FIC: Harry Potter Gives a Shit (Harry/Draco) - Part 1

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Title: Harry Potter Gives a Shit
Author: talithan 
Prompt: 42
Adapted from: Queer as Folk
Pairing: Harry/Draco, Harry/Others
Word Count: ~58,000 words
Rating: NC-17
Contains (Highlight to view): * drug and alcohol abuse, bisexuality (and accordingly, references to het sex), elements of PTSD*
Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: Many, many thanks to 9fn432 for the beta and reassurance (particularly in that final stretch!), to E for the feedback and encouragement, and to L for being my sounding board and assuring me I could do this. You all were invaluable and I truly could not have pulled this off without you ♥ Endless thanks to the lovely mods for their patience with me and their generous extensions as I completed this monster of a story, and for running this wonderful fest!

Also, an enormous thank you to ashiiblack for this prompt! I was immediately intrigued by it—primarily because I initially couldn’t imagine how to reconcile the Brian and Justin characters with Harry and Draco in an EWE scenario, which of course meant I had to try to figure out how to do so. The preference for EWE over AU and the request (requirement, even) that one of them be an Auror shaped this fic the most. Because of those factors, this adaptation is a bit loose, though all of does have its roots in the plot and characters of QaF. I hope you like it!

(The title?)

Summary: “Where are you headed?”

“No place special,” Draco fumbled, and flushed further.

But then:

“I can change that,” said Harry Potter.





PART 1: Coming or Going

It would have happened differently if it had been anyone but Harry Potter—anyone besides Harry Potter. Draco would have been much more level-headed about it, he’s sure of it. But it wasn’t anyone. It was Harry Potter. And now Draco is just going to have to live with it.





He crossed the street with trepidation, each step further convincing him that this was a terrible idea and that Astoria’s idea had only sounded brilliant because he was pissed out of his mind. Any moment now the pavement would cave in beneath him and he’d fall into a bottomless hole of shame and keep falling and feeling ashamed and never stop, as it would be, of course, bottomless—or perhaps something more plausible but equally dramatic. Once across, Draco couldn’t seem to make it any further and found himself leaning against a lamp post as if it might ground him. His head swam, and he couldn’t decide whether being sober or shitfaced would be more comforting right now, nor could he decide which best described his current state. Facing this sober would be a much more intimidating prospect, to be sure, but drunk, he would undoubtedly make a complete mess of it. He gripped the lamp post and leaned his forehead against it until he realised it was damp, undoubtedly for some unsavory reason, then abruptly stepped back and wiped his hands on his jeans. His tight, pointedly Muggle jeans, which he wore with a tight, pointedly Muggle t-shirt and black dragon hide boots, since he had to draw the line somewhere.

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. You aren’t drunk. You can’t be drunk because you and Astoria were only at the Leaky for forty-five minutes, and you are not a lightweight. Astoria is drunk, but you are not drunk, Draco, and you can do this. His fingers unconsciously reached for the lighter and cigarettes in his pocket, as they did many times a day, but this time he did not have to stop them. This time he could indulge in his filthy Muggle habit and no one would look twice because this time he was on a Muggle street in Muggle London, trussed up like a Muggle slut, looking to get fucked. By a Muggle.

He lit a fag and inhaled, closing his eyes again and waiting for the calm. You are not drunk.

But then he opened his eyes, and he was drunk, he had to be.

Because at no point would his sober self ever see Harry Potter emerging from a Muggle club in his own tight jeans and tighter t-shirt, arm slung over his own Muggle slut. Because Harry Potter didn’t wear tight jeans and tight t-shirts and go to clubs to pick up sluts to fuck. Harry Potter smiled winningly at high-profile charity events and memorials and released press statements about the importance of social justice issues. Harry Potter was a humble, private hero who used his spotlight for the service of others and would never, ever lick a Muggle’s neck while cupping that same Muggle’s crotch and—good lord—grinding his own crotch against the Muggle’s thigh. These things were simply not done, not by Harry Potter.

He stood frozen, still half-leaning against the lamp post and holding the cigarette to his lips, but no longer remembering to breathe. It was Harry Potter. There was no mistaking it—his hair was the same mess it had been the last time Draco had seen him at the Ministry, maybe even messier; he was still glasses-free, as he had been for the last three years or so; he still moved with that easy, casual slouch. But his smile was different, nothing like that easy, charming grin he wore in press photographs. This time it was sly, suggestive, arrogant; a smile promising skills to warrant that confidence. And that casual slouch had turned to a liquid swagger, shockingly sexual rather than merely approachable and easy-going.

Draco flushed as he realised he was half hard just from watching this strange new Harry Potter, and he took a long drag on his cigarette. He was thankful for his lamp post, for holding him up and for being his accomplice in stalling before actually entering the club. He might have walked in as Harry Potter was coming out, might have come face-to-face with him instead of seeing him from a safer distance. He might have had to explain his t-shirt, his jeans, his cigarette, his presence in Muggle London at a club that someone would only patronise if looking for male companionship of a rather explicit nature, and what would he have said—

Oh.

Oh.

Harry Potter was wearing tight jeans and an absolutely criminal black t-shirt and licking the neck of some Muggle slut who had a cock. Harry Potter was probably going to take this man home and, and—fuck him in the arse. Or—or take him to an alley, even, or maybe he would be the one to get fucked in the arse—

Draco let out an involuntary strangled yelp and accidentally snapped the cigarette between his fingers.

Harry Potter was gay.

Harry Potter had gay sex. With Muggles. In back alleys, even, possibly. It wasn’t like he could just Apparate with a Muggle, take him home with him. Where did Harry Potter live, anyway? And, for that matter, what had Draco been planning to do, as he certainly couldn’t Apparate a Muggle back to his room at Malfoy Manor—had he been planning to get fucked in the arse in a back alley like Harry Potter? Because Harry Potter—Harry Potter—was a back alley slut who put his hands on men’s crotches and licked men’s necks and probably even sucked men’s—

Another strangled yelp emerged. This was impossible, this couldn’t be happening, this was—he needed another fag. He needed to go home. He needed someone to touch his cock, right fucking now, or he would definitely die.

The first course of action seemed the easiest to achieve. He lit another, and he was still holding the fag and the lighter when:

“Malfoy? Draco Malfoy?”

He dropped both abruptly. And swore, loudly, because Harry Potter was standing right there in front of him and eyeing him curiously and looking like actual sex on legs, the muscles of his arms and torso highlighted by the light on the top of the lamp post that Draco was stupidly standing under. He wordlessly bent to retrieve the lighter and reached for a third cigarette, placing it between his lips in the desperate hope that somehow his mouth being otherwise occupied would make Harry Potter give up and leave him alone and go back to his slut, who was standing back by the entrance looking annoyed.

But Harry Potter didn’t give up, or leave. Instead, he opened his mouth to speak again, and Draco inhaled deeply and prepared his answers. No, I do not come here often—in fact, I’ve never been. No, I do not take it up the arse. No, I did not realise the nature of this establishment. No, I will not go to the papers. Yes, I will be leaving now. Good night, Potter. The first two would be true, though they’d likely stop being true very soon (or would have stopped being true very soon if Harry Potter hadn’t come out of that club and ground his erection all over that Muggle and revealed himself to be a back alley slut, oh sweet Merlin, but now, who knows). The third, a blatant lie, would hopefully come across as plausible enough, given the club’s discreet facade. The last two, well, those would depend on Harry Potter. It was his move now.

But he didn’t say any of the things Draco had expected him to say. He just said, “Are you wearing eyeliner?”

Draco dropped his third fag. “Excuse me?”

“You’re wearing eyeliner.”

He’d forgotten all about Astoria’s ridiculous contribution to his appearance (“You’ll look so hot, Draco; it’ll make your eyes pop; they won’t be able to stop looking at you”), which he felt was understandable, given the information he was currently having to process. And now, with Harry Potter fixing him with that horrible sly smile, Draco couldn’t think of a single non-inane response to that statement.

“You’re gay.”

Which apparently meant an inane response was his only option.

But instead of being offended, angry, or even amused, Harry Potter—black-t-shirt-clad, slouching, back alley slut Harry Potter—didn’t even react. He just shook his head slightly and said, “I’m not gay.”

Draco could feel his eyes bulging unflatteringly (and he couldn’t even imagine how that looked, with the eyeliner and all), but he couldn’t help it. “Excuse me, Harry Potter, but you were just humping a man while licking his neck—”

“Been watching long, have you?”

“You are gay, Harry Potter.”

“No, I’m not. I fuck women, too.”

Draco’s mouth was watering so much that he almost choked. “Fuck a lot of people, do you, Harry Potter?”

That horrible grin widened. “‘A lot’ is relative, wouldn’t you say?”

Draco swallowed hard. He knew he must have been flushing dreadfully right then, and all he could hope was that the light from above wasn’t hitting his face well enough for it to show. And then those green eyes were traveling over him, lingering on his t-shirt where he knew it was stretching over his chest, down his legs that he knew looked long and slim in these dark jeans. His cock was probably clearly visible, hard as he was; that had been the point of wearing jeans that fit like this, after all. He wanted to take a time-turner and go back and punch the him who got dressed a half hour earlier in the face. And then punch Astoria before she started putting on his eyeliner.

“So how’s it going, then, Malfoy?” His eyes were somewhere below Draco’s belt buckle as he asked, “Had a busy night?”

Draco’s cock was trying as hard as it could to burst through his jeans and fly into Harry Potter’s face. “Just…checking it all out, you know. The bars, I mean. You know, Pistol. Boytoy.” The words just kept coming without Draco’s consent. “Meathook.”

Somehow, the horrible grin looked more knowing, more arrogant, and generally more horrible with each word that came out of Draco’s mouth. “So, then. Where are you headed?”

“No place special,” Draco fumbled, and flushed further.

But then:

“I can change that,” said Harry Potter.

The cheesiest, cockiest line, and somehow it went straight to Draco’s dick, making him emit another terrible muffled yelp. And then Harry Potter hooked a finger through one of Draco’s belt loops and said, “Come on, Malfoy,” and led him around a corner to an empty street and Apparated him away.





Harry Potter Apparated them to the entryway of a house that was most likely enormous, if this first peek was any indicator. It all felt strange and incongruous, the grand, showy architecture at odds with the minimal decor. A chandelier hung overhead and a grand staircase at the end of the hall suggested several higher floors, but the walls were all bare of anything but dull gray paint, and the only bit of furnishing in the entire front hall was an umbrella stand and spindly coat rack. Draco couldn’t help wondering how Harry Potter had come to live in a place like this.

He was given no clues, though, as Harry Potter stepped backwards towards that grand staircase and gave him a challenging look. “Coming in?”

“Yes.” Draco stepped forward but then found himself at a loss. Was he—Harry Potter hadn’t really brought him here for sex, had he? He wasn’t really about to have sex with Harry Potter. Was he?

Harry Potter pulled that black t-shirt off over his head and Draco felt as though someone had scooped out his brain and dropped it in freezing cold water. He was painfully hard, and just, fuck—

“You’re Harry Potter.”

He seemed amused. “Yes, I’m Harry Potter.”

“I’m in Harry Potter’s house.” Draco’s voice came out shaky but he couldn’t seem to fix that, or stop talking. “I’m—you’re Harry Potter. You’re taking off your clothes, oh Merlin—”

Harry Potter kicked off his shoes and opened his jeans.

Draco yelped again, and then Harry Potter dropped his jeans, and he was not wearing anything under them.

“Harry Potter is taking off his clothes,” he said shakily. “Buggering fuck.”

“Why do you keep calling me Harry Potter?” Harry Potter asked as he stepped out of the jeans, towards Draco. His voice was low, calm, vaguely teasing.

Draco swallowed hard. “Because it’s your name. You’re—you’re naked.”

“Just pick one. A bit awkward using both, isn’t it?”

Draco made a noise that sounded sort of like nnyuyngyfhfh. It came out at a much higher pitch than he would have liked, but it seemed he was no longer responsible for what his voice chose to do. “Oh, okay, Harry,” he said in a tone that he meant to sound mocking but instead sounded shrill and slightly desperate.

Harry Potter—Harry? Potter?—grinned slyly and held his arms wide, palms forward, as though putting himself on full display. Draco was beginning to feel legitimate concern that he might pass out, with all of the blood in his body heading for his groin.

“So? Are you coming or going?” he asked teasingly. As if there were any doubt—as if Draco could see him like that, looking so completely fucking edible, and then just go. “Or coming,” he continued, and paused with the sexiest fucking leer Draco had ever seen, “and then going?”

Draco could only squeak in response.

“Or,” he said, taking a step back towards the staircase, “coming…and staying?”

Draco floundered for words, for some sort of vocal response that wasn’t an excited moan-yell, but couldn’t come up with anything other than yes come yes I would like to come can I come all over your gorgeous fucking face oh please put that big fat cock in me right fucking now and it wasn’t as though he could actually say any of that, even with his involuntary vocal emissions already. So he steeled himself and took a step forward, and then another, until Harry was walking towards him as well and they were meeting in the middle and Potter was kissing him, and pulling Draco towards his beautiful naked body. Draco really was going to pass out, couldn’t possibly survive much more of this, not with Potter’s tongue in his mouth and hands creeping under his shirt and oh, there, pulling that shirt off him entirely and moving his mouth to bite lightly at Draco’s neck and then bite again, harder, on his collarbone. And then his mouth was gone and he was stepping away and Draco let out a completely mortifying groan of protest, but Harry just said, “Let’s go upstairs,” in that absolutely disgusting low voice that sounded like sex, and Draco thought, okay, yes, upstairs, and followed Harry’s naked, beautiful arse to the staircase.

Going upstairs apparently involved pausing to snog heavily at each landing, and sometimes halfway up a flight, so Draco soon lost track of which floor they were on and just assumed Potter would get them to a bed eventually. Or any suitable surface, really. On one of the landings, Potter finally opened Draco’s jeans and wrapped a hand around his erection, stroking it slow and even and teasing, and he kept stroking it even as he walked them further up the stairs, taking the steps backwards but still not stopping until Draco stumbled and fell forwards into him, too distracted by the sensations to climb the stairs properly. Then Potter suddenly took the stairs two at a time, dragging Draco with him and then shoving him against the wall and saying, “You sexy motherfucker,” before kissing him roughly and pinning him against the wall with his whole body and running his hands down his sides and then behind him and kneading his arse through his jeans. They stayed there for longer than they had at any other landing, Harry apparently content to rub his cock against Draco’s still denim-clad hip and suck on his neck and force humiliating moans and breathy noises out of him. It wasn’t until Draco let out a shaky fff-fhuck and jerked his head back against the wall a little too hard that he finally backed off for a moment, green eyes glassy and pupils blown wide, and tugged Draco through one of the doorways.

Then Draco’s jeans finally came off (with a brief hiccup as he attempted to unlace one boot before remembering his wand, tucked into the other boot, and spelling them to unlace themselves), and they were both naked, and Potter was shoving Draco on to a bed and climbing on top of him. Draco was going to die if he didn’t come soon but that probably wouldn’t be a problem because he would probably just shoot spontaneously, at this rate, just come all over both of them without Potter even having to reach for his dick again.

But then Potter did reach for his dick again, stroking it with that same deliberate slowness, and said, “So what do you like to do?”

Draco could not understand what could possibly motivate Potter to start making small talk when Draco was so maddeningly close. He couldn’t help a small groan as he tried to string words together. “I don’t, I—I don’t have a lot of free time, with training, so, I, er, I don’t know, I like to—”

“I mean in bed,” Potter clarified with a smirk. Draco’s face felt hot with embarrassment, but then again, his entire body felt hot, and his face had probably been bright pink for a full half hour already.

“Er,” he started again, trying to be even remotely self-controlled, “this is fine.”

Potter’s smirk didn’t vanish with his next question. “Are you a top or a bottom?”

Draco nearly came just thinking about it. If Harry’s hand on him felt this good, Harry’s arse—he imagined Harry sitting a little further forward, not stroking Draco’s cock but riding it. “Top,” he said quickly, wondering if this meant—if he would get to—

His eyes darted down from Harry’s face above him to his cock, hard and beautiful and right there next to his own, and he imagined opening his legs and having Potter between them, Potter’s cock in him, and—“And bottom,” he added, thinking of Harry’s weight on top of him shifting and Harry fucking him open and Harry—

“Versatile, then,” Harry said, that horrible grin on his face again, and Draco felt so pleased at the idea that being versatile was something that would please Harry. Merlin, he needed to fuck him, absolutely any way he could. Every way he could. He needed Harry everywhere, on him and in him and under him and everywhere.

“Do you like to rim?” was the next question, and Draco didn’t even have to think about it because at this point he was entirely confident that he would enjoy absolutely any sexual act with this man.

“I love it,” he said, or sort of gasped it, as Harry kept moving that hand on his cock.

But Harry stilled his hand and leaned forward slightly. “Go to it, then.”

Draco nearly jerked up to force his cock against the hand still wrapped around it but stopped himself, trying to process the order.

“Well?” Harry’s voice was still low and calm and even, which made Draco feel just the opposite even more.

“What exactly do you mean?” he asked, barely caring that Harry would know he had no idea what he was doing; he just needed to find out what to do so he could do it and come and make Harry come, fuck.

And then Harry was smirking and leaning down towards him with that incredible mouth and—

“Bloody hell, Harry, you’re finally home—it happened.”

And Ron Weasley strode into the bedroom.

Harry clearly did not find this as dramatic an occurrence as Draco did. He didn’t even get off the very naked man under him, or remove his hand from his cock. No, in fact, he instead began absently stroking Draco’s cock once more, even while he turned and looked over his shoulder at Weasley in the doorway.

“What happened?”

“It happened, only twenty minutes ago—we’ve been trying your Floo all night, but you’ve been out.”

“Of course I’ve been out, Ron, you—”

“Well, now you're home, and you’re going to have to get rid of whatever you’ve brought home because Ginny’s done it and you have to come and see your—”

And as Harry listened, distracted, his hand tightened slightly, quickened slightly, and Weasley hadn’t even finished his sentence before Draco was coming all over that hand and his stomach and not even Weasley’s presence was enough to temper the force of his orgasm. Harry’s hand stilled and he looked down as though surprised to find Draco there with his come everywhere, but only seconds later he was looking over his shoulder again, now almost frantic. “Wait, it happened? It’s—it’s done? I missed it?”

“You were out, mate. It was over an hour ago. We tried, but—”

He abruptly stopped, and then:

“Fucking hell, did you just wank Draco Malfoy in front of me?” As though somehow the discovery of Draco’s identity made the act suddenly horrifying, more horrifying than it was when he came in and saw his best friend naked and in bed with a man and didn’t react, or more horrifying even than when that man came and he didn’t react.

Harry showed Weasley his hand, briefly, before wiping it on Draco’s chest. “Looks like it.”

“I think I might vomit,” Weasley offered, stepping out of the room.

Draco would have to face Weasley at the Ministry the next day. And the day after, and every weekday for the foreseeable future. He could understand the need to vomit.

Harry was not afflicted with any such impulse, and neither vomited nor looked as though he’d like to. Rather, he got off Draco and took his wand and spelled them both clean, then began dressing. “I have to go,” he said needlessly.

“I,” Draco started, but could not begin to think of what to say.

Harry stepped out of the room and for a moment Draco wondered if it could really end so quickly, if Harry would really just throw on some clothes and leave with neither an explanation nor a goodbye, but then Harry came back in and threw Draco’s jeans at him. As Draco tugged them on, he said conversationally, “Have you ever been with anyone before?”

Draco froze, one leg in the jeans and the other out.

Harry laughed softly. “I figured.”

“Are you—do you—”

“So what makes Draco Malfoy go trawling Muggle clubs for his first cock?”

“I wasn’t trawling clubs,” Draco insisted as he did up his jeans. “I was—”

He turned around to find Harry standing right there and stopped abruptly.

“You were looking to get fucked,” Harry said, low and soft. He traced a finger over Draco’s skin, just above his waistband. “Dressed up like this. Just begging for it.”

A small squeak escaped Draco’s throat.

“But you haven’t before.” He didn’t ask it like a question, but he paused as though waiting for an answer.

“It’s not as though I have many takers,” Draco retorted quickly, then flushed as he realised how that sounded. “No one wants to fuck a Death Eater,” he continued more quietly, figuring the damage was done.

“I thought you were an Auror now,” Harry said. He was walking back towards the door, and Draco couldn’t make sense of how he switched between very interested and completely unaffected with no warning.

Draco was putting his boots back on (or rather, shoving his feet into them and spelling them to lace themselves) and focused firmly on this task as he answered. “Last year of training.” He felt fabric against his side and reached to grab it before it slid to the ground. His t-shirt—Harry must have summoned it.

“And that doesn’t have the men lining up?” Harry said, close again. Draco shook his head, throat tight. “So you thought you’d go find yourself a nice Muggle.”

Draco pulled his shirt on, resolutely not looking at Harry. “As if you’re one to judge. You were doing the same thing.”

“Ah, but I’m no virgin,” Harry said. His fingers grazed the side of Draco’s face, and Draco closed his eyes. He kept his fingers there, perhaps waiting for Draco to look at him, but he wouldn’t. After a moment, Harry said, “You should go home.”

They stood there like that in silence, Draco’s eyes closed and Harry’s hand on his cheek, until Weasley’s voice came in from the stairs. “Harry, mate, d’you have clothes on yet?”

Draco had almost forgotten they weren’t alone, and he felt his face flush at the reminder, even with Harry’s fingers on his skin. He’d gone home with Harry Potter. He’d nearly had sex with Harry Potter. Harry Potter had given him a hand job, the completion of which was personally witnessed by Harry Potter’s best friend. And he’d somehow started to believe that this was actually happening, that Draco Malfoy having sex with—losing his virginity to, sweet Merlin—Harry Potter was something that could actually happen.

He opened his eyes, and Harry was right there, looking at him so intently. His hand moved then, fingers sweeping lightly down the side of his face to his jaw and neck, coming to rest just above his collarbone. Draco realised there must be marks all over his neck from earlier, possibly even at the exact places that Harry was touching. It made the look he was giving Draco seem oddly intimate, and Draco’s skin felt hot again.

“Come meet my kid,” Harry said softly, with a slight smile. Before Draco could answer, he was already walking out the door.

“Your kid?” Draco repeated, dumbstruck.

“Coming, Ron,” Harry was saying.

His kid?

Draco followed him into the hallway, meaning to ask for clarification but having no idea how to do so. But it didn’t matter because Harry didn’t give him a chance to ask, didn’t give him a chance to say anything at all, merely ushered him through a door and towards a fireplace in the next room. Weasley was saying, “You’re not bringing him, are you?” but Harry was saying, “Come on, then,” and wrapping his arm around Draco’s waist and tugging Draco forwards, so that as Draco stepped forward to catch himself, he stepped with Harry into the green flames.

“The Burrow,” Harry called, and Draco braced himself.





Nearly all of the Weasleys and their assorted spouses were present for the occasion, the nature of which Draco was still questioning as he attempted to convince himself that he had somehow misunderstood Harry’s words. He didn’t know how to ask (Your kid?), not with a half dozen Weasleys crowded into the sitting room and all looking at him.

What struck him as strange, as he started to think about it, was that no one asked why he was there. No one seemed to require an explanation as to why Harry had arrived with another man in tow, another man who was wearing tight Muggle clothing and eyeliner and almost certainly had a series of bruises blooming all up and down the side of his neck. Of course, this set of clues was likely self-explanatory to a certain extent, but in the same vein, no one seemed to require an explanation as to why the man Harry had brought was Draco Malfoy.

No, instead of questions or accusations, he was treated to a few curious looks and some eye-rolls. Which somehow felt worse, in a way, though it was better than the series of hexes and curses that would have flown his way if this had happened four or five years ago.

Then the woman on the squashy sofa in the middle of the room looked up, looked at him. And immediately burst into peals of laughter, her freckled face pinkening, her red hair falling loose over her shoulders as she tossed her head back.

She was holding a tiny pink baby in her arms.

Draco was again hit with the urge to vomit. He made to turn around and step back into the kitchen, to Floo home and forget any of this ever happened, but then Weasley (Weasley Weasley, Ron Weasley) was in the way as he appeared in the doorway. At the same moment, Granger crossed the room towards them; Draco hadn’t spotted her there beside the squashy sofa, what with all of the Weasley red demanding his attention much more loudly. She put her wand to his neck and he again instinctively stepped backwards, but then he felt the slight tingle of magic and realised she was getting rid of the marks Harry had made. He didn’t feel the small twinge that came with healing spells, only the lighter touch of a concealment charm; he guessed she’d chosen the latter because it was quicker, though he couldn’t fathom why she’d bother hiding something everyone in the room had already seen.

Ginny Weasley, on the couch with Harry’s baby in her arms, was still laughing.

A lot of things were making sense now. Why Ginny Weasley had not participated in the recently concluded Quidditch season. Why she hadn’t been seen in public in months. She hadn’t been following in Harry Potter’s footsteps, retreating into a life of privacy and carefully selected media appearances. She had been pregnant. With his baby. And keeping this a secret, for some reason.

“Ginny?” Weasley prompted warily, shoving past Draco to get to her. “What’s—”

“Harry!”

And then Draco knew why Granger had hidden those marks, as Arthur and Molly Weasley came in from the kitchen, both grinning widely.

Harry’s arm dropped from around his waist and he walked toward the squashy sofa.

“Draco?” said Arthur Weasley.

“I,” Draco started, and stopped.

“Harry, say hello to your son,” said Ginny Weasley.

“James,” said Harry, and reached out to hold his son. There was a warmth in his eyes that seemed so incongruous that it made Draco realise how cold he’d been before now.

“Draco,” Granger started, whispering quickly in his ear, “it isn’t what you think.”

“He looks just like you,” Molly Weasley told Harry untruthfully.

“That’s Potter’s child,” Draco said dumbly.

“Yes, but—” Granger started.

“Why is Draco here?” Arthur Weasley asked the room at large.

“—he isn’t fucking around on Ginny,” Granger insisted, speaking quietly but firmly. “They have a son, now, but they aren’t a couple. It wasn’t—it wasn’t planned.”

“Harry brought him,” Ginny told him, beaming like she thought it was the most charming, hilarious thing.

“James Sirius Potter,” Molly Weasley said with pride, and Draco thought he really might vomit.

“Do you—” started Granger, and she was scowling, though not at Draco. She was scowling at Harry. “Do you want to get some air?”

Draco let her lead him out of the sitting room, past the handful of Weasley men and their wives that had assembled to welcome the newest addition to the family, through the small kitchen that Arthur and Molly Weasley had entered from, and out the door to the garden. Granger crossed her arms and turned to face him. It felt like an interrogation, but she didn’t say anything.

“He wasn’t planned?” Draco asked to fill the silence.

Granger shook her head. “They haven’t—they’ve been together off and on for years, but it’s never been serious. Ginny’s focused on Quidditch, and Harry’s…Harry. They didn’t mean for her to get pregnant, but they decided to keep him.”

She looked thoughtful, but she didn’t say anything more. Neither did Draco. He didn’t know what to say. He wondered why Ginny Weasley thought it was so funny that Harry Potter had taken Draco Malfoy home, why it didn’t seem to bother her at all. Why a room full of Weasleys also weren’t bothered, seemingly only mildly curious.

“I’m sorry,” Granger said, and Draco didn’t understand. Granger didn’t have anything to be sorry about. She had done so much more for him than he deserved. When his three-year probation was finally up, when he applied to the Auror Academy for the third time (fully expecting to be rejected a third time), it was Granger who fought for his acceptance. Granger and Arthur Weasley. She insisted there was no reason not to accept him, not with his probation (during which he had been a model citizen, going back to Hogwarts and then working a series of menial jobs while faced with rejection after rejection) now over, not with his seven Outstanding NEWTs, not with his trial having declared him a minor whose only crimes were committed under duress. For her final year studying law, she made Draco her project, and used her future father-in-law’s Ministry connections to ensure success. It wasn’t personal. It wasn’t an act of friendship. But he’s indebted to her, more so than he would have ever thought possible.

Almost as indebted as he is to Harry for speaking for his family at their trials, for giving him back his wand, for ensuring that he could return to Hogwarts and finish his education at all. For saving his life.

“He’s so selfish,” Granger continued, and it took Draco a moment to realise she meant Harry. “You’re working so hard. Why would he try to ruin that?”

“Ruin that?” Draco repeated.

“He shouldn’t lead you on like that,” she said, glaring ahead, her anger fixed on some flower bush.

Draco thinks of how he went out tonight with the singular goal of getting fucked, of Harry kissing him and calling him a sexy motherfucker, of that strangely intimate way Harry looked at him before they left. “He isn’t leading me on.”

Granger looked back at him, and for a second she was still glaring. It felt odd to be on the receiving end of her anger again, after that year of her always being angry on his behalf, and he didn’t like it at all. Her gaze softened, turned to pity. “Draco,” she began, and he didn’t want to hear her tell him all about how Harry didn’t care about him.

“I went out tonight looking for sex, Granger. Not a boyfriend. Don’t worry about me.”

She looked very much as though she’d like to comment on this attitude of his, but instead she said, “All right.” After a moment, she added, “How is training, then?”

It wasn’t a new question; she would check in with him every month or two and ask how he was doing. Whether his peers were giving him a hard time, whether his superiors were treating him fairly. She would ask him to coffee and they would “catch up” for maybe an hour, and then they’d go their separate ways. She was looking for a cause, something to fight for. Draco didn’t give it to her. He was doing fine. Maybe some of the other trainees shunned him, while others mocked him. Maybe some of the Aurors judged him more harshly than the others. It wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.

“It’s all right,” he said. It had been three weeks since the last time she’d asked, and nothing had changed. “This month is a lot of disguise and undercover practise.”

She nodded. Her brows were still knitted; he waited for more “concern.”

“Molly and Arthur think he might marry Ginny now,” Granger said. “He won’t. Harry doesn’t do anything anyone thinks he should. He only does what he wants.”

“He was at a Muggle club,” Draco said. “A gay club.”

Granger wasn’t surprised at the idea of Draco going to a Muggle club. When she had helped him get into the Auror Academy, he had been working as a waiter at a Muggle restaurant.

“And he took you home instead?” Instead, like it was a given that he had plenty of prospects other than Draco, like she knew that he had been grinding up against some Muggle and about to take him home when Draco had arrived.

Draco shrugged in response.

“So you just happened to run into each other, then.” She said it slowly, as though revising her understanding of how it had happened. Draco shrugged again, and Granger sighed. “I know you said you were just looking for sex, Draco, but you should know—this is just what Harry does. This is how he is now. He has meaningless sex and takes all sorts of Muggle drugs, and he’ll even bring a one night stand along when he comes to meet his child for the first time, for a laugh. He’s just…like this.”

They stood there outside in silence, as Draco tried to wrap his mind around Hermione Granger warning him off Harry Potter for his sake, for Draco’s sake, rather than the other way around. He reached into his back pocket for his lighter and a fag, but found the lighter absent. It must have fallen out on Harry’s floor somewhere. He lit it with his wand instead as Granger watched curiously.

Noises drifted out from the kitchen; it seemed Weasley and one of his brothers had come to escape the sitting room.

“…doesn’t want to either.”

“Try convincing Mum,” said Weasley.

“Her hints aren’t even subtle anymore.” He spoke quietly, conscious of those out in the sitting room who might overhear. Draco could hardly make out the words. “All of this ‘both parents’ nonsense.”

“He’ll have both parents. And he’ll have all of us.”

There were assorted clinks and clatters as they spoke. It sounded like they were stacking plates or cups, or maybe pouring tea.

“I can sort of see her point, though,” the other Weasley said. “You’d think Harry would—I mean, what with his parents—”

“He would if Ginny wanted him to,” Weasley countered. “He’d do it for her. But she doesn’t want it any more than he does, and the pair of them will never do it just to please Mum.”

“But would they do it for James?” The other Weasley’s voice took on a shrill tone. “What will happen when Ginny has practise and matches all the time and Harry is out with complete strangers and neither of them is ever home? Do you really think they can go on like they have now that they have him?”

“Since when do you agree with Mum?” Weasley asked in horror.

“Only playing devil’s advocate,” the other Weasley countered, amusement in his voice. “They’re really going to have to work on their answers to her questions, or she’ll never shut up.”

Weasley murmured an assent, and then there was loud laughter from the sitting room and Draco couldn’t hear anything further in the kitchen besides the scattered clinks and clatters.

He looked out at the garden—charming and well kept, but nothing compared to his mother’s at the Manor, of course—and smoked in silence for a while. Granger stood with him, her arms crossed, and he wasn’t sure if she were waiting for him to say something or merely avoiding what waited inside.

“So they slept together,” Draco started after a spell, even though he didn’t really want to know, “and have a baby, but they aren’t together and don’t want to be.”

Granger shook her head, though it looked more like a gesture of disappointment than refutal. “They aren’t relationship types,” she said with a small shrug. “Ginny has week-long flings with other Quidditch players, and Harry—Harry has at least five partners a week, Draco.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“You deserve to know.”

There were footsteps in the kitchen again, and the door swung open.

Granger didn’t say anything in greeting, just frowned, and Draco knew it was Harry.

“Wasn’t sure if you’d left,” he said, his voice low and soft, but Draco didn’t turn around.

“How’s Ginny?” Granger asked. It sounded like a question. Just a question, not a hint or accusation.

Draco heard the door shut and felt Harry coming close behind him. “She’s good. Exhausted, though. Molly’s getting her into bed.”

“He’s beautiful,” Granger said, and this did seem like an accusation, somehow.

“He is. Ron’s holding him.” Draco could hear the horrible smile. “Might start trying to put one in you, if you’re not careful.”

“Harry,” she said, playfully scolding, and Draco could not understand how their friendship worked at all because now she sounded amused. “Are you looking after him while Ginny gets her sleep?”

“I think that’s more than covered,” Harry said. “I’m going home.”

“You could take him with you,” Granger pointed out, but she already seemed resigned.

“He should be with his mother.”

“And his father.”

“Everyone’s heading home,” Harry said, sidestepping her comment. “You might want to get ready to do the same.” Draco couldn’t tell if he was talking to Granger or to Draco himself, and he didn’t look back to check.

Granger gave him a look, and Draco knew Harry was giving her his horrible charming smile because then her eyes were smiling even while her lips remained pursed.

The door swung open and shut again; Harry was back inside. Granger stared after him for a moment, and then turned to Draco.

“What are you going to do?”

Her voice was so gentle that Draco could almost believe she genuinely cared about him. Maybe she truly wanted to be a friend to him.

Maybe she was looking for a victim to champion.

“I don’t know.” His fag had gone out, and now he fiddled with the stub that remained.

“You can talk to me, Draco. Whenever you need to.”

He stared hard at the flower bushes. “He said everyone was leaving. Maybe you should go.”

She didn’t bother pointing out that perhaps he ought to leave too. She only placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and gave it a soft squeeze. Then the door swung open and shut, and Draco was alone.

He lit another fag and tried to think. He had been on edge with Granger there and thought he’d feel better with her gone, but alone he felt even more scattered. Now he was shivering, despite the pleasantly warm night air. He couldn’t process any of it. Nothing made any sense. Not running into Harry Potter on a Muggle street after five years of seeing him only at Ministry events, and a few times in the halls or lifts. Not Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley being in this strange non-relationship and having a baby. Not Hermione Granger defending him and making Harry Potter the bad guy.

The only part of any of this that felt right to Draco, he realised as he thought, was Harry kissing him, Harry’s body pressed full against his, Harry’s eyes focused on only him. Draco suddenly couldn’t imagine not going back to his home, not following through. He suddenly felt quite certain that he needed it more than anything.

He opened the door and went back through the tiny kitchen to the sitting room. Granger wasn’t there, only the senior Weasleys, and Harry talking to Weasley. He was holding the baby—his son—and standing very close to Weasley, speaking quietly.

Then Molly Weasley stood and approached Harry, all smiles, and Harry handed her the baby. Arthur Weasley stood as well, but he walked to Draco instead.

“Draco,” he said, and placed a fatherly hand on his shoulder. “All right, there?”

When Granger had been helping Draco, she had recruited Arthur Weasley. In the post-war Ministry, he was respected, with all sorts of connections and more sway with the right people than Lucius Malfoy had ever been able to buy. He took Draco to lunch a few times, and they bonded over Muggle curiosities, like refrigerators.

“Yeah,” Draco said. “I’m all right.”

Draco’s father had been furious, until Draco finally snapped and pointed out that despite Arthur Weasley’s failings, he was doing much more to save the Malfoy name than Lucius could possibly manage with his ten years of house arrest. Lucius stopped bothering Draco about it after that. He stopped bothering Draco altogether.

Arthur clapped his shoulder and gave him a small smile. Then he and his wife went up the rickety staircase with the baby, leaving him with Weasley and Harry, who were no longer in conversation, but rather looking at Draco with irritation and barely contained lust, respectively.
Harry was already approaching Draco, a downright predatory look in his eyes. Weasley followed behind him, shaking his head.

“What do you want to do, Malfoy?” Harry asked, just as Weasley said, “Go home, Malfoy.”

“You want me to fuck you, don’t you,” Harry said softly, like it was just him and Draco, and it wasn’t a question. Draco nodded anyway.

“What did you take, Harry?” Weasley asked, exasperated.

“I’m going to. I’m going to fuck you all night.”

“Harry?” Weasley repeated.

Harry turned to him, grinning. “A, B, C, D, E, E, E,” he sang.

“Malfoy, you should really go home,” Weasley insisted. “It’s not that I don’t like you. Really. But Harry isn’t Harry right now, Malfoy. Do you know what ecstasy is? It’s a Muggle drug, Malfoy, and Harry is completely fucked up on it, so you should really…”

He seemed to give up then. Draco couldn’t really blame him, seeing as he was kissing Harry and not giving much thought to anything Weasley was saying.

“…go home,” Weasley finished after a beat, sounding desperate.

“He’s going with me,” Harry said. His hand was down the back of Draco’s jeans. A miraculous feat, given their fit.

“He’s going home.”

Draco pulled away from Harry just enough to look Weasley firmly in the eyes. “I’m going with him.”

“Ron,” came Granger’s voice from the stairs. “Has Harry gone yet?”

“Not yet,” Harry said, and leaned in to suck on Draco’s neck again. He wondered if the glamour had held.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Granger said, her voice closer now.

“Malfoy,” Weasley warned.

Harry pulled back slightly, grinning, and then Draco felt the pull of Apparition and held on tight.





Draco expected Harry to continue in the same vein once they were alone—more hand-down-jeans, mouth-on-neck action—but when Draco stepped to the side to catch his footing, Harry let them separate. He looked at Draco and his eyes seemed so clear and focused in that moment that he wondered if Weasley had lied about the Muggle drug. Draco leaned in to kiss him again, but Harry grabbed him by his upper arms, holding him out of kissing range.

“Why didn’t you leave?”

“Why did you bring me with you?” Draco countered.

Harry didn’t answer, only stared at Draco with those disgusting, absolutely criminal green eyes.

“Did you know that Hermione Granger and Arthur Weasley were responsible for my acceptance into the Auror training program?” Draco asked.

Harry remained silent, but his eyes widened momentarily, just a fraction, and Draco knew this was news to him.

“Granger and I meet for coffee about once a month. Arthur takes me to lunch every now and again as well. Did you know I’ve had dinner in their home? Arthur and Molly had me over with Granger and Weasley. So if you were trying to shock them, Harry, by bringing a big, bad Death Eater along, and have a laugh, well, you failed. I’m just Draco to them now. Neutered. Completely harmless.”

Harry’s fingers were digging hard into Draco’s arms. “I wasn’t thinking of you as a Death Eater,” he protested.

“Then why?”

“I didn’t want to send you home like that,” Harry said. He didn’t expand on what he meant by ‘like that,’ and Draco wasn’t sure he wanted to ask. Harry’s fingers loosened. “And I thought Ginny would have a laugh,” he added after a moment.

Draco shook out of his grip. “She certainly did.”

“Hey,” Harry said, and one of his hands was on Draco again, just resting on his shoulder now. “Hey,” he repeated, and then they were kissing—slow and teasing at first, but soon hard and fierce. And it seemed so completely unfair that merely kissing would turn Draco on this much. He wasn’t entirely inexperienced. He had kissed before, plus a bit of dry humping and a couple of hand jobs. But Harry—Harry was so much more intense about it. Draco felt the overwhelming sensation of being the singular focus of every bit of Harry’s attention in that moment, as though he were giving not only his every thought to Draco, but also the entirety of his physical being, from the press of his hips to his broad shoulders to the knee nudging Draco’s legs apart.

Draco wanted everything.

Harry got them both naked again. Draco missed most of it, what with all the kissing. He was glad at least one of them was able to focus; Draco probably couldn’t have even opened his own jeans, let alone removed his shirt while scarcely breaking the kiss. Then he was on his back on Harry’s bed again, Harry on top of him again, and despite the lingering fear—of disappointment, of pain, of dissatisfaction, or worse, of enjoying it too much—Draco felt with utter clarity that he belonged there, spread out underneath Harry, ready to take whatever Harry wanted to give, or to give whatever Harry wanted to take.

Harry was pressing his mouth all over, sometimes with his teeth and tongue, and Draco wondered whether it might all be too much, if it might feel too good, as Harry started to nudge at his side. “Roll over,” Harry said, voice husky, and Draco would have obeyed any order given in that voice.

This is it, Draco thought. Harry is going to fuck me. Harry Potter is going to fuck me. He’s going to open up my arsehole and put his prick in it. His big, fat prick. He’ll fill me up with that cock and then fill me up with come and I’ll feel it for days, and I’ll see it for days because he’ll grab me so hard he’ll leave bruises, marking me like I’m his—

It was around then that Draco realised Harry was not, in fact, putting that big, fat prick in his arsehole. He was instead giving him more of those wet, open-mouthed kisses, over Draco’s shoulder blades and down his spine. His hands came down to rest on the backs of Draco’s thighs, loosely holding him down. Draco felt a bit relieved—he’d pictured Harry fucking him face-to-face, and perhaps there was hope yet—but then he began to wonder what Harry’s aim could be, if it wasn’t going to involve his cock. Draco’s back couldn’t possibly be that interesting. Harry was licking a stripe down the small of his back, probably tasting Draco’s sweat, and while it felt nice, Draco would definitely prefer some attention to his cock, or to Harry’s cock, or to both at once, or maybe some more kissing—

Harry’s mouth was still moving. It was continuing lower. If he kept going—

Draco felt the warmth of Harry’s face, Harry’s breath, between his arse cheeks.

His tongue—his tongue—touched Draco’s hole. It gave it a long, wet lick.

Draco’s whole body jerked, and Harry’s grip on his thighs tightened to firmly hold him down. Draco gasped in surprise, a sound that quickly turned into a moan of protest as Harry’s tongue—Harry’s unbelievable, hot, dirty tongue—went away.

“Now you know what rimming is,” came Harry’s voice from down between his cheeks, and Draco could hear his horrible, self-satisfied smile. He wanted to say something back, something to take him down a notch—how could anyone possibly be so pleased with himself when he’d just licked an arsehole—but then Harry’s tongue was back and he wasn’t capable of a full coherent thought, never mind speech.

He couldn’t comprehend what was happening. Harry was licking his arse, sometimes kissing it, like he loved doing it, like nothing could please him more. Harry was licking his arse, and it should have made him seem low somehow, giving Draco pleasure (because yes, it felt good despite Draco’s every instinct telling him it shouldn’t) in such a degrading way, but instead it seemed like Harry was the one in power, like he was doing it because he wanted to and Draco’s gratification was purely incidental. Which was somehow making it all even sexier, and Draco didn’t want to think about what that meant.

He knew this was a thing people did, but he’d always assumed it was a strange thing to want, that people only did it out of love for their partners, or perhaps as a bizarre, uncomfortable kink, never discussed aloud. But Harry had asked him to do this earlier and was now doing it himself. Quite eagerly. Harry was touching Draco in a place so private, and while Draco had been mentally prepared for his cock and probably his fingers, he hadn’t expected his mouth. Even while it seemed absolutely filthy, it felt tender, even sweet. He couldn’t decipher which of the mess of sensations and emotions made this feel so amazing or whether it was all of them combined.

He felt himself relaxing, opening up, and when a fingertip joined the tongue on his hole, his hips jerked slightly and the finger slipped in, slick with lube. Draco hadn’t noticed Harry summoning it; perhaps he’d had it with him from the beginning—Draco hadn’t noticed, but he was finding it difficult to pay attention to much of anything but the sheer feeling. At this point he had his face pressed into his arm, and now he bit down to try to muffle the noises he’d inevitably let out.

The lube felt cold at first, in contrast to Harry’s hot mouth, but it seemed to warm up as Harry worked his fingers in. Harry was doing all sorts of things that Draco might have thought strange, were he thinking at all. Things like nuzzling Draco’s arse cheeks and telling him he had a pretty hole and saying You’re mine, Malfoy, all mine. Draco was hard and sweating and he agreed fully: All yours, always yours.

“Want you on your back,” Harry said, fingers still working, and Draco felt so hot and liquid that he wasn’t sure he could get on his back. Harry wasn’t even fucking him yet. Harry was going to fuck him. Draco would last seconds, he was sure of it.

Harry got him on his back, and Draco was torn between disappointment at the loss of his fingers and thrill at the promise of his cock. But although Harry was right where Draco needed him, he wasn’t yet pressing inside. He leaned down close, and Draco was overwhelmed by his sheer presence. This close, he filled Draco’s field of vision—his broad shoulders and muscular arms that seemed to pin Draco down to the bed despite not making physical contact, the dusting of dark hair across his chest, the tensed muscles of his abdomen. His unbelievable eyes, clear and fixed on Draco’s own. His full, shining lips, almost close enough to kiss. Draco wanted to kiss him, and he didn’t know if that made him disgusting, or if he cared whether it did.

“I used a cleaning charm, before,” Harry said, and perhaps Draco had been a little obvious in his staring.

“But your wand—”

“I always do it wandlessly,” he clarified. “You know, Muggles.”

The thought of Harry doing that to other people—complete strangers, at that—would have bothered Draco, but he was too busy following through on his kissing urges to be bothered. Harry’s hips pressed hard against Draco’s inner thighs, forcing his legs to spread further. Even though Harry had reportedly cleaned it first, Draco still felt a dirty thrill at the knowledge of where that mouth had just been.

“I’m going to fuck you,” Harry said between kisses, voice rough, and Draco thrust up against him involuntarily. Harry shifted his weight, pulling his legs forward so he was more kneeling than lying between Draco’s legs. He moved Draco’s legs, holding him loosely around his calves. “Put your legs up over my shoulders,” he said softly, guiding Draco into position. “That’s it.”

“Now, if you’re going to be fucking Muggles,” Harry said, “you’re going to have to learn to use condoms. Do you know what condoms are?”

Draco nodded, panting. He hated how it sounded, but he couldn’t help it.

“Do you know how to put one on?”

He shook his head. He thought he probably understood the gist of it, but he couldn’t do it, not right now, with Harry naked and hard and so overwhelmingly gorgeous.

“A demonstration, then,” Harry said, producing a wrapped condom from the bedside table. “Watch.” He unwrapped it and tossed the wrapper away. “Pinch the tip,” he said, doing exactly that, “so there’s room for come. If there isn’t room, the condom can break.” He brought it to the head of his cock and rolled it down the full length of it, then reached for the small bottle of lube again. “Always use water-based lube. Oil-based lube causes tears in the condom.” The movement of his hand on his cock was mesmerizing.

“Got it?” Harry asked, and Draco’s eyes flew back up to his face. He nodded mutely; he felt reasonably certain that images of Harry’s demonstration were now burned permanently into his memory.

Harry reached down between their bodies and Draco felt the head of his cock nudging at his hole. It seemed so much larger than his fingers had been, so much thicker than any toy Draco had used by himself before. This was nothing like anything Draco had done by himself before. There was another body here with him, another person, warm and alive and solid and apparently wanting this just as much as Draco did. He wanted Harry, but more importantly, Harry wanted him, and that magnified his arousal more than anything else.

“All right?” Harry asked.

“It’s fine. I’m fine.” Harry held eye contact, seeming so steady and solid while Draco felt anything but. “Just…” Draco started. “Go slow, all right?”

Harry didn’t say anything, but there—there it was: Harry’s cock pushing into Draco’s body, stretching him open even as he automatically resisted. This was nothing, nothing, like when Draco fucked himself on a dildo. Harry was larger and so, so hot; Draco wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, but he could feel Harry’s heartbeat, right there in his prick. And there was Harry’s abdomen against the backs of Draco’s thighs, his shoulders hooked behind Draco’s knees, his hands gripping Draco hard, his eyes looking down at Draco as if—as if he were the very center of Harry’s world.

It was so much, and Harry was everywhere, and he was only barely inside. As he pushed in further Draco wasn’t sure he could take it; it felt like his body was at capacity already, and Harry couldn’t have put in more than an inch or so. Draco couldn’t help gasping.

“It hurts. Does it always hurt?”

“A little,” Harry said, stilling, “but that’s a part of it. Now relax,” he instructed, and Draco tried to relax. He focused on Harry’s skin against his, on the sweat on his neck and chest, on his ridiculously mussed hair. On the way he was looking at Draco like he was the most important thing.

Harry started to move again, very slowly. He bent low above Draco, pushing his legs down harder between Harry’s chest and his own. His face was so close. His eyes were so green, and so clear. “I want you to always remember this.” He spoke gently, quietly, and kept pushing in. “So that no matter who you’re ever with, I’ll always be there.”

Then he stopped moving, and Draco realised it was because he was all the way in. And he knew he would always remember this; the feeling of complete fullness, the painful stretch, the twinge of pride at having taken all of it; Harry’s face above his own, close and caring; Harry’s weight on him, Harry’s rough breathing, Harry’s skin on him everywhere. They moved together, and Draco felt that sense of utter belonging, with Harry on him and in him and so completely with him that Draco forgot that they were ever anything but this to each other.

The feeling consumed him completely.





Draco woke up to an alarm that wasn’t his, to a loud, insistent beeping and buzzing rather than the gently insistent talking alarm to which he was accustomed. And he was in a bed that wasn’t his, and the arm thrown across his body, reaching for the source of all the beeping and buzzing, wasn’t his either.

The alarm stopped. Harry stayed where he was, arm draped over Draco so casually, like they slept like this all the time. Draco thought about Harry fucking him. Harry telling him to always remember it. Harry coming inside him. Harry falling asleep holding Draco close, then waking Draco up an hour later and rolling him over and fucking him again. Harry saying things like I’ve always wanted to do this and You’re fantastic, hot and close to Draco’s ear as he moved.

He rolled over, facing Harry, and put his own arm around him in turn. Like they slept like this all the time.

Then Harry opened his eyes and started to sit up, squinting at his surroundings. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Draco swallowed hard and closed his eyes. “You said I could stay. We…”

He wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence, and he looked at Harry as if he might hold some clue.

“I know what happened. I was there,” Harry said, either glaring at Draco or squinting against the sunlight. “I remember everything…perfectly.”

He was still looking around as if he didn’t understand where he was, seemingly more confused by his surroundings than Draco, even though it was his own bedroom. Draco wondered if this was an effect of that Muggle drug.

He looked at the clock—7:30. He wasn’t sure why Harry would set an alarm for such an early hour, but then, he really didn’t know much of anything about how Harry spent his days. A reclusive, unemployed, and apparently highly sexed hero didn’t have to wake up early for a 9-5 job, but perhaps he had other things that got him up with the sun. Regardless, Draco was thankful for the alarm; he had to be at the Ministry in an hour and a half, and now he had time for a shower.

“Can I take a shower?” he asked Harry, who still seemed disoriented.

“Yeah, but hurry up. It’s down one floor, on your right…I think.”

Draco went down one floor and found the bathroom on his right. It hurt to walk, but it wasn’t the crippling pain he’d feared. It was a satisfying sort of ache, like the sort he felt for a day or so after a hard workout. He didn’t mind it at all. It was almost nice, even—a constant reminder of what he’d done the night before.

What he’d done the night before—with Harry. What he and Harry had done, together, the night before. What they’d done together the night before, repeatedly.

It seemed at once perfectly natural and completely unreal.

Harry’s shower was enormous and modern, just a simple glass panel separating it from the otherwise old-fashioned and ornate bathroom. The whole home was incongruous, Draco thought as he started the water, with its high ceilings and minimal furnishings, blank walls and ostentatious fixtures. He wondered again how Harry had come to live in a place like this.

The hot water was soothing as he stepped into it, relaxing his muscles and alleviating the unfortunate side effects of an active night and less than three hours of sleep. He closed his eyes and leaned into it; there was more than enough time for an indulgent and overlong shower. He could hit pause for a moment and pretend this was his always, and not his just-once.

“You didn’t mention that I had a kid,” came Harry’s voice from behind him. Then Harry’s hands were on him, smoothing over the skin of his back.

“You said you remembered everything,” Draco countered.

Harry started soaping up his back. “I did,” he insisted, but he wasn’t very convincing. Draco wondered what had reminded him.

“Are you going to see him today?”

“Later. I have a meeting with the Minister and a press conference on the werewolf legislation Hermione is pushing through this week.”

“Are you going to raise him?”

“Yeah, it’ll be me and Gin both,” Harry said distractedly.

“It’s important that a child knows he’s wanted,” Draco said.

“Even if he wasn’t?” Harry muttered, and Draco knew it was rhetorical but he wanted to say something anyway. Something like I saw the way you looked at him, Harry Potter. You don’t fool me. His face had changed when he saw his son, and Draco wouldn’t forget that.

Harry’s hands continued all over, cleaning his arms and chest and thighs and arse. Draco found the eucalyptus-scented shampoo and washed his hair himself, while Harry’s hands lingered on his arse. He seemed to decide they were both sufficiently clean and fixed his mouth to Draco’s neck again, turning Draco to face him. Draco was beginning to suspect Harry had a bit of a neck thing.

“You up for more?” Harry whispered in his ear.

By way of answering, Draco pressed his hips flush against Harry’s, and Harry let out a low, absolutely delicious noise at the pressure on his cock. Then he slid to his knees, mouth moving over Draco’s skin on the way down, and suddenly there he was, wet and naked and on his knees for Draco, mouth open for Draco’s cock, eyes mischievous and confident. It was the sort of thing Draco might have imagined for wanking purposes at one point or another, but it was real, it was happening. Harry was wrapping his hand around Draco’s cock, holding it in place for his mouth, and then his tongue was on it and Draco had to close his eyes so as not to come from the sight alone. And even then, he couldn’t last long, not with Harry’s hands on him, touching his thighs and balls and arse just so, all while his mouth worked at his cock. It made the filthiest little wet noises; Draco could hear them over the sound of the water.

When Draco came, it wasn’t like it had been with Harry inside him. It was quicker, and not as all-consuming; it didn’t leave him boneless and utterly spent. Still, he had trouble staying upright and had to lean against the shower wall for a moment as his breathing steadied. He felt Harry getting to his feet, and it hit him that Harry had just been completely focused on Draco’s pleasure. That he’d just come in Harry’s mouth—it seemed so close. He thought of Harry coming in his arse, and he remembered that Harry had surely done this with countless other people.

But Harry wasn’t with other nameless, faceless people right now; he was with Draco, pressing against him with his whole body and nuzzling his neck. Draco opened his eyes. Harry pulled back to grin at him. His face was flushed, and his lips were red. He kissed Draco hard and licked at his lips, but when Draco started to deepen it, Harry pushed at his shoulder and turned so he was leaning back against the shower wall with Draco standing in front of him. He pushed at Draco’s shoulder again, and he was pushing Draco down, and then Draco understood.

He let Harry push him down to his knees. Harry’s cock was right there, right in front of his face, thick and hard and red, and Draco was already starting to get hard again, so turned on at the thought of what he was about to do. He held it, the way Harry had held his, and licked the tip. Harry’s breath hitched. Draco looked up at him and couldn’t suppress a groan at the sight—Harry pink-faced, lips parted, eyes heavy-lidded and fixed on Draco. He sucked on the head of Harry’s cock, keeping his eyes on Harry’s face and watching every minute shift in his expression.

He understood why Harry had wanted to go down on him just now, and why he’d rimmed him last night. Having this sort of power over another human being was incredibly heady. Harry didn’t trust him, would probably never trust him, but he trusted him with this. He was the reason Harry was making that face, making those noises, tensing and sighing and looking down at him like he was everything. Draco had to close his eyes at points, and sometimes couldn’t help glancing at the cock he was sucking, but his eyes kept returning to Harry’s face and his expression of utter pleasure. Draco stroked himself as he sucked, and he was almost there when Harry swore loudly, hands tangled in Draco’s wet hair, and held his head firmly in place as he filled his mouth with come.

He pulled Draco roughly to his feet and kissed him, messy and open-mouthed, like he just wanted to taste the come in his mouth. Draco’s first instinct had been to spit it out; he didn’t particularly care for the taste. But mid-kiss like this, he focused less on the taste and more on the pure, filthy intimacy of it. Harry reached for Draco’s cock and after just a few tugs he was coming again, all over Harry’s hand. Harry smeared it on Draco’s arse, kneading it as they kissed. That probably should have bothered him, but then again, they were already in the shower.

Harry soaped up his arse again and cleaned up what had gotten on their faces during all the messy kissing. Draco hadn’t been thinking about it—there had been far more interesting things to think about—but he really needed to brush his teeth. He was pretty sure his morning breath smelled and tasted terrible, and now the come mixed in was making it all the more necessary. When they were out of the shower and Harry had handed him a towel, Draco asked, “Do you have a spare toothbrush or anything?”

He did. He handed it to Draco and took out his own, and they brushed their teeth side by side. Draco watched Harry in the mirror. He was so hot that even brushing his teeth looked sexy. That or Draco was already worryingly far gone.

Clean mouths seemed to be a good reason to snog some more, so they did a lot of that. A lot of that. Draco thought kissing would have to get old at some point—after all, there was only so much that two mouths could do—but he felt as if he could happily kiss Harry for hours. Harry put trousers on, but the kissing got in the way of any more dressing.

Harry was again working on his neck when, once more, Ron Weasley entered without preamble.

“Kingsley expects you in a half hour, Harry, so we should—bloody hell! Didn’t you get enough last night?”

“There is no such thing as enough,” Harry said, smirking, once he’d separated from Draco’s throat.

“Put your clothes on,” Weasley said, more to Draco than to Harry despite Harry’s nearly equivalent state of undress.

Draco was at a loss, though, when it came to putting his clothes on. He had left his robes at Astoria’s last night; he could only hope she would bring them for him. Even so, he couldn’t very well come in his Muggle slut outfit. He stared at the t-shirt and jeans and considered his options. He could fix the colour and perhaps loosen the fit, but he couldn’t make them anything but a t-shirt and jeans. Fuck, he hadn’t even worn pants. He sighed and got started, making the jeans black, so they could nearly pass for proper trousers, and taking them up a size.

“Hurry up, Malfoy,” came Weasley’s voice from the hall as Draco stepped into his newly blackened jeans. “I’m not going to be late because of you.”

“You don’t have to wait, Ron,” Harry pointed out.

“What, so I should leave you two alone to start snogging again? Not likely.”

Harry laughed, close behind Draco. Draco was glaring at his t-shirt in frustration. There was no getting around it—it was a t-shirt. Tailoring charms couldn’t fix that, and transfiguration risked all sorts of cut and fit issues, none of which he’d have time to resolve, not with Weasley’s vocal impatience.

“Here,” Harry said, and pressed a dark button-up shirt to Draco’s chest. “This should fit.”

Harry was lending him a shirt. He was going to wear Harry’s shirt. He felt like a teenage girl. Once, Pansy had borrowed one of his jumpers and paraded around for a whole week as though it were some sort of badge of honour. Draco hadn’t understood then, but he thought he sort of understood now.

He pulled his t-shirt on and buttoned Harry’s shirt over it, embarrassed at the excitement this gave him. No one would recognise this as Harry’s shirt, but it still felt like a public announcement that they’d slept together. That Harry had kissed and licked him everywhere.

When he turned around and saw Harry, he nearly gasped aloud. Harry wore elegant, dark blue robes, free of adornment but perfectly fitted and clearly expensive. He looked both untouchably perfect—the Harry Potter of newspapers and public appearances—and very, very touchable; if Weasley hadn’t been waiting, Draco would have been tempted to touch him all over.

“Ready to Floo?” Weasley asked from the hall.

“Nearly,” Harry said, and tugged his boots on, reminding Draco to put on his own. He gave Draco an odd look, then drew out his wand and traced a line down the side of Draco’s neck. He felt the subtle magic, and Harry said, “Just a glamour.” He then cast one over himself as well, with practised precision—the dark circles under his eyes disappeared, as did the small marks Draco had left at the base of his throat.

Draco hadn’t really considered that this Harry and the humbly heroic man he’d witnessed for years from a distance were one and the same. He knew who Harry was, of course, but he still couldn’t reconcile the two personas. Even after Draco’s initial shock the night before at seeing Harry with some Muggle out of nowhere, he hadn’t fully connected the Harry who fucked him to Harry Potter, hero of the Wizarding world. Now, they were about to leave for the Ministry of Magic, to step out into the public eye, and Harry was becoming Harry Potter again. Harry Potter had always seemed like more of a myth than a person to Draco, ever since the war ended and the person vanished, leaving only the public figure. Harry was never seen at pubs or shops or out with his friends. As far as anyone could tell, he didn’t even exist outside of newspapers, meetings, and high-profile events. But last night, Draco had found out that Harry did exist, that he really was a human and not a mythical hero.

The Ministry was the only place he’d seen Harry at all since the summer after the war. He’d seen him in the halls, walking in step with various higher-ups, to and from meetings discussing Important Social Policies. He’d seen him at commemorative events and charity balls, posing for photographers and making obligatory speeches. But Draco had never imagined that he did these things after having sex all night while fucked up on Muggle drugs. He’d never pictured the transition he now saw, as Harry went from surly and exhausted to bright and smiling, straightening and raising his chin. Weasley didn’t seem to even notice. Was this what always happened? Was Harry always sleep-deprived and freshly fucked under his carefully presented exterior? Even seeing it firsthand, Draco found it hard to believe.

They Flooed right into the Atrium at the Ministry, directly into the mess of people walking every which way, flooding out of the fireplaces and towards the lifts. Draco was used to this taking up to twenty minutes, as people shoved past him in the lift queue and generally behaved as though he weren’t there. With Harry present, it was the exact opposite; the crowd parted to let them through, with mixed looks of adoration, fear, and awe. Draco had never made it to the lifts so quickly at this hour, or been in one so empty—no one stepped in after Harry and Weasley entered, and the two witches already there shrank back, seemingly unsure of whether sharing the lift with Harry Potter or shoving past him to exit would be more offensive.

Weasley rolled his eyes slightly at their deference, but Harry seemed not to notice their presence at all. He stared forward with a blank expression, shoulders back and chin tilted up just slightly—the perfect picture of polished celebrity. The two witches got off at level six, practically pressing themselves flat against the walls to get out without brushing against Harry.

“Are you going to level one?” Draco asked.

Harry nodded. The lift doors opened; the wizard waiting stepped back when he saw Harry instead of entering.

“When can I see you again?” Draco sounded eager, too eager, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“You can see me right now,” Harry responded, amused.

“No, but later. Where will you be tonight?” For a second, he envisioned joining Harry at the Burrow for dinner with the Weasleys. And his son.

“Who knows where I’ll be tonight?”

Weasley scoffed; his disdain could have been aimed at Harry’s lifestyle just as easily as for Draco’s eagerness.

“Well, can I see you?”

“Level two,” Harry said pointedly, and it took Draco a moment to realise he meant they’d hit Draco’s floor. Weasley was already shoving past him on his way out.

“Noon?” he asked, through Draco, and Harry nodded.

“Harry?” Draco asked, not caring if he sounded desperate.

“I'll see you in your dreams.”

He said it kindly, so softly and gently that it sounded more like a promise than the brush-off it was. Even while he was rejecting Draco, he was looking at him directly, more personally than Draco could remember anyone looking at him in a long time.

The lift doors closed between them.

“Thank Merlin that’s over,” Weasley muttered to himself. Then to Draco he added, “Hope you have your shit together by half past.” Today Weasley and his partner Adler would be reviewing practical stealth with the trainees until lunch. “And get your robes on.” He said this while looking a ways down the hall; Draco turned and saw Astoria, dressed in her purple trainee robes and holding Draco’s bundled in her arms. She was watching the pair of them with unconcealed curiosity.

Weasley walked right past her with a polite nod. She watched him until he turned the corner, then swung to face Draco.

“You never came back last night! Your mother Flooed and I didn’t know what to tell her so I said you were asleep.”

“Sorry,” Draco said, but he couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

Astoria’s eyes narrowed. “What were you doing? I thought you’d show up in the morning at least.” Something must have shown in Draco’s expression because Astoria leaned in and whispered, “You weren’t with Weasley, were you?”

He laughed aloud, which seemed to satisfy her as a negative response. “How much time do we have?”

She checked her watch. “Six minutes to nine.”

“I’ll tell you over lunch,” he promised.

“It was a wizard, though, wasn’t it? Not some Muggle stranger—someone you knew.”

Draco nodded. “Lunch.”

“But who?” Astoria prodded as they started down the hall.

He caught her by the shoulder, stopping her before they rounded the corner, and turned her to face him. Harry Potter, he mouthed. Her jaw dropped, and she stood frozen as he continued in towards the Auror offices, a spring in his step.





As it turned out, they didn’t have to wait until lunch. Weasley and Adler had them practise concealment and privacy charms, which Astoria considered her specialty. She and Draco paired up, as they did every time pairs were chosen and not assigned, and the second she had their position hidden and a solid one-way sound barrier in place, she turned on him and began interrogating.

“Harry Potter? You did not go home with Harry Potter last night. You are a fucking liar, Draco Malfoy.”

“Do you really want Weasley and Adler overhearing this?”

“Don’t be absurd. They can’t get through my spells,” Astoria snapped. Perhaps arrogant, but Draco knew she had the skill to support her confidence. “Tell me what happened.”

He couldn’t very well refuse Astoria while her wand was out. So he told her about going to the club and running into Harry before even stepping inside, about Harry’s apparent lifestyle of Muggle drugs and Muggle sex, about having sex with him twice over the course of the night and again in the morning. He even told her about James, and going to the Weasleys’ home and talking to Granger, though while he was saying all of that he realised this part of the story probably wasn’t of particular interest for her. Despite her repeated exclamations of surprise throughout, she seemed to believe him.

“So what was it like?” she asked.

“We only got there when it was over, so I’m not—”

“Not Ginny Weasley’s childbirth, you berk. The sex. How was the sex?”

Astoria had been almost as excited about Draco finally having sex as Draco himself. When Draco, half-drunk, brought up the idea of going out and getting fucked, he hadn’t even been fully serious about it, but Astoria’s encouragement committed him to the plan. A part of him now felt that the experience had been his and Harry’s alone, and it should stay that way, but he also thought she deserved to have some vicarious anal sex. Plus, he couldn’t help wanting to brag a little.

“It was amazing.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Some, at first, but I told him to go slower and he did. It was…it was amazing. Like I was the only thing in his entire world. He said he wants me to think of him, no matter who else I ever have sex with.”

Astoria looked pensive. “Do you think he’d wanted it for a while? I mean, you don’t just take your boyhood enemy home out of nowhere.”

“He said he had. He said he’d always wanted it.”

“Did you? You’ve never talked about him like that before. You’ve never really talked about him at all.”

“I always thought he was fit at Hogwarts. But then Harry Potter, the celebrity, has never seemed particularly sexy to me. Too…manufactured. I don’t know. But the man, the real Harry, well, now I can’t imagine not wanting him.”

“You sound like such a twat,” Astoria said. Draco was glad she was still being nasty to him. She checked her watch. “We should get back.”

When they re-joined the group, it was clear the others had been waiting a while. Normally Draco was careful to always be on time, a model trainee, but he knew Weasley had only given them this practise time to get them all out of his hair for a bit. The Aurors took turns working with the trainees, and almost all of them seemed to dread it, Weasley included. There were only eight trainees at the moment, but this was still more than anyone wanted to deal with at once. He was much more agreeable when it came to working with them one-on-one; on such occasions, he was friendly even to Draco. But with group work, he always gave off a clear attitude of, ‘This is not why I became an Auror and this is not what I’m paid for, so I don’t have to deal with it if I don’t want to.’

While Weasley sat back with his arms crossed, Adler was giving some of the other pairs pointers; it seemed some had been less successful in their concealment. Draco couldn’t understand how some of them had made it this far without ironing out these kinks. Some of Adler’s tips were things Draco had heard two years ago, in basic training. But everyone had different strengths, of course. Jimmy Peakes, who was currently mimicking Adler’s wand movement, had an immense amount of power behind his spellcasting, but lacked the precision for subtler spells. A formidable duelling opponent, but pants at stealth.

Astoria, like Draco, found her strength on the precise end of the scale. She and Draco were each the only member of their houses in the current batch of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff trainees. She had been in Ravenclaw, three years under him. He’d only known her as Daphne Greengrass’s younger sister. Daphne had been in Slytherin with him, in his year, and had been close with Pansy all through school. She’d owled him when news of his acceptance spread amongst their former classmates, saying her younger sister would be starting training with him and would he mind looking out for her? As it turned out, she’d also instructed Astoria to look after Draco. They continued to argue over which of them Daphne had really been concerned about, but either way, they’d each found a friend and ally who would be with them through the process.

It wasn’t as if either of them really needed protection. Astoria was pretty and petite and generally perceived as delicate, but she could more than fend for herself. Draco could fend for himself, too, even when—

“Move it,” Peakes said under his breath as he shoved past Draco. Weasley and Adler had let them out for lunch. “Out of the way, Death Eater.”

Even when he had pricks like this to deal with. Though ‘fend for himself’ was perhaps not the best description for keeping his head down and his complaints quiet. This was the sort of thing Granger was looking for, every time she met him for coffee. She was a justice-seeker, a champion of fairness. He could be her next cause. Or he could just get through this without making it worse or drawing any more negative attention to himself.

He stepped to the side, giving Peakes a wide berth. Astoria pursed her lips but kept quiet. Once everyone else had passed, they walked to lunch like nothing had happened.





When Draco left the Ministry at the end of the day, he Apparated directly to his room in Malfoy Manor. He had lived at the Manor for twenty-three years, but it had been seven since he had stopped thinking of it as home.

When Lord Voldemort took over the Manor, Draco no longer thought of it as the place where he grew up, but as the catalyst for his adulthood—a forced coming of age, borne not of rising to challenges and growing, victorious, into manhood, but of a necessary abandonment of childhood, stepping out from safety into a void. He didn’t blame his parents for the actions they took then. He never blamed his parents for any of it. They did what they could with what they knew, and they did what they could to protect their family. He never doubted that they loved him.

He still didn’t blame them for what they did during the war, or before. He blamed them for what they did after. He blamed his father for trying to plead Imperiused a second time, for digging himself a hole so deep that only Harry Potter’s (Harry’s) testimony—given for Draco and Narcissa’s sake, not for Lucius—could keep him from Azkaban and give him a lighter house arrest sentence, for then resenting Draco and Narcissa for their freedom. He blamed his mother for her reticence, for her submission to Lucius even in his state of weakness, for her inexplicable loyalty to her old way of life despite all of the consequences it had already dealt.

Both of his parents nudged him toward a life of “respectability.” They supported his choice to return to Hogwarts and finish his schooling, agreeing that this would open doors otherwise closed to him. But upon graduation, they expected him to find a quiet, relatively high-paying position (using what few connections the Malfoy family still retained), make enough money to sustain their upper-class lifestyle, and marry a nice pureblood girl from the right side of the war. The right career would support the family, and the right marriage would restore some amount of social ranking.

But they overestimated the Wizarding world’s ability to forget the past. No one wanted to hire a Death Eater. Other children of Death Eaters got a pass; Theodore Nott, for example, was now a Healer at St. Mungo’s. He was not blamed for anything his father had done in service of the Dark Lord. Nott, Sr. was in Azkaban and that was enough. But Draco, unlike Theodore Nott, had been marked himself. He was culpable. He would not be hired.

More importantly, Draco’s parents overestimated his willingness to go through the motions in the name of social propriety. He would not suffer through a monotonous office job under some ancient pureblood wizard who owed his father a favour. He would not marry Astoria and produce little pureblood babies. Maybe if the war hadn’t happened, if the path he’d been raised to follow had seemed his only option, he might have continued on it. But with his family knocked to the bottom of the social heap, he felt he’d been given a clean slate. A fresh start. He could reconstruct himself however he wished, raise himself in public esteem however he saw fit. It wasn’t up to his father, with his Wizengamot-enforced house arrest sentence, or his mother, with her self-imposed one. He was his own man, and he could make his own path.

So when he graduated and was first rejected from the Auror program, he didn’t turn to networking and trying to finagle a job from one of his father’s old pals who wasn’t imprisoned. He took the jobs he could get on his own merit, and when it turned out that those jobs were few and short-lived, he ventured into the Muggle world, where no one knew him and he could win over employers without his reputation getting in his way. He waited tables and flirted with customers and made an incredible amount of money, far more than he’d ever managed with his menial jobs in the magical world. He stopped telling his parents about his life and focused on living it.

Then Granger found out about his repeated rejections from Auror training. Then Arthur Weasley defended him to the Minister and Head Auror. Then his father stopped speaking to him. Then his mother began giving him sad looks and dropping sideways hints about repairing his relationship with his father.

He ate as few meals at home as he could manage and generally restricted his presence at home to his bedroom. This worked well for steering clear of Lucius, who was content to pretend Draco didn’t live there at all.

“Draco, is that you?”

His mother, on the other hand, was not so easy to avoid.

“Yes, Mother, I’m here,” he called through his bedroom door.

There was a time when Narcissa respected Draco’s personal space. For the most of the year and a half that Draco worked in the Muggle world, Narcissa let him have his privacy. But when he started training, she stopped letting him avoid her.

Now, she stepped right into the room without asking.

“Where were you last night?”

“With Astoria Greengrass,” he replied shortly. “I told you.”

“You didn’t come home.”

“No, I kipped on her sofa.”

His mother was quiet for a moment. Then: “Dinner is in a half hour.”

He missed when he’d work from five at night to one in the morning and only see his parents briefly between waking up in the early afternoon and leaving for work again, if at all. It had been easier to avoid mealtimes then.

“I’m going out,” he said vaguely, walking to his wardrobe. He hadn’t been planning on it, but now it seemed the obvious choice. He could go to the club again, maybe. Or just go directly to Harry’s.

He started changing, turning his back to his mother. He heard her small hum of disapproval when he dropped his jeans to reveal that he wasn’t wearing anything under them, but she didn’t say anything, so he continued to ignore her. He’d wear proper black trousers, not these barely adequately edited jeans. He considered Harry’s shirt as he unbuttoned it. Returning it would be the polite thing to do, but…he didn’t care about being polite. He’d keep it for now, and Harry could have it back eventually. Maybe. For tonight, he’d wear a tight, sleeveless t-shirt—in case he went to the club—and a thin jumper for modesty’s sake, and his mother’s.

“Where are you going?” Narcissa asked at last.

“Astoria’s.”

“You were just there.”

“Well, I’m going again.”

She stepped in front of him as he moved for the door. “Draco.” He gave in and stopped avoiding her eyes. “Floo and let me know if you won’t be home?”

He shrugged noncommittally. She sighed and leaned in to kiss his cheek. “Please, Draco.”

If he’d been able to save up more money from his jobs before starting training, he’d already have moved out. But as it was, he knew that he couldn’t make it through the three incomeless years of training while paying his own rent. Once he finished training, he’d get a flat, and he’d be done with this.

He sighed, and kissed her cheek in turn. “Goodbye, Mother.”





Draco didn’t have a plan, so he Flooed to the Leaky Cauldron. From there, he could easily get to Muggle London. Or Floo to Astoria’s if he changed his mind. There were a few good Muggle restaurants he knew within walking distance, places he could eat alone without sideways glances and heckles from the other patrons.

But when he stepped out of the fireplace, Weasley was there. Weasley was everywhere. It would have to stop. Instead of reminding him of the Ministry, Weasley’s unexpected presence now reminded him of being in Harry’s bedroom, which wouldn’t do at all.

He was with one of his brothers—George Weasley, the one with the joke shop. Weasley barely acknowledged Draco as the pair walked to the bar, but George Weasley grinned wickedly and called, “Oi, Malfoy!”

Draco had never been sure how to act with the Weasleys. He knew where he stood with some of them—to Arthur, he was a misguided boy trying to set things right; to Molly, he was a lost soul who needed love and guidance; to Weasley, he was an annoying but harmless irritant. He could almost navigate interactions with them. George Weasley, on the other hand, was an unknown quantity.

“Had a good night, then?” he asked, once Draco had completed his hesitant approach.

Draco couldn’t tell whether George Weasley was taking the piss or being friendly. “It was all right,” he said diplomatically.

Weasley rolled his eyes and turned to Hannah Abbott, who stood behind the bar. His brother could talk to Draco, but he would have no part in it.

“Bill thought you’d run to the press, but Dad said you wouldn’t.”

He wasn’t sure which event George Weasley was suggesting he’d tell the press about—Harry Potter having (utterly phenomenal) gay sex with a former Death Eater, or Ginny Weasley having Harry Potter’s baby. The former was more scandalous, but the latter had clearly been intentionally kept secret. He wondered how often the Weasleys discussed Harry’s sex life.

“He won’t talk to the press,” Weasley said, turning back to his brother and abandoning all pretence of ignoring Draco. “He’s keeping his head down.” He sounded quite confident of this.

Draco suddenly felt quite certain that Granger had relayed some of their conversations to Weasley. It didn’t matter—they weren’t friends—but he couldn’t help feeling slightly betrayed.

“Still, big news,” George Weasley continued, faux-casual. “Would definitely sell papers.”

“I’m not telling anyone,” Draco said firmly.

“Because you like him?” George Weasley prodded.

Draco still wasn’t sure which piece of news he was supposedly bringing to the press. But regardless: “Yes, I do.”

George Weasley laughed, and Draco still couldn’t tell if he was being kind or mocking.

Weasley gave Draco a hard look, seeming both concerned and unfeeling at once. “He’s not your boyfriend, Malfoy. He doesn’t do boyfriends.”

It was like the night before, when Granger warned him off, but it felt different this time. Not because Weasley’s motivations were different to Granger’s, though that was certainly true; he definitely cared more about Harry’s well-being than Draco’s. No, it felt different because Draco felt different. Last night, he believed Granger. Harry only wanted sex, and it didn’t matter because Draco only wanted sex, too. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Bodies didn’t lie.

“You don't know that,” Draco said, and his voice shook slightly, but he held his head high and didn’t let his gaze waver.

“I know this: he is a selfish prick who doesn't care about anyone but himself.” Weasley sounded absolutely certain of this, and Draco couldn’t understand how anyone’s best friend could judge him so harshly.

“Ron,” George Weasley started, sounding surprised, but he didn’t say anything else. Hannah Abbot stared at the three of them. Draco was pretty sure she didn’t know they were talking about Harry, but he felt awkward having her audience all the same.

“Thank you for the advice,” Draco said, and went to the men’s toilet.

There wasn’t anyone in any of the stalls, and he locked the door to keep it that way. He was breathing hard and shaking slightly. Weasley’s words should not have affected him this much. He hadn’t said anything Draco hadn’t already known. Harry did seem to be an unfeeling bastard—what sort of father left his newborn son to go have sex? He was apparently such a prick that even his best friends, despite their loyalty, had no illusions about him. Draco had asked about seeing him again and Harry had brushed him off entirely, which should have told Draco all he needed to know.

But Harry was the only reason Draco had ever had the opportunity for a fresh start. The Wizengamot had been ready to throw Draco in Azkaban—a new, Dementor-free Azkaban, but prison all the same—until Harry convinced them he was just a kid thrown into a situation he couldn’t control. As Harry told it, Draco was unable to kill Dumbledore because was simply not a killer; he performed Unforgivables only under threat to his own life and his parents’; he refused to hand Harry to Voldemort when given the opportunity. When his supposed friends and allies Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle tried to overpower Harry and his friends, Draco desperately insisted they not kill him. Harry saw him more positively than Draco had ever seen himself.

And now he’d been inside Draco, kissed him in all sorts of intimate places. He’d said he always wanted to be with him like that. He saw Draco, in a way no one seemed to anymore.

Draco stared at himself in the grimy mirror above the sink. He looked different even to himself, now. It wasn’t anything tangible; nothing had physically changed. But this was now a body Harry had wanted. When he looked at his own face, he saw a mouth Harry had kissed, and that made all the difference.

He thought of the marks Harry had left all over him, hidden beneath the concealment charm. He thought of Harry’s face close above his own as he pressed inside. He thought of Harry’s voice, soft and kind.

He closed his eyes, pictured the grand foyer in Harry’s home, and Apparated.






It felt wrong from the moment Draco lurched into place just inside the front door. There wasn’t anything visibly off, but Draco felt sick to his stomach, and not from the disorienting feeling of Apparition. There were faint sounds drifting from somewhere upstairs, quiet but comparatively loud in the huge, empty house.

“Harry?” he called up the stairs. “Harry, can I speak with you?”

He could tell what the sounds are, could remember closing his eyes and listening to them, and everything that went with them. He knew what was happening, even before Harry appeared on the next landing. He’d changed back into Muggle clothes from his dark blue robes, and his eyes had their manic energy restored. And his mouth was kiss-swollen, his shirt rumpled, his jeans tented.

“You can’t just drop by unannounced,” Harry said, far more politely than Draco would have expected, given what he was clearly interrupting.

“I just wanted to talk,” he said, feigning bravado.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” If Harry wanted Draco to believe that, he should have walked away. He should have told Draco to leave. He should have stopped looking down the stairs at him with an inscrutable but intense expression. But he stood where he was, and Draco stayed where he was, staring up at Harry. Neither moved—not even when a third man appeared behind Harry on the landing.

The man’s brows knit together as he looked at Draco, and he turned to Harry as if waiting for an explanation, but Harry didn’t so much as glance at him. “Who’s this?” the man finally prompted.

“No one,” Harry said, still inscrutable.

The man seemed to appraise Draco, a head-to-toe once-over. “You could have just said you wanted a threesome, Steve. He’s fit.”

“He’s leaving.” Harry sounded firmer this time.

The man wasn’t fit at all. He seemed to be in decent shape, but he was older, with thinning hair, and his face was completely forgettable. And he thought Harry’s name was Steve.

“Who is he?” Draco asked. The man smirked, apparently now expecting that threesome.

Harry thought for a second. “Paul.”

“Pete,” the man corrected.

“Pete. Right.”

Draco felt sick. “You don’t even know him.”

“Well,” Harry started, smirking, “I was hoping to get to.”

Draco imagined having a threesome, just for a moment. He imagined telling Pete to fuck off and kissing Harry hard and fucking roughly right there on the stairs. He imagined crying to Harry and letting spill everything he wouldn’t tell Granger about training, or Astoria about home. He imagined getting to his knees and sucking Harry off and letting Harry use his body however he wanted. He imagined calling Harry out for being such an unfeeling bastard, for treating his friends and (surrogate) family and sex partners and son so callously. He imagined finding his own random strangers and parading them in front of Harry and seeing how he liked it. He imagined Harry falling in love with him. He imagined turning around and leaving and not looking back.

It wasn’t his choice to make. He felt certain that Harry wanted him, but if Harry wanted to pretend he didn’t and fuck ugly strangers, well, he had every right. Draco turned and walked back to the door. Instead of Apparating, he went through it and closed it behind him. He had to move. He had to do something, anything that had the slightest chance of getting his mind away from what-ifs.

He hadn’t seen Harry’s neighbourhood the night before, given that they’d arrived by Apparition and left by Floo both times. Now as he stepped out onto the street for the first time, he realised he had no idea where he was. He didn’t even know whether Harry lived in London, though it looked like he probably did. Maybe he’d walk a bit, look for an Underground station, and find a place to Apparate if necessary.

He wanted to turn around, but he needed it to be because Harry gave him a reason to.

But he didn’t think he would.

He heard the heavy creak of the door opening behind him, and he found himself walking faster. It was his imagination. It was one of Harry’s neighbours. It wasn’t a door at all, merely someone somewhere inside pushing back a chair.

“I just left a complete stranger alone in my house to come and talk to you, so don’t run away from me.”

Harry’s voice. Harry coming after him, coming to talk to him instead of fucking that Pete man.

“He isn’t even attractive,” Draco said, turning. “You don’t even know him. He thinks your name is Steve.”

“I told him it was.”

“You’ll fuck anyone. You’ll fuck anyone, and I really like—”

“Malfoy, I’ve had you.”

Draco believed it this time, that Harry didn’t care about him. He looked like he meant it, all unfeeling eyes and set posture.

“Last night,” Harry continued, “you wanted me, and I wanted you. That’s all it was.”

“A fuck?” It wasn’t true. As Draco thought back to everything that had passed between them, just a fuck didn’t fit at all.

“What did you think it was?”

Harry had looked at him, and really seen him. He’d spoken to Draco as just a person, not as a former Death Eater, failure, embarrassment, wannabe criminal. With Harry, he was simply Draco.

“Look,” Harry started, “fucking is honest. It’s efficient. You get in and out with a maximum of pleasure and a minimum of bullshit. Love is the dream home, a pretty wife and two children and a respectable job. I could have that. I could marry Gin and settle down and take Kingsley up on his offer. I don’t want that. I don’t want any of that. You can be an Auror and marry a nice pureblood girl—”

“I don’t want that either,” Draco interjected. “I want you.”

“You can’t have me. If I don’t want it with Gin, why the fuck would I want it with you?”

It was the first time Harry had spoken to him like he was less.

Harry’s friends talked as though he were some kind of lost cause, his acceptance based on duty but not on merit. They loved him because he was Harry and they had to. Draco didn’t have to. Draco didn’t have to be a part of this at all. He had been doing just fine for himself, and he could continue on the same way.

“I hope Steve enjoys his time with Paul,” Draco said. His voice didn’t shake.

He turned and walked down the street, past rows of homes from which the sounds of life and love and family escaped. He didn’t hear Harry go back inside, didn’t hear the door shut behind him. As he walked, he could increasingly only hear the blood rushing in his ears. His heart pounded wildly in his chest, and he had to blink to clear his eyes and focus on the street before him.

He walked for nearly a half hour, trying to empty his mind. Then, looking around and finding himself alone, he Apparated to the alleyway he remembered near the club. He went in and he danced and he sucked off a stranger, and he didn’t think about Harry Potter at all.





Part II