A/N: Happy New Years everyone! Enjoy some shameless misunderstanding trope and sickly sweet fluff!
Chapter 16
The woman was absolutely, gloriously stunning. Through the eye of a viewfinder, she was even more so.
Draco had an appreciation for superficial beauty. He always had, as much in himself as in others. He was self-aware enough to know that he was attractive, and he was satisfied with that fact. Just because he was attractive, though, didn't mean he had to act upon it. It didn't mean he had to respond to others who recognised that truth either.
Harry had been right when he'd spoken days before: appreciation for superficial beauty was all well and good, but it certainly wasn't all there was to it.
When Draco peered at the young model through the lens of his camera, the natural light playing through her hair and captured by the lines of her dress far too cold for the season, he knew she was beautiful. It didn't mean that he was any less aware that there was a distance between them that he wouldn't cross, a distance that had absolutely nothing to do with the stretch of pebbled shoreline extending towards where the model posed on shoes too high and far too impractical for the setting. Draco had never understood how some photographers could think that appreciating beauty entailed the right to touch it.
Like Sammy fucking Ipetsky.
Shunting the thought from his mind, Draco frowned through his camera, adjusted the angle just so, and took another snap. Another tweak, another glance, and a second, then a third. As he eyed the fourth, nodding absently to himself even as he frowned at the flaws he could already see simply on the digital face, flaws that would have to be smoothed away, he straightened.
"Alright, you're done," he called to the model. Flicking a hand in the direction of the crew waiting attentively around him, he gestured for cessation of the shoot. As one, managers, dressers, and dismantlers flooded forwards to disassemble and cluster around the model like pigeons flocking to a pile of breadcrumbs.
Draco ignored them. Turning from the shoreline, camera in hand, he flicked through barely a sliver of the hundreds of pictures he'd captured that morning already. A splash of nature was the theme of what would be a multi-page spread, and though that theme had been only artificially placed in the shots he'd taken in the studio, the clean, crisp, glowing images he'd captured that day out on a backdrop of authenticity would more than make up for it.
Looking down at the pictures – of the woman who was barely more than a girl, of the man who was practically a boy, of another girl – Draco was satisfied. They weren't perfect, but they were –
"That's beautiful."
Startled, Draco glanced over his shoulder to where he hadn't even noticed Harry appear. Harry met his gaze, his face barely a hand's breadth away and chin nearly resting on Draco's shoulder, and smiled slightly. So close, so, so close, chanted in a sudden stuttering spurt in Draco's mind, and he had to forcibly thrust it aside to avoid saying something that would make him sound like a fool.
"They are," he said, raising the camera slightly for Harry to better see the screen. It wasn't typical protocol to show such glimpses to anyone but his closest correspondents on the floor for consultation and consideration. But Draco found he didn't really care. Not when it came to Harry.
Harry, on his toes to better see over Draco's shoulder, rose just a little higher as he peered curiously at the camera. He didn't lean on Draco – a happenstance that Draco didn't let himself regret the misfortune of – but his fingers rested just lightly on his shoulder as though to steady himself. Or to keep the distance; Draco didn't know which.
"She's got a really interesting presence," Harry murmured as Draco flicked to another picture. "The way she holds her shoulders, I think."
"Mm." Draco certainly agreed on that. The girl was something. "And her stare."
"I like her eyes, even if I think the eyeliner's a little heavy."
"You and me both. Given it's supposed to be a 'natural' theme… Although I'm usually more partial to minimal makeup."
"You could have suggested otherwise. I'm pretty sure Madame Clementine would have taken you up on any suggestion you'd make."
Glancing towards Harry again, Draco met his gaze. He wasn't wearing his glasses that day – "If we're going outside and through the woods, I'd rather just go without them," he'd said – and that close, Draco could make out the fractured, multihued splinters of green in his eyes. Personally, he didn't think that the model in his camera had anything on Harry.
"I don't hold that much sway," Draco said, speaking through his distraction. "You clearly think too highly of me."
"Or you don't think highly enough." Harry took a step backwards, his fingers dropping from Draco's shoulder, and Draco tried not to regret his slight retreat either. "She must think something of you since she called you out specifically. Where's that pig-headed confidence I used to hate you for so much?"
There were a number of aspects of that statement that Draco could have objected to. That Madame Clementine often sought less known photographers in what many saw as a pity party but what she claimed was an exploration of undiscovered talent. That Draco had never been 'pig-headed', even if he had admittedly held an excess of confidence back in the day that had since been undermined, and that Harry was certainly one to talk. But in spite of the arguments he could have presented, all he could think of was –
'Used' to hate. He said 'used to'. Which means that now is different.
Draco knew that. He knew that Harry didn't hate him, and not just because he'd agreed to accompany him to Switzerland. Not just because he'd stood up for him in the face of nameless aggressors, defending him when Draco couldn't defend himself. Not even because, by and large, every interaction that they'd had was amicable and increasingly comfortable.
More than that, Draco knew because in the past few days, things seemed to have changed just a little. Certainly since he'd all but blurted out the truth of his feelings barely days before in the middle of a crowded cafeteria.
The past half a week had been extraordinary. Lucerne was a beautiful town, picturesque in a way that London metropolitan couldn't capture nor even pretend to embody in feeble mimicry. It was quieter, more peaceful, more open, and Draco was struck by the ease that had gradually sunk into every muscle and tissue within him at the knowledge that he could step outside of the hotel he stayed at without needing to cast a wary glance over his shoulder.
Madame Clementine's studios were a photographer's dream. Not only were there so many to choose from that Draco doubted anyone could cry that they couldn't find one to fit their personal taste, but they were stuffed with equipment and polished gear, with technology, and lighting, and standardised cameras of the highest quality and newest make.
The models were suitably compliant. The hours were long, but they weren't backbreaking. The facilities were respectful and fruitful, and Draco was all but given his head to direct the crew to their most useful purposes. It was all that he could ask for in a job, and even if it was offered to him out of pity, he would embrace the opportunity with both hands. Once, Draco would have been far too proud to accept such off-cuts, but not anymore. Definitely not anymore.
But that wasn't all. That wasn't even the best part. What somehow outshone the opportunity, the liberty, the benefits of working with professionals that respected him as those in his own city didn't, was Harry. It was that Harry was there, with Draco, and he hadn't left him yet. He hadn't seemed even slightly inclined to.
Harry had accompanied him to Lucerne. He'd joined him in his trip, and even if Draco had been the one to ask it of him, Harry had wanted to come. He'd accompanied Draco to the studio every day since they'd arrived, standing in quiet and watchful attentiveness as Draco worked, and he'd seemed more than happy to put sight-seeing on the backburner for the moment when the days finished late and Draco was rendered weary but satisfied and reluctant to pursue any kind of vacation activities.
Harry didn't complain. He watched, and waited, and when Draco took his lunch he joined him. When Draco left for the day, Harry left alongside him. When he retreated to his bed, it was to see Harry doing the same, or to watch him curl up on the couch with a magazine propped against his knees, or to sprawl before the television and flick idly through the channels to one either in English or with subtitles. A part of Draco felt more than a little guilty that Harry was practically trailing him like a dog on heel with little contribution to the act, but the bigger part…
He's here. He's with me. And he said he wanted to be. That meant more to Draco than the job. Far more.
On the lakeside, the attending crew were making short work of packing up the scene. The models, wrapped in heavy jackets to stave of the cold that would have chilled their skinny frames to the bone in their thin outfits, were being herded up the shore like glamourous cattle. Draco took a step backwards from an older woman as she appeared alongside him, reaching for his abandoned tripod and folding it with practiced hands. She nodded silently to him, nothing more than an acknowledging gesture, and set about her work without comment.
It was nice. So goddamn nice to just be able to do his job.
Glancing back towards Harry, Draco dropped onto his haunches to pack away his camera. Even if it wasn't his personal camera, he still always preferred to do so himself. "What do you think, then?" he asked, as much as something to say as in real curiosity.
Harry, watching the cluster of models with a hint of that professional consideration Draco had seen in him in the studio, snapped his attention back towards him. "Sorry?"
"The shoot." Draco gestured to the vacated shoreline. "That's a wrap, unless I kick up a fuss and demand we do a re-take. So, what do you think?"
A slow smile crept its way across Harry's face. It wasn't a fake smile; not the kind that he wore before the camera. Draco was quietly pleased that, when it came down to just the two of them, Harry rarely seemed to paint that smile upon his face anymore. "I think," he said, a little chidingly, "that you would have to be a bit of an asshole to demand something like that."
Draco smirked, shrugging. He busied himself fixing the camera in its straps before closing the case. "Asshole or not, it's my choice. I'm just asking your opinion as to whether you think making such a demand is necessary."
Harry rolled his eyes. "It's not."
"Are you sure? You saw the pictures too."
"They're fine."
"Not perfect, though. They can always be better."
"Every picture can always be better, Draco."
Draco nodded knowingly. That truth was one he understood only too well. Never perfect, even if he thought he might have come damn close in recent months. "True," he said. "To be honest, I don't think I'd make such a demand even if I thought I could get better."
Harry cocked his head, eyes widening with false innocence. "What, you? Not grapple for perfection?" He inhaled a dramatic gasp. "How uncharacteristic. Are you coming down with something?"
"You're hilarious," Draco said, rising to his feet, but he otherwise disregarded the teasing. Or at least he did but to smile with the irrepressible urge he often found himself caving beneath so often when it came to Harry these days. Draco slung the camera bag over his shoulder, casting a quick glance around the scattering of crewmen who had already started to make their way up the hill after the models. The supervisor on sight – Ana, he recalled her name was – raised her hand and her voice to him indicatively, suggesting they leave to 'escape the cold' that had admittedly fallen with the encroaching evening, and Draco nodded obligingly.
There would be time to talk to the crew. To the supervisor, the models as Draco made a point of doing when they were obliging enough to actually speak to him, and to Clementine herself. But not today. The final day of shooting promised a distinct drop in commitment hours over the next few days, and Draco was determined to embrace that distinction immediately. The trip might be for work, but with Harry in company, Draco had decided to make it not only work.
That was certainly uncharacteristic of him
Stepping to Harry's side, Draco urged them in the wake of the retreating party. On the tail end as they were, the openness of the shoreline a striking difference from contrast to civilisation, it was peacefully intimate. Even more so as, allowing for a small distance to grow with the slowness of his steps, Draco found himself walking in the relative privacy of only Harry's company.
Whether Harry was aware of Draco's dawdling intentions or not didn't really seem to have much sway over the fact that he slowed in step alongside him. However, instead of persisting with the light-hearted teasing he'd tossed about with increasing frequency over the past days, Harry remained silent. Silent and staring as, head turned and gaze drawn to the lake, he stared past Draco as though he barely noticed him at all.
Draco didn't much like to be ignored – at least not by Harry – but he could withstand it for a time. Especially when such a peaceful expression settled on Harry's face as he lost himself in his staring. He really did seem to have a taste for the view, which was far from unwarranted. For Draco, though…
His fingers itched for his own camera. He didn't think he could ever capture too many of Harry's moments, and that one was certainly worthy of adding to his collection.
"You really like it, don't you?" he said as much as asked.
Harry blinked slowly, not quite shaken from his distraction. "I do. It's peaceful, and somehow clean. And private, even if probably millions of people have seen it before." He shrugged slightly. "Maybe I'm just an amateur when it comes to this kind of thing, though, so it's hitting me a bit more than it should."
"An amateur?" Draco raised an eyebrow, spared a glance for the party stretching even further ahead of them, and proceeded to disregard them once more. "How so?"
Harry shrugged again. "I've never really been on a holiday before. Going to Hogwarts when I was eleven was about the furthest I'd ever gone from home. It was definitely the most exotic place I'd ever been."
The thought that the Scottish Highlands, that Hogwarts itself, could be considered exotic was a little horrifying to Draco. He grappled with the thought, with his contrasting disbelief and pity of never been on a holiday? and I was spending every couple of months in our Parisian manor practically since I was born. His jaw worked, and something about his internal struggle must have shown through, because Harry broke through the last of his detached staring to laugh quietly at his dilemma.
"It's not that bad, is it?" he said, smile wide and eyes bright.
"It's bad," Draco said. "Very bad."
"You remind me of Ginny. She looked like she was having a stroke when I told her I'd never actually left England before going to school."
In spite of himself and the instinctive urge to disagree to anything Weasley-related, Draco found himself commiserating with the sentiment. Even if his commiseration was underscored by a distinct distaste for Ginny herself; there was a whole world of resentment involved when it came to Ginny Weasley that Draco didn't even want to consider resolving, a resentment that had absolutely nothing to do with her family name.
"Is that why you decided to come along, then?" Draco asked. "When I asked you?"
Harry didn't reply immediately. Lowering his gaze, he regarded his feet at they crunched over the pebbled shore, little scraping, grating sounds of stone on stone elicited with each step. Each time Draco had asked him that question over the past few days, the same question that he all but knew the answer to and yet wanted to reclarify again and again, to get a proper answer, the answer, his pause grew a little longer.
"No," Harry said finally, his voice the only sound louder than the distant murmur of the retreating party before them. "No, it wasn't."
Each time it was the same reply. Each and every time. Harry must have known what Draco was searching for. What answer he wanted to hear. And yet, time and time again, all he admitted was 'no'.
Madame Clementine was a wonderful inspiration. Seeing her work, being in her presence – it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. But that apparently wasn't it. Escaping from England, from the reporters, the paparazzi, and the public, from curious eyes and wagging tongues – it was liberating, wasn't it? But apparently that wasn't it, either.
Not the country itself, nor the town. Not the break from the drudgery, nor a desire to take a much-needed holiday. Draco was asking, narrowing down the possible options, because even if they'd all but answered one another days before, all but admitted the meaning behind the pain, the protectiveness, the anger, and the need for company, Harry hadn't said it. He hadn't said it. Admittedly, neither had Draco, but Harry – he was the one that hadn't said it, and he was the one who had to.
Draco wouldn't take. He wouldn't assume he had a right to anything. He wouldn't be like everyone else who had asked and stolen too much already.
For days, Draco had committed himself to that end. Absorbed in his work, it hadn't been as much of a trial as it certainly could have been. Harry's company at the studio was a distraction, but not overwhelmingly so. His presence in their hotel suite captured Draco's attention like a fireplace burning in a frozen room, but he'd been able to suppress the urge to act upon it. Draco was managing, and he was managing well, but that had been before. Now, he was all too aware that the time-commitment aspects of his work were all but complete. Editing and tweaking the final product that would take more time, but it wasn't as demanding of his attention.
Even after a day of shooting that the crew had repeatedly and enthusiastically reminded him would be the last day , Draco was suddenly starkly aware of that fact. Aware, and just as abruptly confronted with the ardent need to know. To understand. To ask properly and to receive a proper answer.
Slowing in step, Draco cast a glance towards the last of the departing group ahead of them. He met the eyes of one as they tossed him a moment of their attention over their shoulder, but only nodded in reply to the unspoken question before disregarding them and watching them disregard him in turn. Instead, Draco turned towards Harry and properly paused in step.
Harry obligingly stopped alongside him. Turning to face Draco himself, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders slightly. The cold nipped at him much as it did Draco, and Draco was glad he'd managed to convince Harry to purchase a proper coat just days before. Gladder even more that he'd taken Draco's suggestion of which one to buy; Harry had developed adept fashion instincts, but he'd accepted Draco's offer as though he didn't have any investment one way or the other.
Draco was pleased for that fact because he'd chosen the coat, and because it did look good on him. The colour, the cut, that somehow he managed to make the hood actually fashionable when he bothered to pull it up – all of it. What he didn't like, however, was that Harry had just accepted it. He'd just taken the suggestion as though it was an order and followed it.
Why? Why did he do that? Why didn't he ever try to impose his own choice on the matter? Why did that part of him, the part that had always been so defiant and loud, so demanding in their school days, have to disappear when Draco had always secretly loved it? The challenge, the exchange of verbal warfare, the thrill of one-upping him – it had been a highlight of his adolescence that Draco hadn't realised was so important to him until it was gone.
It was more than a little infuriating, and increasingly so because Draco was waiting. He was waiting for the words, and the admission and the – the want. Why couldn't Harry tell him what he wanted?
"Why did you ask me to come with you?" Harry had asked him on their first day in Lucerne, as though it wasn't blatantly obvious. Because Draco cared. He wanted. He wanted so much that his fingers tingled with the urge to reach out, just to touch Harry – his hand, his arm, his face; anything – and he had to forcibly hold himself back. He wanted to talk for hours on end about the foolishness of a magazine spread, or debate over the latest claims that Potioneer Danielle Bern had revolutionised the make-up industry. He wanted to share not just lunch but breakfast, and dinner, and to spend the aftermath washing dishes just as Harry had done in his apartment weeks before, not because he liked to clean but because of what such simple domesticity entailed.
Draco wanted to wake up in a bed and roll over to see a familiar face beside him, not just flushed with lust but with affection. He wanted that, and that want had only become more profound in a very short time.
Mostly, however, he wanted Harry to want him back. It wouldn't mean anything if he didn't have that.
"What is it?" Harry asked, breaking the silence between them with almost lilting inquiry. "What's wrong?"
Only then, standing and staring, battling with himself, did Draco realise just how long he'd been silent. Only then did he realise just how demanding the thumping in his chest, the twinging in his gut, and the itching of his fingers had become. Grasp tightening around the strap of his camera bag slung over his shoulder, Draco took a deep breath, released it, and inhaled another just as deep.
"Draco?" Harry asked.
He was frowning slightly. A concerned frown, almost worried. Draco supposed he couldn't blame him. In the short walk they'd taken in the passing minutes, Harry hadn't been partial to the train of Draco's thoughts. He didn't understand. More than that, he couldn't see himself and didn't know just how much Draco had been hiding with the excuse of work, professional distance, and the social expectations that would assault him should he speak his feelings back in London.
Now, those feelings felt fit to burst from him, and Draco wasn't sure if they would appear in the form of anger, or longing, or sheer desperation.
"Harry," he said lowly, gaze falling to the short span of pebbles between them. "I have to ask you."
His voice caught and, in the brief pause, Harry edged a step closer to him. "What's going on? What's…? This is out of nowhere. What…?"
It wasn't out of nowhere. Not even slightly. For Draco, it was the most relevant thing in the world. "Harry," he attempted once more. "How do you feel about me?"
Silence. Silence uninterrupted by the footsteps of Clementine's workers, or the crunch of stones beneath models' heels, or the bubble of chatter that passed between them. Silence except for the sound of Draco's breathing. The sound of his heartbeat in his ears. The sound of his internal cursing with the questioned why, why had he asked such a thing instantly chasing on the heels of his utterance. Why had he played with fire and shattered what had been going so well?
Harry didn't speak. Not immediately. He barely even seemed to be breathing himself. The passing thought snagged Draco, and he instinctively glanced towards Harry with the irrational thought that he might have somehow stopped breathing altogether.
He hadn't. Barely a foot away, Harry was still there, still aware, still… silent. His chin was slightly tucked, shoulders hitched just a little higher than moments before, his expression solemn and unmoving as though carved from ice. His gaze was fixed on Draco, so wide and attentive, so reminiscent of the countless shots Draco had taken of him and yet somehow so different, too. Wide and attentive, beautiful and captivating.
And lost. More than a little lost.
"I…" Harry began before trailing off.
Draco swallowed. Dryness suddenly afflicted his mouth, but he spoke through it nonetheless. "You have to know," he said, his voice harsher than he'd intended it to be, hoarser than he'd expected. "Surely you have to know how I feel."
"I…" Harry reattempted. His head shook slightly, not in denial but confusion. "I don't."
Draco stared. "How can you not?"
"How could I?" A slight frown creased Harry's brow. When a flutter of wind caught his hair and blew it into his face, he flicked it aside almost angrily. "You never say anything. You've never done anything, either."
Never done anything? What, never acted upon his feelings? Draco grit his teeth, took another deep breath, spared another glance for their distant, almost disappeared entourage, before planting his full attention onto Harry. Harry, who was watching him with his eyes still wide and such blatant, almost childlike ignorance it was infuriating. How could he not know?
"I want you," Draco found himself saying. "How can you not realise that? I've wanted you for years, even if I've only just recently realised it. I –" His voice caught, and Draco growled in frustration for his sudden unintelligibility. "I want to be with you. I asked you to come with me, here, because I want you to – to be –"
He clicked his tongue, jerked his head sideways and cursed under his breath. It wasn't so much that speaking such words were humiliating. It was more that he couldn't. He didn't know how. Draco had never declared his feelings to anyone before, romantically or otherwise. He'd assumed that how he felt on the matter, what his actions spoke for him, had conveyed themselves adeptly enough. Apparently not.
"You do?"
Again with that childlike innocence. Eyeing him sidelong, Draco was horrifyingly struck by just how confused Harry appeared. The deepening of his frown, the way he hunched in upon himself slightly – it was so different to the boy he'd known at school. So different to the man who'd planted himself between Draco and his attackers in an alleyway around the corner from Syren with his wand raised. So different to the flushed, intoxicated face, the panting breath and feverish grasping of hands that flooded Draco's mind whenever he thought of Ipetsky.
Cursing again, Draco scrubbed a hand over his face. Agitation gnawed at him, and it was all he could do not to step backwards, to stride in any aimless direction in a desperate attempt to duck away from a confrontation he'd hoped never to have. Why did feelings have to be admitted? Why – no, how could Harry not have known?
"I do," Draco said, sharper than he'd intended. "I want – I want to –"
"Then why?" Harry snapped his gaze sidelong, a grasping motion as though seeking to latch onto something tangible, a glance entirely different to his prior wistful staring upon the lack. Desperate, and frustrated, and searching for some explanation that Draco wasn't providing. "Then why didn't you just tell me? Draco, if you tell me, I would give it to you. You just have to ask."
Just like that. All at once, just like that, everything within Draco seemed to freeze. The air that swept around them, running fingers through Draco's hair, was chilling. The scent of the lake was sharp and crisp, the shuffle of trees further up the shoreline rising in oblivious whispers. But Draco barely noticed any of it. He had attention only enough for Harry's stare as it swung back towards him and the words that still rested upon his parted lips.
No. That wasn't it. That wasn't what he wanted at all. Draco didn't want that. He didn't want just that. He didn't want Harry to simply give himself to him because he asked, just as he didn't want to take what Ipetsky had stolen before him. What potentially more had stolen, too.
Draco hated the very thought of it. He wanted quiet moments of peace and good company. He wanted louder moments of laughter and smiles, of tongues poked out in taunts and eyes bright with teases. He wanted moments of leaning in casual contact upon couches with legs entwined and fingers linked, and he wanted gentle kisses that demanded no more than a kiss in reply. A kiss that was offered but requested just as much in return.
Sidelong pillows, pointless text messages, and shared glances that spoke more than words – Draco wanted that. The passion and the lust, the caress of warm skin and hot breath, was all a part of that longing, but it wasn't the whole of it. Not even close. Whether it was an idealised hope or something truly attainable, Draco didn't know, but he wanted all of it. And he wanted that with Harry.
What Harry offered, though – what he would give, wasn't that. The simple fact that he offered at all, that "I would give it to you" was offered so readily like a sacrifice rather than an exchange, wasn't that. It hurt more than Draco could have ever anticipated. It hurt in parts of him that he hadn't even known existed.
"Draco?" Harry asked, breaking into the deadened silence of Draco's stagnated mind. "What are you…?"
A hiss of breath escaped Draco's lips. His jaw clenched so tightly that he could hear his teeth creak, and he abruptly decided he wanted to be anywhere but on the edge of a goddamn lake being assaulted by a gentle wind. Yet even the longing to escape wasn't entirely feverish and mindless; Draco wanted to be away, but he couldn't quite bring himself to flee from Harry.
Extending a hand, his fingers curled almost like claws, Draco offered. He wouldn't grab Harry's hand, wouldn't snatch and demand, but he would ask. He'd ask, and if Harry would reply favourably, he'd take it this time.
For a moment, Harry stared at his hand in persisting confusion. Then he extracted his own hand from his pocket, slowly but not warily, and placed it in Draco's. His fingers were still somehow cool, soft and get firm in their grasp, and that firmness was enough that Draco almost winced. Stabbing pains in those parts of him that he didn't understand the nature of hurt more than he'd considered was possible.
Shoving the pain aside, Draco turned on the spot. He pulled Harry after him in a swirl of Apparition, and Harry didn't resist the pull. In a way, Draco almost wished he had.
Sunset painted the sky in a blossoming array of pink, orange, and blue. The line of the mountains and cliffs, reflected on the glassy spread of the lake beneath, was tinged purple, and the peaks of old buildings, the spires of the towers alongside the chapel bridge, were muted to darkened colours.
Lucerne was beautiful in a way that London wasn't. A foreign, captivating kind of beautiful. And yet for once, Harry barely saw it.
"Draco, could you just stop?" he asked, voice rising to chase after Draco's retreating back.
Wide, grey, cobbled roads. Pedestrians scattered and wandering. The occasional car, a puttering interruption to the evening quietude. Harry spared all of it only the barest sliver of his attention as he hastened in Draco's wake. "Could you slow down at least? Bloody hell, if you're going to go so fast, why not just Apparate back to the hotel?"
Draco didn't turn. Like a sweeping wraith, darkened by shadows himself despite the paleness of his skin and hair, Draco seemed almost to be running for the speed of his steps. Harry had to hasten to nearly a run himself in order to keep up with him, for as soon as they'd hit the cobblestones at the town's central Apparition point, Draco had all but fled. He hadn't looked back nor slowed since.
Harry didn't understand. He couldn't understand what had upset Draco so much, or what exactly he'd said that had caused him to be so angry. Was it even anger? Or frustration, maybe? Some kind of pain or distress? Harry didn't know because he'd only had a moment to attempt to discern just what had struck Draco like a blow across the face before he was all but running from him. If he hadn't taken the time to offer a hand to Harry to drag him into Side-Along Apparition, Harry would have almost let him go.
But he hadn't. He'd brought Harry with him. And now, in the face of his mounting confusion, Harry was left to trail after him and attempt to unravel just what had caused such upheaval.
It was definitely what Harry had said. His own words. His offer. In anyone else, Harry might have thought they were offended by that offer. That he'd made an assumption about intentions, possibly revealed his sexuality to an unwitting clubber and received the recoiling distaste he'd faced in more than a handful of Muggles with barely concealed homophobia. Except that this was Draco, and what he'd said just before that…
I want you.
Three words. Three syllables. So simple and yet so weighted with meaning. A part of Harry had been swept aloft in weightless, wonderful delight; Draco wanted him, and that Harry felt that want in return wasn't a secret he bothered hiding to himself anymore. But the other part of him, the bigger part, had shrivelled in unexpected disappointment.
Oh. That. Just that.
Physical beauty was superficial. It was based on instinct, and observable attraction. There wasn't anything wrong with appreciating physical attributes, but it would always remain just that: a superficial attraction. Harry knew that some people viewed him in such a way. He might not be able to see the basis for such attraction himself when he looked in the mirror, but Von told him, and Ginny assured him, and enough fellow models' offhanded compliments and photographers' calculating stares bespoke as much.
In the nightclubs, too. At the bars when a hand drifted down his back, or a figure appeared at his side, their stare visibly heated and shining with want even in the darkness of the club. Those people hadn't been drawn to Harry by his name. They hadn't been attracted by his fame, or his money, or the prospect of dating a model and what for some reason seemed to be a fetish for some people. The pursuit of an unfulfillable ideal.
And yet it was all superficial. It was all seeing, and touching, and sex. Harry liked sex, liked it a lot, for that matter, and the urge to pursue the mindlessness of easy pleasure was sometimes a necessary balm to soothe what was otherwise an incomprehensible itch. But Harry wasn't so blind to pleasure to know that it wasn't enough. Not for him.
Somehow, he'd hoped that it wouldn't be for Draco, either.
I want you, Draco had said, and the light of his want swum into his gaze. For a moment, Harry had been rendered mute, crushed beneath a wave of disappointment and helplessness. Even Draco. Even from Draco, it was all that was ever asked for. All that was ever wanted.
The debilitating feeling loss, the loss of something he'd never really had to begin with, had lasted only long enough for Harry to steady himself like a sailor balancing on the railing of a stormbound ship. Jumping off the edge to escape it all had momentarily felt so tempting, but he'd withheld. Instead, he'd reached for the thin, feeble rope that had been offered to him as his only lifeline. How long that rope would survive before snapping in half, he didn't know, but he'd take it. He'd take what Draco offered, give him what he asked for, because something was better than nothing – right?
What had gone wrong, Harry didn't know. What he'd said that had apparently upset Draco so badly, he couldn't discern. Harry was left to follow after Draco, to stare at the tight line of Draco's shoulders and feel disappointment and confusion deteriorate into annoyance and aggravation with each step. Even worse was that Draco didn't reply. That in itself was uncharacteristic of him. Draco always rose to the challenge.
"Could you just tell me what's going on?" Harry asked, picking up his pace and managing to fall into step beside Draco. He frowned at Draco's profile, the sharp, impassive lines of his expression and his gaze trained stoically forward. "I can't do a bloody thing about it if you don't explain it to me."
Draco's cheek twitched. That was all. It was slight, barely perceivable, but enough that Harry felt a brief flush of triumph. Draco was listening, even if he wasn't replying.
Picking up his pace slightly, Harry manage to skirt around Draco to plant himself in front of him mid-step. Draco nearly barrelled through him, catching himself only at the last moment to avoid a collision.
"Can you just talk to me?" Harry demanded, glaring up at him with more frustration than he'd felt in a long time. Somehow, Draco always seemed able to coax his anger forth. Harry was hurting, aching from the sting of Draco's words, and he was the one who had to try and make things right? It wasn't fair, but even so, he couldn't let it lie unresolved. Harry had to bloody well try to solve whatever riddle had been afflicted upon him. "I can't fix it if I don't know what's got you flapping around like a crazy peacock."
Draco's lip curled slightly, but all he did was curse, side-step, and attempt to sweep past Harry once more. Harry didn't let him this time; catching onto his elbow, he dug his heels into the road beneath him and hauled Draco to a stop.
"Enough," he snapped as Draco swung back towards him. "This is bullshit. Tell me what's wrong."
"You," Draco abruptly snapped back. His face was pale with more than just the cold, only a twin pair of flushed spots interrupting his cheeks. "You and your bloody – your bloody ignorance. That's what's wrong."
Harry stared at him, gaze darting between Draco's eyes. He didn't care that they were making a scene before the few people on the road around them. He wasn't even sure if anyone was still there to witness it. All he could see was Draco's wide-blown pupils, the tightness around his eyes and the way he clenched his jaw so tightly the muscles visibly bunched.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" he demanded. "What -?"
"That," Draco said, flinging his free arm towards Harry in an encompassing gesture. "You don't even realise what it is that you've said!"
"No, I fucking don't," Harry replied, voice rising and hitching. "So explain it to me."
"You don't –" Draco grasped at the air, his hand balling into a fist that he pressed against his forehead as though to stave off a headache. "You don't realise it, and that makes it worse."
"I don't –"
"You don't see me as any different from anyone else, and that's the worst part."
What? Harry's mouth hung open, unspeaking, in momentary confusion, before he scrambled to gather himself. "I don't know what you –"
"I don't just want you to fucking give yourself to me just because I ask for it," Draco snapped, so fiercely that the quaver of pain threaded through it was almost lost. He pinned Harry with a stare that was at once furious and desperate, so unlike the reserved and withdrawn man he presented to the world every single day. "I don't want to be like the rest of them!"
Words died in Harry's mouth. Whatever he'd meant to say was washed aside as though it had never existed in the first place. Staring at Draco, the words hanging in his ears, for a moment Harry was at a complete loss. His anger dissolved. His frustration was swiftly waned. Even his annoyance dwindled into nothingness.
What? What had he just said? What did he mean by –? "The rest of them?"
Draco all but glared at Harry for a moment before closing his eyes. He butted his fist against his forehead, not hard enough that Harry felt the urge to stop him but enough that it seemed to be with intent. Slow, deliberate knocks, measured and focused. It was about the only steady part of Draco at that moment.
"Ipetsky," Draco said, all by spitting the word out. "And anyone else that you – that you've been with. Or the people who look at you like that – like you're a goddamn piece of meat that they can just have." His voice was strained, a reflection of the tightening of his face. "I don't want to be like that. I just want you. All of you. And I want you to want me, too."
Harry couldn't breathe. He thought he might have forgotten how to. He'd almost flinched at Draco's words, at the truth of them, just as he had the accusations they'd exchanged over lunch barely days before, but he withheld. He managed to overlook the stinging burn it provoked in the face of the greater surprise. The greater importance.
"You… want me," he echoed, barely more than a whisper. The same words, but it meant something different this time. Something that wasn't really just 'want' at all.
Draco peeled his eyes open. A trembling mixture of emotions flickered across his face before he managed to smooth it all into a mask that wasn't quite complete. "I do," he said. "Because I… I care about you."
Draco Malfoy cared. It should have been astounding to hear, almost laughable, except that it wasn't. It definitely wasn't when Harry all but quivered before the echoing sigh of agreement within himself. Wanting wasn't caring. Not really. Or it wasn't usually, because somehow, in this instance, Draco seemed to have crossed the two wires. Somehow and yet perfectly so.
"You want me," Harry murmured again.
"I do," Draco said. The words escaped in a sigh, almost defeated.
"Not like Sammy, or –"
"Definitely not. Not like him. Merlin help me, please, not like him."
Harry's breath hitched. His gaze lowered to where he still held Draco's arm. Even through his jacket, he felt somehow warmed by the contact. Warm enough that he could barely feel the wind that was picking up pace around them.
"No," he said. "You're not like them at all." Raising his gaze, Harry caught and held Draco's, stare for stare, as Draco finally lowered his fist from his forehead. His resignation seemed to have banished any ability to hold tension in his expression. That mask crumbled away piece by piece, a feeble attempt that hadn't really a hope of being maintained in the first place.
Harry was glad to see it leave. He traced the lines of Draco's face with his eyes. The straight line of his nose and the sharper lines of his jaw. The arc of his cheekbones, the barest shadows upon his cheeks, and the darkness surrounding his eyes a product of the fading sun that somehow made his returning stare all the more intent. The urge to run his hand across his pink-flushed cheek, grazing his fingers through Draco's hair and cupped his head gently, softly, was almost too much too resist.
"You like me," Harry said, a reality that he'd known when it was superficial but only then realised was also far deeper than that.
Draco released a heavy breath, his head hanging slightly as though defeated. "I do. A lot."
A smile crept its way onto Harry's lips. How quickly a moment could change, from anger and confusion to swelling euphoria and feverish delight. The sun was sinking but the evening somehow seemed brighter than it had been at midday.
"Me too," Harry said, smile widening as Draco flickered his eyes up towards him. "I like you, too. A whole lot."
Falling prey to the urge to do so, Harry finally raised a hand to the side of Draco's face. He almost expected Draco to pull away from him, to flinch as though repulsed or to frown with a bout of confusion, but he didn't. Instead, his eyes widened, lips parting and breath hissing with a sharp inhalation.
"Can I kiss you?" Harry asked, detachedly aware that it was probably the only time such words had ever passed from his mouth.
Draco's breath hissed again. His hand rose to press against Harry's, holding his fingers against his cheek. "I don't want to just take it from you," he said, his voice warbling slightly in such an un-Malfoy way and yet somehow so fitting of Draco. "Not unless you want me to. I… I want you to want me too."
Harry smiled. Wide and freeing, he couldn't help himself from all but grinning like a fool. Such simple words, and in the sea of good and bad pick-up lines, open flirtatiousness and exaggerated compliments, they were the most romantic that Harry had ever heard. He gave into the urge to step across the distance between them and, closing his eyes, captured Draco's lips in his own.
He was warm. He was soft. He was still, and then he wasn't at all, his lips parting in response, his own hand rising to curl around the back of Harry's head. Harry sunk against him, breathed him in, tasted him, and all but clung to him with the sudden urge to never let go. Even when he drew away just slightly with the parting of lips and the catch of breath, prying his eyes open to peer into Draco's face standing so close that he couldn't see anything but grey eyes and pale skin, Harry couldn't loosen his hold upon him.
Draco's stared right back at him. He smiled, slow and wide, and Harry's own blossomed once more. Even in the face of the beauty of Lucerne's sunset, it was the most breath-taking thing he'd ever seen.