Part 2

Harry Fucking Potter was simultaneously the easiest and most difficult person to track. He was always in the public eye and that made physically following him difficult. But, since he was always in the public eye, it was much easier to follow his whereabouts as everyone and their dog wanted to know where he was and what he was doing at all times. Rita Skeeter had even started an in-moment tabloid-style letter business specifically because of this phenomenon. Her last reported numbers boasted eight-hundred subscriptions to her newest invasion of privacy.

Despite this, Potter usually went about his day as usual. He went to work and he went out with friends. He pretended not to notice a significant rise in the population of any area he happened to be in. He was a good sport. He was a good guy. That was why people followed him so closely, wasn't it? He was just so good and they wanted to bask in his greatness for even just a single second.

Draco knew he was guilty of this, too. He, just like all those other losers, shelled out six Sickles per update to receive those owls. When a day passed without one, he found himself lost. It was on those days that he could really recognise just how obsessed he had become. He was constantly scouting the air for a chance glimpse of a pair of wings. He would get irritated when he saw nothing. He would snap. He would troll outside of the places he knew Potter was likely to hang out.

And, often, he would find a quiet corner and attempt to relive the dreams he had denied himself the night before. Sometimes alone, sometimes with any warm body willing to play along.

It was a horrible way to exist and Draco hated himself somewhere under the compulsion of it all.

A feeling only made worse once Potter started dating.

Now, it wasn't as if Potter hadn't been dating at all since the end of the war. He had very openly been with the Weasley girl — happy and in love! She was young and still attending Hogwarts, but she could still be found spending the night at Potter's place in London over breaks during that first year. It was a scandal, but an innocent one. One the public was easily willing to forgive when pictures of the two of them holding hands while strolling down Diagon Alley hit the papers.

The public could not so easily forgive what followed their eventual breakup. The instant the Weasley girl announced her hard-won position with the Holyhead Harpies, the pair was over. And that was the final straw Draco needed to focus less on who he bedded and more on who Potter was spending his nights with.

It started with a woman here and there. Socially acceptable women who had actively sided with the right side of the war. Women who were just as saintly as he was and who would promote his image only in the best way possible.

Boring women.

Followed by one very boring man.

The announcement came the old-fashioned way — Rita Skeeter developed her instant updates mere weeks later. Draco was sitting at the breakfast table, buttering toast and fully immersed in the particularly vivid dream he'd only just awoken from. He'd denied himself the release his body had desperately craved that morning, too shaken by what he wanted to be comfortable enough to allow even a fraction of the pleasure it would bring him. His fingers trembled and his body ached with longing and then, suddenly, there Potter's face was — indelicately dropped in front of him by the family owl.

Potter was fucking beaming, obviously not aware yet of being caught. His hands were on the rounded hips of someone who was very much man. They were both laughing, the moving picture stuck in a loop of their happiness. Draco scanned the headline, too aware of the two leaning in for a kiss from the corner of his eye.

Step Aside, Ladies! Potter's Moved on to Men?!

It was too much and Draco was sure he could still feel the ghost of Potter's breath on his hip and…why couldn't he breathe?

Before his parents could see, Draco excused himself. He grabbed the newspaper and ran to his room, literally throwing himself down onto the bed while pushing a scream into the mattress.

Potter was dating men. Or, at the very least, he was kissing them under streetlights in Islington. And, if he was kissing a man outside of his home, he was likely inviting him inside. Why wouldn't he? Why would he allow a man to go through the trouble of walking him home if he wasn't at least going to ask him in for a nightcap? Especially when he had never been so chaste with any of his female suitors.

Before he had even dared to look, Draco was already aware of how he would feel about the man Potter was kissing. Finding out the identity to those lips was only bound to make those feelings worse. Not that he had any right to. He hadn't so much as talked to Potter since his trial when he thanked him for speaking up in favor of the Malfoys being acquitted of their war crimes. He hadn't pursued the way his dreams made him feel. There was absolutely no justification to the jealousy and anger and betrayal coursing through his veins.

There was no justification for what he did to ruin any chance Potter had at happiness.

Ernie Macmillan could have been the one for Harry Potter. Potter said so himself to any interviewer who dared ask him in the first couple of months after their break-up. Ernie had been a vocal supporter of Potter since they were sixteen. He bravely fought at the Battle of Hogwarts (on the correct side, of course). He was a Hufflepuff — soft and sweet and kind. He was perfect for Harry Potter right down to his squeezably thick center. But they never had the chance to try and be anything but new. They never had the chance to discover what a happy ending might be for the two of them.

Draco ruined it before they had the chance.

It was almost too easy. He hadn't even had to try that hard.

He started by purchasing Polyjuice Potion off a black market dealer in a dark corner of Knockturn Alley. From there, it was only a matter of finding the perfect subject to mimic. He found that while queueing at a food cart. (Not that he was there to actually order — he abruptly walked away the instant he had the strands of hair between his fingers.) The face he wore for the night balanced that line of handsome and yet still approachable — just like Potter. It catered to a certain type. Last and most importantly, he settled himself into a barstool at the pub Macmillan frequented with his friends when Potter was unavailable for one reason or another.

And then he waited.

Macmillan did the rest of the work for him. All he had needed was a little nudge.

Once Macmillan inevitably approached him, all Draco had to do was lay on some flirting and he was in.

Boy was he in.

All he had aimed for was to be seen by someone who could snap a picture. He had planned on it ending after a kiss or a suggestive touch. Just enough to stir the rumour mill. Just enough to get people talking and to effectively break the trust between Potter and his newest plaything.

Ernie Macmillan was not meant to end up naked beside Draco on a shitty hotel room floor. Not even if Draco was parading around as his crafted persona of "Clark" who advocated for equal rights and wrote strongly worded political letters. Not even if Draco was acting exactly the opposite of himself. Not even if Draco knew this was the only concrete way to ensure Potter would have no choice but to end things. Not even if Draco might have enjoyed it even just a small fraction, because fuck…he could see why Potter had wanted this man.

If Ernie Macmillan were truly the good guy Potter wanted him to be, he wouldn't have cheated.

If Ernie Macmillan were truly the good guy, he wouldn't have broken Potter's heart.

He would have strayed eventually whether Draco intervened or not. It was inevitable. Draco merely sped up the process to get him out of the way. As a courtesy just as much as for selfish gain.

That next morning, Draco awoke with strangely heavy guilt settled into his stomach, momentarily replacing the usual hunger. The photo of the two of them — Draco very much not himself and Macmillan all-too-recognisable after his couple of months in the spotlight — spread like a virus. Scandal always sold well and travelled fast upon the lips of those who needed the validation which came with its shock.

After their publicly nasty break-up — Potter, being ballsy, confronted Macmillan in the middle of the Ministry atrium the morning the news broke — Draco nearly convinced himself to take advantage of the opening he'd made. After all, wasn't that the purpose of ending things between them? To give Draco an opportunity now that it seemed he might actually have a shot?

Draco Malfoy never was adept at doing what was good for him. Nor had he ever actually pursued something he thought he actually deserved. He was a coward.

He found it easier to keep hiding in the shadows, putting on other people's faces, watching and following. It felt good to be angry and obsessed over something again, even if he couldn't reconcile that satisfaction with his guilt and his shame. This manic need to know and to hide was like home to him. He craved more, but could find momentary satisfaction in the knowing.

Not that any of it felt much like solace. Draco didn't sleep. He hardly consumed anything but coffee and alcohol. He spent every moment — waking and asleep — obsessing and frantic. He was achieving next to nothing in life, small-stepping through the bare minimum.

With a heavy sigh, Draco lifted his empty tumbler and shook the ice in order to catch the bartender's attention. The man nodded back to him, smiling gently. Draco wore kind eyes today. Kind blue eyes and simple medium-length chestnut hair. He looked approachable and hated himself for it. When he chose his likenesses, he tried to go for men (and sometimes women) who could blend. Who were plain and who could be easily passed over. He didn't like to draw attention to himself because that wasn't what he was there for — wherever there happened to be that night.

On this particular night, "there" was a basement-level dive bar whose walls shook with loud music well into the early morning. Draco's momentary softness stood out in such a place…just as it had a week previous.

This was the first time Draco had used the same face twice and his skin crawled from the danger of it. But the danger of being caught was why he had done it. He wanted to be recognised. He wanted interaction. It was different than how he had ever approached those nights out. And it certainly was risky to hope the measly amount of Polyjuice he had been able to scrape out of his vial from a week previous would last him through the night.

But he was desperate, and desperate people are known to make terrible decisions.

"Hi."

A chill of ghostly remembrance settled along Draco's spine. He closed his eyes for a moment to compose himself, but the memory only haunted him more vividly in the darkness. "Hi," he whispered back, the sound swallowed up by the bass of the music. He took measured breaths — in two three…out two three… — before finally turning and looking up.

Just as Rita Skeeter's perfectly mapped out pattern had predicted, Harry Potter was standing at that particular bar at exactly nine-thirteen at night. He was about to order the bartender's favorite ale alongside "a shot of anything strong". As habit suggested, he would leave the bar in a couple of hours with some adoring fan on his arm. They might Apparate to his home from a safe alleyway or they might just go for a late dinner date. The ending was never quite the same, but the beginning of it all seemed to be.

If he found someone else tonight and decided they were worth more than an evening, he might not come back to this bar for quite some time.

Draco simply couldn't let this happen. Not after last week.

Not that last week was supposed to have even happened in the first place. It was a fluke. A lovely, horrible fluke.

That night had been reminiscent of a dream. No, that wasn't the correct word choice. It was his dream — real and true and come to life. He could still feel fingers bruising into his hips. He could feel the wall shaking at his back, his head clogged with screams of pleasure and of phantom pain. He could feel the wrongness of it all settled into the pit of his stomach.

He had finally achieved the one thing he had pined after for too many months. But it was all wrong. It wasn't his face, wasn't his body, wasn't his pleasure to experience.

He hadn't slept in four-going-on-five nights, afraid he would experience it all over again and again. Just as helpless to stop it this time as he had been a week ago.

But still, here he was. Potter was standing over him with that same hunger in his eyes. And Draco was still wearing someone else's body.

"Are you stalking me?"

It was a joke, but Draco felt the greasiness of shame settle into his belly nonetheless. He forced a smile, thankful for the distraction of the bartender sliding him a fresh drink. He gulped half of it down as much for courage as for a way of buying himself more time to think of a smooth response. A response that didn't sound like it came from a man guilty of actually doing such a thing. "What if I was?" he came up with, hating the way the words felt thick like admission on his tongue.

Maybe Potter knew, maybe he didn't. He wasn't letting on either way. Who knew he had it in him to be mysterious or coy? He merely took the stool beside Draco, relaying his usual order to the bartender while settling the palm of his left hand against the inner flesh of Draco's thigh.

Draco was helpless but to hiss in a breath, fingers going tight around his glass. He wasn't himself in that moment. He wasn't stoic or put-together or refined. He was a man with everything to lose, desperate to give it away for one. More. Touch. With his last ounce of restraint, Draco parted his legs only a fraction. Just enough to show Potter he craved more, but not enough to completely debase himself for it.

He'd already done enough of that on their last encounter.

"Can I admit something?"

"Anything…," Draco said, knowing he meant it with every fiber of his being.

"I…had quite a lot to drink last weekend. I tend to do that sometimes…." Potter caught himself, burying the vulnerability he'd been about to display like it was never even there. "I don't remember your name."

Draco felt his cheeks flush and hoped this stranger's face hid the redness better than his own could. This felt very much like he'd been caught. And if he couldn't remember the name he'd given, well that might actually mean he was. "Did I give it?" he breathed, leaning in closer to be heard without having to change his tone. If he spoke any louder, the nerves would have shaken his voice.

By some miracle, Potter laughed. "Are you saying I'm the type of person to suck a bloke off in the bathroom without first learning his name?"

He said it so plainly, like it didn't even matter. Like it was just a thing he had done. Draco choked on his whisky, far too aware of the incremental inch that hand slid further up his leg. He didn't respond because he didn't know how. He didn't move because…what if that hand fell away? So he continued to sit, staring down at the bar, hoping the world would be gracious and just swallow him up already.

"For the record," Potter continued, still thinking this was all a fun game, "I might be. But I do still think you told me your name first. Either way…help me out?"

Draco didn't have the luxury of ruminating and remembering. It wasn't as if he could pretend he had forgotten his own name. So he bit his lip, hoping he appeared just as coy and just as cunning, and threw out a name he hoped he remembered correctly. It was the one he used most often as it was similar to his own and therefore easier to remember.

"Derek."

Potter's grin was reminiscent of the Cheshire Cat — slow and knowing with maybe a glimpse of malice. "Derek…. That's right. How could I ever have forgotten?"

"You've had so many. It's perfectly understandable if you would forget one of their names now and then."

"Are you keeping track of them all, then?"

Draco froze. His heart, his breath, his body. He froze and he assessed those words. There was no way Potter knew…right? There was no way he had seen through all of those faces Draco had used. He had been so careful. He was sure of it. Slowly, he thawed and gulped. Physically gulped. Still his tongue refused to work and the words refused to come. He wasn't smooth enough for this, despite how confident he pretended to be.

He wasn't ready for this….

"I would expect nothing less from my stalker," Potter continued. He must not have noticed the way Draco stilled. "And I am curious to know how many there have been. I don't keep track myself. Do you know the number, Derek?"

Draco might have known the number of people Potter had taken home, but he wasn't about to admit that. That would take this conversation from playful to creepy all-too-fast. "I think I would prefer to focus on just one," he muttered, looking up through his eyelashes. It was a seductive look he had mastered while wearing his own more delicate face.

The effect with the face he wore now, however, was clearly not as strong. Potter's widening grin clearly spoke to this, as did his low and pitying laugh. "I think I would, too," Potter said gently, soothing the flare of hurt in Draco's belly just enough. "As long as that one…isn't going to run off on me again."

It was too much. Too much too fast. The wall shook against Draco's back. His ears were filled with indiscernible noise — he knew it was music and the bustle of people, but it could just as easily have been the chaos of war to his clouded mind. And to make matters worse, he could feel the pull of his body returning. In a matter of minutes, he would be exposed.

More than he currently already was in that unlockable bathroom where literally anyone could walk in….

Panic settled in Draco's breath. He was coming down from the high of his orgasm too fast for his taste. Hastily, he pulled his trousers up and mumbled an apology. He could feel the frown on Potter's lips just as vividly as he could taste himself upon them.

The potion ran its course, revealing Draco's face just as he'd made it safely outside and into an alleyway. The tears trekking down his cheeks were truly his own.

It felt like Draco had shattered that night. He'd been carrying around that desire for so long and when he finally made it a reality…it literally broke him.

It had too suddenly become too real.

He hadn't slept since. How could he when he knew sleep brought the dreams? And how could he even compare those dreams to the actual reality he'd experienced? When he'd had the real thing, how could the dreams ever again be enough?

Ultimately, he supposed, that was why he had ended up at that bar again. He had tasted the poisoned fruit and he wanted more, even if it may truly be the end of him.

"I panicked," was the only answer Draco could give. He just hoped it would be enough.

"It was…a very different response than what I'm used to. Still, I'm glad to see you again tonight."

Draco raised his head from its shameful hang. "You are?"

"Yeah, I wanted a second shot."

Typical. It was just absolutely bloody typical that Draco Malfoy would do something terrible to Harry Potter and still be forgiven. Not that Potter knew it was him, but still. The man was too trusting. He was too soft. How was he still alive?

It took every ounce of concentration Draco had at that point not to sneer back at him. He calmly reached for his glass, sipped the last bit of liquid, and stood. Calm as those dangerous moments before a storm.

"What are we waiting for, then?"