WARNING: I know this fic is rated for it, but just a forewarning that this chapter contains sexual references. If you don't like it, feel more than free to skip to the second break :)
Chapter 11: Good Things Come In Pairs
Easter Break settled comfortably upon Hogwarts. There were little more than a handful of students within its walls, and that reality echoed hollowly throughout the Great Hall at meal times, rippling through corridors when lone footsteps sounded with solitary passage. It was comfortably quiet, many of the professors thought. The school itself seemed to sigh in bliss for that silence, too; though the foundations of the castle revelled in the casting of magic within its depths, the blessed reprieve was much appreciated.
Sunday found prayers whispered by the devout, letters exchanged with well-wishes, and a breakfast overflowing with too much food for those professors and students that remained at the castle. The predominance of chocolate was a traditional necessity that none overlooked, and the younger students all but rolled away from the table with the happy knowledge that they would be suffering from severe stomach aches for the rest of the day.
Holidaying students returned slowly, in trickles and dribbles that increased in speed as the break reached its end. For many, it was to return with revamped enthusiasm, if a little regret for a reprieve passed. It wasn't a particularly remarkable Easter, except for the fact that it was the first in years to be enjoyed without the shadow of Lord Voldemort hanging over their heads. Nothing remarkable at all.
Except what was noticed by a choice few Slytherins.
Theodore Nott realised when he returned to Hogwarts the day after Easter. Blaise Zabini did, too, demonstrating remarkably more insight than many thought him capable of. Not that it required all that much perceptiveness; the change that had infected the Slytherin dungeons would have been apparent to any with a pair of eyes and ears.
If nothing else, the entirety of the house was gripped by a question that would only be answered with time and observation: when it came to Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, was it really such a good thing? Was it?
As of yet, that answer remained unknown. For many, the fear that something distinctly Other than rivalry would result in even greater explosiveness was resounding. Potter and Malfoy, after all, had a history that was all but famous at Hogwarts.
Who would have thought it would change into that?
Harry had never been much of a talker. He pondered aloud at times, but talking? Not so much.
He'd only realised that fact when he'd left the Dursleys at the age of fourteen. After that, even, when he'd come across the first boy to help him discover that his preferences lay outside of what his expectations had been. That boy was one Harry had met barely a month after fleeing, and his name was –
"Jackson," Harry managed the word before he sunk his teeth into his bottom lip.
"Jackson?" Draco repeated.
"Mm."
"And then?"
Harry bit back a groan. Jackson had been the first boy he'd ever kissed, and the first person he'd ever touched in more than a passing, casual manner. Jackson had been the one to tell him that he was quiet, something that Harry had never realised of himself because Ron and Hermione had never mentioned it, and the Dursleys likely appreciated the fact.
After Jackson had been –
"Kane," Harry uttered in a huff that was almost pained. Honestly, did Draco have to drag a veritable confession out of him? How was it even any of his business who Harry had been with in the past?
Or maybe it is a little bit now, Harry silently admitted. And maybe I might like him to know, just a little bit. Because when he knows…
"Kane?" Draco repeated, his voice low. "Kane what?"
"I don't know his last name."
"But you fucked him?"
"Is that jealousy I hear?" Harry said, and that was the very reason he didn't quite mind. No one had ever been jealous for Harry before. No one. It felt kind of nice, even if it was ridiculous and illogical. It felt good, and Harry couldn't help but smile. Or at least he did until Draco moved and squeezed.
Harry groaned. "Draco, what the –?"
"Was he?"
"You're an arse," Harry managed.
Draco smiled in reply, and his hand not curled around Harry's arousal slid up his legs from his hips until his fingers wrapped around his ankle. With surprising gentleness, he pushed Harry's leg back until his knee nearly touched his shoulder, leaning against him. "Yes," he said, "but did he?"
The Slytherin seventh year boys dormitory was empty but for themselves. At mid afternoon on a Sunday, such wasn't particularly unexpected, but it was guaranteed when Draco demanded it.
"Go away," he'd said to Blaise barely an hour beforehand. "And make sure Nott doesn't come barging in as well."
Blaise glanced between Harry and Draco where they stood before the dormitory door, a frown furrowing his brow for a moment. Then it had smoothed into understanding. "Oh, so you're –?"
"Blaise," Draco interrupted him. "Bugger off."
"You mean you're finally –?"
"Blaise."
"I have to just clarify because –"
"Fuck. Off."
Blaise didn't seem intimidated by Draco's threatening tone in the slightest, which Harry thought was a little impressive. Harry himself wasn't, but then, little actually scared him anymore. Certainly not Draco.
Blaise openly grinned, however. He even went so far as to clap Draco on the shoulder and offer Harry a conspiratorial wink. "Bless you both, you've just won me ten galleons from Pansy."
"You bet on us?" Draco drawled.
"Of course." Blaise sounded almost offended by Draco's scathing suggestion. "What do you take me for, Draco?"
He turned to leave after that with only a final glance flung over his shoulder. A glance and a word. "I'll keep Nott away, yeah? Just let me be the first to know if you're ever up for a threesome, the both of you."
Harry stared after him for a moment before snorting with a shake his head. It was certainly an option, he supposed; Blaise was affable enough, and his magic was appealing in all of its bluey-green shades. Almost pretty. Harry had been a sucker for pretty magic for years.
"Well, I guess that is an option," he pondered aloud. "I mean, so long as you didn't end on a bad note when you were together or anything –"
"No," Draco interrupted him, drawing Harry's attention to his abruptly fierce gaze. "I don't share."
That hadn't been the first indication that Draco was a jealous lover, but it was the one that pushed him over the edge that day. Harry likely should have expected what was to come afterwards; their brief moments of intimacy over the past weeks, grabbed where they could find them, hadn't resulted in any kind of rigour in the questioning department. Their vigour had been reserved for other areas. But now…
Harry should have guessed. Draco had not-so-subtly prodded at the history of his past lovers that Harry barely considered more than brief flings. He should have expected it, even if the means of questioning wasn't quite what he'd considered. Definitely should have, if only to waylay what was to come.
A full half an hour after Blaise's departure, Draco rocked his hips forwards slowly, so slowly, and Harry couldn't help but groan. He might be quiet, as Jackson and Kane had both told him, but only in the verbalisation department. Unintelligible utterances were another thing.
"Draco," was all he could manage, and then a choked moan when Draco squeezed him again. He leant over him, hand sliding up to Harry's knee to press it fully against his shoulder, and even without his urging, Harry felt his other leg rise to join it. The motion drove Draco further inside him until he couldn't help but gasp once more for the feeling of hot fullness.
"Was he your first?" Draco asked.
He wasn't composed. At least Harry had that much on him; for all of his questioning, his slowness, his iron-hard control that his jumping and throbbing magic directly contradicted, Draco wasn't composed. Harry could see the metallic glimmer of sweat upon his brow. He heard the faint gasps of his breath, and he felt the tremble in Draco's fingers where they gripped his knee. How he managed to withdraw slowly and ease into a languid, scraping thrust that sent every nerve burning was a mystery to Harry.
Harry's toes curled. The flood of heat to his groin was almost insufferable, and the grasp of his fingers around where Draco squeezed arousal wasn't doing all that much to relieve it. No with Draco-bloody-Malfoy being a complete prat. "Yes," Harry panted. "He was."
Draco lowered his face until his nose touched Harry's collarbone. Harry could feel the whisper of breath as he inhaled as though breathing him, and then he couldn't feel anything else but the ripple of pleasure that coursed from his hips up his spine as Draco thrust with a sharp snap. Then again. And again.
Then he paused. The fucking bastard, he actually stopped.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Harry gasped, and he knew he sounded desperate, a little choked, but he didn't care. "Do you really have to do this now?"
"Yes," Draco said, his voice a little muffled as he dropped his lips to Harry's shoulder. He kissed Harry's skin in a feather-light touch that felt as possessive as his questioning before raising his head and smirking at Harry. "Who then?"
"Draco –"
"Who?"
"Do we have to -?"
"Who?"
"You're such a jealous arsehole," Harry said, writhing slightly and, with a clench of muscles and a deliberate twist, drew a groan from Draco. Serves you right, he thought, if a little less vindictively than he would have otherwise because Draco groaned and it sounded so good.
Almost as good as it felt when he sat back slightly and rocked his hips in another thrust. Again, and again. Harry's hand reached for and grasped the headboard above him in a desperate attempt to hold himself steady.
Then Draco paused.
"Oh, fuck you," Harry croaked, closing his eyes briefly. He squeezed his arousal once more in a desperate search for release, then paused as Draco's fingers flicked his own aside.
"Pretty sure that's what we're already doing," Draco said, though his teasing was somewhat dampened by the sporadic jumps of his magic that Harry witnessed when he blinked his eyes open. "Well?"
"I don't have to tell you."
"You do."
"This is cruel."
"I'm a practiced torturer. Get used to it."
Harry all but whimpered. It didn't help that Draco teetered as waveringly as he did himself. Harry wanted, but Draco was being a fucking arse about it, and even if his jealousy felt so good –
"Pete," Harry gasped. "There was Pete."
Draco thrust with slow deliberation. "And?"
"And Benji."
Another thrust, and another, then another, and Harry panted in a feeble attempt to breathe. His one-handed grasp upon the headboard was almost painful, but he hardly felt it. "Anyone else?" Draco asked, his voice slightly broken and panting itself. "Was there anyone -?"
"Leslie," Harry managed to choke out. "Les was the last bloke, the one who –"
"You sort of dated," Draco thrust sharply, fully seating himself, before leaning forwards over Harry once more. His arms curled behind Harry's knees, pushing his legs more firmly into his shoulders. "For two months."
Harry glared at Draco for a moment before leaning upwards to snatch a chaste kiss. It was a struggle and a strain, but he needed something. "Not really dated, you idiot. I already told you that."
"You did," Draco said.
"He thought we were dating."
"I know. Fucking tosser."
"And it's not like I'm going to see him again, so can you please drop this and get on with it? I'm starting to question your performance skills." Harry somehow managed the control to raise an eyebrow, even if his attention was about as far from pulling faces as he could possibly be. "Or are you just unfit?"
Draco grinned. He still panted slightly, and his magic still pulsed erratically, but he grinned, and there was less of the desperately demanding jealousy in his expression than had been. A different kind of jealousy took its place, and Harry didn't even bother denying that he kind of liked it. At least as much as that before. This was more protectively jealous than envious. A hoarder rather than a taker.
Harry quite liked that a lot, actually.
"Is that a challenge, Harry?" Draco asked, sitting himself back and dragging his hands down Harry's legs once more. "Because you know I can never turn down a challenge."
Harry didn't get a chance to reply, because Draco was sincere in that regard, at least. Without further pause, and finally, without taking the time to talk and ask even more irrelevant questions, Draco set to pounding Harry's arse as though he were making up for lost time.
They didn't last long. Not either of them. In the throughs of passion, Harry lost himself to the heat spreading through his groin, to the sharp bursts of pleasure that sparked to his brain and demanded he close his eyes to revel in the sensation. His fingers clung to the headboard as Draco's fingers squeezed just short of painfully upon his hips.
He was fast, and a little erratic, and it was glorious. After waiting for far too long, Harry was more than happy to admit he had little enough control to hold out. Jerking upon his arching hardness, he spilled thickly over his hand in a starburst of pleasure that sent a shower of magical sparks across his eyelids. Draco's panting, his groans, barely seeped through the thundering roar in Harry's ears, but it sounded good. So good, and even the final, sharp thrust, the flood of warm wetness that filled him, wasn't truly objectionable.
The empty boys dormitory rung with the sounds of ragged pants when Harry managed to hear it again through the thundering heartbeat in his ears. It was a nice enough dormitory – or what Harry had seen of it in the moments before he'd lost himself in Draco as they hadn't really been able to before. The bed was ridiculously comfortable, too, the blankets soft and thick, the mattress plush…
Harry only really registered that fact for the first time when the pounding in his head and volts of pleasure coursing through him eventually died to a happy tingle.
Draco pulled out from him with a sigh, only to flop into the blankets at Harry's side an instant later. Before Harry had even completely released his hold on the headboard, he found himself wrapped in Draco's arms as he'd found himself frequently in the past week.
Draco, Harry had discovered, liked to hug. Unexpectedly – but then, it was only about as unexpected as the fact that Draco apparently had a thing for all things small and fluffy. Harry hadn't quite known what to do with that knowledge at first, and being hugged wasn't particularly familiar to him, but it had grown on him. Just as Draco's jealousy had grown, too.
Does that make me warped? Harry wondered, blinking up at the curtained ceiling of the four-poster bed. Maybe I am. Kane always said I was a bit socially unsound, so maybe that's why I –
"You're ignoring me," Draco muttered into the side of Harry's head, nudging him with a sharp toe to the ankle. "You know I don't like that."
Harry shook himself from his thoughts. Everything had grown groggy, and his limbs felt comfortably heavy. He glanced at Draco sidelong. "I'm sorry, Your Majesty. Were you feeling deprived?"
Draco's magic had slowed to a gentle, lazy swirl, glowing like the warm embers of a sleepy fire. Harry could understand that feeling; his own limbs felt heavy, and though his hips protested a little – because Draco was a prat for what he'd done, even if it ached in an entirely good way – Harry felt utterly relaxed and replete. The softness of the bed rather than a somewhat unforgivingly hard marble balcony made for a wondrous difference.
Humming as he squeezed Harry a little tighter, Draco pressed a kiss to his shoulder. "I am. You should be paying attention to me."
"You're half asleep," Harry pointed out. "And just had a thorough fucking. I think you're fine."
Draco pouted a little as he blinked up at Harry. His hair, perpetually mussed in a way that likely would have horrified his younger self, was even more so at that moment. Harry loved it and couldn't help but raise a hand to graze through the haphazard tufts.
"I don't like it when you zone out," Draco said. "It makes me think you're thinking of someone else."
Harry shifted until he was rolled onto his side. "Was that where that all came from, then?"
"What?"
"The questioning thing. You're worried I'm thinking of someone else?"
"Of course I am," Draco said without a hint of embarrassment. "I'm a jealous prat, just like you always say."
"Just like I always say," Harry said with a snort. "It's been a week."
"Yes, and you remind me of that fact all the time."
He was right on that count. Harry had reminded Draco of that fact, just as Draco had exhibited jealous traits countless times. It had been unexpected at first, because Draco seemed careless and aloof, almost nonchalant, about every other aspect of his life. His family he'd left behind him. His schoolwork he'd all but abandoned. His friends, Pansy and Blaise, seemed tolerated as much as cherished, and Draco showed no particular interest in anything else. 'Lazy' encompassed him wholly; Harry had been mildly surprised to discover that he didn't even partake in broomstick flying or quidditch anymore.
Except that he'd been wrong. Draco wasn't nonchalant – he was simply selective with where he chose to invest his efforts. Not with his parents, because they'd never returned affection, and not to his studies, for Harry understood that Draco had similarly realised his schoolwork was redundant for his personal future. His friends he did consider, but only as much as needed.
Draco was selective, and he'd apparently chosen to invest in Harry. That fact felt as warped in its goodness as the jealousy itself.
"You're doing it again," Draco said, his pout deepening. "Stop thinking about anything that's not me."
"Who says I'm not thinking about you?" Harry asked.
"Because I'm right here. You'd be attending to me better if you were."
He has no idea, Harry thought, then shook his head. Sliding across the minimal distance between them, Harry managed to wrap his arms around Draco in return. It still felt a little strange; Harry had never been physically close to people in an intimate sense. Even Les, his sort-of boyfriend that only hindsight and Les' words had deemed as much, hadn't been particularly touchy-feely outside of sex.
But it felt nice. Besides of the weirdness of it all, it felt… nice. Harry had never had that before.
"You're an egotistical bastard," Harry muttered, leaning towards Draco until their foreheads nearly touched.
"I know," Draco said complacently, almost as though he'd been given a compliment.
"That's not a compliment."
"Maybe not to you."
Harry shook his head, shrugging aside the exchange. "You know, you could have just asked me. I'd rather not have an in-depth conversation in the middle of sex."
"That was hardly in-depth," Draco said, blinking at Harry lazily. He looked on the verge of falling to sleep, which Harry had discovered was fairly typical of him in his post-coital stupor. "And it was the most effective means of getting you to open up."
"You could have just asked me a Truth."
"You would have danced around it somehow. Or zoned out."
"You have a real problem with this zoning thing, don't you?"
Draco shrugged. "I don't like being ignored," he said once more.
Harry smirked. "Yeah, I've realised that about you."
Draco hummed, closing his eyes in a slow blink before opening them again. Those eyes… rich with sleep, the silvery glow of his magic seemed thicker than usual. All of his magic did, Harry had recently realised. Whether it was Draco responding to Harry's own, or simply his contentment that resounded in that magic, he didn't know, but he liked it. Even if Harry didn't quite begrudge his loss of true sight, he liked being able to See with greater definition.
When Harry stared at Draco's face, as richly highlighted in magic as it was, he could make out the very hairs of his thin eyebrows. He could follow the line of his straight nose, could trace the shallow shadows apparent beneath his cheekbones, the curve of his lips and the faintest of dimples in his chin.
Harry liked that. He'd never been able to study someone quite so closely with his magic before, and he found he liked it quite a lot.
Raising a hand, Harry trailed a finger down Draco's nose, then lifted it again to score around his eyebrows. Draco's blinking slowed even further. "You're a bit of a weirdo," Harry murmured.
Draco grunted. "I know. Apparently the whole of the school knows, or haven't you heard the whispers?"
"I don't really like listening to gossip," Harry said. "Never have. But that wasn't what I was referring to."
"And what were you referring to?" Draco closed his eyes fully. How he could go from being so aroused and enthusiastic to all but asleep so quickly Harry didn't know. Apparently it was a thing, though, or so Benji had told him as they commiserated over Benji's own sleepiness, but Harry had never been partial to it.
Still. Weird. "You," Harry said, grazing a finger over Draco's eyebrow. "I never would have expected you to be someone so…"
"Jealous?" Draco murmured. "Possessive?"
"Oh no, I knew that," Harry said, smirking as Draco cracked open an eye to glare at him. "You were always an entitled git."
"Thank you," Draco said, sarcasm thickening his tone.
Harry grinned, then trailed his finger down Draco's nose once more. This kind of easy touching – it was nice. Harry had never had that, either. Not even with Les, which retrospect recognised would have probably been the most likely person to do so with. The simple touch of skin, while not heated and sex-charged, certainly held its own appeal. Even more appealing was the faint trail of green Harry's fingers left behind that mixed with Draco's silver.
"I actually meant I didn't really expect you to care," he said.
Draco was silent for a moment, and Harry thought he might have even fallen to sleep. When he did reply, it was in a voice so low, so quiet, that had the dormitory been anything but silent, Harry likely wouldn't have heard it at all. "I don't, mostly. Not about anyone or anything."
"I'd noticed."
As Harry swept a thumb across Draco's lips, Draco opened his eyes once more. They were heavy lidded, vague in sleepiness, but what little focus they possessed was trained on Harry. "Except you," he said simply.
"Me?"
"I care about you. As unexpected and probably ridiculous as it might seem, I actually care about you, Harry Potter."
He spoke so clinically, so simply, that the heart behind the words almost passed unheard. But Harry had developed rather good hearing over the years, and especially so with the absence of his sight. He smiled as something warm and fuzzy settled in his chest, something he'd never felt before, and curled his ankle around Draco's even as his finger returned to stroking. "Huh."
"What?" Draco asked quietly.
"I kind of care about you, too."
It was slow in coming, maybe waylaid by sleep, but Draco's smile was… well, it was definitely something.
Harry didn't really need people. He didn't really want people, either, and though he knew and understood loneliness, he often embraced rather than hid from it. But this, what he had with Draco…
It was nice to be wanted. Nice to not be taken for granted, or seen as a walking icon, or only for the scar on his forehead. Nice to be seen for who Harry was now rather than who he'd been years before.
Draco was a bit – or a lot – unnecessarily jealous, but Harry found that he could understand that. He thought he might be a little inclined to jealously hoard Draco in turn just as much.
"See? Now that. That's what I don't understand."
Harry glanced up from his muffin towards where Draco sat before him. And by 'before', he meant quite literally before. While Harry sat like a normal person on the bench that he always perched upon in the eternally chaotic kitchen, Draco had hauled himself onto the table instead. Legs stretched before him and hanging either side of Harry, he seemed nothing if not casually spitting in the face of any dining etiquette.
Which was, Harry supposed, was fairly typical of Draco.
Plucking a blueberry from his steaming muffin, Harry popped the wrinkled fruit into his mouth. The heat of it on his tongue was just short of scalding. "Don't understand what?" he asked, dropping an elbow onto Draco's knee.
Draco didn't object to the contact. He hadn't each time Harry had the urge to do so, to test the boundaries, as he had the past few days. Harry had almost expected to be shrugged off – he'd never understood just how much 'touching' was too much, had never experienced it himself – but he hadn't pushed Draco to his limit yet. Fingers raking through hair, hands resting back to back, a leg slung over a leg or, as chance would have it, sitting so close on a couch as to be more on top of one another – none of it really mattered. Draco didn't seem to have limits.
Besides, Draco touched back just as much. A casual graze of fingers, the press of a shoulder, the hooking of ankles under a table without comment on the fact. Harry quite liked that kind of touching. He'd never had it before, and while it was a little strange to think that his once rival Draco Malfoy was the one he shared it with, he found that yes, in fact, he'd grown to like it a lot in a rather short period of time.
Draco was making a mess of a slice of buttered toast. He seemed to revel in making any kind of mess, for that matter, a fact that Harry didn't wholly approve of given that he'd once been the cleaner of such careless individuals. But Draco seemed to act as though in direct denial of his own past. "No Malfoy made needless mess," he'd quoted to Harry not even a week before when he'd first begun to accompany Harry to the kitchen at every mealtime. "Apparently it's part of the code."
"The code?"
"It's a wank," Draco had said, waving the thought aside. "I don't abide by it anymore."
So Harry didn't ask. He still frowned when Draco absently brushed his shirt to rid it of crumbs, but he didn't ask. Besides, the house elves seemed more than happy to clean up after him. One in particular seemed to have added catching every falling crumb to his list of duties.
Taking a bite of his toast, Draco gestured to Harry once more. "You say you don't use magic for trivialities," he said through a mouthful, "and yet you go and heat up a breakfast muffin."
"And?" Harry asked, plucking another blueberry free.
"And," Draco said slowly, "how does that make sense? It doesn't, that's how."
"Heating a muffin isn't trivial," Harry said. At Draco's snort, he pointed his muffin at him objectionably. "It's not. My magic likes it."
Draco snorted again. "Sounds like an excuse to me."
"It's not. Magic tastes the flavours. Heating it up is like coaxing them forth, and doing that with magic brings the elves' magic used to make the muffin to the surface again. Magic likes magic, you know?"
Draco stared down at him, paused in the act of taking another bite, and slowly shook his head. "No, I don't think I do."
Harry shrugged. "Doesn't matter. You'll get it eventually."
Which he would. Surprisingly enough – or maybe not so surprisingly now that Harry knew where Draco's interests lay – Draco had been asking more and more questions of late. Not so much Truths as simple curiosities that in many ways felt better than the challenge of a Truth or Dare.
"So your magic keeps you at a constant body temperature?" he'd asked five days ago. "All the time? Because it likes you to be comfortable?"
"When you say you 'feel the school', that's the magic, right?" had arisen four days prior. "In the foundations? What, from when the castle was first made? That'd be pretty fucking old, wouldn't it?"
Three days, and he'd pondered aloud as they lay half across one another on the balcony. "If magic likes you so much, and acts so readily to your will… that must be why you're so powerful, I'd wager."
Or two days ago, with, "So you see magic, right? In colours? What colour am I, then?"
Harry had felt unexpectedly abashed in the face of such a question. It felt somehow personal to be asked, as though Draco had approached him in open honesty and asked what it was that he most liked about him. But he'd replied after a time and some significant prodding on Draco's part. "Silver," he'd said. "Sometimes grey, and sometimes black, but mostly silver these days. It's… pretty."
Draco seemed to like that. Or at least his magic responded to Harry's words, glowing more brightly than it had almost any time outside of sex itself.
Today, it was blueberry muffins and Heating Charms that Harry didn't much think of as Heating Charms. Why did it even need a name at all? It wasn't like it actually needed –
"Hey," Draco said, knocking his leg against Harry to forcibly drag him from his thoughts. "Did you not hear what I said?"
Harry rolled his eyes, taking a bite of his muffin. "Demand, demand," he sighed, shaking his head.
"I'm a demanding person."
"What was it you said?"
Draco pouted a little. It was funny, Harry thought, considering he always complained about other people pouting. "I said how do you know when magic will like what you've chosen to do? Will it kick up a fuss if you do what it doesn't like?"
Harry regarded Draco for a moment. Then he deliberately plucked a chunk of his muffin loose and held it aloft, at the ready to launch at Draco. Draco, naturally, flickered his gaze to Harry's missile, eyes narrowing. "Don't."
"Don't what?" Harry asked innocently.
"I know a throwing arm when I see one. Don't throw that at me."
"Why not?"
Draco nudged Harry's leg again with a jostle of his own. "Because I don't want muffin in my face, that's why."
Harry grinned. Then he lowered his handful and popped it in his mouth. "Exactly," he said. "And it's the same with magic."
Draco blinked. "What?"
"You told me you didn't want me to do it, so I didn't. If you'd said it was alright, even if the act itself was trivial, I probably would have thrown my muffin at you."
Draco blinked again. He opened his mouth, paused for a moment, then frowned. "That… is a shit analogy."
Harry chuckled into another bite of muffin. "Seems pretty valid to me."
"So magic talks to you?"
"Sort of."
"And it tells you what it doesn't like?"
"Pretty much."
"I don't even…"
He continued on that train of thought, and Harry listened with only half an ear. He didn't try too hard to explain it; to do so would be like attempting to teach a fish how to breathe air – largely unnecessary and limited by more than comprehensive barriers. Draco didn't need to know, hadn't the proper ears to hear his own magic – or at least not yet – so Harry didn't push too hard. Not yet.
He'll get it in time, Harry thought to himself. Especially if he keeps asking. He might actually understand it a little bit and get the chance to hear his own magic. A thrum of appreciation, of Harry's magic in his core, swelled like a living creature. Harry smiled quietly. And the professors considered magic inanimate… The utter dolts.
It was their last breakfast before school resumed. Classes would start the following day, and Harry found himself regretting that fact. He quite liked the break, liked the freedom to do what he wanted without inane classes and clamouring classmates who couldn't decide whether they hated or worshipped him. It was a relief to get away from Ron and Hermione's awkward tap-dancing, both around one another and Harry himself. The struggle they seemed to be putting themselves through was so unnecessary. Why did they cling so hard to something that no longer existed? Harry didn't know, and he wasn't sure he even wanted to know.
Not that he'd had much time to consider it over the past few days. Being with Draco was a change, and that change amounted to more distraction of a purely pleasurable kind than Harry had ever experienced before. He'd never fucked nor been fucked quite so vigorously in his entire life, and it was probably a good thing that most of the school wasn't in residence. Unexpected bouts of arousal seemed to blossom at the most unexpected of times – which was practically all the time. Funnily enough, Harry's magic didn't have much of an issue with ensuring mess left on desks in a rather horrifying fashion was wiped clean. If magic could be amused, Harry considered his own was practically laughing.
He enjoyed ever minute of it. Harry had always been partial to sex; since Jackson had opened that particular door of him, he couldn't get enough. And, luckily for him, Draco was more than obliging. There was nothing quite like the pleasure pain of aching hips and protesting thigh muscles to greet one of a morning.
Harry was still only half listening to Draco's mutterings about 'anthropomorphising magic' and plucking at the remains of his muffin while thoroughly appreciating Draco's own thighs when the crack of a house elf bespoke its sudden arrival. Draco flinched. He always did. It had almost become tiresome teasing him for it.
Not that Harry didn't still smirk at him, of course, to Draco's immediate scowling response. Harry turned to the house elf a moment later.
Short. Floppy-eared. Wearing a tea towel smeared in flour and all but identical to countless other house elves that attended to the school and kitchens. Even its colour was fairly similar. Harry though he remembered this one, though; not many house elves had a thin crop of grass-green hair atop their heads.
The elf trotted the short distance between them and, rifling in a disturbingly groping fashion into his tea towel, extracted a letter. He presented it to Harry with a flourish. "Master Potter must be reading this letter and responding appropriately post-haste," the elf squeaked, bobbing his head.
Harry accepted the letter reluctantly. "Do I need to write back to someone?"
The house elf shook his head, his ears all but slapping him in the face. "No, sir. It is not being that kind of reply, sir."
Harry frowned curiously as the house elf bowed his head before taking a step back, turning and trotting away into the kitchen once more. Or at least it was a curious frown until Harry flipped it over and saw the writing cursively decorating the envelope front and centre. Then it was just a frown.
"Oh, bugger," he muttered.
Draco leant forward, craning his neck to regard the letter almost upside down. "Who's it from?"
"Dumbledore," Harry said. Shaking his head, he peeled the envelope open and tugged the letter out. "Which means it's about one of two things and… yep, it's about both of them. Joy."
"Let me see?" Draco said, holding out a hand that was more of a demand than a question. Harry handed it over readily enough; what did he care if Draco saw? Or read it aloud, as the case may be. "Harry," he began, then paused and frowned. "That's a little presumptuous calling you by name, isn't it? A little overly familiar?"
"He's always called me that," Harry said. "I don't think it's ever been 'Mr Potter' with him."
"Seedy old man," Draco muttered. Then he turned back to the letter. "It would be my greatest pleasure – see? Seedy – if you could attend me in my office at your earliest convenience. I very much wish to discuss with you the matter we have recently left incomplete - I'm guessing that's the soul pieces thing? – and in addition, you have a familiar visitor. Padfoot would be similarly delighted to see you again, I can assure you'."
Draco lowered the letter as his eyebrow rose. "Padfoot?"
"My godfather," Harry said, dropping his chin onto Draco's knee this time and slinging his arm casually around Draco's calf. "He's trying that same 'reconnection' shit that Ron and Hermione seem intent upon pursuing."
Draco glared at the letter as though it were Sirius himself. He hadn't overcome his resentment towards Sirius since Harry's first encounter with him and it only seemed to have intensified over the weeks. "You mean your criminal godfather and my second cousin?"
"The one and only. And he's not a criminal anymore. Did you read that he'd been tried and cleared about a month ago?"
"I remember because you got a letter from him that very day," Draco said distractedly, his gaze still intent upon the letter.
Harry blinked. He felt his eyebrows climb his forehead. That… was unexpected. For whatever reason, Harry hadn't anticipated Draco would remember such things. He'd made a habit of looking over Harry's shoulder and reading his mail should he be in the vicinity when it arrived, as presumptuously as ever, but to actually remember it? That was surprising.
Or caring. Surprisingly caring. Maybe Draco had actually cared for some time?
With a mental shake of his head, Harry took a final bite of his muffin. "I'll have to go, I think."
Draco glanced up at him. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"You rarely do what people tell you to. Why now?"
Harry shrugged a shoulder. That much was true, and he didn't like doing what he was told simply because his tellers were usually bloody idiots. But Dumbledore was different; he wasn't necessarily less of an idiot, but he was more quietly persistent than the rest of them. "He'll nag me until I go, otherwise. And he kind of controls the school, in case you hadn't noticed, so there's not really any escaping from him."
Draco clicked his tongue in resounding distaste. "Wonderful," he said. Then he paused before clicking his tongue again. "Alright. I'll go with you."
"You'll what?"
"I'll come. It'll make it more bearable, at least."
Harry could only stare at him for a moment in a momentary stupor before smirking a little incredulously. "Got tickets on yourself, have you?" he asked.
"Of course," Draco replied. "I always make the room more bearable."
"I think some people might object to that assumption."
"Well, those people would be wrong. You like having me around." As if to prove a point, he leant towards Harry and pressed their lips together in a brief, chaste kiss.
Harry smiled against his lips. "Yeah. Funnily enough, I actually do."
Draco grinned back. "Splendid. Now, let me do your hair. Something relatively time consuming, I think; we can't have us getting to the headmaster's office with too much punctuality."
Harry let Draco do what he would. It had become a strange and unexpected kind of tradition in a very short time; every morning since that first, Draco had taken to weaving his hair into braids, or tails, or loops and coils, with remarkably practiced fingers. He spent far more time on Harry than he did on himself, to which Harry's comment on the fact provoked only a disregarding reply. "Well, I don't really give a shit what I look like. And I like playing with hair, so…"
And that was that. Harry let him. And if he grew to increasingly like the experience – because Draco really did have ridiculously dextrous hands – he didn't have to comment on the fact. Draco was happy, and Harry was content, so it worked.
Which was how, nearly half an hour later, Harry was playing with the curl of his fringe that always denied being tucked into a braid as he walked alongside Draco to the headmaster's office. Draco strode with swagger, comfortable in his carelessly sloppy shirt and trousers, his own hair messy and occasionally brush of his shirt to dislodge remaining breakfast crumbs. He seemed to leave a few for the sake of an unnecessary statement.
"You keep tugging on it like that and it'll all come out," Draco said with less reprimand than simple observation.
Harry shrugged, glancing at him sidelong. The throbbing silver of Draco's magic glowed just as brightly as it had taken to in the past days, and even more so when Draco eyed him sidelong in turn. Harry quite liked that fact, and not only because he liked the colour of Draco's magic. That is was so pretty was a bonus, but…
"It's a half-crown braid, you said?" Harry asked as they turned into the corridor leading to Dumbledore's office.
"Yes," Draco replied.
"Only a half-crown?" Harry pursed his lips with petulant indignation. "Why do I only get to be half-royalty?"
Draco snorted, and though he rolled his eyes, the slight brightening of his magic bespoke a less than ridiculing opinion on the subject. "You're an idiot."
"It's a serious question."
"Do you want to be considered royalty?"
Harry released his fringe and blew in a failed attempt to cast it aside. "Well, a prince is surely warranted particular rights."
"More than a hero?" Draco asked.
"You mean a hero that I'm not?"
"Yes. That."
"Surely. The plebians would have to abide by my every command."
Draco scoffed as they drew to a stop before the gargoyle leading to Dumbledore's office. "As if they don't already jump when you tell them to."
Harry arched an eyebrow. "Oh, because everyone so wonderfully leaves me the fuck alone when I ask for it?"
"Well, except that." Draco smirked, raising a hand to curl a finger through the lock of Harry's fringe. He liked touching, Harry had found. Simple touches, and as often casually non-sexual as lustful. Harry found he liked those kind of touches, too – or at least he did when they came from Draco. "Alright, then. I'll give you a full crown tomorrow, you snooty princess."
"I resent your tone," Harry said, scowling without truly feeling it.
Draco only grinned in response. "You are. Petulant, much?"
"Says you."
"Says me."
"You're the one raised as a stuck-up brat."
"A prince in my own right, actually."
"Bullshit."
"'Bullshit'." Draco pulled a face. "That's you. That's what you sound like."
Harry cuffed Draco on the back of his head, simply because he could. Draco laughed and slung an arm around Harry's neck to pin him in a headlock as gentle as a one could possibly be. Then it became not quite gentle. Then a scuffle. Then Harry found himself twisting and writhing and somehow wrapped around Draco with their lips locked and entirely too many layers of clothing between them. It didn't matter that they stood in the corridor outside of Dumbledore's office, or that the animated griffin regarded them with shrewd stone eyes. Harry didn't care. Fuck them all.
It was only when he caught a glimpse of a flare of ruddy pink washing through the griffin, so reminiscent of Dumbledore's magic that he could have been standing in the gargoyle's place, that he forced himself to pull away from Draco. Having Dumbledore watching was kind of creepy.
"What?" Draco muttered, lips still pressed to the side of Harry's neck. He did that a lot, Harry had noticed. Hickeys had become almost decoration around Harry's neck in a way that was both a little gross and a little arousing.
It took Harry a moment to catch his breath before speaking. "Maybe we should stop making out in front of the headmaster's office."
"Why?"
"Why? Because Sirius and Dumbledore are literally a staircase away."
"And?" Draco sounded faintly petulant. Harry could feel his lips pursing against his skin.
"And," Harry said, drawing out the word as he took a step backwards, "I'm pretty sure Dumbledore's watching through the gargoyle."
"What?" Draco straightened, casting a glance over his shoulder to the stone guardian. "How do you know that?"
Harry gestured vaguely at the gargoyle. "It practically vomiting Dumbledore's magic all over the place."
Draco glanced back towards him. His lips twisted in distaste. "You paint an image."
"I'm good at that."
"It's a disgusting one. Almost as disgusting as having a seedy, vicarious headmaster watching."
Harry scrunched his nose. "You just took that in a direction I didn't want to contemplate."
"I do that."
"I know. Often, actually."
"It's part of my charm."
"Yes," Harry agreed. "Unfortunately."
For all of his words and all of Harry's precautions, Draco still slung his arm around Harry's shoulders as they stepped the remaining distance towards the gargoyle-guarded entrance. So casually presumptuous, Harry thought with a roll of his eyes, which pretty much encompassed Draco entirely. Some things never changed, even if his image as a picture-perfect Slytherin had faded.
"Move out of the way," Draco said, tipping his head to the gargoyle with that same entitlement.
Harry snorted as the griffin blinked at him. "Yeah, 'cause that'll surely get him to move."
Draco drew his gaze towards him. "Alright then, smartass. How do you open it?"
"You love my smartass."
"Sometimes," Draco admitted, knocking his hip sideways into Harry's. "Well?"
Harry couldn't help but smile a little. He did that. He was the one that Draco touched, and spoke to, and acknowledged and – if only for his function as a witty distraction – a little bit loved. Harry had never had anyone like that before. He was sure that, had he been able to see himself fully, his own magic would be radiating a glowing heat of its own.
Tightening his arm where it had hooked unconsciously around Draco's waist, he plucked Dumbledore's letter from where he'd stashed it in his pocket. "See here, at the bottom," he said, tapping his thumb upon the post-script. "Where it talks about flying saucers?"
Draco frowned. "I've a mind to discuss flying saucers, if you would," he read, then eyed Harry sidelong. Then his gaze darted back to the griffin as it leapt dutifully aside. "What the fuck?"
"They're Muggle sweets," Harry explained.
"What… the fuck?"
"He uses them as a password."
"What the actual fuck is a flying saucer?"
Harry shrugged beneath his arm, stuffing the letter back into his jeans pocket and tugging Draco up the stairs. "It's like a, ah… I think it's rice paper stuff with sherbet in it? Or something?"
Draco pulled a face, silver magic leaping around his twisting features, that was dampened only slightly by his slightly judgmental glance towards the gargoyle. "That's so weird."
"I know. They sound disgusting, but they're actually –"
"I meant the password being a sweets, you idiot," Draco sighed, turning back to Harry and shaking his head as he followed him in step. "You'd think as an upstanding wizard he'd use something a little more prestigious. Imagine bringing the Minister for Magic up to his office or something and have to use a password like… I don't know –"
"Pop tarts?" Harry suggested.
"What the bloody hell is that?"
"It's a sickly sweet toaster-thingy. And it's delicious. I seriously need to educate you."
"Sounds heinous," Draco said, shaking his head again as his gaze dropped to the steps beneath his feet. "But honestly, think of the reputation."
"Would that hold you back?" Harry asked curiously. "I was under the impression that disconcerting people by acting erratically was kind of your thing now."
"It is," Draco replied with deliberate slowness. "But it shouldn't be Dumbledore's, too."
Harry only shrugged in reply. If anything, he thought that reason was all the more support for why Dumbledore would choose such a password. He was, strangely enough, vaguely similar to Harry in that regard; neither of them liked to fit their moulds.
Harry wasn't sure if he was particularly content with that realisation but shelved the thought for later.
They didn't pause outside Dumbledore's door, though Harry made a passing attempt at introduction with a double knock before opening it. The expanse of the headmaster's round office, a spread of ordered chaos, stretched before them, and seated behind his giant of a desk and in his grand chair, Dumbledore smiled benignly.
Sirius, in one of three straight-backed chairs before the desk, twisted in his seat until he was practically hanging over the arm. His eyes were wide and sparkling in greeting, mouth opening in what was undoubtedly the beginnings of a welcome, but it died as soon as Harry crossed the threshold. "What?" was all he managed.
Harry paused alongside Draco long enough for Draco to pose. It was necessary, he felt. Not so much a pose in the traditional sense, but Draco adopted a swaggering stance even in stillness nonetheless. It might be of a different fashion, but he still mimicked the intentions of his younger self years after disregarding Baby Malfoy. It had simply taken Harry some time to fully appreciate that echoing symmetry.
"Harry," Dumbledore said, his tone as warm and bubbling with pink magic as always. "And unexpected company, I see."
"Well, you didn't say I couldn't bring anyone along," Harry said.
"Indeed I didn't," Dumbledore replied. His eyes danced brightly with the magic that rippled throughout him. Despite being a bit of an asshole in Harry's opinion – as most people were – it was undeniable that his magic loved him. That fondness warranted begrudging recognition on Harry's part.
"Welcome, Mr Malfoy," Dumbledore continued, "although I fear you stay shall be short."
"Never fear," Draco said, and, with a likely imperceptible nudge of his elbow into Harry's side, he urged them across the room towards the remaining chairs. He waited until Harry had taken his seat before adopting his own – on the arm of Harry's chair. "I don't think it will be a short stay, actually. Unless Harry wants it to be."
"What…?" Sirius attempted again, but Harry spared him only the briefest of glances. Draco and Dumbledore didn't even bother with that much.
"I don't believe you would appreciate nor even wish to be a part of this meeting, Mr Malfoy," Dumbledore said.
"On the contrary, actually," Draco replied, "I could think of no place I'd rather be."
"Really? And why is that?"
"Because Harry's here, of course."
"Ah," Dumbledore sighed. "Yes, I've noticed you have both become close. Perhaps I underestimated the degree of your familiarity?"
That was enough for Sirius. He overcame his stupor in a rush, and in doing so overwhelmed the conversation instantly. "What the fuck? Malfoy? What the fuck are you doing here? And Dumbledore, I thought this was supposed to be a secret meeting with my godson –"
"Questionably godson," Draco muttered, likely too quietly to be heard by any but Harry. Harry bit the inside of his cheek to withhold a snort.
" – not to mention that the nature of our conversation will be delicate," Sirius continued. He snapped his gaze between Dumbledore and Harry, with only a passing glare spared for Draco. "You told me, Dumbledore. You said that, given I was disallowed access onto the school grounds unless Harry invited me, that we could have this at least. Hell, the only reason Remus isn't here is because you said that only one of us would –"
"Hold on a second," Harry interrupted, raising a hand in Sirius' direction. Sirius stuttered to a stop, but Harry hardly noticed him. His attention was all for Dumbledore. "You stopped anyone from coming onto school grounds?"
Dumbledore cocked his head slightly. "Of course. All students at Hogwarts are guaranteed their privacy. From everyone."
"Everyone including…?"
"Their godfathers that should be allowed to see them," Sirius said, glaring at Dumbledore as though in accusation. Which it likely was.
Dumbledore nodded again. "Precisely. And Ministry representatives who would wish to discuss further with you, Harry. And the reporters that have taken up residence in Hogsmeade of late."
"They're still there, are they?" Draco said, and a glance his way found his eyebrow raising as he leant backwards on his perch, arms folding.
Harry blinked, glancing between the two of them. "There're reporters at Hogsmeade?" he asked.
Dumbledore smiled once more as Draco patted his head fondly. "Of course there is, my ignorant child."
"Belittle me again, Draco, and I'll cut your balls off," Harry said casually.
Draco snorted in a laugh, which served to wipe aside the brief smirk that had arisen on Sirius' face. "Like you would. You like my balls too much."
"That's an inappropriate discussion topic to bring up in the headmaster's office," Harry said, leaning back into his chair as comfortably as Draco himself sat. "Even if it is accurate."
"What?" Sirius said, tone monotonously flat.
"Oh please, there's never a bad time to discuss it," Draco said. "You like my butt, too."
Harry shrugged. "It's a good arse."
"Thank you. I've worked hard at obtaining it."
"What a load of bullshit. You do nothing for it."
"True," Draco sighed dramatically. "I'm simply naturally gifted."
"What?" Sirius repeated, his tone exactly the same.
"A gift from your beloved parents?" Harry said, entirely ignoring Sirius and mostly Dumbledore, too. He knew what Draco was doing in raising the subject, and he was more than happy to oblige. It was true that he didn't hate Sirius; he just didn't want anything to do with him, and found his incessant, enthusiastic letters that spoke nothing but superficialities while disregarding the years between them nothing short of tiresome. He didn't hate Dumbledore, either, and even thought he might like him a little more after the whole prohibition thing – even if he was kind of a seedy old man.
Harry didn't want to attend the meeting. He didn't want to talk about the soul pieces – or Horcruxes, or whatever they were called– and he didn't want to mend a broken relationship with Sirius as Sirius so clearly wanted to. Why did people try? Why did Sirius and Remus, and Ron and Hermione, and every other member of Gryffindor house for that matter, seem so longing to try? Was it the fame? The fact that Harry had supposedly 'defeated' Voldemort by locking his magic away inside of him until he learnt to use it properly? It was an unlikely eventuality, but it could happen.
And Harry wouldn't know if it ever would happen, because he wanted nothing more to do with the creature who had once been Tom Riddle. Nothing at all. Voldemort was the Ministry's problem now, and Harry wanted no part of fixing him, or bringing him to justice, or executing him, if such was the eventual decision. Hell, Harry had never really wanted anything but for Voldemort to get off his bloody back.
Like everyone else, for that matter. Why were people so incessant? The only person Harry wanted on his back was Draco, in every sense of the term. Which… probably wasn't a good thing to be thinking in the headmaster's office barely minutes after making out in the hallway before said headmaster's eyes. Harry could still feel Draco on his lips.
For himself, Draco was only smiling smugly. He hadn't flinched at the mention of his parents, a fact that Harry noted and silently congratulated himself for. He'd raised the topic enough of late that Draco's automatic flattening of tone and hooded-eyed response had lifted somewhat. Harry almost believed Draco to now be as disregarding of his parents as he claimed he was.
"My parents were very kind in gifting me this, at least," Draco said, sweeping his arm along the length of himself indicatively. "I believe it's because they didn't have a direct choice in the matter."
"The wonders of the gene pool," Harry said, tapping Draco's leg idly.
"I am a wonder, aren't I?"
"What the hell is this?" Sirius said, finally managing to speak in more than repetition of a broad question. "Are you two -? Don't tell me you two are -?"
"Dating, I believe is the socially correct term," Dumbledore said, a merry hint to his words and a brief, amused swell of his magic. If his gaze wasn't so trained, Harry might have even shared his amusement. Was he seedy, or was that simply how his stare always was? It was hard to tell.
"Oh, we're not dating," Harry said, ignoring – once more – Sirius' relieved sigh.
"Of course not," Draco agreed. "Such would surely entail going on at least one date. I believe fucking in every broom cupboard we come across is a more accurate description, is it not, Harry?"
"Just about," Harry said. At Sirius' choking stutter, he spared him a glance. "You alright, Sirius?"
"What…?" Sirius managed.
Oh, are we back to monosyllabic questions again? Harry thought absently. "What what?"
"You -?"
"Yes?" Draco asked.
"You're not – you can't –"
"Is your objection that it's me or that it's in every broom cupboard?" Draco asked. "Because either one, I have an objection to myself; we're related, for one, which means that it shouldn't be a problem with me, and two, I'm sure you fucked in every other broom cupboard too."
"Was it with Remus or my father?" Harry asked, tipping his head and widening his eyes with as much innocence as he could manage. It was tough.
Sirius' own eyes bulged. The violet waves of his magic flared briefly in his cheeks before fading and shrinking into itself. "What – the hell is going on here?" Sirius asked in a stutter. "Harry, what're you -?"
"Asking all the important questions," Harry replied.
"Was your father gay?" Draco asked, dropping his gaze to Harry.
Harry shrugged. "As far as I know, he loved my mother –"
"He did," Sirius ground out.
"- but you never can tell," Harry continued. "What do I know about who he experimented with in school?"
"There was no – no experimenting –"
"Of course not," Draco said. The way he smiled at Sirius was lupine. "Because throwing a hoard of sexually charged teenagers into a boarding school together surely wouldn't end up with a couple of hasty fucks against a wall here and there."
Sirius choked again. His eyes seemed fit to pop from their sockets, which Harry found interesting. He'd always thought that Sirius was attempting to be the 'cool' uncle; weren't cool uncles the people that struggling teens were supposed to turn to for consolation?
Not that Harry really knew anything about cool uncles. Vernon certainly wasn't any form of the definition, and Petunia equally lacked the 'cool aunt' tag. Remus was too quietly resigned, Arthur and Molly had barely managed the trust of parental figures before that trust had been vanquished forever, and to say that anyone else was –
"… don't even hear sometimes, do you?"
Harry blinked, brought back to the moment by a finger poking his cheek. He glanced at Draco. "What?"
Draco was smirking with such animated amusement that his lips quivered. "I'm talking to you, Black's practically having an aneurism, and you're zoning out?" He shook his head, gaze rolling upwards. "Do you see what I have to put up with?" he asked the ceiling.
"You love it," Harry said, twisting so he leaned into Draco.
"Actually, I don't. I believe I've told you several times."
"I know. You don't like being ignored."
"And yet you frequently ignore me."
"Well, you can't occupy all of my thoughts all the time," Harry said.
"Wrong," Draco replied, poking Harry's cheek once more. He snatched his fingers away just in time to evade Harry's swatting hand. "I should be on your mind all the time."
"You are," Harry said. "Just sometimes on the sidelines."
"That's not good enough."
"God, you're so demanding."
"Of course I am. You've always know this about me."
Harry was only detachedly away of Sirius slumped in his seat, cheeks a washed out, pale violet and head turned to watch Harry and Draco in open-mouthed horror. He was slightly more aware of Dumbledore watching with his head still cocked and eyes still bright. Seedy? Yes, Draco was probably right, and he likely was seedy. Harry decided he didn't warrant being disliked any less, even with the reporter thing.
Maybe it was Harry's passing glance that shook Dumbledore from his staring. Harry wasn't sure, but as Draco propped an elbow on Harry's shoulder and half-reclined in a way that couldn't possibly be comfortable but Draco made seem as much anyway, Dumbledore straightened slightly.
"Well, this has certainly been an enlightening discussion," he said.
"Enlightening…" Sirius echoed faintly before stuttering off a little.
Dumbledore continued as though he hadn't spoken. "But perhaps we can get back to the matter at hand?"
"Yes, please do," Draco said, speaking before Harry could even think of a reply. "We have places to be, of course. Broom cupboards and all, you know."
Sirius choked slightly again, and a brief glance in his direction found he'd paled further. Draco must have been doing it on purpose, Harry thought. Which, to be fair, was fairly characteristic of what Harry knew of him.
Dumbledore didn't reply to Draco's words but to smile merrily. And a little creepily, all things considered. "Of course. I'm sure you'll appreciate your final day of holidays before NEWT studies resume once more."
"A delightful reminder, that," Draco said.
"If you don't want to hear it, fuck off," Sirius snapped.
"No, I don't think I will," Draco replied, the picture of cool consideration. "No. No, I don't think so."
Dumbledore ignored the both of them, gaze fixing upon Harry. "I believe you read my letter. Have you considered my proposal further?"
Harry stared at him. Proposal? Which one, exactly? That he would help Dumbledore find the Horcruxes? That he would bow his head and turn into Sirius' persistently offered embrace? That he all but turn back into the boy he'd been at fourteen and disregard the running, the fear that grew less fearful over time, the independence, and change, and everything that made Harry himself that he'd developed over the years?
Of course not. Of course he bloody well wouldn't. Not the Horcruxes, or Sirius, or the regression. Harry was content with who he was and who he was with, if not so much what he was doing at the present time. He wasn't about to change that, except to maybe finally flip the education system off and escape abroad to who knew where as he planned to.
No more Horcruxes.
No more fighting.
No more people from his past who wanted the past Harry rather than who he'd become. He didn't want them, and he didn't need them. Not anymore.
"That's his thinking face," Draco said, cutting into Harry's thoughts. "It's very similar to his zoning out face, so it's hard to tell sometimes, but I know."
Harry rolled his eyes as he drew himself back to the present. "Shut the fuck up, Draco."
"What? I'm just proving how well I know you."
Harry doubted anyone in the room missed the lascivious connotations of his words, especially not because of Sirius' strange, hiccupping choke that he seemed to have taken to making that day. Prude. "That's entirely unnecessarily, I can assure you," Harry said. Then he turned back to Dumbledore and replied with finality. "No."
"No?" Dumbledore echoed.
"No?" Sirius said a heartbeat later. "No to what? What are you referring to, Harry?"
"To all of it," Harry said with a shrug. "No hunting down soul pieces. No turning back into a good little Gryffindor – which is a complete menace, by the way." He raised an eyebrow at Dumbledore and wondered briefly what the twitch to Dumbledore's lips meant. Amused, or dissatisfied? The unremarkable swirl of his magic could have been either.
He turned instead to Sirius. "No more of this, too," he said, gesturing to Sirius in what was admittedly only vaguely meaningful. "Stop with the letters, please. It's a little sad how many ways you've managed out to say exactly the same thing."
"'How are you?'" Draco quoted with perfect timing. "'How are your studies going? Killing it, I'm sure. I hope you're giving your professors hell. How are Ron and Hermione? Have you patched things up yet? I don't suppose you've moved back up to Gryffindor house again, re-joined the quidditch team, plopped your arse back on the Gryffindor throne of the exalted', etcetera, etcetera."
"Hey," Harry said, shooting a frown Draco's way. "I thought you said just before that I wasn't royalty."
"Exalted," Draco repeated. "Not royalty. Use your listening ears, Harry."
"You're a prat."
"Git."
"Tosser."
"Wanker."
If Sirius had no reply to that, Harry couldn't really blame him. Silence was what he'd intended to induce, anyway. Dumbledore seemed at a momentary loss for that matter, too.
It didn't last long, but it was the final stance that Harry held. What proceeded after that didn't budge him even slightly. There was debate, of course. "You're needed, Harry," Dumbledore said countless times, right alongside cryptic phrases like, "You hold power the Dark Lord knows not," and "We shall never know that Voldemort has truly been defeated without erasing all possible forms of him."
"How will we know we've gotten all of them?" Harry asked when he'd been told as much one too many times. Draco followed right alongside him with the words, "And you naturally need Harry's help for this. Harry, who can do fuck all with magic because of his weird morals and shit."
"Hey, I'm competent," Harry said with a frown.
"You asked me to make you a pair of glasses."
"I'm competent in the right areas."
"Of course. Just not useful charms, or transfigurations, or –"
"We're not having this conversation again," Harry interrupted him before he could get taken away with himself. Draco only grinned in triumphant reply.
Sirius was almost as bad. "I don't understand, Harry," he said redundantly, because he clearly didn't and hadn't truly tried to. He was, after all, blinded to exactly what Harry had a problem with. "Why? You don't want me to write you anymore? Can I at least visit you? Will you come to Grimmauld Place at the end of the school year?"
"Grimmauld Place is a hovel," Draco said with a sniff. "Filthy dirty."
"Says the one who still has breadcrumbs on his shirt from breakfast," Harry said.
"They're specifically placed. With purpose."
"I call bullshit to that."
"I'm ordered chaos. It's a thing."
"No, you're lazy. That's a thing, too."
For whatever reason, Sirius always seemed to fall into a state of shock whenever Harry and Draco shared such exchanges. Harry was entirely fine with that fact. He was, after all, growing just a little tired of Sirius' stuttering non-attempts at understanding.
To say it was a victorious meeting would have been a bit of an exaggeration, he thought, though not much. Dumbledore finally seemed to reach an end in his attempts, and Sirius' stupors begun to last significantly longer than those preceding it. With a glance between the two of them, Dumbledore's resounding, "So you won't… help? That's final?" ringing in the air between them, Harry nodded. He tapped Draco's leg with a finger before rising.
"I think we're just about done here," he said. Skirting around his chair, he spared a final glance for Sirius as Sirius seemed to claw his way from his shocked silence to heave himself to his feet. "Sorry to be such a little shit and all, Sirius –"
"But he's not really sorry," Draco said.
"Shut up, Draco," Harry threw towards him absently. "I mean it. I'm a bit of a shit godson, so you might want to look further afield. I'm not what you're looking for anymore. And you too, Headmaster," he added, sparing a glance for Dumbledore. "I'm not really the soul-searching type."
Draco snorted at his side before hooking an arm around Harry's shoulder. "Was that a pun?"
"A double meaning, so… yes, I suppose so."
"It was pathetic."
"I know. I just couldn't help myself."
Sirius took a tentative step towards him. The violet of his magic was so thin and washed out that it was more white than coloured. "But… Harry, I don't… I don't understand."
"I know," Harry said simply, looping an arm around Draco's waist. He smiled slightly at how easily it rested there. It had never been so comfortable before; not even with Les. "That's the problem, I think." Then he allowed Draco to turn him towards the door.
"I'd suggest you remain behind, but you're more than welcome to follow us," Draco called over his shoulder as Sirius took another step after them. "We've still got a fair few broom cupboards to explore."
"Are you still going on with that?" Harry asked as Sirius jerked to a stop behind them.
"I'm thinking of using it as a permanent euphemism," Draco replied with a leering grin.
"I'm pretty sure it already is one."
"Yes. Most likely. I have been using it for some time."
"You can't take credit for that."
"Actually, I can."
Harry didn't glance over his shoulder again as they passed through the headmaster's door. He didn't turn to catch a final glimpse of what would likely still be Sirius' pale face, faded almost into obscurity to Harry's Sight, or Dumbledore regarding him with a faint, shrewd frown, his own magic twisting in thoughtful contemplation. He very deliberately ignored the griffin with its pinkly-swirling eyes as they passed into the corridor, too.
"Well," Draco said, as they started down the hallway. His upbeat sigh resounded off the stone walls. "That went well."
Harry chortled; he couldn't help himself. "I guess."
"I can't imagine Dumbledore will nag you again any time soon."
"Maybe not," Harry said with a nod. "But I doubt that's the end of it."
"Most likely," Draco agreed. "Although, when we get out of Hogwarts, it'll be easier for us to avoid him."
Harry jerked to a halt. His grasp around Draco's waist drew him to a similar stop. Draco's eyebrow quirked as he turned towards him. "What?"
"Us," Harry said.
"What?"
"You said us."
It could have just been in reference to finishing school. Or it could have been a slip of the tongue. Or, just as likely, it could have been a deliberate slip as some means of Draco expressing his possessiveness in a way that practically breathed his arousal. Harry wasn't sure which one he preferred; maybe a mixture of all three?
Draco shrugged slightly, and though he feigned casualness, Harry wasn't fooled. His magic contracted slightly, the silver dimming but for at his core as though embarrassed. "Unless you act like a complete prat and ditch me after school, I expect I'll be sticking around for some time."
Harry blinked. He felt his mouth flop open and couldn't for the life of him think of how to close it again. "You… what?"
Sighing expansively, Draco turned on the spot, twisting until only his hand remained on Harry's shoulder, and raised his other to fiddle with a lock of Harry's hair. "Merlin, you're a pain the arse," he said.
"I can be," Harry said with a hint of his own lascivious insinuation. Only a hint, however; he was somewhat distracted.
Draco shook his head, tugging a little harder on Harry's hair. "You're a bit of a bastard to your godfather – let's call a spade a spade, here – and though I approve of it because he's a bastard too, most people would have a problem with that. But not me."
Harry stared some more before nodding slowly. He knew that; of course he did. Most people would likely consider his disregard for Sirius' attempts cruel. Those same people would likely think the same of his dismissal of Ron and Hermione's attempts, and those of the professors, and the few letters he'd received from Molly and Arthur Weasley, or Remus.
But Harry didn't care. Over the past weeks, the past months, he'd grown only more firmly grounded in his decision to leave the past behind him. He didn't think his old friends, those who had once been his family, were bad people, but he wasn't going to accept their apologies and welcome them with open arms once more. They were good people, but the fact of the matter was that they'd abandoned him at the end of fourth year when he'd needed them. And, just as confronting, they hadn't looked for him when he'd 'disappeared'.
That fact had been slower in realising since Harry had returned to Hogwarts. Since he'd spoken to Ministry representative, since he'd started receiving letters, and since words of 'custody' and 'guardianship' had been thrown around unnecessarily, because Harry was a legal-fucking-adult, dammit. But the more they talked and the more letters claiming "we're so happy you're alright" and "we can't wait to see you again" he received, the more he wondered.
They hadn't abandoned him so much as not cared enough. A little, but not enough. That much was evident in the fact that Harry hadn't been found since he'd run away from the Durleys. Why hadn't he been found? Death Eaters had no such trouble with it – why not his old friends?
Harry had cared, briefly. For a moment or two, he'd cared. And then he'd shrugged the thought aside. He didn't need to consider it. He didn't need those people who hadn't searched hard enough for someone they apparently loved and cherished, someone who was on the run from a mass-murderer while worn by confusion and resentment. Harry wasn't a fool; he knew how he'd been, how he'd felt.
Those feelings had been flung into sharp relief when greater things of importance had been dealt with. Like surviving Death Eater attacks. Like saving Voldemort's magic from him. Priorities.
Pursing his lips, Harry regarded Draco with a frown. For once, Draco hadn't interrupted his thoughts but simply waited for his reply. He continued to play absently with Harry's hair, and he must have some sort of fetish, because surely not even Draco could be so distracted by it. Or maybe he was; he had taken to his morning rituals with surprising dedication.
"You're weird," Harry said. "I am, as you say, a bastard, and yet you still want to stick around me."
Draco shrugged. "Surprisingly, yes."
"Even though I've ditched practically everyone else in my life?"
"Try because you've ditched them. Granger and Weasley were bad enough, but Black as well?" Draco shuddered in what was likely not wholly feigned disgust. "I don't like you that much."
"But you do like me," Harry murmured. He felt a smile touch his lips.
Draco stared at him. He was embarrassed again, and likely for his accidental admission. Harry could see it in the further contraction of his magic that, while shrinking, shone with an almost blindingly bright silver. Harry loved that colour. It made teasing Draco that much more fun.
"I believe we've been over this," Draco said in little more than a grunt.
Harry's smile widened to a grin. In an instant, he all but forgot about Dumbledore and Horcruxes. He shrugged aside thoughts of Sirius and repetitive letters, and of how much of a 'bastard' he was for dismissing them. Stepping towards Draco, he wrapped his arms around his waist; Draco was slim, but not bony. Soft, but a little hard as well. Harry found such contradictions somehow loveable.
"We have," he said finally, though even for his words it felt just a little different this time. "And I like you too." Then he reached for Draco and drew him into a gentle kiss.
Not that it stayed gentle for long. Not at all. Harry was decidedly grateful that no pink, peering eyes watched them as he crowded Draco against the wall and lost himself in his mouth. It was probably a good thing that classes hadn't resumed just yet; Harry wondered briefly what the student body would think of him copping a feel up Draco's shirt should they be stumbled upon in the corridor.
And wasn't that a thought. He'd likely find out soon enough, Harry supposed, and found he didn't really care what the other students thought at all.
When they finally drew apart, Harry was panting. It was with satisfaction that he noticed Draco as short of breath as himself. "Broom cupboard?" Draco asked between gasps.
Harry scoffed. "You need to get over that," he said.
"Never," Draco replied, and then Harry didn't really care much what he called it. What followed wasn't quite a broom cupboard but left Harry decidedly approving of the euphemism.
