The waves splashed gently against the shore.
The stunned body of Holly Hardwart lay in the grass.
The waning moon illuminated the notepad.
The quick quotes quill scratched across the page.
In shock, I stared at her fallen body.
She had seen us. She had see both of us. And although it was unlikely that she had heard anything we had said in the Snapped Wand, she had obviously seen us kissing.
What would Astoria do when she read it in the morning Prophet?
Would a bribe silence her? If so, for how long?
The quick quotes quill still scribbled across the pad. I picked it up and read...
... brutal attack of the defenseless, intrepid, reporter.
I threw the pad on the ground.
"incindio!" Harry cried, setting fire to the pad. The quill kept moving as it burned, until it finally fell to ash. Then Harry pointed his wand at the woman.
"Are you going to kill her?" I asked.
"Kill her? Of course not." Harry said placing the wand next to her left temple. "I'm just going to modify her memory a bit."
"Do you know what you are doing, Potter? Memory charms are tricky things. You could cause her permanent damage. You remember Bertha Jorkins."
"Of course I remember Bertha Jorkins! I am being careful. I learned from the best, the great Guilderoy Lockhart himself."
"Lockhart… so were youthe one that made him insane."
"No. He did that himself."
"Then how…? "
"A moment's silence please. This is delicate work."
I stepped back and watched as he murmured words quietly in her ear. Then he waved his wand across her body.
"This sleeping charm should last an hour or two."
He conjured another pad and quill identical in appearance to the ones that were there before. Then he broke the quill with his thumb and fore-finger and positioned it on the ground underneath her.
"She will wake with a memory of falling off of her broomstick. She won't remember us at all, but that won't matter if she sees our footsteps in the mud."
"I can fix that," I said, turning toward the tree as I waved my wand performing a voiceless spell. The wind rose causing the grass to flutter as it removed all trace of our presence. My mother had taught me this spell, and how to leave no trace when the Dark Lord and his followers were near.
"Let's go," Harry said climbing onto his broom. I climbed on behind him. He flew up so fast that I feared I would get a nosebleed. Then he placed a cloaking spell around us and turned the broom sharply in case we were being followed.
Before long, I could no longer see her body below us. I wanted to ask Potter about the memory spell. Lockhart would hardly have taught such things to a second year no matter how many detentions he'd had. I started to ask, but the wind blew the words back into my mouth.
He was flying fast. Making sure that no pursuit could keep up with us. He flew toward the darkness, away from the bright city lights. I did not think we were being followed, but Potter took no chances. He dropped and turned the broom to confuse pursuit. It was overkill, but in my heart, I approved of his paranoia.
We who survived the war did so by being thorough. We took no chances, because we had seen so many others gamble and lose. My heart was still racing. I closed my eyes and held on tighter until I could will my breath to slow. It took a while, but Potter seemed to have no desire to land.
It had been a long time since I had ridden on the back of anyone's broomstick. I don't like it. I like to be in control, but I can't deny that Harry Potter is good at flying. He soared over suburbs and up toward the moon. Then he dove down through the clouds at speeds that reminded me of our quiddich days. Moist air wrapped around us dampening my hair and robes as we passed through, breaking out to see a wide moon-lit valley and then streaking low to fly across the surface of the river.
I was much calmer now after the extended flight. My pounding heart had finally slowed enough so that I noticed how tightly I was pressed up against the man in front of me. My hands were wrapped around his waist, and I could easily feel the muscles in the curve of his abdomen. Unlike most married men of his age, he hadn't gone soft. Not even with the huge dinners that the Weasley girl was sure to be cooking him. I splayed my left hand out and slid it up under his buttoned robe to feel his chest. The broom lurched a bit. I smiled.
I had always been able to get a rise out of Potter, though never quite so literally as now. I slid my right hand down until I touched the top of his muggle trousers. I unfastened the metal button with some difficulty. I could feel his abdominal muscles clench as I reached in to stroke my fingers across his tightened skin.
The broom was rising higher and higher. The temperature was beginning to chill, but Harry's skin was hot, like fire. I reached beneath his trousers and squeezed. His legs clenched the broom tightly and for a moment we almost lost our balance, but I thrust out my left hand and held the front of the broomstick to keep us steady as I slowly stroked between his legs with my right hand.
I could feel his shaky breaths through the skin of my chest. I could hear the wet sounds of him as he thrust forward into my fist. He was shuddering, and panting. Despite the cold, a drop of sweat fell from his brow onto my face.
I could smell him now. A rich musk of arousal drove me to press my lips to his neck. He leaned back against me, then thrust deeper into my hand. I rubbed my lips across his wide shoulders as he pushed forward again and again. I lowered my chin onto his neck to get a better view of him, and almost lost my grip from the vertigo of the ground far below us.
I was hard. I didn't think I could get harder, but then Harry moaned in my ear, and suddenly I was as hard as the broomstick between my legs. I rubbed against it, stroking Potter all the while. His moans got deeper and louder until Harry's head fell back on my shoulder. He cried out, and my hand grew very wet. At the same time, we began to fall straight down out of the sky.
The ground rushed toward us. We were falling fast!
Harry lay back on my shoulder like something dead. I placed both hands on the broomstick with Harry nestled between my arms, and struggled to get the broom under control, my wet hand slipping on the broom's tip. I had to work to keep us both from falling off as we went into a dive straight toward a truck, but I pulled up in time. Rising triumphant to a safe flying height, while Harry moaned, "Oh Draco!" into my ear.
I rubbed myself off against the wood of the broomstick, while Potter fumbled helpless. It was I who had saved us. I who had beaten him. Now, I beat myself off as we flew an erratic path up and down through the sky, diving once more until I found my release about ten meters above the ground.
Harry steered us to land in a patch of grass behind a hedge. I climbed off and fell immediately down on the ground. Harry fell beside me. I reached out then and grabbed his hand. I felt triumphant, as if my team had won the quiddich cup! I opened my eyes. When had I closed them? And turned to look at him.
Potter's fingers were warm against my skin. He squeezed my hand with both of his, and only then did I realize how rare it was that I held hands with anyone.
The Malfoys were never the most demonstrative of families. Even my beloved wife and I rarely touched outside of the bedroom. She was raised to uphold the propriety that all purebreds learned from the cradle. The kind of physical isolation that other families found tantamount to abuse.
But Potter wouldn't have had much better, with those muggle relatives of his. Rumor said that they starved him as a child, and it was well known that they locked him under the stairs like a house elf. What did the feel of another's hand mean to him? How can I know what he feels when I can't even understand what I was feeling.
Suddenly, I felt scared. I needed to be gone.
I sat up, and a dog barked. The cloaking spell had vanished when we landed. I rose to my feet. Harry rose behind me. I walked around the hedge into a deserted street, and kept walking. Harry bent down for his broom.
"Malfoy," he called out to my back, but with a wave of my hand I was gone before he could say another word.