreated from his eyes to he replaced by the smallest of frowns that didn't even touch his eyebrows. "You're not?"

Harry shook his head again.

"Do you…?"

Draco trailed off before snapping his head sharply to the side. The muscles in his cheek bunched again, visibly distending the angular line of his jaw. He seemed to struggle with himself for a moment before speaking in a low, fast voice.

"I know how it is. With photographers and models. I know it happens so often it's almost commonplace, even though it bloody well shouldn't be. I know this, but I'm not okay with it. I've never –" He cut himself off briefly with a huff before continuing at an even faster place. "I've never condoned it, and I've certainly never practiced it myself. Sexual relationships should be reserved for the bedroom, as something between caring partners, but on top of that, the obligatory nature of such a relationship makes it… it makes it wrong."

Harry blinked. He stared at Draco, the mug in his hands all but forgotten. Any urge to speak that he may have had was overridden by Draco's continuation as he began fiddling with his own mug, turning it in rapid circles but never quite lifting it from the table.

"Ipetsky is known to be an affable enough photographer, and he's good at what he does. Very good. Good enough to get away with certain indiscretions." The scraping of ceramic on wood was a hollow discordance to Draco's words, consistent and hollow. "No one would question him if he chose to act in less that reputable ways. No one would pull him up on it, either. That happens all too often with independent photographers; they have no leash. I would expect that most – most models, or subordinates, or – or apprentices would feel as though they had to…"

He trailed off, but the words didn't seem to be lost to nothingness. If anything, the detached blankness that Draco had fallen into in his silence appeared to have been wiped away and replaced with agitation that left him physically twitching in his seat. He fidgeted so violently with his mug that Harry was surprised tea hadn't already spilt across the table.

Or he would have been surprised. Tea was very far from his mind at that moment, and Harry had disregarded his own, dropping his hands into his lap. His shoulders curled, hitching further and further with every word Draco uttered. It wasn't because he was sad for the accusations, or that Draco was making them. It was because they were true.

"You think I've been forced into a physical relationship with him," Harry said dully.

Draco stopped his fiddling, the mug's scraping silenced. He didn't need to answer.

"You think that, in my immaturity and ignorance as a younger model, Ipetsky led me on."

No reply. Or, at least, nothing verbal.

"You think I can't get out of the situation, even if I want to. And that he's likely still forcing me. And that I'm practically helpless putty in his hands who can't step off the boat because it's already left the dock and I've got nowhere to retreat to –"

"I didn't say that," Draco said hoarsely.

"Well, you probably should." Harry sighed heavily. "It's true."

Draco made a noise. It was somewhere between a grunt and a squeak, a sound Harry had never heard from him before, and he might have been surprised enough to comment upon it had he not felt so utterly defeated. Laying it out on the table like this… It really does seem pathetic.

"I don't love him, if that's what you were thinking. We were friends, maybe still even are a little bit, but I don't…" He heaved another sigh. Propping and elbow onto the table, Harry dropped his forehead into his palm. "I've got myself in a fix and can't get out of it. Not after it's been so long. What am I supposed to do? Tell him no?"

Scoffing at himself, Harry closed his eyes. "The ironic part is that sex with Sammy isn't even that great. I mean, if I had to put him on a scale, he wouldn't even be in my top ten…"

Another strangled grunt uttered from Draco, but Harry couldn't bring himself to lift his head. He felt suddenly exhausted, wanted only to sleep, and preferably to crawl out of Draco's line of sight. Shame and regret had settled upon him in such a thick lather of dirtiness that Harry almost wanted to scrub himself raw in an attempt to be rid of it. Draco was… kind of pure. In a way, despite their haphazard childhood and the trauma he'd been through, Harry simply couldn't associate Draco with the word of sex, drugs, and indulgence he'd been exposed to over the years. It didn't fit. It didn't click at all.

Draco shouldn't have had to see that. He shouldn't have had to know.

"You're wrong."

Opening his eyes, Harry stared down at the table directly before him. "About what?"

"Even if it has been a long time. Even if you feel like you can't get out of it and you can't say no – you're wrong."

No, Harry thought, closing his eyes again. You just don't understand.

"I get it."

No, you don't.

"When you feel like you've gotten caught up in something and it's become so tangled and messy that you can't even find the door that leads out, let alone step through it."

That's because there is no door.

"But you can. Even when it seems like you don't, you have a right to abandon a situation that's hurting you. Take it from one who knows and didn't take the offered hand extended to them."

With a start, Harry abruptly realised. He almost laughed at himself, almost kicked himself, for his oversight. Of course, Draco was talking about himself. About the war. About his inability to climb free of his ensnared and reluctant allegiance with Voldemort. In a way, it was reflective; Draco had been locked in a situation that had indeed hurt him, that had been a heinous danger to him, and that he'd longed to be free of. Perhaps he did know just a little bit. But the even bigger part…

"This is different," Harry said quietly.

Draco's mug thudded as though he all but slammed it onto the table. "How so?"

"Because you didn't choose to be a Death Eater, Draco. It was forced upon you."

"And your situation with Ipetsky wasn't?"

The harshness had returned to Draco's voice, grating enough that Harry raised his gaze from where it had locked upon a particularly pale pockmark on the table. He peered across the table at Draco where he'd straightened in his seat, his shoulders tight and face just as much. The grasp around his mug looked fierce enough to shatter the porcelain.

"No," Harry said quietly. "It wasn't."

"Because –"

"Because I chose it. You can't go back on your decisions, Draco. Not when the other people involved might get hurt."

"Even if you're being hurt by remaining?"

Harry opened his mouth to reply, but let it close. He didn't need to speak. He didn't need to utter the simple 'yes' that teetered on the edge of his tongue. He knew that Draco heard it even without voicing it.

Draco's eyes darkened first. Hooding, lowering, he glanced to the side, and that simple redirection hurt more than Harry had expected it to. Then Draco's shoulders slumped, and his hands loosened form their hold, slipping from his mug off the table and into his lap. He rocked back into his chair again, sighed, and then shook his head just a little.

"You know," he murmured in a voice so quiet it could have been more to himself than to Harry, "I never knew you were such a goddamn self-sacrificing martyr back in school. If I had…"

Harry stared at him silently. The shame was still there, the regret as thick as ever, and the urge to apologise once more welled in the back of Harry's throat like a choking weight. But he didn't speak, and when Draco finally turned back towards him, it was a struggle to hold his gaze.

"Maybe I should have realised," Draco said. "Maybe I really should have." He uttered a harsh little laugh and shook his head. "You know, Harry, with every single one of these things you do, you make it harder and harder for me."

"Sorry," slipped out before Harry could help himself, before he even really registered that he had no idea what Draco was talking about.

Draco was scoffed again. "Don't be," he said, rising to his feet. Then he rounded the table and, quite inexplicably, rested his hand briefly upon Harry's shoulder. There was no demand to the touch, no weight other than the heaviness of Draco's fingers that curled just slightly, comfortably. Then it was gone, and Draco was leaving the room and Harry, staring in confusion, in his wake.

Harry didn't know what that touch meant. Just as he didn't know what Draco meant in that he 'made it harder' for him. He didn't quite understand why Draco had spoken as he had, or laughed without humour the way he did, or why he proceeded to make up his own bed and gesture Harry into it before Transfiguring his couch into a pseudo mimic and climbing into it himself.

Harry didn't really understand Draco. Why he'd been at the club. Why he'd asked those questions in particular. Why he'd cared enough to Apparate Harry away from it all and to his very own apartment. He was still thinking that as he rolled onto his side, pressed his face into the pillow and fell to sleep to the scent of Draco on its cover.

The first time hurt. It hurt a lot.

The second time almost as much. Harry remembered that hurt; that ache and burn, the way his stomach seemed to rise up his throat, into his gorge, the way he couldn't breathe. He remembered it just as he remembered Sammy's murmured "it's okay," and "just bear with it," and "you'll get used to it, then it'll feel good. I promise".

Harry had believed him. How could he not? It wasn't like he could do anything about it anyway. He'd ultimately chosen to follow Sammy's lead, and it wasn't like he could back out after he'd made his decision, even if it hurt. Lots of things hurt. Sometimes they just had to be weathered before they got better.

Which it did. It did get better. And Sammy had been right; sometimes it still hurt a bit, but it felt good. Good enough that Harry almost didn't mind spending the night with Sammy.

Except that Samuel Ipetsky was insistent. And he smiled a lot, but not when Harry told him "maybe not tonight". And he'd shot a stunning spell at the back of a man in a club when he'd been speaking to Harry without Harry even realising Sammy was in their company.

Sammy was a bright person. He was kind, mostly. He was good company most of the time. But sex with him hurt as Harry had discovered wasn't necessarily a component of sex between men when done right. He was a little too insistent, and when he did insist, Harry couldn't say no. He didn't think he was allowed to.

Sammy was a good person, and he was Harry's friend. He was probably more than that, too. But sometimes, Harry wasn't sure that he even liked him, let alone enjoyed sleeping with him. Not that it really mattered; ultimately, Harry had made his choice, and he'd learnt enough about the world to know there was no turning back from the decisions he'd made.

Harry remembered when getting his makeup done – or getting makeup put upon him at all – had been like a strange experience. When it had felt wrong, because he'd been raised in a household where not only did his aunt Petunia were minimalistic and classic styles but the notion of a man wearing makeup at all would have equated to the incarnation of absolute sin.

Harry hadn't felt uncomfortable with the process in a long time. In many ways, when Von took to him with a range of brushes and powders, dabbing, and adjusting, and layering with only a briefly worded "eyes" to indicate his direction to close them or "chin up" to do so, it had become one of the most relaxing parts to Harry's day. He didn't have do think. He didn't have to do.

"You alright?"

Dragging himself back to the present, Harry trained his gaze upon Von's reflection in the vanity mirror before him. He was frowning down at a pallet in his hand, a thin brush in the other that he dipped into colour and honed with a practiced twirl to rid it of excess paint. Feeling Harry's attention, he glanced at him briefly, quirking an eyebrow in repeated question.

Harry smiled slightly. Just slightly, and nothing more, for Von didn't really need more than that. He grunted as he wandered slowly around Harry's shoulder, bending over him to apply the hint of colour to his lips. "You look tired," he murmured.

"Mm," Harry hummed by way of reply.

"Late night."

"Mm."

"How's Ipetsky?"

Harry fought the brief urge to reach towards his pocket where he'd stuffed his phone that morning. He knew it was blank of any messages. He knew that Sammy hadn't attempted to contact him again. With all likelihood, he'd Apparated about as far away as he could the previous night. Maybe he'd already taken a spontaneous portkey back to Germany by now. He'd done just that the only other time they'd been literally caught in the act; ducking for cover and disappearing from the potential line of fire was Sammy's way.

Shrugging a shoulder, Harry affected neutrality and unconcerned. Von's frown deepened with more than his usual concentration. He squinted slightly as he drew back from Harry's face, regarding the work he'd made of it with a shrewd eye.

"He didn't stick around yesterday evening, then?"

Harry shook his head.

"I thought you went out to a club."

Another shrug.

Von harrumphed. He wasn't nosy as the gossipmonger that he sometimes became suggested of him; Harry knew that much. When it came to his work, both as a bodyguard and a makeup artist, Von was as dedicated as they came. He'd only allowed Harry the freedom of being out of his sight most evenings because Harry had submitted to being charmed with an activator that announced his 'distress' should he experience it.

Von hadn't rushed to Harry's aid at such a distress call in a long time, so that was a good thing. That, or Harry was getting better at suppressing such a call.

No more questions were asked after that. Von returned to his work, and when he finished, he gestured absently to the clothes hanging on the trolley at his side. "You've still got about twenty minutes," he said. "Take it easy and I'll see you in the studio?"

Harry nodded and watched Von's reflection as he skirted around him once more and took himself to a distance. Not far, still in sight as he almost always was at work, but enough to give Harry a moment of relative privacy – or at least as much as could be given in the tight confines of the dressing room.

For a moment, Harry simply sat. He was tired; that much Von had correctly assumed. He felt deflated after the previous night, and not only because of Sammy's company and subsequent sudden disappearance. Staying at Draco's had been… strange. And strangely tiring in itself, despite that Harry had slept for nearly a whole six hours.

The bed was too comfortable. It smelt too much like Draco.

The apartment was too quiet, and calm, and safe. It rung too much of Draco, too.

The minimal breakfast the next morning – Draco hadn't asked as Harry had half expected him to but simply accepted the scarcity – and the idle conversation that hadn't really been conversation was kind of nice nonetheless. When they'd left, Harry to head for a quick run to the gym and Draco to get to the studio early, Draco had paused in step and stared at him for a long moment, his gaze unfathomable but somehow saying so much.

Then he'd turned and walked away, leaving Harry to think of just what that stare and everything that had preceded it had meant for the rest of the morning.

Staring at the mirror before him, he only detachedly registered his own face. The exaggerated eyeliner, a stylistic choice to reflect the war, and the dark undertones. That Harry really did look a little tired but that it didn't detract from the overall effect. If anything, it sort of enhanced it. Harry had grown to take pride in Von's work – more his work than the foundational canvas he worked upon – and he appreciated the skill with which he adapted his art. But not that day. That day, Harry was… a little lost.

He was still sitting, still detached, when Draco appeared behind him. Even lost in thought as he was, Harry knew it was him. Whether it was the not-quite-touching proximity that didn't demand a single thing, the almost respectful wait of his silence, or even the smell of him, a lingering hint of what Harry had fallen asleep to the previous night, Harry wasn't sure. Whatever it was, it drew him from his thoughts enough to really look at the mirror before him and meet Draco's in the reflection.

How Draco looked at him – Harry had thought he understood. He understood little bits of it; the contemplation, the consideration, the curiosity, and also the hint of wariness. The faint hint of attraction, even, something that Harry saw a lot of but never quite so reigned in as Draco appeared, and enough that Harry knew he wouldn't act upon it. It was how he'd looked at Harry for weeks.

Except that it was different now. Just a little. Almost unexpectedly, what added to the wealth of colours in his stare wasn't pity. It wasn't even really sympathy, nor compassion, but something else. Something Harry couldn't understand and something that pervaded even through the touch of anger that still inexplicably lingered.

Just as Harry felt the urge to speak, just as he opened his mouth to do so, Draco beat him to it. "Are you alright?"

Harry blinked. "What?"

"After last night." Draco spoke quietly enough that eavesdroppers wouldn't be able to catch a word without the use of magic, but Harry heard him nonetheless. "Are you alright?"

"Why… wouldn't I be?"

Draco's lips thinned. He did that, Harry had noticed. It always seemed to happen when he was angry, or disapproving, or not quite satisfied with how a shot had turned out. Harry had seen it a number of times when he'd caught sight of Draco studying his prints spread on the table alongside the dressing room, bowing over them with hands steepled on either side of the spread and utterly focused.

He didn't quite know what it meant that Draco regarded him like that, too.

"You'll tell me if you're uncomfortable?" he said, a question more than a blatant demand. "You'll tell me if something I ask of you isn't to your liking, or makes you feel discomforted in any way?"

The instinct to deny the need for such an offer welled immediately, because of course Harry would do what he was told. He was a model, and Draco was his photographer. What kind of model would he be if he didn't do what was directed of him?

He would have asked just that, except that Draco's eyes tightened slightly. It was barely noticeable, but something about it… something in his expression seemed somehow pleading.

Harry didn't speak in reply. He only turned in his seat to meet Draco's gaze directly for a long moment before, slowly, with a slight frown of his own, he nodded. That tightness eased just a little, the corner of Draco's lips tilting in what wasn't quite a smile. Then he nodded too, turned on his heel, and strode back through the dressing room to his office corner. Harry was left to stare after him and wonder, not for the first time in his life, just what drove Draco Malfoy to do what he did. He didn't think he'd ever rightly know.