still hope

If anybody, Malfoy should have been the vampire, Harry always thought. This was really unfair. Malfoy was the unusually pale one, with the Dark Arts and black magic running through the blueblood pureblood inbred veins, sensitive to sunlight – and black was a good colour on him. Vampirism just didn't make sense for Harry Potter, saviour of the wizarding world, who got tanned from Quidditch and loved garlic.

But here they were regardless, the alleyway damp as if the space between the buildings had broken out in cold sweat. It was hunger that dried him up inside, shrivelled his organs and pulled at his throat, and he pressed Malfoy up against the brick, and whispered into his ear, "I guess today just isn't your lucky day."

"Oh no," said the blonde, pale blonde, the sweat just starting to bead quite sweetly on his skin, like moisture on a glass of white wine, "this is exactly what I've always wanted."

"Oh really," this made Harry pause, but he did not pull back, could not pull away from the fascinating jump of the pulse against the stretched canvas of skin.

"No, you fucking twit," snapped Malfoy, struggling, as successfully as a fly with wings caught in peanut butter, "now let me go or I'll—"

"What? Scream?" Harry mocked. "Like a girl, I suppose." Death had made him cruel, war had shown him death, or maybe it was just the hunger/thirst/hunger talking – 'you're a bloody git when you're drunk', Ron had told him once. "I really hope," he said, his fingers now curling on Malfoy's hip, "that I", catching almost the tip of a pale earlobe on the tip of a white fang, "make--you--scream."

Malfoy's breath trembled, and after all these years, of course only now would Harry learn how to make him shut up.

His tongue was cold, he knew, wet; and as icy as he had always thought Malfoy would be, there was fire and heat under his skin, under the touch of the cold and wetness.

"You're a sick fuck," Malfoy managed.

Harry licked up his neck as his hand travelled down, slowly, trailing over clothes that were dusty in places, now you couldn't even guess how much they had cost, to cup the hardness between Malfoy's legs. A sharp gasp. "Seems like I'm not the only one," he said as he squeezed, hard.

A small noise from the back of his throat."Get off of me," Malfoy insisted, but now his voice was edgy, desperate.

"Say please."

And his teeth dimpled Malfoy's skin, the blonde's entire body stilling at the needlepoint feeling. Another breath drawn in and caught.

Then he bit.

Liquid fire. It was the first swallow of brandy, and find yourself surprised at how warm it makes you inside. Hot chocolate with cinnamon sticks after coming in from the snow. His stomach clenched with pleasure. Passion and spice.

Malfoy arched up against him, gasping, crying out, then moaning, then thrusting. There was pain in his voice.

And then suddenly here were the things that Malfoy could never say: sobbing in the bathroom sixth year, small and desperate, death and decisions, a first kiss at the Yule Ball, fear, there was fear, sharp and sweet and concrete, of death, of pain, of loss.

Harry drank it all down.

He rubbed his own erection against Malfoy's, feeling the outline and the hardness through his clothes, the friction such a relief. The pleasure rolled over him, the warmth flooded every part of his body, and this was so good. The pain, the sorrow, the bitterness. So good on top of him, writhing with him, feeling so hot, so feverish, so ill, so sick.

Whimpers and small noises leaked out from between the blonde's pink lips, and sometimes they sounded like "no" and sometimes "stop" and sometimes "more."

And then there was war, there was battle, a friend on a ground muddy with blood, with arms reached out for you, their eyes already empty, the smell of burnt human hair.

Blood trickled down the side of his neck, dark red, bright red, stark against pale throat.

His hot breath gusting against Harry's ear, marathon-runner-panting, his fingers squeezed into Harry's shoulders before raking down his back to grab his arse and pull him closer, make them tighter. Faster now, speeding up, rubbing.

He came, explosively, reluctantly, still crying "no", hips still jerking, shuddering against him, shuddering around him, shuddering inside him. Harry tumbled after, but
still he did not stop, he tasted the stars bursting into supernovas and the taste of slipping underneath the water, dark, he tasted long white fingers against his throat, liquid, and he tasted the way a homecoming sounds when the home is full of empty rooms.

One arm around Malfoy's waist, a hand on his hip, the fingers of other tangled in hair that spilled through them like dust in moonlight.

Malfoy's breathing was as shallow as a tidepool.

He tasted that – the breaths, and then the way the tides swell and ebb, the rivers that claim the dead, he tasted dry, papery ashes that looked like moths in the wind.

He tasted the beginning of the world, born into a life that started without you, and he tasted the end, doors closing, films running to their final conclusion, crowds cheering, green flashes of light, the end, he chased the pulse which had been running so long, and it was tired even though it was so young, until he caught it and it surrendered itself to him, it slowed, it laid itself out like a body on the train tracks, it reached for him with arms, and then, obediently, it went to sleep.

It was so quiet now.

Still.

The skin was still warm against his lips, but soon it would begin to cool. His face was wet in the crook of Draco's neck, maybe with blood, maybe not.

The moon watched on, a sliver cut out from the sky, Malfoy against him, Draco's arms fallen, Draco's body limp, and the moon would later tell people that they were lovers, embracing. Harry held on to Draco, gathered him up, he cradled, clung, was strong.

The weight in his arms felt like hope.

Harry knew what he had to do.