received.
To find Ginny outside his hotel room is odd enough, but Harry doesn't even have time to question her before she's slid past him and pushed him back against the door. It shuts hard as her hands gather his unbuttoned shirt in small fists, and then she's pulling him down to kiss her and questions seem less important.
She presses against him, leaning into him, and his hands automatically settle on her waist – muffled by cloak, jumper, jeans and belt. Cold fingers touch briefly against his cheek, bump into his glasses, then wind through his hair.
Harry tries to pull back to breathe, but his head hits the door. Ginny keeps her mouth against his, kissing and swiping her tongue across his lips, nipping at him with sharp teeth.
He didn't remember her teeth that sharp.
His hands slide up her back, rumpling cloak. She seems to be standing on her toes, or she's grown taller.
Then her hand fists in his too long hair, taut, and she wrenches her head back. He stares at her blurrily – his glasses are askew. He blinks, trying to focus on her expression.
The freckles across her nose are fading. She stares at him coldly, bizarrely calm. Her eyes aren't quite brown. Is it the dim light, or are they a different colour?
She is taller. She'd always had to look up at him slightly but now the angle is different.
Her hand lets go of his hair, with the other on his chest she pushes herself away from him. Turning, and longer steps across the room than he remembers she took.
Harry reaches to straighten his glasses, blinks again, and swears.
Pale hands reach up to comb through long red hair, and at the touch of cold fingers the red falls away. Long hanks slide to the floor as if cut, dissolving on contact with the floorboards. The figure, still with back turned, shakes its head vehemently, and candlelight shines on blonde.
Harry shoves off the door, reaching for a shoulder. The stranger is knocked a little off balance, grabbing reflexively for Harry's arm.
Still cold, the gaze. Draco Malfoy stands tense and straight, looking a little down at him. Harry doesn't let go his shoulder, and Malfoy doesn't let go his arm.
"What the fuck was that? Polyjuice?" realisation – "What did you do to Ginny?"
"Nothing, Potter. It was a glamour. They're considerably more illegal."
Harry shivers, blood rapidly cooling. He drops his hand and steps back.
"Why are you here?"
"I received your letter."
"And what grounds are you here on?"
Malfoy slowly raises his hands to the cloak pin at his throat. "Aren't you going to ask me to sit down?"
"You didn't wait to be invited in."
The cloak sighs to the floor. One hand goes to his waist and Harry barely has to think before Malfoy's wand is across the room and lying in Harry's palm.
Two pieces of wood click softly against each other.
"You've improved, Potter."
"They broke your wand?"
"No."
A pause. Malfoy's belt, hung with a knife, an old pistol, and a number of small leather wrapped objects – potion grenades - is lowered carefully to join the cloak on the floor.
"I did."
"Why?"
"Your letter mentioned Horcruxes, Potter."
Malfoy steps over the discarded weapons, carefully taking the broken wand pieces from Harry. They hit the timber floor, one shortly after the other.
"And?"
"I did a little research."
"So you know what they are?"
"I know you've found almost all of them. I know you're after the fifth one, the cup. I know you're still one short in your list."
"You know where we'll find the sixth one?"
"More than that," Malfoy's hand finds Harry's shoulder again, smoothing the wrinkles he put in the shirt just a minute ago. "I'm going to give it to you."
And this time the kiss is different, less fierce and more cautious, and Harry lets it continue until Malfoy's other hand curls around his belt buckle. He flinches at the cold of his fingers.
"It wasn't the snake."
"No?"
"Potter."
Harry looks at Malfoy again, frowning.
"I'm not here for asylum. I'm not here to join your side."
"What are you here for?"
Fingertips trail up under the hem of Harry's untucked, unbuttoned shirt. Harry keeps his eyes on Malfoy's, coldly focussed, waiting just short of saying the words in his head. He's learnt wandless magic is perfectly effective at this range, and in such physical contact.
"I'm here for you to kill me, Potter."
The words stutter.
"What?"
"I'm the sixth. Not the snake. The Horcrux you can't find is me."
"But that makes no sense."
"Father was his right hand for a very long time. The Dark Lord never trusted anyone, but my father was the closest you could get to it. This was the greatest honour. And the perfect guarantee of utmost loyalty."
Malfoy's arms are warmer under the cuffs of his shirt, and Harry quietly traces the seams up to his neck.
"How's that?"
"Once a Horcrux is made, the creator can still unmake it. It's far easier than making them. But it destroys them. If father ever wavered in his service of his Lord, in his protection of his Lord's soulhouse, the Dark Lord would revoke the privilege."
One button goes, two.
"Why should I believe you? Why should I trust you?"
Malfoy steps back, reaching his hands up to his own shirt collar. Thread strains and snaps – he rips it down the front. White stained with dirt, dust, and mud; the shirt falls to the ground as well. Faint scars crisscross pale skin, slashes made with an invisible sword. He is bruised, in places. Grazed in others. Faint ripples of burns streak across his left shoulder. The Dark Mark is an ugly contrast to the fragile skin of his inner arm.
He takes Harry's wand hand, turning his palm to rest over the burn marks.
"I know you can do it. It's only two words, and you've heard them often enough."
"So you want me to kill you. Fine. There are lots of reasons you could want that." Harry spreads his fingers, feeling a heart thrumming. "But how do I know it'll do any good? How do I know you're a soulhouse?"
Malfoy goes very still. Something about him flickers, and the room appears darker. The candles are hesitant. And beneath his spread fingers, Harry feels heat flare, almost too hot to touch, far too hot to be just Malfoy. It's as if he's swallowed fire.
And behind his eyes, in the gaps of iris, it seems his retina shines red.
Harry doesn't move. Malfoy takes a breath, blinks, and the shadow is gone. He drops his head, both hands holding Harry's arm, fingers moving in distracted patterns on skin. The candles are brave again, and gold casts shadows between Malfoy's ribs.
The heat is gone. Malfoy feels cold to the touch, again, and is beginning to tremble.
Gently, fingertips move. Harry presses skin, drawing new patterns against the lines of scratches and scars.
"You're really ready to die, Malfoy?"
A quiet nod.
Harry steps closer, moving his hands over the uneven skin of shoulders. He could count the ribs in Malfoy's sides, could list the names of vertebrae he can feel in his spine. How long has he been running? What has it taken him to find Harry? How had he ever managed to escape Voldemort?
"You underestimate me, Potter."
"Occlumency, I do remember that."
"You never were any good." Harry feels Malfoy smile against the side of his neck. "I will allow, however, that you didn't have the best teacher."
Harry doesn't want to think about Snape. He drops his mouth against skin, bites gently. Malfoy's thumbs hook comfortably in the back of Harry's belt. They stand still a moment, needlessly close against each other. Negative mirror images.
Breath traces the line of a scar across Harry's neck and throat. He allows Malfoy the exploration, allows the soft touch of lips. It's been a full year, months of transience and such a long time since he's last seen Ginny, since he's last held someone like this. Malfoy finds a second scar that crosses the first, his tongue marks the intersection.
"You've done quite well, considering."
Harry's fingertips press a little harder in the small of Malfoy's back, Malfoy shifts his hips closer.
Breath is hitched. Someone takes a step to one side, and Harry pushes Malfoy backwards. Boots are wrestled free and a final shove has Malfoy on his back across the narrow hotel bed. The wool blanket is rough but Malfoy's chest is smooth under Harry's hands. Fingers struggle with trouser fastenings and somehow they both get free, and then there's just Malfoy under Harry, movement and breath and hands clenched on his hips.
"Why – " words stolen between fighting for air. "Malfoy, why?"
Eyes blink and refocus, the gaze not so cold now. "I had to."
"Why not kill yourself?"
A moment of silence. The candles are lower and the lantern above the bed is guttering. Haphazard shadows chase each other across their faces. Harry's glasses are lost somewhere on the floor and he holds himself barely above Malfoy, sharing breath.
"I can't undo a soulhouse. Not one of his." Blue eyes admit a trace of fear.
Harry kisses the edge of a mouth, eases his hands over muscles gone tense. Malfoy relaxes a moment, breathing more freely. Harry parts lips and kisses him deeper, his wand hand following the line of burn marks down Malfoy's chest. Heat flares again. Muscles harden along his stomach, his heels dig into the mattress. Harry presses down, not bothering to support his weight, barely able to remember how to breathe.
Malfoy makes some sound in the back of his throat, tilts his head back. Harry's teeth find the pulse point thrumming under skin, sweat slicking the column of his throat. He holds Malfoy flush against him, one arm around his waist, and for a second it's as if he's never been anywhere else in his life.
Harry's vision clears. Malfoy's arms hold tight around him, his hips lift. Under Harry's wand hand Malfoy's heart is thudding impossibly fast, burning hot under his skin. The rhythm trips.
Harry feels his stomach drop, feels physics pulled out of law. There's nothing that exists except himself and Malfoy - with this piece of Voldemort's soul. He feels the power of it writhing under his palm. It's thick in the ambient, with hate, and shadows.
Something hisses. Harry's fist clenches on the darkness held in Malfoy and he closes his eyes against the crook of Malfoy's neck.
Avada Kedavra.
Malfoy lets go a sigh and relaxes into the mattress. His eyes are shut. His head falls gently to one side, his hands rest in the small of Harry's back.
Harry doesn't move for several moments. When he does he is careful, easing himself off the bed as though not to wake the pale figure there, the boy with his hair falling mussed over his face.
The lantern above the bed goes out.
Harry clenches both fists in his hair.
One more down. One to go.