oOoOoOo
The Bodyguard
Chapter 37: Love Forever
Draco slammed Hogwart's main doors behind him. "I thought house elves were supposed to keep their master's secrets? Not shout them out in front of muckraking journalists and the Minister!"
"Dobby's a free elf, and he can say anything he likes. He made a mistake, that's all," said Harry loyally, trying not to think of the other mistakes Dobby had made, such as stealing his mail or breaking his arm.
"Now I know why my parents always made Dobby stay in the kitchen when we had guests. We're going to be front-page news, Harry!"
"Voldemort's death and the real Chosen One will be on the front-page today, not our sex lives," said Harry confidently.
Draco was about to reply, when the doors started opening. He and Harry glanced at each other in alarm.
"If that's you, Rita, no comment!" exclaimed Harry, grabbing Draco's arm.
"It's just us." Hermione's voice was muffled but easily recognisable.
Harry sighed in relief. He caught a glimpse of the crowd inside, as Hermione and Ron stepped outside, but he couldn't see Rita Skeeter's sculpted blonde hair anywhere.
Hermione shut the doors. Both she and Ron were looking especially pleased about something. Their arms were around each other and their cheeks were rosy. "We had to follow you. We've got important news," said Hermione, her blush deepening. "Ronald has just asked me to marry him!"
"And Hermione said yes!" said Ron, pulling her close.
Harry stared at Ron and Hermione, and memories flashed before his eyes. He saw them as eleven-year-olds, who hadn't spoken a civil word to each other, until that incident with the troll in the bathroom. He saw the years Ron and Hermione had spent fighting each other, liking each other, hating each other, not speaking to each other, and finally, loving each other. So much had happened, all leading to this...
He snapped out of his reverie when he heard Draco congratulating them.
"Congratulations!" said Harry belatedly.
"You all right there, mate? You look stunned," said Ron.
"I was thinking how much we've all changed," said Harry. He looked at the happy couple and beamed. "I'm so happy for you both! I really mean it - congratulations!" He hugged them.
"You're both perfect for each other!" Draco whooped. He hugged them as well. "Have you set a date yet?"
Harry listened, as Hermione and Draco launched into a highly technical (and to Harry, extremely boring) discussion of where the wedding would be held, what Hermione would wear and whether the invitations should be pale blue.
Ron's eyes were glazing over as well, and he took Harry aside. "Draco sounds like a wedding planner," he said with a grin. "It must be the Slytherin in him. Give him anything social and he'll organise it. He'd be a very useful person for YOU to tie the knot with, Harry."
Harry blushed. "I love him. I'd marry him in a second, but I thought men couldn't get married?"
"That might be true in the Muggle world, but wizards can marry."
"Then I'd love to but..." Something Snape had told him was niggling at his mind. "Aren't you frightened of the future, Ron? Remember what Severus said about teenage romances? Most of them fail. Are you sure you two should be settling down so early? The Vow means..." Harry's voice trailed off and he bit his lip. He was aware that Hermione and Draco had stopped talking.
"You're frightened Draco will stop loving you, and the Vow will kill him," stated Ron evenly.
Squeezing his eyes shut with pain, Harry nodded. He opened his eyes when Draco flung his arms around him.
"Don't let Severus get to you, Harry," Draco said bracingly. "You haven't had a chance to properly get to know him yet, but he's a real glass half empty sort of person."
"Half of teenage marriages fail? That means half survive!" said Hermione. She smiled at Ron. "Yes, we're young to be settling down, and it's going to be hard work sometimes. But Ron's the only man I've ever wanted, and I just have to look at his family to know he's a long term prospect."
"Severus can't warn US about teenage love dying," said Draco. "Look at HIS life! He fell in love with your mother as a teenager, Harry, and he's still risking his life for her, even though she died seventeen years ago."
"My parents got married in their teens, and they're still in love thirty-one years later," Ron pointed out.
"Cheer up, Harry, the Vow won't come back. And by the way, yes," Draco added with a smirk.
"Yes to what?" asked Harry.
"Yes to your marriage proposal. I heard you talking to Ron," said Draco, his cheeks turning pink.
A stab of joy went through Harry. Too happy to speak, he flung his arms around Draco and kissed him passionately.
"We can have a double wedding!" cried Hermione, her eyes dewy.
Draco broke the kiss. "Good idea!" he said to Hermione. "I like the idea of pale blue wedding invitations and-"
"Arrrgh! No more wedding planning!" shouted Harry. "Leave it for later, Draco. Please! I just want to be alone with you right now."
"And I want to be alone with you, Hermione," said Ron, giving her a smouldering look.
Hermione looked rather hot and bothered, but delighted. "Mmm, you've talked me into it." She turned to Harry and Draco. "We're going back to the Headquarters. Bye!" In a rush, she grabbed Ron's arm, and Side-Along Disapparated.
Harry gazed at Draco. "Time for a little private celebration at the Leaky Cauldron," he purred. Then his eyes widened, as a worrying thought struck him. "If they're open..."
oOoOoOo
It was well after midnight, but the lights in the Leaky Cauldron were on. Through the window, Harry could see Tom the innkeeper, fully dressed, sitting at the bar, and writing a letter. He looked up, when Harry knocked on the front door.
Tom answered the door immediately. "You two!" he exclaimed, looking star-struck and shaking their hands. "Mr Potter! Mr Malfoy! Come in! Come in! I'm so pleased to see you! The Death Eaters abducted my sister tonight, and she's just sent me a letter telling me she's safe. I hear you were both there when Voldemort was vanquished at Hogwarts!" The innkeeper was clearly enjoying the novelty of saying the Dark wizard's name without fear. "But is it true this time? Is Voldemort really dead?"
"It's true," said Harry. "Voldemort is very definitely and permanently dead." He told Tom the shortened version of what had happened.
"The wizarding world will be celebrating this for years!" Tom was jubilant.
Harry stifled a yawn. It was very late.
"But you're not here to talk. Is it a room you're after?" asked Tom.
"Yes, please," said Draco.
"Unfortunately only Room Eleven is free, and it's only got a double four-poster bed," said Tom looking at them thoughtfully.
"That will be fine," said Harry, feeling the heat rising in his cheeks. He saw the penny had dropped, as far as his relationship with Draco was concerned. But the innkeeper was discreet.
"Please follow me, Mr Potter, Mr Malfoy." He led them up the handsome wooden staircase to their room. "Have a good night's sleep," he said.
Room Eleven, from the brass number on the door, to the highly polished oak furniture, was the same as it had been in the happy two weeks Harry had spent there after blowing up his aunt in Third Year. The four-poster bed looked comfortable, and a small, crackling fire burned in the fireplace.
"You again, lad? My you've grown, but your hair's still messy."
The wheezy voice was coming from the mirror. Harry froze. When he'd planned on coming to the Leaky Cauldron, he'd forgotten he'd be shagging in front of an audience of sentient mirrors and paintings.
"The first pure-blood rule of decorating a bedroom is: never hang anything on the walls that can pass judgement while you're shagging," said Draco. He lifted the protesting mirror down from the wall. "I'm hiding you in the bathroom," he told it sternly. "Help me, Harry. Grab any painting you see that has people."
Harry took down a painting of a man strolling along the seaside, wearing neck-to-knee swimming trunks, and Draco came back and removed a picture of a boy with a butterfly net. Harry gratefully took down a jeering painting of an entire Quidditch team. ("Leave us up! We wanted to see the shagging! It's not like we've done much ourselves lately!") But when he saw the final painting, he stopped and stared.
It was a rather beautiful, and surreal. A windmill, painted in thick horizontal red and white stripes, with slowly spinning sails, floated through a cloudscape, as though liberated from the earth. Harry stared at it and was surprised to feel tears well up. He wasn't sure why the image affected him so much, except that the flying windmill looked like happiness itself: fleeting, difficult to capture, apparently unachievable and impossible, but still undeniably real.
There were no people in the painting. When Harry felt Draco's warmth at his side, he turned around, fell into his arms and kissed him like a drowning man seeking oxygen.
oOoOoOo
Harry wriggled his nose. It was itching under his glasses, and he wanted to scratch it, but he was naked and tied to the four-poster bed by his wrists and ankles. Draco, who was still fully dressed, noticed Harry's twisted expression and reached out and scratched his nose for him. Harry tried to kiss his hand when he'd finished, but Draco teasingly pulled it out of his reach.
"I've been waiting to see you like this for years, Potter. You're mine! All mine!" Draco trailed his hand possessively down Harry's chest.
Harry arched into his touch as best he could, loving every minute. Draco always made it so very clear he was WANTED. To someone who'd spent his early life unwanted in a cupboard, it was heaven.
Draco rubbed noses with Harry. "You are so gorgeous! Go on, say something nasty, so you're more like my fantasy."
Harry thought hard, but his mind was blank. The firelight turned Draco's white-blond hair and pale skin a flickering pink, and Harry couldn't take his eyes off him. "I can't think of anything nasty."
"That makes a change!" said Draco scathingly.
His tone made Harry try harder. "Uh, you're a pretty boy!"
"Jealous," breathed Draco. "You're bottoming tonight, Potter."
"Oh..." Harry's eyes nearly popped out of his head and he yanked on his bonds. "I'd forgotten about that."
"You don't have to if you don't want to," said Draco hastily.
"I did promise," said Harry. "Err, what's it like? Bottoming, I mean."
"Fun. Heavenly. You'll be begging me for it, before this night is through," promised Draco. His grey eyes sparkled with desire.
Harry put on his most obvious play-acting voice. "I'll never beg a Slytherin for anything!"
"You'll change your mind, Gryffindor," Draco purred. Very gently and ticklishly, he trailed his hands all over Harry's body. Caught between laughing and moaning, Harry writhed under his touch. He was growing hard. "Gryffindors are so EASY," sighed Draco pityingly, looking at the evidence of Harry's desire.
"How dare you!" said Harry in mock outrage.
In response, Draco blew a thin, cool stream of air onto Harry's right nipple. It felt incredible. Harry stifled an embarrassing yelp and shivered involuntarily from head to toe.
"You're so easy, I don't even have to touch you," Draco smirked, watching the nipple contract.
"You wouldn't DARE do that again," sneered Harry, but he must have looked too hopeful, because Draco's smirk broadened.
"You don't fool me, Potter. You WANT me to do it. Why don't you just come clean and beg?"
"Never! I'd never beg you to ... do that again," said Harry. Draco blew sensually on his other nipple and he shuddered. "Or do that to my neck," he suggested. This time, Draco leaned in close, and with a wide-open mouth breathed hotly on the side of Harry's neck. Harry moaned aloud and tried to press himself against Draco's lips. But the Slytherin sat up. "I'd never beg you to kiss me," Harry insisted. He was starting to perspire.
Draco lay down, resting his head on one hand, his lips just out of reach. "Never?" he asked coyly.
Harry strained against his bonds, but the leather held him fast. "All right, I WOULD beg you to kiss me."
"You're a push over, Potter! Let me hear you!"
"Kiss me, Malfoy ... please?"
Draco rolled his eyes and shook his head.
"Pretty please?"
Draco shook his head again.
Harry decided to go right over the top. "I beg you, Malfoy! Please, please, please kiss me! I love you, I want you, I need you! If you don't kiss me RIGHT THIS MINUTE I'll die!"
"Tolerable Potter. I'd give that a seven out of ten for begging-"
"KISS ME!" Harry was really begging.
Draco didn't say another word. He lay down on top of Harry and kissed him passionately. Their tongues duelled.
Harry tugged on the bonds holding his arms. He wanted to put his arms around Draco and he groaned in frustration, particularly when the Slytherin started kissing down his neck and along his shoulders. "Merlin! I want to touch you, Draco! You're driving me crazy ... AH!" Draco had sucked hard on his throat. "I love it when you lick my n-nipples like that!" Harry squeezed his eyes shut and made an attempt to sound more like Draco's fantasy. "The nerve of you! Sneering at Colin Creevy and accusing him of wanting to lick my boots. That's NOTHING compared to the parts of me YOU wanted to lick!" He felt Draco chuckle against his chest.
As Draco worked his way down Harry's body, the Gryffindor kept up his running commentary.
"You're driving me crazy, Potter. Now it's your turn." Draco looked deep into Harry's eyes, and trailed his tongue, in a broad, wet lick, from the base of Harry's cock right up to the head. Harry sobbed with pleasure. But he stopped when he saw Draco reaching for his wand.
"You're going to-?" Harry asked breathlessly.
"Yes. The preparation spell, Harry. I mean Potter. Are you ready?"
Harry nodded bravely.
Draco smiled. "It won't hurt," he promised and aimed the silvery spell at his lover.
Oddly enough, it didn't hurt. But Harry still gasped. Suddenly, he felt slick and empty inside. He was more desperate than ever to be touched and didn't feel the slightest qualm, when Draco slipped a finger gently inside him. "That feels ... weird," said Harry.
"Only weird? I'll have to work on that." Draco lifted Harry's cock with his other hand, and licked the head, and then he sucked it deep into his mouth.
The twin sensations drove Harry wild. The creature in his chest was more than growling now, it was roaring. He lost control, when Draco slipped a second finger inside him, and then a third. Something was being touched, deep inside him, which sent lightning bolts of pleasure through his body. He pushed down on his lover's fingers, swore loudly and came harder than he ever had before.
When Harry opened his eyes, Draco was sitting up and tearing his clothes off. Harry stared at him hungrily but Draco seemed a little nervous and concerned.
"W-Want me to untie you? This is your first time."
"Don't get fluffy on me, Malfoy! Give it to me! Make me beg!"
Despite Harry's aggression, Draco entered him very gently, watching his face for signs of pain. It did burn, but when Draco reached that special spot he'd found with his fingers, heat and pleasure filled Harry's whole body like magic, and he closed his eyes. He felt Draco lie down on top of him and lifted his head, to kiss his face, his lips, every part of him he could reach. They moved together. Harry's cock, sandwiched between their stomachs, grew hard again and Draco wrapped his fingers around it, as though he'd read his lover's mind.
Harry knew he was going to come again, mere minutes after the previous time. Draco was thrusting harder and faster and Harry couldn't hold back any more. He came on his stomach, and felt Draco reach his climax deep inside.
Panting, Draco touched his wand and Harry felt the bonds around his wrists and ankles loosen. He took the opportunity to drape himself around Draco, who had collapsed on top of him. "I love you," Harry whispered into his lover's perfect, pale shell of an ear.
"I love you too. You're mine, Harry. Best present I ever got and I've gotten loads of presents."
Though Draco seemed utterly happy and satisfied, Harry still mused about the Vow. A few minutes later, when they'd caught their breath, he asked: "Does it bother you that you'll never be able to choose someone else?"
Draco lifted his head. "NO! By some magic, I'm teamed for life with the most loving, faithful, funny, forgiving, brilliant, gorgeous, famous, and rich wizard in the world. I couldn't have chosen better myself." He was boasting and Harry was delighted. He snuggled closer and stroked Draco's back.
"Hermione says relationships are hard work. None of mine have ever worked out before, and this HAS to work."
"I don't doubt there will be challenges every day, Harry. But we'll face them as they come."
Harry stroked his hair, watched the flying windmill floating through the sky, and a great hope filled his heart. It was seemingly impossible Draco could stay in love and defeat the Vow. But seemingly impossible things were happening every day. If school rivals could fall in love, if tiny house elves could capture every Dark Wizard in Britain, if Tonks could fall in love with Lupin, and marry him, despite the fact he was a murderous beast for a good fraction of each month, if not just his father but Snape could risk their lives for the sake of his mother, Harry thought that the Vow could truly be held at bay forever, by the most powerful magic of all. Love.
There was a knock on the door.
Draco had been half asleep on Harry's shoulder, but he woke up with a start. "Who could that be?"
"I'll go and see." Feeling more relaxed than he'd ever felt before, Harry picked up a pair of boxer shorts from the floor and put them on. There was nothing to worry about. All the Death Eaters were captured. Voldemort was dead. Harry opened the door.
An explosion of camera flashes blinded him and many voices shouted questions at once. When Harry's eyes worked again, he saw at least twenty journalists, including Rita Skeeter and her photographer, pushing and fighting each other outside.
Tom was there too, shouting abuse at the invaders. "I'm sorry, Mr Potter," he said. "They broke my front door down! Get out!" Now he was addressing the journalists. "Get out, the lot of you!"
Rita Skeeter clawed at the eyes of another journalist with her long, painted talons. "Celebrating your nuptials, Harry?" she beamed. "Would you like to be interviewed for the Daily Prophet?"
"No comment!" Harry shouted. He slammed the door, locked it and caught his breath in the sudden silence.
Draco sat on the bed, stunned, open-mouthed and only partially draped in the sheet. Harry felt a burst of pleasure at seeing him, and wondered at the way having the Slytherin around made even a terrible situation like this better. Abruptly, he began to laugh.
"Have you lost your mind, Harry?"
"No, I've just realised how much I love you. If I'm to be photographed half naked at 3am, there's still no one I'd rather experience it with than you."
"You are really, really overtired, Harry."
Harry rubbed his face ruefully. "That too. Let's go back to the Headquarters. We're never going to get any sleep here. Love you, Draco."
"I love you too, Harry. But for Merlin's sake, get some clothes on!"
oOoOoOo
Author's Notes: Not, The Bodyguard isn't finished yet. There are a few loose ends that need to be tied up, including Snape's fame, and Umbridge's long promised, horrible death. ;-)
Gay marriage is legal in Britain now, but it wasn't in 2000, when this fanfic would have taken place.
The title of this chapter is from Feel Good Inc. by the Gorillaz, and the windmill is from the music video.
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Kit turned Mighty: Thank you for coming back and reviewing!
ProperT: Yes, I saw the Order of the Phoenix movie - with six Slytherin students and a very convincing Severus Snape (with carefully cultivated greasy black hair and lots of buttons on his robes). It was surreal. I've never had anything to do with the cosplay scene before (I wasn't in costume) but it was amusing seeing how people reacted. Everything from "Snape is sexy!" to "Noooo! Slytherins are evil! Stay back!"
Akki-the-Insane: Wow! Thanks for telling your friends about The Bodyguard! And thanks for your lovely review! ;-)
CatWriter: Harry's a very modest man, and his experiences with the press have all been ghastly, so he tends to avoid it. But you're right that he needs to learn how to handle his fame, and who better to teach him than an ambitious Slytherin like Draco? Draco will be a better PR teacher than Snape, for reasons that will become clear in the epilogue!