For a long time they lay there. The only sound came from their breathing, which was hard and heavy. They were completely exhausted, unable to move so much as a toe. Harry closed his eyes, basking in the pain that throbbed throughout his body, enjoying the buzzing in his head, the receding adrenaline.

His entire body was warm and tingling. He was sure that he'd be bruised all over in the morning, but he took comfort in the fact that he'd done some serious bruising himself, judging by his raw knuckles. He flicked out a tongue to moisten his dry lips and tasted blood, smiling at the metallic twang that now invaded his mouth.

Very faintly, he heard an out-of-breath, "I kicked your ass," come from somewhere near his ear. He hadn't realized that Malfoy was so close to him and suddenly, his body was warm for entirely different reasons.

Still he managed an equally weak, "You wish."

There was a silence then, a long and incredibly bearable silence. There was no movement, no sound. There was only existence, and the feeling of Malfoy lying beside him, breathing beside him. Everything was completely still.

The word that came to Harry's mind was perfection.

Of course, perfection is fated to not last very long and in a moment, it was ruined by Malfoy's stirring.

"Potter," Malfoy said quietly, so quietly that it was more alarming than the blows he'd just received. Harry felt him turn on his side and started to turn his head to look at him, but before he could do so, Malfoy's mouth was on his.

His first reaction was, surprisingly, to kiss back, but some part of him was yelling at him that that wasn't what his reaction should be. So, he considered instead that he should shove Malfoy away and perhaps call him a faggot, but when he reached up a hand to do so, he found instead that he was pulling Malfoy closer to him.

Suddenly, they were kissing, really kissing, their bodies pressed tightly against each other, moving together. Their mouths burned together and the buzzing in Harry's head became almost unbearable. Their tongues battled and it was as though they were fighting again, only with more heat. They rubbed against each other, wanting more, forcing their bodies as close as possible, letting the friction between them fill them up until they thought they'd burst.

And then they did, they burst in a display of bright lights and dazzling explosions.