August 2nd, 2002
It only takes several days after Diane lowers his dose before Harry's mood deteriorates. Or maybe just stabilises. After all, the goal wasn't supposed to be for him to be hyperactive for the rest of his life. He would drive people insane.
His place is finally fully furnished. He went a little bit crazy again this week; he now has a bright yellow couch with a set of grey armchairs and a weird, asymmetrical silvery coffee table. A dining table, a coffee maker, a toaster, a huge bed, even an abstract painting of a very disturbing tree that he found in one of the galleries in Soho. A wicker table and a solar lamp on the roof. And plenty of plants that make the place look like a very modern jungle. He loves it. He thinks it's something he loves.
It feels like along with his broodiness deepening, his magic becomes frantic. He's done so much damage trying to engorge, shrink, and fit all this stuff the way he pictured. His magic reacts too strongly no matter what he tells it to do. It's slow at first, creeping around, only to suddenly erupt, single-minded and unyielding. And in those moments, he feels like it could do anything.
Shouldn't he be able to fucking control it already?
So what he has now is a bottle of tequila, which became his new go-to beverage, a half-burnt cigarette in his mouth, 'Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes', which is one of the most disheartening readings he could pick up, and a melancholic song seeping out of his massive speaker system. If only someone told him before how much more gratifying depression is when it's accompanied by R.E.M.
And it's only eleven am.
His brain very matter-of-factly provides simple solutions. Stop drinking—it messes with the pills, which leaves him unmedicated, which is fucking scary—and wallow in self-pity, and go do the next thing on the list. Which is talking to Kingsley. Which he doesn't want to do as long as his magic is out of control.
Fix the magic then. Either by going to a specialist or by cheering himself up. So, go get laid. But before he does that, he should still see a specialist, because after what he just read, he's in blind fucking panic.
All roads lead to St Mungo's then.
He gets up, checks the calendar—the Internet guy won't be dropping in until next week—and sends a Patronus message to Tracey, in which he attempts to explain in a very obfuscated way what he's after. Hopefully she's at work.
He barely has time to take a quick shower to wash away the feeling of failure when Kreacher shrieks, "Master! Mail!"
Harry wants to slap himself and runs from the bathroom. Of course, Tracey's never learnt to cast a Patronus, he doesn't use the Floo anymore, and by a crafty piece of magic that mimics his magical signature, the owls are looking for him at Grimmauld Place no matter where he actually resides. Kreacher is tasked with filtering the letters—weeding out fan mail, unwelcome offers, and less severe threats, and keeping what is actually relevant to him. It's the only way not to get swamped. It was particularly bad on Wednesday; his birthday always inspires people to reach out to him with some new life advice, criticism, or slew of gratitude.
"From Tracey Davis, just now," Kreacher reports dutifully, giving him three envelopes. "From headmistress McGonagall this morning and from the Research Council last night. The rest was junk," he adds bluntly.
Harry gives him a quick smile and scans Tracey's answer—she basically bitches about him not answering the Floo and assures that he's welcome to visit whenever. He glances at other letters as well; the council of the soon-to-be-open Magical History Museum asks about the Second Wizarding War memorial again, even though Harry already made it clear multiple times that he's fine with a statue as long as it's only symbolic and doesn't include any of his personal attributes—and yes, alluding to his glasses and scar falls under that. He shakes his head before moving on. McGonagall thanks him again for showing up to the annual Final Battle commemoration—which Harry took so badly it was the last straw that pushed him towards therapy—wishes him happy birthday and asks if he's going to participate in the opening ceremony of the International Youth Quidditch Competition that's going to take place at Hogwarts in September. Apparently, it would be a 'great honour'. He's not all that interested in quidditch anymore—invitations for tryouts to various teams land in the 'unwelcome offers' pile—but Ginny might be, and he doesn't know if it's an 'all alumni are welcome' kind of event, so he doesn't refuse outright.
The only letter he's currently interested in is Tracey's, and he prepares to leave for St Mungo's when he comes up with a brilliant idea.
He takes the tube. As it turns out, it's only seven stops, and he learns that his station, right by the park, is called Marble Arch. The moment he's back in the crowd as a part of the city's structure, one of the little units hurrying in the direction known only to them, he feels somewhat better. It looks like he just needs to go out more and not be left alone with his thoughts, and he will be fine.
The trip itself is odd and makes him slightly apprehensive. The tunnel looks and feels like something that would take him to the other side, much like Platform Nine and Three Quarters does. Maybe he will inspect it more closely one day, but now he just hopes the train will bring him where he wants to go. And it does exactly that; what is curious, though, is that the magical tingle disappears the moment he gets into the car. People around him don't seem impressed at all by the wonder that is the Underground, nor by the creepy aura back at the station. They mostly look bored.
He leaves this mystery behind and gets off at Bank Station. St Mungo's is not far; he smokes on the way and enjoys the nice weather. When he walks into the abandoned store and reluctantly approaches one of the mannequins, he compares the general feeling in the air with the one at the Marble Arch Station. It's similar, but there are differences. This one is kind of crisp and rather impersonal. That one was murky, maleficent in nature. Strange.
"Fill out the form, take a number, and wait," the witch behind the reception desk drawls without even looking at him. "Good day."
"No need, I'm just visiting."
She raises her eyes and gets airlocked. Other people in the waiting room—though there are surprisingly few drastic cases today, like teeth in someone's eye sockets—glance their way out of boredom and instantly start to whisper at the sight of a tense Harry Potter in a baseball cap. He sighs inwardly, gives an awkward wave, and bolts when he hears the first wooden chair scraping the floor.
Why is he still doing this to himself?
Tracey's office is also all of the trainee healers' office, so Harry makes his way there. A boy who looks younger than him, most likely straight out of Hogwarts, sits by the door, blowing on his tea. He gets a little tongue-tied when Harry asks about Tracey, so he patiently repeats the question, and the kid points across the room, seemingly rationalising to himself that it's only The Boy Who Lived asking him for directions. In a community as small as theirs, it's not that impossible to happen.
Tracey waves when she sees him and comes up to them. "Thanks, Casper." It sounds like a dismissal. She must be moving up in the world. "Hey. This is a nice surprise. Happy birthday." She gives him a weary smile while the other trainee nods shyly and walks away.
"Thanks. And I know, it's been a while," Harry admits with a sheepish grin. He kind of adores Tracey; she's very non-invasive and really good at listening. Quiet and fully focused on others; she's an ideal healer. "What have you been up to?"
"This is not what you came here for," she states without a shadow of a doubt. "I can see you dying to tell me what's new in the Harry Potter saga."
And sometimes he truly detests her and her teasing. Still, he cuts to the chase. "Is there somewhere we can talk in private?" he whispers. "I have... a lot of questions."
He can see she's intrigued because she instantly grabs his sleeve and steers him towards the third floor. Whoever they pass on their way, they either stutter some kind of greeting or raise their eyebrows in the 'I'm getting out of here before a Harry Potter-caused riot happens'.
"Spill," Tracey commands as he closes the door, slumping in the chair behind the desk and indicating him the patient seat with mirth in her eyes.
But he doesn't spill; instead, he lingers on before slowly sitting down. "So, is it your office already?" He knows that healer Tullymore has been an expert on poisonings and her mentor ever since she started. She knows this ward inside out, and her grasp of the field is exceptional. She should be a fully fledged healer by now.
"I'm working on it." She sounds self-satisfied enough to indicate that everything is on the right track. "I got you an appointment with healer Pullman. What's wrong with your magic?"
Harry shrugs. "I dunno. It just seems more out of control lately. Maybe it's nothing, but I want to double check before—"
"Before you rejoin the auror forces and accidentally blow something up? That's probably smart." She narrows her eyes calculatingly. "Are you? Rejoining? That's the rumour that's been going around."
Harry groans. "That's Malfoy's fault. He had to tell fucking Tiberius McLaggen—"
"As long as it's true, I don't see the harm. It gives people time to get used to the idea without you around. They'll get it out of their systems while you're still safely locked up at Grimmauld Place. Malfoy might be a pest, but he did you a favour."
Another thing he learnt during his last year of Hogwarts is that Tracey really doesn't like Draco. She's only ever tolerated him for Daphne's and Pansy's sake. No one could ever tell the Slytherins' inner workings while looking from the outside.
"I found a new place, actually," he reveals, not feeling like listening to how mean towards Astoria Draco is and how Tracey's always known he's a scumbag.
Her eyes widen. "Good for you! Via muggle channels, though, right?"
Harry presses his lips together. "You're annoyingly insightful."
"No, I'm not," she disagrees lightly. "I just listen to people. If you bought a house from one of us, I would hear about it."
Which is even worse. "I just needed to take a step back, especially if I'm supposed to go back to the ministry for good. Make sure that I'll be able to keep some part of my private life private."
"Merlin, Harry, you don't need to convince me. That's the most sensible thing you could do. Don't let anyone find out where it is, and you're golden. No one will touch you among muggles. I'm cool with them, and I still don't remember the last time I actually came face-to-face with one. Good call."
For some reason, he finds it rather sad. "Yeah, it's been... an experience." Only now he realises that Tracey might not be able to answer his questions at all, but it's still worth a shot. "Listen, what I'm going to say falls under 'never to repeat to anyone ever'."
Tracey smirks. "That's my favourite kind. Hit me."
"Is a wizard's blood actually different than a muggle's blood?" He drops the question like a bomb on her unsuspecting head. Tracey blinks, so Harry adds hastily, "Do we even know?"
"Do we—" she starts to repeat mindlessly before forcing herself to stop. "Do you mean, like, metaphorically? Is this about blood purity?"
"No, that's the thing," he tries to explain patiently, but then changes his mind. "So, that's what it is, yes? A metaphor? There's nothing in wizards' actual blood that flows through their veins that distinguishes them?"
"I truly have no idea, Harry. Like what? The colour? I don't think so." Tracey doesn't seem to even suspect where this is going, which in turn only confirms Harry's suspicions.
"So we don't take samples and analyse it? What about in case of poisoning? We check the blood, right?"
She looks even more puzzled. "Of course we check the blood, Harry. We detect external elements and remove them."
"And how do we do that? Humour me," he asks.
"By diagnostic spells. And then extraction spells. Harry, what is this—"
"So we don't actually know anything about our own blood composition? And nothing of the muggle one?"
Tracey bristles. "Well, I wouldn't say we know nothing." She frowns, offended by the insinuation.
Harry raises his hands peacefully. "I just mean, muggles do that. Analyse the blood. They know what muggle blood is supposed to look like and what it should consist of, so the question is: if a muggle took a hold of a wizard's blood sample, would they know the difference?"
"You shouldn't give your blood sample to anyone, Harry," Tracey chastises him gently. "Do you have any idea what they could do with it?"
'Nothing if they were muggles', Harry thinks, but keeps it to himself and just moves on. "Yeah, I know. I was just curious. Another question: what about muggle diseases? Are we immune? Are we still susceptible, but just handle it better because of magic?"
"Well, it's not a separate field of study, but I suppose we can get them. Most of them are harmless to us—I'm not sure about the muggles—and we developed cures for the popular ones that are far superior to muggle ones, but I remember a wizard coming back from Africa with a rare case of… something nasty. No one in the Magical Bugs ward knew what to do with him, and to this day we don't know what it was, but there were no indications that the disease had magical origins. His magic beat it eventually, but barely. So I would be careful, I suppose."
"So in this case, magic is basically an enhanced immune system," Harry sums up, feeling pretty excited about this.
Tracey frowns. "Sure, you can look at it that way." But she's clearly never heard the term 'immune system' before.
Harry thinks there's very little chance she'll have the answer to his next question, and he's embarrassed as hell, but he still forces out, "Do we have STDs at all? Like, are there magical STDs that are different from muggle ones, or do we have a cure for the muggle ones? Because if we do..." he cuts off hesitantly. The picture the book painted was pretty horrific, and if he learnt that wizards could have fixed it at the time—or still can, as a matter of fact—and didn't, he would be devastated.
But Tracey saves him from that, even though it's not the answer he's been hoping for. "What are STDs?" Her expression is adorably confused.
He sighs inwardly. "Okay, this is going to be awkward, so bear with me," he warns her. She looks dubious. "STDs are diseases that people can infect each other with by having sex."
Her jaw drops. "What do you mean?" she whispers harshly. Her eyes glance around nervously while her cheeks get slightly pink.
Harry always knew that wizards were kind of prudes. As a result, he was a prude as well, because everyone around him was a prude. People only spoke up about sex in his presence a handful of times. There was never any kind of health class at Hogwarts. Seamus boasted once about getting alone with some Ravenclaw. Ron was barely able to pass the knowledge onto him after his dad gave him the talk before sixth year. He was always beet red when the twins used to tease him about Lavender. Ginny just lit several candles one night after the war, and he somehow knew that was it. There was no talking beforehand. He remembers wanting to ask her about protection, but he was too tongue-tied and ultimately decided she must have known what she was doing. He was such a stupid kid.
And that was it. Sex was a completely 'behind closed door' kind of thing. Which was understandable, but also supremely unhelpful.
"I mean, unprotected sex." He doesn't see understanding on her face, so he tries another way. "What do witches do to prevent getting pregnant?" Tracey looks a bit like she can't believe he's speaking to her about this, so he backtracks. "If you uncomfortable with—"
"No, it's fine, Harry." She looks uncomfortable. "We use Contraceptive Potion."
"Right. So, there are pills for that in the muggle world, but it's still not enough, because if someone has a disease and you get in contact with their... bodily fluids, you can catch it."
Now Tracey looks disgusted. "How would they get diseased in the first place?"
"They caught it from someone else. That's how contagiousness works."
"So just don't have sex with someone who already had it with multiple other people who could have infected them with something?" She forms it as a question, but still sounds like it's an ultimate solution.
Harry gives up after that. He should have gone to Hermione. "It's not an ethical debate. I just wanted to know how we deal with that. So it's not an issue in the wizarding world?" Of course it isn't, not with the way society currently functions. He hopes if they loosen up one day, they won't forget to invent a magical condom. "And we don't know how a wizard would fare should he catch one of those muggle ones?"
She probably already explained to herself that he's always been weird, because now she looks amused. "Go see healer Pullman, Harry. Please don't ask her about sex. She's eighty," she mocks before clearing her throat. "And, you know, good luck with your... endeavours." There's mirth in her voice again, so he gives her a quick grin.
"Thanks for setting me up with her," he says before leaving.
This has been utterly useless.
The office of healer Miranda Pullman, one of the very few experts on degenerative magical conditions, known for her intricate historical studies on Obscurials, is on the fourth floor, even though her speciality has nothing to do with spell damage. There are no spells to make one's magic deteriorate, but wizards don't really get the whole psychosomatic area, and Harry's pretty sure it's connected to that.
Healer Pullman is a tiny, stooped lady with a surprising amount of pep. She asks Harry to describe his affliction, so he tells her about his magic acting up, the uncontrolled force of it, and him performing unexplainable feats without meaning to. She hums here and there, taking some notes, before standing up, going round the desk, and putting her wand to his temple. He tenses.
She hums again at whatever she sees in the results of the diagnostic spell, while he bristles at her awful bedside manner.
"Your magic has never stabilised since you reached your majority," she informs him dryly. Harry frowns. Of course it has; his magic was already fully mature when he killed a fucking Dark Lord. "How old are you?"
"Twenty-two," he answers stiffly.
She nods. "That checks. Were you particularly stressed at the time of your magical majority?"
Harry stares at her, not sure if it's a serious question. "Yes." Voldemort took over the ministry, and he was attacked by Death Eaters, labelled as Undesirable Number One, and forced to go on the run, so he thinks he can safely say so.
"Mhm," she murmurs disapprovingly, like it's Harry's fault for not taking proper care of his health at the time. She goes back behind her desk. "Mr. Potter, magic is affected by our emotional state—less so as we get older, but it never separates from it completely. The process of magical majority is even more flimsy. It can be influenced or even repressed. The mechanism is similar to that of the creation of an Obscurus: if you don't give your magic room to shine, it will develop independently of you. Of course, only the most severe cases lead to full dissociation, and only those have been recorded throughout history. It can also be minor, without anyone realising, as it is in your case. You haven't been using magic a lot, have you?"
Harry swallows. "Not recently," he admits reluctantly.
She nods, as if he proved her point. "Your magic never properly settled into itself. You didn't exercise it enough at one of the most vital periods of its development. It could be caused by many factors: you either didn't trust it, you were busy with something else, or you had others who did things for you. Or you were just overstrained; our bodies can react in mysterious ways. The point is: upon your majority, its natural growth had been somewhat stunted, and it didn't have an opportunity to catch up later."
Harry's aware that his mouth is slightly open. What? The worst part, though, is that it doesn't sound fully untrue. "But why is it stronger now?" That doesn't make any sense.
She tuts. "What you see now is its full potential. You're used to what your magic could do when you were a child. Usually this change is gradual and difficult to detect. In your case, the magic grew behind the scenes, so to speak, then acted up with its full strength. I can guarantee that from what I just saw in your report, ever since you had reached your majority until very recently, what you had access to was the magic of a child."
That one kind of stings. "I won a war in the meantime," Harry feels obliged to point out.
She gives him a long, knowing look. "And exactly what sorts of unheard of magical feats did you perform in order to do that, Mr. Potter?" Great, now he's thinking of dying. Was coming back to life a magical feat? It had little to do with his abilities or strength; it was just an unexpected outcome of nearly impossible circumstances. She must see his forlorn expression because her voice softens. "I do not dispute your good deeds, Mr. Potter, nor do I question the valour, determination, and brainpower you must have possessed to achieve them. It's a good reminder that not everything is about power. Let me be blunt and say that if that duel was relying on power only, your odds would have been quite poor."
Harry grins for the first time. "You're not wrong," he admits sheepishly.
"That is not to say that your magic wasn't formidable in its own right back then or that it's not formidable now. Just that it hasn't been following its natural course. I'm slightly concerned by the level of detachment you've reached. Let's remember that when magic is detached, it's neutral and chaotic; it doesn't connect to your psyche anymore, nor does it serve you. We can surmise that if you went on without reconnecting with your magic, it could evolve into something resembling an Obscurus. A different kind, most likely, than the ones we know from records, but some kind of autonomous entity nonetheless."
Harry stares at her, stunned. "What about apparition? Why does that keep happening?" he asks helplessly, because what kind of magical malady makes you apparate through anti-apparition wards?
She immediately lights up. "Ah, that is very interesting. Have you heard by any chance of Geneviève Rosier?" She sees Harry making a face and scolds him mildly, "The fact that you don't like the family name shouldn't make you disregard her academic work, Mr. Potter. Geneviève Rosier experimented with exactly that: growing her magic as a separate, powerful force and attempting to guide it to follow her command instead of the other way around. Back in her times, it was quite common, especially among those who identified as 'dark wizards', to let the magic off the leash, so to speak, and subsequently fall victim to it. But she was the first and, as far as I know, the only one to go so far with it and to do it deliberately."
"What happened to her?" Harry asks with morbid curiosity.
"Her magic eventually strangled her," healer Pullman informs him coolly. Oh. "But she used to be known for what you just described—not being affected by common passive charms and spells, like being able to apparate in the area that was warded against it. It was only later discovered that at some point it wasn't her apparating anymore; it was her magic doing whatever magic wants to do and taking her along for the ride. Not the safest way to travel, let me tell you. But most magic designed by wizards is also designed for wizards; it's the host that it affects. A useful loophole, you must admit, but ultimately quite dangerous."
Harry feels like his head is going to explode. He understands now what it means that Pullman is not really a healer; she's a scholar. She doesn't even work in St Mungo's; she only drops in when she's needed. Why don't more people study this stuff? The way she explains it, it's comprehensive and makes bloody sense, unlike those articles on magical theory Hermione reads.
Thinking about it now, it's fucking absurd that it was just accepted as it is. He starts to pop in and out of impossible places, and everyone just shrugs because he's Harry Potter, so it's probably just another crazy thing he does. Of course it's been a clear sign that something is wrong.
He's tempted to ask healer Pullman the same questions he asked Tracey—she seems knowledgeable enough—but stabilising his magic seems more important than improving his sex life, and he doesn't want to put her off.
"What do I do, then?" he asks seriously.
"What you do, Mr. Potter, is use your magic. You're a wizard, so behave like a wizard. Use it consciously, use it often, for little things and for big things. Your magic is not supposed to just do anything on its own. Don't be distracted, and you won't miss red flags."
Harry bites his lip hesitantly. "I want to return to the auror ranks. Is it... safe?"
"Yes," she assures him instantly. "That's an excellent plan. Your magic is not an enemy, not yet. The worst thing you can do is to treat it as such; it will only result in alienating it further. Give it room to shine, and it won't have to go behind your back. It should settle with time."
He thanks her after agreeing when she says she would like to supervise his progress. When he walks back towards the main entrance, he can't help glancing over his shoulder, as if he expects to see some shadowy being—his magic outside of the safety of his body—even though he knows it doesn't work like that. No, Harry, the magic is not in the room with us right now. He snorts. Only it kind of is. He wonders how it's connected to his mood; so far it's been going the most crazy whenever he was feeling the most down. Maybe it was pissed. Is it even capable of being pissed? He probably shouldn't attempt to personify it to this extent.
He got such a scare that he purposefully apparates home instead of taking the Tube back to the weird magical station. He wonders if he should work with his magic a bit after what he heard—train defence, maybe, or attempt something overly complicated just for fun—but there's also this other thing. He really wants to try the other thing.
So today he's gonna be a muggle. He can go back to being a proper wizard tomorrow.
He feels slightly more confident than he did last time, even though he doesn't go anywhere specific. He's not sure if he's even able to find that queer street again; he was way too drunk to remember the way. Although he's not looking for queer, specifically—and how he loves the word; it contains everything that deviates from the norm, so everything he is; from a certain point of view, magic is queer in its very nature—he's looking for anything. Men. Women. People.
In the first two clubs he visits, he doesn't go beyond speaking to someone at the bar. Both places don't have the right vibe; he feels kind of exposed. So he just downs a drink and moves on, and it's the third one that looks like a jackpot. It's the weirdest place he's ever been to, either muggle or magical. It's very neon blue, but somehow when he enters, he feels as if he just walked into someone's living room. A very eccentric person's living room. The whole ceiling is covered in something resembling a coral reef made of paper, with disco balls peeking out here and there. There are several fire extinguishers and recycle bins by the bar, clearly pretending to be stools. Which is nothing, because some patrons seem to be pretending to be mermaids. It's completely whimsical and yet deeply intimate.
"Have we met before?" He hears a hoarse voice behind his back after setting at the bar. He turns. The guy is probably nearing forty and carries himself like this whole place belongs to him. He looks at Harry steadily, cool as a cucumber, the left corner of his mouth raised playfully. The bartender snorts and slides two glasses of something sickly green in their direction. Now that's a good service.
"I don't believe so," he says loudly over the music.
The guy leans into him like a predator towards his prey. "That should be rectified as soon as possible."
"Is this guy bothering you?"
"Jesus fucking Christ! Sod off!"
Harry blinks, momentarily confused. There's another person with them, and he's laughing his arse off while Harry's new friend is pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Hey, don't blame me." The guy with curls in a gaudy shirt who just approached them grins. "I'm just doing my civic duty."
"It's the sixth one today," the player complains, clearly having lost all his cool, before looking intently at Harry. "Look, if you ignore this clown and still sleep with me, I'm going to win the bet."
Harry raises his eyebrows. This is going to be way easier than he expected. "Wow. Now that's a pity play if I've ever seen one."
Curls barks with laughter again. "I like this one," he declares gleefully, putting his arm around Harry's shoulders. "I'm Ollie. This is Ash."
"Don't tell him our names. He's supposed to be my flavour of the night," Ash whines. He's such an arsehole. Harry is almost impressed.
"Don't fuck him. I can't be friends with him if you fuck him," Ollie bites back before focussing his attention back on Harry. "You have a really captivating face. Especially with the..." he pauses, indicating briefly to his forehead. Harry fixes his fringe hastily. "I'm a photographer. Are you open to modelling gigs?"
Say what? "No photos," Harry stresses sharply, while Ash mutters, "That's the worst pick-up line I've ever heard."
Ollie raised his hands to show that he meant no harm. "Alright, no pressure. Are you drinking this?"
Harry eyes his glass suspiciously. What are the chances of these muggles trying to kill him? He takes a careful sip. Ew, maybe this has been an attempt on his life after all. It tastes like black licorice. He waves at Ollie in the 'have at it' manner.
"Great, you enjoy your motor oil or whatever this shit is made of, and we're going to enjoy our afternoon delight," Ash cuts in smoothly.
Harry frowns. "It's after midnight," he points out helpfully.
Ash rolls his eyes. "Evening bliss, then. Moonlight rapture. Nighttime ecstasy—"
"He gets it," Ollie huffs through the straw.
"What do you say?" Ash asks Harry. "I guarantee you won't regret it. I don't promise to remember your name, though." He frowns. "I don't even remember it now."
For a second, Harry is kind of suspended. He looks at the guy again. He's undeniably hot. Not really his type; too impeccable. But not completely fake either. There's something deeply human in him. Hidden insecurity, maybe. To be honest, Harry's not all that interested in analysing him. He's going to let Ash the Player rock his world.
"I never gave it to you," he says with a smirk. "Harry."
Then he turns on his heel and crosses the club towards the entrance. Since when does he have game? Only he doesn't, because he quickly realises that he has no idea where he's going, so he looks helplessly over his shoulder at Ash, who laughs brightly before hurrying to catch up to him.
"Where are we going?" Harry asks, but instead of answering, Ash grabs his sleeve and tugs him through the gate towards the empty backyard behind the club before pressing him to the brick wall and claiming his lips. Harry returns the kiss clumsily, and warmth rushes through his body. It's good—better than Lulu. Better than Ginny, but that might just be technique. Ash clearly knows what he's doing; he bites and licks, and it takes an embarrassingly short time before Harry's head is spinning.
"We can go to my place," he murmurs in answer to a long-forgotten question, moving his lips towards Harry's ear, and suddenly they switch places, with Ash leaning against the cold wall, giving him a heated look. Damn if he isn't the most sensual being Harry has ever seen, and he's met both veelas and vampires. "Or we can start right here," he adds enticingly and kind of looks down at his crotch, and now Harry is looking too.
He hopes he can't see him gulp. "I've never done this before," he admits quietly, less so to bail out and more so to excuse himself in case it's nothing to write home about.
Something changes in Ash's eyes, or rather appears—a hint of tenderness. "Aww. Sweet little lamb." Harry knows that his eyes narrow at that, and Ash doesn't miss it either, so he doubles the challenge. "There's that fire. Come give it to me."
So Harry boldly opens his fly and does exactly that.
Soundtrack for this chapter:
R.E.M.– 'Everybody hurts'