Disclaimer: All features of the HP universe are the property of the official and licensed copyright holders, including but not limited to JK Rowling, Warner Bros. and Scholastic. This endeavour is one for fun not profit.
A/N: This story is SLASH SLASH SLASH SLASH SLASH SLASH (involving male/male relationships) and will be MPREG (male pregnancy) in later chapters. Thanks for the reviews, they help a great deal and I appreciate them all. With all the trouble I've been having with uploading, I'm a bit paranoid that this chapter won't load, so please review so I know it's up and accessible. Btw, did I mention there's SLASH yes this is a very very SLASH oriented chapter so don't read if that's not your thing.
3.
The next morning Draco quickly rose, dressed, and made his way to the counsel room, where he informed all members of the Order of the Phoenix that unless Voldemort himself was knocking on the door Harry was not to be disturbed for the next three days. He felt bad about not answering Ron and Hermione's questions specifically about Harry's health.
He knew how important his best friends were to Harry, but he didn't have the time or energy to satisfy their curiosity and concern right then. He needed to take care of his lover. Identify Objective. Formulate Plan. Implement Plan. Obtain Objective Successfully. In some things, the world of a Slytherin alumnus was rather simple. Emotional displays to reassure, comfort and all that codswallop were sometimes a waste of valuable time needed for action. Draco simply didn't have time to get into it with Harry's best friends right now.
He brushed them off on his way to the kitchen assuring them he'd be in touch later, Harry was as well as could be expected at the moment and he needed to get back. He grabbed the readied breakfast tray with all of Harry's favourite morning foods, tea, and orange juice, and made his way back up to their suite where his lover was just stirring, hair sticking in every direction, one hand patting around for his glasses the other scratching his bare chest, and in general, looking positively edible.
Draco set the tray down on the bed then leaned in for a kiss, pulling back long moments later just a little breathless, though he noticed smugly that Harry was also breathing a little heavily. "Mmm Good Morning."
"Morning Dragon," Harry rubbed his eyes under his glasses, "How long until the morning meeting?"
Draco shook his head, "No morning meeting. Demetrius has confined you to three days of solid bed rest, so you, my Lion, are going nowhere. Besides," he smirked, snitching a bit of bacon from Harry's fork, "We need to talk."
"We do?" Harry's brows knitted together, "I thought we talked last night." He paused a moment, "Thank you by the way, I feel much better. Even when it's couched in something horrific you always know just what to say to keep me from getting too caught up what I'm supposed to be and not who I am."
"Mm," Draco sipped at his tea, "No, I talked you listened. Today we switch, you talk, I listen."
They ate in companionable silence for awhile then Draco stood and cleared the dishes, stacking them on the tray for the House elves Harry employed--I don't think I'm ever going to get used to that one, employed house elves-heh---to collect from their sitting room.
When he returned Harry was frowning, "Draco, I really don't feel like taking about this stuff."
Wholly expecting Harry's reticence, Draco merely stretched out on the bed and nodded, "Okay."
"Okay? Just okay. You're not going to push for anything, or try to prod me into telling you how I feel?"
"No."
Harry thought a moment then began fuming. This was so typical of Draco. It's not emotionally convenient, so he doesn't know how to deal, so he closes himself off and pretends there's no problem,
"I can't believe you sometimes. You can be such an insensitive berk you know that! Sometimes I feel that my heart's breaking for every witch or wizard who's lost someone in this bloody war that there just aren't enough pieces of me to go around and still get the job done, and I fuck up and people die and it hurts so bad and I-I'm all alone with it, like it's this thing this big huge ball of pain and sorrow and regret and failure on my chest just-- just crushing the life out of me, making it so I can't breathe hardly at all, and you! You--the one person I--I'm supposed to be able to let it all go with who's supposed to love me enough to understand are just lying there like nothing's happening so I don't have to talk to you because it's emotional and messy or something and gods forbid you get your hands dirty in all my crap!"
Draco sighed, sometimes being the shifty one sucked. Especially when you had to point out you were being shifty, "Well that'll do for a start. You feel any better?"
"Huh?
"Do. You. Feel. Any. Better? Now that we've had our first foray into emotional gardening." Draco grinned
"Emotional gardening?"
"Yes. You and me, elbows deep in the shite you carry around with you…all the 'crap' I believe is what you'd said" A smirk and a toss of long ice blonde hair accompanied Draco's response.
"Why you sneaky---"
Draco sniffed, "Hermione says the muggles call it Reverse Psychology, or some other such nonsense. It works though so who'm I to complain."
Harry had stopped pacing mid-rant and now made his way to the bed stretching beside his lover. He raised his hand and cradled Draco's cheek, delighting in the way his lover leaned into the caress. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean what I said before. If-if I didn't have you with me I don't think I would've gotten this far. I'm just tired."
Draco nodded, "There's that. And a few days bed rest will help. But…as much as I hate admitting when you are…you're right too. It is hard for me to do the emotionally messy stuff. I'm trying Harry, because I don't want to end up like my father. I know I'm not good enough for you, that you deserve better, someone who can support you the way you need."
Draco huffed out a breath, "You deserve better Harry, so I try to be better, I'm still learning to be a better me. You make me want to be a better me. But damn it all Potter when you boil it down I'm a selfish bastard who has no intention of ever letting you go. So you'll just have to resign yourself to patience and an emotionally reticent husband."
Harry gasped, "Draco. Are you saying? Are you asking me to?"
"No."
"No?"
"No."
"But you said--" Gently Draco laid two fingers across his love's lips.
"That was--a flub, of a sort--. When I ask for your hand Harry James Potter, I will do so properly, upholding the traditions of our people, because I want to show you honour and respect, and because what I feel for you..." Draco sighed, "It's not time yet Harry, but you have to know it's what I want, what I've wanted for years. I told you before I'm a selfish man. Everybody else in the world is fighting because in the end they'll win peace, and freedom, and a future with a lot less to fear. Me? I'm fighting 'cause when we win I get you."
That evening, following a day of reading, sleeping, eating Harry complaining about the sleeping and eating parts, found them again relaxing in the bath. Draco pressed firmly against Harry's back. "Draco?"
"Yes Koma" Draco opened his eyes a fraction. They'd washed already, drained and refilled the rub so bow they were having a bit of a drowse in the steamy warmth of the bathroom.
"Abigail didn't die because I was too slow did she?" It was a statement, a confirmation, and a young man's plea for reassurance all in one.
Draco pressed a kiss to his temple and brushed long strong fingers down his arms, "No Harry. She died because an evil wizard killed her. No one could have stopped it from happening Mine. It all just happened too damn fast." Draco tipped up Harry's chin and cocked his head so that his silver gaze geld an emerald one captive,
"We are wizards Harry. Not gods. There are some things magic cannot do. Some things magic cannot fix. No matter how powerful you are. I'm an insufferably arrogant bastard, but even I am humble enough to know I do not have power over life and death. It hurts beloved, I know. But all we can do is mourn and move on and keep fighting so they will not have died in vain. You can't live for the ones we've lost Harry, but knowing they've died should make you much more aware of how fragile life is, and how each day should be cherished as something new and good."
Harry smiled gently, stole a kiss, and sunk deeper into the warm water of the tub, "You're not so insufferable anymore. And just when did you get to be so wise Draco Malfoy?"
Draco snorted, grabbed Harry's hand and ran it down his flank and over his thigh. "Do you feel this body? I'm too young to be wise. You want wise go see some wizened prune like Dumbledore. I just happen to be a rather brilliant wizard who's figured some things out."
Harry laughed and flung water up at his lover, "Smug bastard."
"Absolutely," he replied with utter confidence. Draco heaved an internal sigh of relief and tightened his hold around his lover
That's it. You'll make it back. You need to smile again, laugh again.
Pressing light kisses into his hair, and gently stroking all the places he could reach, Draco rocked them slowly
I need to take better care of you Harry. In all this mess you forget sometimes that you're just one man, and that life is the purpose of all this death and pain. There's love and beauty and good left in the world still Harry. It's why we're fighting so hard.
Again he was so lost in his thoughts it took some time before Harry was able to gain his attention, "Wool gathering Malfoy?"
"Hrmph."
Harry turned a bit so he lay more on his side than his back and pulled Draco's arm around him tighter, "Dragon?"
"Hmm yeah," Draco caressed Harry's back tracing meaningless patterns over the toned muscles there.
"Last night what you said...about..."
"Having to be yourself for yourself?"
"That too, but no I meant the other part"
"My fingers."
"Yes. Is that why?" Harry's voice was soft.
Draco closed his eyes and nodded curtly, pushing away any emotional response just as he had in the intervening years. "Yes. The bones were left to knit on their own. I wasn't taken to a healer. It took a long time, and because they weren't set, they didn't heal in the proper alignment though the breaks were clean. When my hand finally healed my father's personal healer rebroke the bones so he could charm them to heal straight, but the hand was weakened because I hadn't used it while my fingers were healing and I had to have it taped up for awhile."
He spoke matter-of-factly, like he was giving a report, or reading historical details from some dusty old scroll. "By then I'd learned to read and write and my left had become my dominant hand anyway.
Harry brought Draco's hands to his mouth and kissed and caressed each digit with his lips and tongue. "You are so strong, and I love you so much," he choked out, voice heavy with tears.
He reached up and pulled Draco down for a deep kiss. He turned in the large bath placing kisses along the long slender neck, the strong jaw, his tongue played in the whorls of Draco's ear, leaving hot dirty words and suggestions in the wake of every pass. He teased the pebbled pink nubs of Draco's chest with his fingers, then his tongue, then his teeth, gently nipping and biting delighting in the needy whimpers and sultry moans that slipped from his lover's mouth as he teased and tortured the sensitive buds.
"Nngh...Ha-Harry Please. Please please please...oh gods"
Harry grinned wickedly as he stroked his lover. Yes! This was the Draco Malfoy only he got to see. This was his powerful Dragon giving everything to him, trusting Harry with control over his life and body. He who'd been taught early and painfully that one must never give up control. This Draco writhing beneath him told him he was loved with every whimper. And there was something so very hot in his wanton pleading, though let it never be said that Draco Malfoy ever begged for anything. So pervasive was the façade of cool detachment one might think he'd be cold and reserved in the sharing of his body was well, but Harry knew differently. Not for nothing was Malfoy his dragon-fiery, intense, primal. His lover's marmoreal ivory skin was living fire, so hot under his hands—yes molten marble, smooth, and vibrant. And suddenly it occurred to him that he needed this. He needed that steel warmth inside him. He'd been so cold these last weeks, just going through the motions. He needed that pulse of life inside, needed the heat of Draco's love to chase away the cold and the shadows.
Murmuring an incantation as he rose over his lover's groin Harry lowered himself slowly. He wasn't particularly stretched, so he took his time, rising up and pushing back little by little until Draco was flushed and sweating and fully seated within his body.
"Ha-Harry," Draco moaned, " s'good. So tight. so good." Harry smiled canted his hips and rocked a little, "Auugh," Draco flung his head back, scrabbling for some little measure of control.
Harry pulled his face up and locked gazes with his lover, "No, don't hold back. Let it go Dragon. Take me." His eyes burned nearly glowing with the reflected heat between them, "Love me," he ordered.
"Always, always," his pale haired lover cried thrusting, near violently, up into him. Again and again Draco thrust up as Harry moved down taking his lover further into himself. All too soon that familiar tingle rose within him and he howled his frustration, slamming down harder determined to wrench every bit from Draco he could before he was lost in orgasmic oblivion.
"Mine. Mine. Mine" he chanted riding his love and pouring all he had into the connection between them. And then it was on them, completion flinging them from the heights of ecstasy only to cradle them as they fell as one. Collapsing on his lover's chest Harry offered a brief lick to Draco's clavicle and rode out the aftershocks of their powerful joining.
"That was--you were--" he yawned and snuggled deeper against Draco's chest.
"Yes, it was," came the somewhat breathless reply. Harry recognised the tingle of the spell casting then knew no more as he was floated out of the tub, lovingly dried and laid in their bed. Barely awake, and stumbling himself Draco shook his head at his carelessness. Tomorrow he'd remember to have a cold dinner set out in the bathroom so Harry could eat before he went to sleep. The thought was barely formed before he too fell into bed and the arms of Morpheus.
Tbc…