Disclaimer: Not my characters.

NB: Slash.

R: For fighting and swearing and for the sex in Chapter 4.

AN: Many thanks to my delightful reviewers! You guys are the best. I really appreciate it and will try to get the next two parts up by the end of the week.

After that, Harry accepted my frequent use of his mirror without comment. In fact, we managed not to exchange a single word for six weeks. I tried to put him out of my head. Officially, there was nothing between us, but a new boy would have felt like a betrayal, or possibly provoked him to murder me, so I started dating Kalliope Drummond. She was black-haired and reckless, like Harry, but with none of the angst. We would sneak into Hogsmeade, get drunk on firewhisky, and have noisy, adventurous sex pressed up against the back walls of the buildings we passed on the way home.

That particular night, I was waiting for her, alone in the Slytherin common room. The spring dance had ended two hours earlier and everyone had gone on to an after party in the rainforest greenhouse. I was a little tired, not crazy about the rotting smell of tropical vegetation, and not looking forward to the fallout from something as illegal as irritating thousands of priceless specimen plants. My plan was to tell Kal that we should stay in, throw some fur down in front of the fireplace, and shag ourselves into next week. I liked the idea of having some privacy, for once. Her decibel level was flattering, but I could stand to make it through one morning without half the breakfast table replaying the soundtrack of the previous night.

I dozed off in a wingchair by the fire. When the door finally swung open, I yanked my head up, blinking, and then froze. The Slytherin wingchairs were velvet, so dark green they looked black. Most of the room was that color. The fire was the only light source. I have a very clear mental image of myself, shirtless, still clad in black dress pants, my pale chest and arms and white blond head luminous in the darkness. His mental image. He must have described it to me afterward. Harry Potter was standing in the doorway.

It was too dark to see his face. "Potter. How delightful. I hope you didn't kill my girlfriend to break in here."

"She's not coming."

I sat up a little and tried to focus in the low light. "What? Potter. I was joking."

"She thinks you're meeting her at the party."

"Why?"

"Because I told her you are."

"And you're here to…ravish me?" I stood up and forced my eyes to adjust, acutely aware of the space between us.

Harry was moving toward me. "Something like that."

I kicked an ottoman out of the way and stepped past it. Then he was right in front of me, his chest inches from mine and his breath hot on my mouth. It suddenly occurred to me that he was very inexperienced. I murmured, "First time, Potter?"

"Fuck you, Malfoy."

"Very sexy. I guess you want it rough, then." I hooked one foot under his ankles, dropped him on his ass, pushed his chest flat, and pinned his hands behind his head. He struggled, but I had his legs locked under mine and he was trapped. I could feel his erection against my thigh. He looked furious and sort of confused. I laughed at him. "Relax, Potter. This is supposed to be fun."

Several expressions slid across his face. Anger, hunger, a glimmer of tenderness. I wanted to stroke my thumbs along his cheekbones, but was afraid to loose my grip on his wrists. His voice was hoarse and very low. He whispered, "Harry."

"Harry," I repeated softly, my own voice suddenly thick. Then I leaned down and kissed him. His lips were as silky as they looked. And hot. He had a strangely hot mouth, except just after he came, when all the warm blood left his tongue for points south and kissing him was like kissing someone who had been drinking ice water. But I didn't know that yet. Right then, I was thinking how surprising it was that this hard-bodied Quidditch star and savior of the wizarding world was still entirely untouched.

I'd never been much for virgins. I didn't have a lot of patience and although I liked control, I also liked to have other people do some of the work, sometimes all of the work, but that night, it struck me as kind of thrilling that it was all still new. I kissed him for a while, very slowly, very deeply. It was like kissing anyone for the first time, sloppy and eager and like that mirror game children play, following one another's every move.

After ten minutes of steady necking, Harry started to branch out, trying things out of sequence, or things I hadn't done. When he ran his tongue between my teeth and my upper lip, a shudder bucked its way along my body to my cock. I lost hold of his wrists and he put his warm, Quidditch-calloused hands flat on my naked sides and I squirmed and moaned and knew I was fooling myself if I thought my greater experience was enough to keep me in control.

He flipped on top of me and I writhed underneath him, unbuttoning his shirt and sliding down until I found his nipples with my tongue. I heard him gasp and then plunged my hands beneath his belt, provoking a howl that pretty much put Kal to shame. I started laughing then, thinking about Kal compared to Harry, because, well…Harry…and felt him stop and slide down my body until we were face to face.

He said, "What?"

I laughed and said, "God, I love you."

"What? No you don't." He stopped moving.

"Harry. Shut up, you idiot. Right now I do. Aren't you---" But he had really stopped.

"I knew it would be like this."

"Like what?" I felt like I was dragging myself out of a heavy, delicious sleep. I struggled to concentrate.

"All sluttish and phony."

"But I---" Have never felt like this before. Really meant it when I said it. Have never seen anyone look so mouth-watering while still wearing pants. All those things were true, but I could see why he thought I was full of shit. I mean, maybe I was. Sex is like drugs. It makes you all crazy with pleasure and conviction but afterward you look back and don't know what to think. I could feel him lifting himself off of me, grew suddenly desperate, and quickly rolled on top of him. He could usually take me in a fist fight, but I was much more familiar with the human body at close quarters. I said, "Harry, please. I'm having a really good time. I'm sorry if that was premature."

"Get off me."

"Don't make me beg."

"If you don't let me up right now, I'm going to beat the shit out of you."

"Yeah, okay, in a minute…" I leaned in to kiss him again, jerked back when he practically bit through my lower lip, and watched my blood drip heavily into his face. "Holy hell, Harry. My rough sex spectrum doesn't reach all the way to disfigurement." I didn't mean to be laughing, but I felt so good with his body underneath me that I couldn't really believe he was as mad as he actually was.

"Your WHAT?" I don't think I had ever heard him so enraged. Which, all things considered, means it was pretty extreme. I had no hope of preventing the punch that knocked me back onto the ottoman I had kicked aside earlier. He was instantly on his feet, his eyes full of loathing and his voice bitter and cold. "You fucking slut, Malfoy."

I sprawled across the cushion, both feet on the floor, holding my head up with my stomach muscles, and felt gingerly in my mouth with one finger to make sure he hadn't knocked out any teeth. "Harry. Calm down. I was joking."

I sat up, spat a huge glob of blood and mucous into one hand, and looked around for a handkerchief. He was standing over me, not leaving, which struck me as a hopeful sign, although why I still wanted to sleep with such an abusive lunatic was a mystery. Rather grudgingly, he pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and offered it to me.

I wiped off my hand, dabbed at my nose, rubbed the blood off my front teeth, and pressed the wadded linen to my lower lip. "Thanks."

"I'm sorry." He looked completely freaked out. "God, I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me."

"Not to worry. I'm a fast healer."

He said, viciously, "Of course you are."

"For god's sake, Harry. I meant from getting beaten up by you. Which, considering that you're the good guy, happens pretty fucking frequently."

He sat down next to me and said again, "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, I know. I'm getting used to the five-second gamut from retribution to repentance."

Now he sounded mournful. "It's your fault."

"Ah, yes. Blaming the victim. Excellent. You'd make a much better Death Eater than I would." And in a weird way, I always did think that was true. He was far too moral of course, but, unlike me, he had a stomach for sustained violence.

"Jesus, Malfoy. Why are you so fucking calm?" He was simultaneously angry and very sad and I wanted to kiss him so badly that my right foot cramped up. Eventually the pain from that made me groan, which caused him to look stricken and me to start laughing again.

I pulled myself together. "Look. I want you. And you obviously want me."

"God, Malfoy. This whole thing is so fucked up. I don't even know."

"Yes. You do. And it'll be better if I'm conscious. And not bleeding so much. And I'm very good. Don't look at me like that. I know any reference to my sex life, apart from our little sadomasochistic encounters, makes you think I'm a filthy whore, but the fact is, if my only intimate experience were having you sock me in the mouth, I wouldn't be able to kiss you the way I can."

He put his hands over his face and said, "Fine. All right. Just stop." I never did understand why it bothered him so much. Eventually, I stopped worrying about it.

"So you're in?"

"Maybe."

"Because there are going to be a few rules."

"What are you talking about?"

I pulled the handkerchief away from my face and looked at it. It was pretty gruesome. "Regardless of what you may think of me in the privacy of your kinky mind, I do not want to be in a situation where someone needs to get hit to get off. All right?" Harry looked shocked and also contrite.

He said, very softly, "What else?"

I shrugged. "It might help if you weren't so suspicious of me."

"Yeah. I'm… I don't know."

"Just shut up and pay attention." I turned to face him, put my hands on either side of his neck, and very gently pressed my lips to his. He leaned into it, poking at me with his tongue, but I made him wait. By the time I opened my mouth, he was gasping. We pretty quickly got back to where we had been before, but when I was about to pull his belt open, I stopped.

He looked down at me nervously and whispered, "Malfoy?" I couldn't believe he was still using my last name. "Are you all right?"

"I'm… Yeah. Here, let's get up off the floor." I debated for a moment and then said, "Let's go lie down."

"In bed?" He sounded so terrified that I started laughing again.

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A/N: Thanks for reading. Reviews are very welcome.