Thank you to my beta, Sarah!
Chapter 28 – The Kiss
Celebrations were being held on the Hogwarts grounds by the civilians who had, only hours ago, been afraid for their lives. Weasley's Wildfire Whiz-Bangs had been distributed widely and were now lighting up the early morning sky. The news of Voldemort's death had already spread far and wide, the Prophet going to work right away on a special edition that would some day be displayed in frames on the walls of wizarding homes across the country. All over, magical people and creatures alike were raising their glasses and toasting Harry Potter.
And Harry Potter was sitting up in a bed in the Hospital Wing, happy to be hidden away from his hundreds of well-wishers.
Draco was slumped in a chair beside his bed, finally sleeping after seeing that Harry had regained consciousness and would be okay. Hermione was awake in the bed next to him, reading one of Draco's books about Scytale that she had brought from his room at Grimmauld Place (and that Dumbledore had already purged of the curse Voldemort had put on it). She and the Weasley's had been transferred to the Hospital Wing after Hogwarts had been cleared of Death Eaters—some captured and some escaped, now in hiding.
Madame Pomfrey, currently across the corridor in a larger, rather more crowded room of wounded civilians and Order members, had mended Harry's broken nose and multiple lacerations from the glass in a heartbeat. She'd given him a hearty dose of Skelegrow and bound his leg and arm in the meantime. As for the concussion he'd received from many blows to the head, he was currently keeping up with two different steaming mugs of potion and was otherwise bedridden.
"You know," said Hermione quietly. "You and Malfoy ought to have a talk with the Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures."
"Why do you say that?" Harry asked, only partially interested. He was absorbed by the fireworks doing pinwheels outside the hospital window.
"Well, because these books have a lot of missing bits. You could help them put together a more detailed account of Scytale. It might be really helpful to future Scytale who are confused about the changes occurring in their bodies."
Harry snorted lightly. "You make it sound like puberty."
Hermione smiled. "It sort of is like puberty."
With a conceding shrug, Harry lapsed back into silence.
Moments later the Infirmary doors creaked open and Dumbledore stepped through, looking worn and exhausted but cheerful. The last time Harry had seen him, he'd been working on taking down the wards around the Shrieking Shack—wards which Draco had demolished with a flick of his wand after Harry had fainted.
Dumbledore smiled as he approached and his blue eyes twinkled merrily.
"It's good to see you awake, Harry," he said. "Mr. Malfoy has already told me about the entire remarkable adventure. Did he tell you that he was able to see all the memories Voldemort shared with you at the time you saw them?"
Harry nodded. "I wasn't really surprised when he told me. He's been spying on my thoughts ever since I first—erm, well..."
"Quite," Dumbledore agreed happily, ignoring Harry's light blush. "However, if I'm not entirely mistaken, there is a part of your story that he could not tell."
"Yes," said Harry. "When I found him he wasn't himself. I don't think he was at all aware of reality."
Dumbledore looked grave. "There is a price to pay for seeing into Voldemort's mind."
"But his memories didn't seem to affect me," Harry mused.
The smile leapt back to Dumbledore's face instantly. "No, you, I think, are quite special in that way."
Harry didn't know whether to feel pleased or disgusted.
"What I mean to say, Harry," continued Dumbledore, correctly reading the misgivings in his expression. "Is that you seem to be immune to even the most evil qualities in a person—you have always been that way. You are so good, Harry, that nothing can turn you bad."
He looked entirely too pleased as he said the last but Harry grimaced.
"Are you saying Voldemort turned Draco bad?"
Draco had seemed perfectly normal to Harry when he'd spoken with him briefly after waking up in the Hospital Wing.
"Not at all," affirmed Dumbledore. "Only that to Draco, Voldemort's mind was like poison. It temporarily possessed him—drove him mad until you came and put him right."
Harry considered this silently for a while. Then Dumbledore conjured up a chair and settled himself in.
"Now," he said. "I should like to hear what more you have to add to your fascinating tale."
Harry nodded. "You know about Voldemort's memories and you saw the Shrieking Shack cave in as a result of my duel with Voldemort—"
"Most astounding magic, my dear boy," interrupted Dumbledore.
Harry shrugged modestly and continued. "I survived it by ducking underneath a couch. When I came out Voldemort was just lying in the middle of the wreckage—I think he must have been hit by his own spell.
"Beside him was the Scitalis that he'd captured. It was dying and I wanted to help it but there was nothing I could do..."
He could feel his own Scitalis tighten remorsefully around his heart as he thought of it. Since the Shrieking Shack, things had changed inside him. He was more aware than ever of the separate entity living inside him, and yet he'd never felt more at peace with it—as if it really were himself.
Harry looked up and was startled to see Dumbledore watching him expectantly. He'd almost forgotten he wasn't alone.
"Erm, right, well..." He cleared his throat. "Well, then I found Draco. He was in a closet, imprisoned in a Containment Triangle—"
Hermione gasped and Harry looked over to see that she'd laid her book aside and was listening intently.
"A Containment Triangle," she said. "But that's really Dark magic. It involves drawing magical energy from other dimensions—energy that humans couldn't possibly control—and containing it in gemstones."
"That's right," said Harry. "He used gemstones. I just had to kick one aside to break the enchantment and then I could get to Draco. Only he had sort of passed out by then."
"Because of the effect Voldemort's memories had on him?" asked Hermione.
"No," Dumbledore answered before Harry could open his mouth. "No, I believe this was because he and Harry had run out of time, was it not?"
Harry blushed and nodded. Hermione was confused.
"We hadn't, erm...been together in twenty-four hours," he explained and she, too, flushed.
"So you...Right there?" she looked horrified.
"No!" Harry shouted with immediate, embarrassed denial. "No...I mean, I couldn't—how could I do that with a broken arm and leg next to Voldemort's dead body while Draco was unconscious."
He shuddered in disgust at the very thought and Hermione looked abashed. "So what did you do?" she whispered.
"I didn't do anything," he said simply. "I let the Scitalis go out of our bodies. I planned to wait until it had formed outside of us and then I was going to kiss Draco.
"Lucius Malfoy and Macnair had discovered in their research that if a Scitalis was forced to leave its host and it had no way to return to the physical world, then it would search for another host to join. I figured if I kissed Draco before either of us became too weak then it could come back into us..."
"Ah," Dumbledore breathed. "Quite ingenious. Instead of allowing the Scitalis to reconnect with its other half through your coupling, it reconnected on its own, outside of your bodies, and then split in half to join you again."
"It was horrible," Harry reminisced. "I felt so...empty...alone. I was weak without it—and stupid. I almost didn't kiss Draco...I didn't remember what I was supposed to do after it left me."
"An unfortunate side effect of being a Scytale," Dumbledore said gravely. "You were neither weak nor stupid, Harry. You only felt that way because you had already grown accustomed to the enhanced power and intelligence granted to you by your Scitalis."
"Amazing..." Harry heard Hermione whisper. He knew she must be thrilled by all she was learning.
Harry, on the other hand, didn't care much about the whys and what else. The only thing he was concerned with was never allowing a repeat of what had happened in that closet in the Shrieking Shack. Already he knew exactly when he and Draco would have to be intimate again and he had been checking his watch much more than necessary since he'd been awake.
He looked at it now—twenty hours. With a tremor of longing and desire, Harry hoped they wouldn't have to wait until the last minute...
"There's something I don't understand," Hermione said, shaking Harry from his thoughts. "The Prophesy...didn't it say that one had to kill the other? But Harry, you said you think Voldemort was killed by his own spell..."
Harry looked to Dumbledore, expecting him to offer up another one of his wise theories. But Dumbledore was looking expectantly back at Harry. Meditatively, Harry recalled the memory, searching for the answer.
"We both cast magic at the same time..." he said slowly. "Voldemort used the killing curse and I—" He glanced between the two, feeling slightly embarrassed. "I kind of...conjured up a tornado."
He recalled how he'd opened his mouth and literally roared at Voldemort. Without the adrenaline rush, it seemed rather silly. He continued, deciding not to describe the details.
"They mixed together and it turned into a storm—right there in the Shrieking Shack. Voldemort's killing curse turned into deadly lightning which was blown around by my wind. That's what brought down the house and what killed Voldemort."
"So," concluded Dumbledore. "While Harry did not cast the final curse, it was his magic that manipulated it."
His smile was absolutely beaming.
"Well, I think that's enough to be going on with for now," he said. "I'll leave you to get your rest."
He stood and banished his chair. Just as he reached the door a memory raced through Harry's head.
"Wait, Professor!" he called.
Dumbledore turned. "Yes, Harry?"
"There's one more thing...The Reader—Snape gave it to you."
"Professor Snape," corrected Dumbledore. "Yes, he did."
"And Voldemort gave it to him," said Harry.
"Yes."
"So when you figured out how the Reader worked..."
Dumbledore nodded sagely. "Yes, it was the Reader that led me to the assumption that Voldemort could somehow sense his new powers." He smiled ironically. "I had no idea at the time that he needn't be able to understand his powers at all—that there was, in fact, no limit to his powers."
"But there was a limit," Harry contradicted.
"Oh? Do explain."
"He thought he was stronger than me," Harry said. "Because the Scitalis inside him wasn't split, like the one inside me and Draco. But what he didn't understand was that splitting the Scitalis was exactly what made me more powerful.
"When I was in his head and we were remembering the moment when his Scitalis joined him, I heard it speaking to him. It said 'I don't fit you'. It wasn't comfortable in him—especially when he tried controlling it. It always wanted out. Therefore, it didn't allow him access to its full power."
Dumbledore considered him silently for a moment. Then he said; "That's a very complicated creature you've got in your head, my dear boy."
Harry, unsure what to say to this, said something else instead. "Professor, if you don't mind...could I have that Reader?"
Smiling gently, Dumbledore nodded. "It's yours, Harry." Then he turned and left, closing the door behind him.
"What do you need the Reader for, Harry?" Hermione asked.
"He wants to set the Scitalis inside it free."
Harry jumped and jerked his head around, causing a sharp pain to zip through his head. Draco was awake in his chair and smirking at Harry.
"Been eavesdropping, have you?" Harry accused.
Draco chuckled. "When you talk right in front of me I doubt it's called eavesdropping."
Harry laughed too.
"So I was human for a minute—not Scytale," Draco mused, reflecting on the moment in the closet. "And then you bound me again. Don't you ever ask first, Potter?"
Harry looked rightfully ashamed, though he secretly wasn't. "Sorry," he said.
Draco shook his head. "Lucky for you, I have more consideration."
"What are you talking about?"
Rising from his seat, Draco climbed onto Harry's bed. He lay down next to him and scooped up both Harry's hands gently, looking down into Harry's eyes. Harry felt utterly bewildered by Draco's behavior. He gaped at Draco, entranced by the molten silver swirl of his eyes.
"When I was trapped in that closet," Draco began quietly. "I had a lot of time to think." He grinned. "But I couldn't think—because your face kept getting in the way."
Harry's forehead crinkled in confusion. One of Draco's thumbs came up and smoothed out the wrinkles.
"I was sure I was going to die—sure that you wouldn't be able to find me in time. But I didn't care. Dying wasn't such a scary thought. What scared me was that I might never get to see you again...That I might die—we might die—with you believing I betrayed you.
"And then you did find me and all I wanted to do was make sure you knew that I'd been controlled against my will. It was so important, Harry, that you knew the truth; that I was—I am—completely loyal to you."
"I know, Draco. I know you're not a traitor," Harry said.
"But that's not the point, Potter!" Draco snapped urgently. "Don't you see? The point is that I'm loyal to you—only you. I love my parents, Harry, but if I thought you couldn't save them and the Dark Lord could...I wouldn't care. I would stick by you. Because...because..."
"You don't have to, Draco," whispered Harry. It felt like there was something lodged in his throat and it hurt.
And then Draco had Harry's chin in an unyielding grip and was forcing Harry's face up. He stared into Harry's eyes with burning determination and something else—something Harry had never seen in Draco's eyes before.
"I love you, Harry," Draco growled. "And don't you tell me I don't have to."
Then he lowered his head and crushed his mouth against Harry's.
Thoughts and emotions and memories swirled through Harry in a torrential wave of feeling. He relished the taste of Draco's tongue running intimate patterns over his lips, teeth and tongue. Beneath his hands, he enjoyed the feeling of Draco's broad shoulders. He slid one up Draco's neck, cupping his jaw, and felt a muscle jump against his palm.
Something rushed back to Harry then in a flurry of movement, like an owl swooping by, and he couldn't help his fingers from tightening almost painfully around Draco's jaw. Against Draco's mouth, Harry's lips split into a fantastic grin.
He was remembering the Dursley's house—a movie they owned. It seemed so long ago now that he was surprised he even made the connection. But there it was, in the twitch of Draco's jaw, which reminded him of a kiss he had once idealized and a couple he had idolized. Sarah and Jonathon had been the epitome of romance, and their kiss the epitome of true love. How Harry had longed to experience their kiss, that level of devotion to another person.
This was not that kiss—it was better.
Then Draco sat back and broke the kiss. Harry groaned unhappily and Draco smirked at him.
"So," he said. "Here is where I consult you before I bind you irreversibly to me."
"We're already bound irreversibly," Harry pointed out.
"But I want to be bound by choice," Draco said.
Harry frowned. "What are you saying?"
Draco rolled his eyes and grinned. "I want us to be married, you dolt."
Harry had fallen asleep beside Draco as the sun rose. When he woke now it was dark again and silent and his curtains were pulled closed, the moonlight making pretty patterns on the soft, rippling surface. Harry tried to figure out what had woken him—he'd been having such a pleasant dream about Draco. And then a shudder ripped through him as he felt a warm breath gust over his bared private section.
Glancing down, his breath stuck in his throat as he saw Draco, coaxing his stirring cock to full hardness. Draco's eyes caught his and with a devious smirk, he lowered his mouth down around Harry.
"Is it time already?" Harry gasped, trying to keep his eyes open as Draco's tongue did wonderful things to him.
Draco's mouth came off him and Harry groaned, regretting having spoken.
"No," Draco said quietly, slithering up Harry's body and nipping him on the chin. "But I want you now."
"Okay," Harry choked, trying to sit up without hurting his lame arm and leg. Gently, Draco pushed him back down.
"Stay still, Harry," he whispered. "Let your fiancé take care of you."
Harry heard how Draco seemed to caress the word fiancé with his tongue as it left his mouth and his cock twitched. His eyes fell closed as his mouth fell open and then Draco dipped his tongue into that panting cavern.
With slow, gentle movements, being careful not to displace Harry's injured limbs, Draco removed first Harry's clothes and then his own. Harry couldn't remember a time in which such care had been taken in the process mounting up to the act.
Then Draco was straddling his waist, raised up on his knees and bent over so that he could leave love bites along the column of his neck. Reaching back, Draco's hand wrapped around Harry's erection, and slowly, he guided it into his slicked up entrance.
Harry moaned long and loud as Draco settled down onto him and Draco swallowed up his noises with a kiss, biting Harry's lip when he was seated fully on top of him. Without moving off of Harry, Draco kissed across Harry's jaw, down his neck, and over his chest. Then he sat back, pressed his palms flat onto Harry's stomach, and began moving.
With Draco's hands holding him down, Harry was forced to remain still through Draco's tantalizingly slow plunges down onto his cock. He kept the hand of his broken arm resting on Draco's thigh. The other he used to explore the contours of Draco's chest and arms, finally bringing it down onto Draco's cock and stroking it in time with his thrusts.
Without ever picking up his pace, Draco brought them both to a blinding, deafening orgasm that rolled and rolled through them like the unending waves on a sandy white beach. Harry had never had such a long-lasting release in his life and by the time he could breathe again he was sure he'd died and risen in that moment of blissful pleasure.
Then Draco lay down on top of him, tucking his head beneath Harry's chin to kiss behind his ear, and opened the gates of his mind.
Good feelings poured into Harry, mixing with his own and spiraling through his head in a whirlpool of bright colors; happiness, relief, pride, caring and passion.
"I love you," Harry mumbled, already being rocked to sleep by the soothing movements of their entwined thoughts.
Inside his head he could feel Draco's emotions conflicting between the desire to return Harry's feelings and the loathing of all things mushy and romantic.
"I love you," he finally grunted and his words were not half as telling as the warming light that spilled into Harry from Draco, like sunlight drifting through the leafy branches on a clear summer day.
Don't put Serpent Tales on the shelf yet! One more chapter on the way :D
