NX-Loveless-XN: Thank you! Yes Snape is fun to write, I really should throw him in more often. This chapter will also render him a little more human, too.

aweebuoy: Many thanks!

TrinityLost: As always, thank you for your comments. I was worried about fluff, too, but don't worry, Draco's so good at repressing, he'll find a way to talk himself out of admitting that he has actual feelings. Glad you're still liking the twists and turns, more of Draco's miserable Christmas Hols to come.

So, people, another 3.5k+ words and a little action, because it's Christmas (for about three more hours where I am) and you were so nice and left me thank you notes. Forgive the typos, I was in a rush.

Warning: This chapter includes some rather graphic boy-on-boy stuff, and although I don't really see why one would need to be warned about that, it seems to be the thing to do.

Chapter 28: Gate-crashing

The last week of term flew by in flurry of papers and projects. It seemed that every professor Draco had was bent on squeezing out the very last drop of effort from their students before sending them off to their Christmas holidays with mounds of extra reading in preparation for the spring term.

Meanwhile, Draco had finally gone to Blaise with his proposal. On Monday night, once to common room had largely cleared, Blaise had begun to reflect aloud what Slughorn's party was probably going to be like. Draco made a casual remark about being obliged to be with Pansy – the burden of a relationship, he commiserated. Blaise merely shrugged. And then Draco took the plunge:

"I might be willing to… tire… of her, for the right price."

He waited… Blaise eyed him suspiciously, then replaced his haughty mask of indifference. But ultimately he couldn't wait and broke down, asking,

"What sort of price?"

Draco sneered at him for a long moment, allowing Blaise to fantasize about all the absurd things that Draco might ask of him, and then finally answered,

"Your seat."

Blaise frowned, "what seat?"

"Yours," Draco answered.

"You mean, like my seat at dinner? Done."

"Oh no, no, Blaise. I mean every seat you ever have. Wherever you are sitting, if I want it, you give it up to me. It's that simple."

Blaise looked horrified, so Draco opted to remind him of all the other things he might have asked for, by phrasing them in terms of advantages of the 'musical chairs' option. "No political allegiance, no censorship, no future obligations beyond merely your seat." He paused to watch the boy thinking it over, clearly weighing the respective benefits of an affirmative or negative response. If he accepted, he'd always be second to Draco. No matter what they were doing, or where they were, Draco would always have to option of taking Blaise's seat in a silent but extremely public gesture of authority. It was a hefty price to pay, and Blaise was clearly calculating whether it was worth it.

Draco rose as if to leave, to put a little added pressure on him and to reinforce the impression that Draco didn't care as much as he did. Just as he was in the doorway towards the boys' dormitory, Blaise called out,

"No proxies."

Draco turned and raised an eyebrow at him, and Blaise continued, "no one else can take it, and you can't give it to anyone else, only you." Draco contemplated him briefly. Blaise was obviously willing to be second man to Draco, but no lesser, and by preventing Draco from giving his seat to someone else, he prevented Draco from demoting him to anything other than second. It was well-played. He nodded, and Blaise nodded curtly back, and Draco turned from the boys' dorm and went instead to the girls' dorm, to find Pansy.

Draco managed to sneak in to Snape's stores that same night, while Snape was out on rounds, and by Wednesday his potion was nearly finished. He spent nearly every spare minute in the sixth floor bathroom stirring and siphoning away on his ridiculously fiddly potion. The only exception was lunch, because he and Potter seemed to have fallen back into their earlier routine of meeting in the dark abandoned classroom.

As far as Draco could tell, nothing had really changed. They were meeting in secret again, making out, and pretty much never talking to each other except to plan to meet the next day, and of course, to bicker in class. It was the same as before, and that was a huge relief to Draco.

He'd not known what to expect from Potter, he'd only been thinking about getting away from the suffocating softness of Pansy to seek out Potter's rough, firmness. But he certainly didn't feel any differently than he had before. And the fluttering feeling he'd had when Potter had said 'together?' well Draco had decided it was a moment of absurd weakness that would not happen again. Ever. Not only did he not care, he could not care.

As far as Draco could tell, he didn't feel anything at all, apart from a strange coiling in his stomach and the occasionally overwhelming desire to throw Potter on the floor and… well, his fantasies always seemed to go considerably further than what they actually did together in that dark classroom. But there was something like a promise in Potter's desperate whimpers when Draco slid his hands over Potter's trousers and gripped the flesh of his arse or brushed his fingers against that warm crevice, or ran his teeth along his jutting collar bone, or, once, when Potter caught Draco's finger between his lips and drew it into his mouth to lick and nibble it gently before pulling it out to kiss him.

But whatever this thing that he and Potter had, it certainly wasn't based on anything other than lust, of that Draco was sure. Whether Potter, possessed of typical Gryffindor idealism, chose to read more into it or not was irrelevant to Draco so long as he kept his mouth shut.

They hadn't met at night again since Snape caught them on Sunday night, and Draco had been wracking his brain for an alternative setting and for a way to suggest it without sounding too much like he wanted it, even though his nearly constant erection around Potter probably made that pretty obvious.


It wasn't until Friday morning at breakfast that Draco's owl Vulcan finally dropped off the heavy, gift-wrapped box from Rosmerta. Draco immediately stowed it in his bag and ran downstairs to deposit it in his trunk, which he locked and warded, before going to class. He couldn't be sure if the bottle was poisoned, because his connection with Rosmerta was now much less draining thanks to the coins. Apparently they had absorbed some of the energy of the connection and were sustaining it now. This meant, however, that Draco could not feel her obedience as directly. He would just have to assume it had worked.

After a day of classes in which no one paid attention and most of the professors seemed eager to end early, Draco went down to his room to prepare for the party.

He wasn't invited, of course. He'd tried to get an invitation but most of the girls in the Slug Club were terrified of him. Well, except the Mudblood, who simply hated him. And he didn't want a date, anyway, he just wanted a way to get the stupid bottle into the party. It was addressed to Dumbledore from Slughorn, and Draco was fully aware of how unlikely it was that that bottle would ever reach it's destination, much less be consumed by anyone. There was certainly a chance that Slughorn might drink it, which Draco wasn't particularly worried about one way or the other, although it was a pretty slim chance. He is a potions professor, after all, he'd be more likely to pick up on the poison than anybody. Well, except for Snape, of course.

But it represented a legitimate effort on his part, and one that he felt he could justify to the Dark Lord. He just needed a little more time. Surely a little more time is not too much to ask for?

Draco figured the party would be in full swing by about ten o'clock, so he set out in his dress robes (finely tailored black robes with a subtle silver threading on the cuff and hem, and mother of pearl buttons), bottle in hand, and walked up to Slughorn's quarters. Even from the stairwell, he could hear the music and laughter, and felt a surge of bitterness that he, Draco bloody Malfoy, was having to gate-crash. He stood in the hallway watching the door, and a wave of something else crashed over him, something which gave the bitterness a more painful edge. The rumble of gossiping, the chattering, the tinkle of glasses and occasional pop! of champagne bottles, and the soft trickle of music… it reminded him of… home.

There probably would be not Malfoy Christmas Ball this year, he reflected for the first time. How humiliating. Not for the first time, Draco reflected on the falling status of his family's reputation and found he had to swallow hard to regain his compusure. It was all so unfair. So completely, utterly unfair.

Immediately he began to watch as guests came and went, picking out the flaws and foibles that separated them, and the whole party, from the kind of affair a Malfoy would throw, or even attend. Clearly this was merely a pack of aspiring social climbers, not the sort with whom he should even want to associate.

That cheered him up, but only marginally.

He steeled himself to enter, but just as he was approaching the door, he felt a cold, grimy hand on his ear and was forcibly turned around to look at the hideous face of Argus Filch.

"Sneaking in, are you? Nasty little brat!"

"Get your hands off of me you filthy squib!" Draco demanded.

"Stealing, too, eh?" Filch leered, snatching the bottle out of Draco's hands and peering at the label. He probably can't even read, Draco sneered to himself.

Then suddenly he was being dragged through the door and into the party, where Filch handed off the bottle (to whom, Draco didn't see), and now all eyes were on him as awkward silence fell upon the guests and Filch called him a sneak and a liar and Slughorn frowned at him. Draco took a deep, deep breath and with every ounce of willpower refused to allow the utter humiliation of that moment to settle on him, opting instead for nonchalance,

"Alright, so I was gate-crashing."

In the end, Slughorn let him stay, though by then Draco was in absolutely no mood. He really needed to find that bottle, and could only hope that the label on it indicating it was meant for Dumbledore would prevent anyone from opening it at the party. He tried to look around for it, but before long Snape was at his elbow asking for a private word, and Draco felt himself being led away, back out of the party.

"What are you doing here?" Snape asked him once they were safety in a locked classroom across the hall.

"I just wanted to get into the party," Draco answered, but Snape glared at him and Draco knew Snape could tell he was prevaricating.

"Don't lie to me, Draco."

"I'm not-"

"You are. And you stole from me, and now you are lying to me."

Draco almost contradicted the accusation, but the words died in his mouth as he looked up into Snape's black eyes and saw something like pain flitting across them.

"Talk to me," Snape said. "Let me help you. Have you forgotten the vow your mother exacted of me? I took the Unbreakable Vow, Draco, I'm sworn to help you."

"And that's the only reason you are, isn't it?" Draco threw back at him, knowing it would hurt.

Snape's eyes were fierce but his expression was unreadable. "Mr. Malfoy," he began again, in a tone of professionalism that cut Draco too deeply, and he felt the frustration of his failure, of his guilt, and of the absolute and abject loneliness of this bloody mission threatening to drown him.

Draco interrupted, "No, you don't understand. You have no idea what is going on with me, you have no idea what this is like!" His pitch had risen slightly, and he was aware of how ridiculous he sounded and that it wasn't really Snape he was angry at, but unable to contain his frustration any longer.

Snape drew a deep breath and Draco braced himself for a typically eloquent and biting retort.

"I have no doubt that your adolescent delusions of originality have convinced you that you are the first bent boy with daddy-issues to get in way over his head with the Dark Lord, but let me I assure you, Mr. Malfoy, that you are not!" Snape roared, then turned his back to Draco, who was too shocked to speak.

Instead, Draco stormed out of the classroom, nearly knocking into something warm and invisible in the corridor outside. He spun around to glare at the invisible something which he assumed was Potter, because of course it was Potter, who the hell else could it fucking well be? But Draco was too upset to care, and just kept walking down the hallway, the sound of Potter's loping gait following behind him and slowly gaining on him. Suddenly there was a hand on his robes and he felt himself pulled sideways into another dark classroom.

Potter threw off his cloak, and they stood in the dark for a moment, Draco seething and Potter looking annoying nervous and worried.

"He's a git, don't listen to him," Potter said, as though he was trying to be comforting. Draco snorted and stalked across the dark room to glare at him.

"What would you know, Potter?" he spat harshly.

"He shouldn't have called you that," Potter answered firmly, stepping forward.

"What are you talking about?" Draco asked as disdainfully as possible to hide his trepidation.

Potter blushed for some reason, then replied, "I heard him. He called you a… a 'bent boy with daddy-issues.'"

"No…" Draco said slowly, "he was calling himself that, he was saying that's how he first... that's not the point. Snape just came out to me. Gods, Potter, for all your Gryffindor claims at empathy, you are completely incapable of interpreting other people's words and actions according to their point of view."

"Wait, what?"

"Nevermind! Just go away, Potter, this is none of your business."

"It is my business if you're working for Voldemort," Potter said very seriously, and Draco winced at the name, but kept his face inscrutable.

"We can't talk about this."

"I think we have to," Potter said, a little more forcefully. Draco looked at him and knew in that moment that this would one day be the breaking point for them. If they ever spoke about it, everything would be over. There was no way to even talk around the issue. If Potter knew...

"No, we don't," he said with a tone of finality.

"We can't avoid it forever," Potter said quietly.

Draco felt the impulse to say 'there is no 'we'' but he bit his tongue. If Potter needed the fantasy to justify the rest of it, fine. Draco opted instead for the only other way he'd found to get the boy to shut up.

In one swift movement he stepped up to Potter, whirled him around, and forcefully bent him over the nearest desk.

Potter gasped and struggled weakly, but when Draco kicked his legs apart and stepped forward to press against him, Potter sucked in a shocked little breath, and stilled.

Draco reached around to unbuckle Potter's trousers, and felt Potter's growing erection straining against the fabric. A few more fumbling attempts and he had Potter's trousers and pants around his ankles and he feasted his eyes for the first time on Potter's bare arse. He ran is fingers gently, teasingly, over the soft white flesh, and then in a flash of inspiration, he pulled back one hand and smacked him, hard. Potter gasped and whimpered slightly. A cruel smirk curved Draco's lips as he considered, briefly, walking away from him like this, or better yet, taking a picture.

Harry fucking Potter with his pants down. It was too good. And it was all for Draco. If he had known that Potter's stubborn, self-righteous, pig-headed arrogance could be overcome with a firm hand he would have tried this long ago.

He allowed his hands to roam across the soft skin, fingers drifting ever closer to the tempting crevice, and contemplated for a moment longer, before making up his mind. Last time he'd been this close (before Snape had interrupted them), he'd simply done what he would want done, and given Potter's reaction last time, he decided this was a reasonable approach.

With no more forethought than that, Draco flicked his wand inside his robes, muttering a cleaning spell that apparently caught Potter by surprise, because he gasped and turned around, looking rather alarmed.

Draco sneered at him and with a strong hand, forcefully turned Potter away and pressed him down, so that his face was flat on the desk, hands on either side. Then he gripped his's hips and pulled him backward away from the edge of the desk to make room for his erection.

And then... Draco knelt down.

His long fingers began kneading into Potter's soft bottom, slowly teasing it apart, opening him and exposing that untouched pink pucker. Draco felt himself growing harder just looking at it, and Potter was beginning to whine. Draco bent in to lick one of his own fingers, and allowed it to ghost across Potter's entrance, and watched the little ring of flesh twitched and contracted under his touch. Potter pleaded incoherently, his whole body shivering. All Draco could make out was a desperately needy "please…"

Draco took a breath, and inched his face closer, then exhaled a hot breath onto that sensitive little ring, and Potter moaned and tried to press back against him, but Draco held him firm. Pulling the two soft mounds of flesh as far apart as possible, Draco finally bent down and allowed the tip of his tongue to slide slowly up from Potter's smooth perineum until he reached the warm, wrinkled entrance, and Potter cried out, "ohfuck yes please..." Draco smirked. He began to lick in broad strokes, pressing but never breaching the tight little ring. Yet with every stroke, he felt Potter's muscles relaxing, felt him widening and opening to him.

His own erection was now begging for release, trapped under his dress robes, but he ignored it in favour of blowing out a soft puff of cool air, followed by circling the pointed tip of his tongue around Potter's entrance, getting ever closer and closer, until finally, he held his pointed tongue perfectly still and Potter pressed himself backward, squeezing around Draco's tongue.

At the same moment, Potter reached down to grasp his cock and began furiously stroking it, rocking back and forth onto Draco's outstretched tongue, and within a few seconds, Draco felt the muscles encircling him contract and ripple. In two more erratic strokes, Potter came with a quiet "gods... Malfoy."

Draco, whose jaw was now seriously tired out, was still on the floor when, much to Draco's surprise, Potter turned around and pulled him up by his robes to kiss him. He licked and sucked his lips, then drew Draco's tongue into his mouth as though he wanted to taste himself. At that delightfully dirty thought Draco's arousal was suddenly so heightened he could do little more than thrust his hand into his trousers and with three swift strokes he, too, exploded, groaning into Potter's warm, wet mouth.