Fest Fic: Fairies, fathers, and forevers - PART TWO

[bottom_draco_comm]

Title: Fairies, fathers, and forevers
Author: ???
Prompt: PROMPT #42 submitted by themightyflynn
Pairing: Draco /Harry, also featuring Hermione/Ron
Word Count: 54k
Rating: NC-17
Contains (Highlight to view): *A little mystery and a lot of romance. If you are here for the sex only, feel free to skip ahead to the last chapter!* 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: Thank you Sophy, best beta ever! Note to themightyflynn: I hope you won’t feel Draco’s fairy genes have turned him part female. He isn’t, even if he’s different. To think him less of a man for that would be discriminating, much like considering Hagrid to be dumb because he’s a half-giant ;) Concerning gore, I tried to keep it to a minimum, but when there’s use of Sectumsempra it can’t be completely avoided, so I hope you are okay with that! And lastly I hope you’ll agree that anal ejaculation has got nothing to do with scat. Enjoy the read!
Summary: All Harry was looking for that night in Knockturn Alley was a quick hook-up. But then he finds himself saving Draco Malfoy from a Dementor attack and taking him home to take care of his injuries and shattered sense of self. Since Draco’s fairy genes kicked in on his twenty-first birthday, he has been homeless and working as a rent boy. He needs Harry’s help to embrace his new identity as a half-breed and to get his life back on track. And to survive: It turns out that Dementor attack wasn’t a coincidence. Draco’s father can’t live with the fact the Malfoy name was erased from the list of the Sacred Twenty-eight, but he’s not the only danger to Draco’s safety. Harry needs all his skills as an Auror to protect the man who is the love of his life. Yes, his former nemesis not only mixes up Harry’s happy single routine with his impertinence and inability to tidy things away, Draco Malfoy has Harry rethink his attitude on happy ever afters. Suddenly everything being well, having his scar not hurting, and topping another pretty stranger each Saturday night isn’t enough anymore.


Return to PART ONE on DreamWidth

Return to LiveJournal


Read it on AO3

He’s found a Muggle sports channel. Now his favourite after-dinner activity is switching back and forth from Waltzing Wizards to Eurosports to check if there’s a car race on. It’s surprising how often there is. Screeching tyres and howling motors so aren’t my idea of a chill evening home.

We’ve fought about that tonight, and surprisingly, he relented and switched the horror off. Only then he occupied my Y-Pad. When I said I needed it to check on something, he got angry.

“You told me to watch Muggle television, and when I’m doing it, you complain. Now I’m looking up Muggle stuff on the Y-Pad, like you told me, too, and you’re complaining, again! You’re really difficult to live with, Harry, has anyone ever told you that?”

I don’t think anyone has, not since Privet Drive.

When I sit at the table, stuck with the Daily Prophet, I feel it’s not quite fair how our little run-in played out. But then I can’t very well snatch my Y-Pad from him with Accio. I literally can’t, because he’d summon it right back, and with our powers being balanced out like they are, we’d end up spending the evening flipping the Y-Pad back and forth between us. I know he’s not above that kind of thing. Because if there is something he truly hates, it’s losing. Then, out of the blue, he asks, “You want your Y-pad back?”

I’m so startled by this dovishness I can’t even say yes.

“Don’t look so incredulous, Harry, that’s insulting. You still see me as this asshole that wants to gain the upper hand at all times, don’t you. I might not be the most angelic of flatmates, but I can do compromise, you know.”

So I offended him by saying he wasn’t angelic.

“It’s alright, keep the Y-pad, Draco,” I say.

“I’ve been watching too much telewizard lately, and been using the Y-Pad too often, too. I haven’t had any experience with that kind of entertainment before, you know, so I guess my self-control slipped a bit. My father never allowed any of that in our house, called it Muggle style and modern filth and unworthy of a true wizard. So, sorry, Harry. I didn’t mean to bite back at you like I did. How about we switch off the Y-Pad for tonight and just talk for a bit? If you like?”

I put the Daily Prophet to the side. I’ve still got to get used to him saying sorry to me. And to seeing this side of him, unguarded and so, so sweet.

“Alright, what would you like to talk about?”

“Anything? Anything you’d like to talk about?”

That’s an opportunity I’m not going to let pass.

“Okay. Okay, I’d like you to tell me some more about your life. I want to know what it was like to be you back in the days of Voldemort. Being in the centre of it all, the son of a Death Eater. Being expected to become one yourself.”

His fingers trace the outlines of the Y-pad. Finally he looks up and says, “When you learnt that my father was a Death Eater, I bet you weren’t that surprised. But when I found out, my life combusted. Of course there had always been that obsession with pure blood and all that in our family, and I knew my father wasn’t the best kind of person. But learning that he actually worked for that mass murderer…”

He shakes his head and puts the Y-pad on the couch table before him with uncharacteristic care.

“You see, I had no one to confide in, no one I’d have dared to talk to about my father. All my mother had to say was that we had to keep everything Voldemort a secret, or we’d all die. And when my father went to Azkaban, things got worse. Voldemort approached me, he ordered me to let him brand me with his Mark.”

“How did you pull it off. That the Dark Mark didn’t stay on you, and that Voldemort never realized it.”

“That was pretty simple, really,” he replies. “I had impregnated my arm with a potion I had developed. It was like an invisible coating, so the Mark couldn’t really sink into my skin when he put it on me, you see? The moment he had left, I rubbed it off with a plain cleansing spell, then sketched on a new mark with my wand. I showed it off to others, and it fooled them. And more importantly, it fooled Voldemort.”

“Wow,” I say. He shrugs.

“I couldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been training myself in Occlumency for years before that. My father had had this way of always trying to control my thoughts when I was a kid, you know. That’s why I decided to learn Occlumency. I’m really good at it. You can try me some day. Yeah, old Voldemort never found out how I duped him. Yeah, I’m really proud of my Occlumency skills. And my drawing skills, of course.”

He winks at me, as if it had all been a game, as if he hadn’t been risking his life like that.

“That was really courageous of you, fooling Voldemort about the Dark Mark.”

He grins.

“Can you see me allowing someone to put an ugly permanent tattoo like that on me? Honestly, at least give me some credit for vanity.”

He winks at me again. So he knows about my petty thoughts about his array of bottles in the bathroom. Yeah, he isn’t only good at Occlumency, he’s good at mind-reading, too, it seems. And he doesn’t even need to use Legilimency for it. I feel bad for being the small person I am, but he doesn’t call me out on it, he simply goes on sharing his memories with me.

“I guess he found out eventually,” he says. “When he Summoned all the Death Eaters at the Battle of Hogwarts and I didn’t show, you know. He certainly tried to make me, he could make the Mark burn so much people passed out from the pain if they didn’t react to a call. But not me. I knew he was Summoning people to the Dark Forest, but I decided I’d rather not join his little party in the woods.”

He laughs, self-satisfied.

“That was quite a risk to take. Weren’t you afraid for your life?”

“You know why I had to stay in Hogwarts. I had to keep you busy so you wouldn’t go meet Voldemort. I didn’t want you to duel him. I wanted someone else to kill him. I hoped Neville Longbottom would do it.”

It’s the first time he has openly admitted he cared about me already then. He doesn’t realize it though, he’s caught up in remembering those final hours of Voldemort’s reign.

“When you came back to Hogwarts, when I saw you again, determined to fulfil your destiny, that was just so… God, Harry, I guess you don’t want to hear that, but you were just so damn sexy. You were still you, but you were stronger. Harder. People say you used the Cruciatus Curse on Amycus Carrow. Is that true?”

I squirm in embarrassment.

“I don’t know why I did that. It was the stress. I wouldn’t ever use that curse again.”

“You would, if you had to,” he says, looking at me, his eyes shining. It completely fazes me.

“Are you telling me you’ve got a thing for guys who use unforgivable curses?” I squeak.

He shakes his head, and the shine in his eyes turns into those tiny, dancing stars.

“I guess I’ve got a thing for heroes. You’re a fighter and a boss, Harry. You’d never go down without giving a bad guy hell. You’d do anything to save what’s yours.”

I want to say something, but I’ve forgotten what it was. I look at him, his beautiful face, his sparkling eyes.

He’s right.

I would.

I don’t know if that makes me a hero. But as I’m bathing in the silver light of his gaze now, for the first time in my life I actually do feel like one. I’ve never been really proud of having defeated the Dark Lord. It was more like, I did it, and that was that. But Draco doesn’t seem to see it like that.

“It was only you who could stand up to Voldemort. Only you,” he says, his voice shaking with emotion. “I would have been doomed without you. You know, when he assigned me the job to kill Dumbledore to punish my father? You know what that meant, Harry. He would have killed both my parents if I had tried to defy him, just like he killed yours. I was desperate, I didn’t know a way out. I never found one.”

“You didn’t kill Dumbledore.”

“No, but he still got killed. And I was so afraid that my mother would be next. I saw how Voldemort was playing with my parents, how he took sick pleasure in reducing my father to a powerless beggar and residing in our house as its true master. Voldemort hated my father for his name, for the Malfoys’ wealth and position in the wizarding world. I knew I had no way of keeping my parents safe. My only hope was you, Harry. And you saved them, you saved my mother, everyone. And you did it with my wand.”

He looks at me, his grey eyes still speckled with those tiny stars. I stare at him, trying to tell myself this is just another one of his Vanity Incantations, but I know it’s not, it’s something much more ancient than wizardry, something innate and beautiful and true.

“Have you ever thought about that, Harry? What it means that you defeated the Dark Lord with my wand?”

He draws a deep breath.

“It’s a rare thing that a wand works for another wizard, even if they’re close. I could never really channel the energy of my mother’s wand. And she’s the person closest to me. She was. But when you fought Voldemort, you wielded the ultimate power using my wand.”

We look at each other. It's the closest we've ever been to laying bare our souls, I know.

“And I can switch television channels with yours,” he says, and we cover up the moment with laughter.

“Here’s your map, Harry.”

Lin has just stepped into my office and hands me a rolled-up parchment. Eagerly, I spread it out. It’s perfect, it’s exactly what I wanted.

A map of the Ministry showing everybody in it as a tiny moving dot and identified by name, just like the Marauder’s Map. Like of their own accord, my eyes search for Draco’s name. Yeah, there he is, in the Potion’s Department in the basement, together with Sam Kendrick. A bit too close together with Sam Kendrick. Jenkins is in his office. That’s all the names showing up in the basement. No Marcus Flint. That means he’s not down there using an animagus shape as camouflage. Nor is anyone else. No one is trying to ambush Draco, pretending to be a mouse.

Maybe I was being paranoid about that mouse. But it’s always best to make sure.

“Now tell me, Harry, what exactly do you need this for,” Lin asks. Of course she’s been watching me check the map. Of course she’d ask this.

I still had to put in a request for this map. I simply need to be able to make sure he’s alright. It doesn’t mean I’ve turned into an overprotective husband, obsessed with protecting. This is just common sense.

“Harry?"

She can be a pain in the neck, Lin. But she’s also the one person who’s able to produce a map like this. I knew she would do it. She likes me.

Or rather, she liked the kid I was. I’ve got the feeling she’s a bit dissatisfied with how I turned out. And I think it’s not just about the fact that I’m using the f-word a bit too often these days. I think she doesn’t relate to me liking to rough people up in duels so much. She’s the kind who expects people to become an Auror just to make the world a better place.

“Harry,” she told me just the other day on one of her rare, random visits to my office, “Remember, you want to give something back to society. Your education is a privilege and a responsibility. You shouldn’t use it just for your own gratification.”

I get where she’s coming from, but I don’t really care for that kind of talking. I resent the nagging undertone. I mean, I’m doing my job, I hunt down former Death Eaters and current top terrorists, so society should be frigging satisfied. Lin is clever, no doubt, but I liked it better when Dumbledore shared his wisdom with me. And I don’t really want to talk to her about why I need this map. But she has already pulled a chair up to my desk and sits down next to me like for a cosy heart-to-heart.

“Harry. You seem to be very concerned for Draco Malfoy’s well-being these days. Have you forgotten who he is?”

What the fuck? Okay, that impertinent question does require an answer.

“I’ve only now found out who he is! He never was what he seemed to be, Lin. He never was on the dark side!”

“I think I know that better than you do, Harry, and believe me, he was.”

I don’t know why, but I feel an irresistible urge to argue my point.

“Right, listen, Lin. Draco was being mistreated by a Death Eater already in the fourth year, remember? When Crouch transformed him into a ferret and made him hit the walls?"

She actually smiles at the recollection.

"I can't see how there's anything funny about someone getting victimized and hurt like that. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't smile about it like you do if Crouch had done the same thing to an actual ferret. Anyway, the incident is proof enough that Draco had no protection, that his father’s name didn’t keep him safe from the Death Eaters’ malice. Draco was just a helpless boy in the eye of a storm of evil!”

“Excuse me, Harry, Draco was a bully. He has always been a terrible, heartless snob. Seriously, how could you develop this pathetic crush on him.”

“Excuse me, Lin, not every classroom bully grows up to be a sociopath with no feelings! Yeah, maybe he did make mistakes, hurt people. But he never killed anyone. He never made a free decision to join the Dark Lord, either. His father did, but not Draco. Do you want to hold him responsible for carrying the same name? For having trouble finding his way as a teenager in a horrible, hostile world? Yeah, he was just a teenager when he chose to be a pain in everybody’s ass, back when you looked into our lives at Hogwarts. You can’t hold him fully accountable for how he behaved then, no criminal court would do that!”

“You’re forgetting they did exactly that! Draco Malfoy was officially convicted of being a Death Eater!”

“He isn’t a Death Eater, he never was! I’m telling you, if they had looked at the evidence with any real wish to understand what actually happened, they’d never have sentenced him!”

“You honestly believe Draco Malfoy never was a follower of the Dark Lord? I can’t fathom how that idea got into your head, Harry.”

“You have all the facts, don’t you, Lin. You know everything I do, for Godric’s sake! It’s obvious Draco tried everything in his power to covertly sabotage the Dark Lord’s plans!”

She scoffs. It makes me really mad.

“He did! If he hadn’t acted the Death Eater, he would have put his parents’ lives at stake. But he tried to save my life, and more than once! At Malfoy Manor, for example, when he didn’t give me away to his father! And during the Battle of Hogwarts, too, when he tried to stop Crabbe from killing me in the Room of Requirements!”

“Draco Malfoy attacked you in the Room of Requirements!”

“He was trying to keep me busy there so the Dark Lord wouldn’t find me! Can’t you see that’s true?”

“I can see it’s pointless to argue with you over this, Harry. You are obviously strongly biased,” she says sternly. I slowly exhale.

“It’s you who’s biased, Lin. Why don’t you want to give him a second chance? Wouldn’t you agree everybody deserves at least that? You know what? If you were a true progressive, you’d have some faith in people!”

She waits for a couple of seconds to be sure I’m done, then says, “You’re romanticizing him, that’s unnerving.”

THAT’S unnerving?

Sometimes I wish I’d never come out. I wouldn’t have to listen to this crap if I hadn’t. Lin told me she was perfectly okay with me being gay when I came out, though she was clearly surprised. It seems she expected me to get married to Ginny Weasley one day or something equally conventional. And Draco probably to some upscale Slytherin girl. Yeah, she’s got no idea he’s part-fairy, and it’s not my place to tell her his story. Yeah, there are some things she doesn’t know after all. And that’s a good thing, too. It certainly is when it comes to the exact details of my romanticizing.

I still can’t just listen to her basically calling Draco unworthy of love. Sometimes I could swear she’s really a Muggle, and that that is the true reason she resents Draco so much. He used to be the essence of the proud pure-blood, and he still is ancient wizard aristocracy.

“Okay, Lin, just to set this straight. Draco is my boyfriend, or at least I want him to be, and you’ll just have to deal with that.”

I check the Ministry Map again. Draco Malfoy is still safely in his allotted location in the Potions Department, alone with Samuel Kendricks.

Lin goes to the door, throwing me a last sour look over her shoulder.

“Just don’t forget you don’t own him, Harry.”

Godric, I hate it that I don’t.

I’ve invited Hermione over to a Tuesday night soy margarine beer at the Flying Pumpkin again. I want to know what Portuba Muff says about the fairy-elves family life and the relationship between a fairy-elf and his elven partner.

“Okay, the fairy-elves of Middle Earth,” Hermione begins, as usual diving straight in. “Both elves and fairy-elves were male and distinguished fighters, but the fairy-elves were considerably smaller and slighter. Since their numbers were always somewhat low, they were held in the highest esteem as the preservers of the race. You remember they laid the eggs.”

“And you said they lived in partnerships with the elves.”

Hermione frowns at me, not happy with the interruption.

“I didn’t say partnership, that wouldn’t have been the correct term. They lived in strict monogamy with their elven partners. Portuba Muff assumes there’s evolutionary reasons for that. Fairy elves used to put so much energy into taking care of their multiple offspring that they needed a committed partner and protector. Lifelong pair bonds aren’t uncommon in species that lay eggs and provide for their young. Think birds.”

Lifelong pair bonds. Needing a committed partner and protector. Living in strict monogamy. It should probably freak me out.

“As you know, pure-blooded fairy-elves died out when elves started to mate with human females. There were simply more of those available, and they were probably perceived as less high-maintenance than fairy-elves, too. A single sex partner and multiple multiplets aren’t high up on the modern male’s wish list, are they.”

“Multiplets?”

“Insects don’t have just twins or triplets, you know,” Hermione says, now looking truly exasperated at getting interrupted, again. “So let’s wrap this up. The family life of the fairy-elves of Middle Earth is a thing of the past, like they are themselves. Today, there’s just the wild, diminutive form of the woodland fairy that lives in swarms. And the house elves, of course. As another degenerated fairy-elf variant, they found a survival niche as household slaves, and are the sad evolutionary end-result of a life form genetically designed for committed relationships. Or that’s how Portuba Muff phrases it.”

“Fairies are related to house elves?”

“Yeah, the big eyes, the size, the general sweet-naturedness? And everybody being male?”

“There are female house elves...”

“There are house elves who choose to go by a female name. That doesn’t make a person physically female. As a member of the LGBT community you should be aware of that.”

I don’t listen to her anymore. Draco is related to house elves? Draco, who’s so beautiful and proud and who’ll never understand there’s such a thing as household chores, related to Dobby?

“Portuba Muff is a renowned scientist, she...” Hermione says.

“Okay, don’t list her academic achievements, I don’t understand what all these awards mean, anyway.”

“Fine. Portuba Muff knows her shit. Hope you understand what that means. So, yeah, you can trust her when she says fairies and house elves are related. I guess Draco has got bigger eyes now? And...”

“I believe you. And Portuba,” I cut her short. I think of Dobby performing his wandless magic to defend himself and those he loved. Draco washing dishes in the basement for his boss till midnight. Draco related to Dobby. Perhaps it’s not that ludicrous an idea after all. Hermione nods, satisfied.

“That’s probably why Lucius Malfoy hated Dobby so much,” she goes on. “Because he was a relative, and a daily reminder to Lucius Malfoy of his own identity as a part-elf. That kind of subconscious psychological complex is at the bottom of every form of discrimination, you know. It was one of the goals of the House Elf Liberation Front to help people understand that...”

I so don’t need to hear about Lucius Malfoy’s complexes and HELF right now.

“So basically Portuba Muff says a fairy-elf would form a lifelong bond with his protector?” I ask, aiming at a casual tone. Hermione gives me a piercing look.

“Exactly, and that’s basically why they died out, too. Nobody likes clingy, you’ve said that yourself often enough. Haven’t you, Harry?”

I can’t really remember what I used to say. I don’t care, either. Man, I hate that x-ray look on Hermione.

“Draco isn’t full fairy, Harry,” she says. “He’s just carrying some genes. Some, Harry. That doesn’t mean he wants to be owned.”

Why do all the girls keep telling me that.

What the fuck do they know about us.

He fell sick, again. After a night out with Flint in the Flying Pumpkin, again. This time I got things under control pretty quickly. I’ve been reading up on healing spells and found that there’s a general recommendation to combine Anapneo with Bronchiolus Tubulatus. I tried it out, and it worked like magic. Pun intended.

But I can’t relax. Things can’t go on like this. Draco still refuses to go to St. Mungo’s; he says I’m a great healer, and he’s going to be fine, and he doesn’t want to strip in front of all those doctors. I don’t want to, but I’ve got to respect that.

It’s anything but normal though, these recurring fits of illness.

I recap. He told me he hasn’t been feeling well since he was sixteen. I damaged his heart that year, so in my opinion that is a possible explanation for his problems.

He himself thinks they were triggered by Crabbe’s and his father’s curses, and that he’s still suffering from the after-effects.

But we might both be wrong.

I can’t get the idea out of my head that someone, or Flint, is casting curses at him every time they meet up at the Flying Pumpkin.

I’m an Auror. It’s my job to hunt down people who’d commit hate crimes against a half-breed. I’m trained to follow all possible leads in such cases, to consider anyone a suspect.

And then I just won’t find rest until I know for sure that nobody’s messing with him, even though he has told me to leave things be.

It’s hard to do this on my own. But I can’t involve anyone in my department. Not when everything is so vague. But there’s still Ron. He’s my pal friend. And he’s in law enforcement, he knows how criminal minds work. He knows simply because he’s Ron, too.

So I ask him to join me in the Flying Pumpkin for an unscheduled drink.

-

“You want my professional advice, Auror Potter?” he says when we’ve sat down with our beers. He’s sounding almost like Draco. It has wounded his pride when I complained the other night about how Aurors are expected to help out with simple law enforcement jobs these days. The DLE had to cut back on staff for budget reasons, and the Ministry considers us Aurors an available resource, it seems. So they have started to unload assignments on us that are basically police work. It’s all kinds of annoying. I guess it’s true there aren’t as many terrorists around as in the days of the Dark Lord, though.

And it’s also true that yes, I do need Ron’s advice.

So I just nod. It disarms him as effectively as if I had used Expelliarmus on him.

“Right, mate, what’s up,” he asks, steepling his arms on the table in front of him.

At the mention of Draco’s name, he raises an eyebrow, but as I explain to him what my problem is, he listens attentively. I tell him everything, I only leave out the part about Fairyboy and the fact that Draco has wings. When I’m done, he says, “Right. You say he fell sick last Sunday after he’s been out with Flint in the Flying Pumpkin. And that the same thing has happened repeatedly, so you suspect someone, or Flint, might be cursing him while he’s here in the pub.”

“Right.”

“But there’s the wand ban, so Flint isn’t carrying his wand when they are together. He can’t put anything into Draco’s drink, either. If it’s true that Draco is only having water these days, he’d notice if there was poison in there. Next point, Flint doesn’t seem to have a motive. It appears convincing that he keeps inviting Draco to hang out with him because he wants to keep up the contact. He can’t have that many friends if he stinks like you say, and then they are old team buddies.”

I nod. It’s an incredible comfort to listen to Ron spelling out my own jumbled thoughts, sorting them and bringing them into an order in the dispassionate way of the true professional.

“Okay, Harry, I’d suggest we go have a look around.”

So we do it, we check the room. At the billiard tables, Ron picks up one of the wand cues.

“What if one of these is actually a wand?”

We check every single one of the twenty cues. In the end it’s clear they can do nothing but drive balls into pockets when you know how to handle them, like they are supposed to.

“Let’s ask the barmaid some questions,” Ron says.

“She’s a talker, I don’t want her to spread that I’ve been here, asking questions.”

“You don’t want Malfoy to know you’ve been here, asking questions.”

“He thinks I’m paranoid. I’ve already secretly followed him here once. He wouldn’t like it.”

“Fine, let me do it.”

Ron walks over to the counter and flashes his badge at the barmaid. It’s against the rules, since this is no official investigation. But it serves its purpose. She abandons her beer tap and takes him into a corner, obviously thrilled to be interrogated.

“Draco Malfoy?” I hear her sputter. “Yeah, he’s been here, mostly on Saturday nights. Is it true he’s dating your friend? Harry Potter? Isn’t it just unbelievable that he’s part-fairy? You wouldn't believe how the guy is dressing these days, who would ever have imagined Draco Malfoy in a belly tee with rhinestone ornaments hexed around his navel! He’s still great at billiard, though, he’s always winning…”

I don’t hear the rest. I visit the bathroom so I don’t have to feel bad about doing this behind his back. When I meet up with Ron at our table again, he looks slightly drained.

“That girl sure can talk.”

"You are used to girls who can talk, aren't you."

Ron looks at me, clearly put out.

"Hermione would never waste her time on that kind of endless jabbering about other people, okay?"

"Okay."

"She's got too much class for that, okay? Hermione's got more class than any other woman I know, so don't expect me to listen to that kind of silly remark, least of all while I'm doing this thing for you."

I quickly apologize, then ask, “You got anything?”

“She said she’s positive no one can smuggle in a wand. Security checks everyone before they enter, and there’s a wand detection charm installed at every door. And apparently Flint has never done anything worse than stinking up the place with his armpits and his deodorant and hitting the occasional guest over the head with his beer mug. He seems to be the kind of billiard player who feels his masculinity is called in question when he loses.”

“So he might not like it that Draco’s winning all the time.”

“Certainly not, but even if he wanted to make him fall ill as punishment, how would he manage to do that?” Ron says. “And it seems hurling mugs at people is more his style than casting secret curses, anyway.” He wipes something off his badge, then puts it back into his pocket. “Right. Let’s forget about Flint for a moment. Who else is there who might want to harm Malfoy, and who had the chance to get near him on a regular basis over the last weeks?”

There’s Jenkins, obviously.

“His boss? Okay. What would be his motive.”

“They are currently running tests on that new potion Jenkins has been working on for thirty years. It contains an extremely poisonous form of wolfs bane. I’ve been thinking that maybe Jenkins makes Draco come in on weekends because he’s secretly doing something illegal to him, like testing the potion on him.”

Ron weighs his head.

“Malfoy. Does he have wings?”

I don’t know what to say.

“I don’t mean to pry, mate. But if this is to be of any use, I need the facts. So, if he has, there might be our motive. Jenkins knows Draco is part-fairy, doesn’t he. Every guy in potions knows fairy wings are crazy expensive, and that you can use them for a number of potions that sell like hell. So let’s assume Jenkins is a bad guy. If Draco does have wings, Jenkins will have found out by now. And he has got access to all kinds of substances. He might hope to eventually kill Draco by secretly poisoning him, then somehow get his hands on his wings to stock up on his supplies.”

“And he might somehow administer that poison during the weekend shifts, when there’s hardly any people in the Ministry. And Draco would feel the effects the next day,” I conclude. It’s an abominable idea, but Ron is right. It’s possible. I wouldn’t put it past Jenkins. All he cares for is results, I heard him say so myself.

“And you say he’s wearing a shield amulet around the clock. It’s only potions that could go past that.” He lets that sink in, then says, “Have you had a look around in those potions labs? Talked to Jenkins?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, here’s my two Knuts for you. First, go check out those labs and that Jenkins guy. It’s always a good idea to do some field work. And second, if there’s something working on Malfoy, a potion or a dark spell that’s stronger than his amulet, there’s people who’d be able to find out. You need to get him examined.”

If there’s something working on him, there’s people who’d be able to find out. Ron’s two Knuts. He didn’t say what people, but the one person I know who could do it is his own fiancée. She isn’t a healer, but she is Hermione. And Draco has made it more than clear he won’t go anywhere near St. Mungo’s.

I visit Hermione in her office on LUM campus the next day. She doesn’t answer Video Phono calls during the workday, and I can’t wait till the evening.

“You’re expecting me to find out what’s wrong with Draco Malfoy’s health,” she says, leaning back in her chair. It’s an ergonomic executive chair, and it makes her look like an especially thin schoolgirl.

“If anyone can do it, it’s you. You’re the most knowledgeable witch or wizard I know.”

She can’t be bamboozled.

“It doesn’t follow from that that I can diagnose magical diseases. I’m not a healer, Harry.”

“But you’re the daughter of a dentist...”

“Two dentists. And that hardly qualifies me to perform medical examinations on people, does it.”

“Hermione, please. You are the only one I can trust with this. I’ll have to make him agree to allow the examination, and I don’t think I could suggest anyone else for that but you.”

“What makes you think he’ll want me of all people? He used to call me a mudblood, you know.”

I don’t know what to say. She taps her wand onto her desk impatiently.

“Aren’t you going to tell me he has changed?”

“He has,” I say.

She humphs. It could mean anything. I look at her, trying to read her. She gets up from her chair.

“Godric, Harry. I haven’t got all day. Aren’t you going to even try to find some more arguments to convince me I should do this?”

Hell, she’s going to do it. I grab for her hands.

“I really need your help with this, Hermione. Draco is my family now. I can’t just look on when he’s suffering like he does.”

She looks at me in her x-ray way, then she nods.

“Right. If it happens again, send me a voice message. I’ll take a look at him. If he wants me to.”

I’m so relieved she’s going to help me I pull her in to give her a kiss.

“Your family, huh,” she says, wiping her cheek. And I realize I did it at last, I found the term that conclusively describes what Draco is to me. All I’ve still got to do is tell him. I don’t know why I don’t do it. Or perhaps I do know, perhaps I’m afraid he’ll think me clingy. Nobody likes clingy, so I can’t risk that.

And anyway, I’ve got more pressing problems to solve than the question where Draco and I are standing relationship-wise.

-

Five days later, he’s having another fit in the middle of the night, and I call Hermione. It only takes her a minute to Apparate right by his bedside. She hasn’t even changed out of her nightgown. It’s surprisingly frilly.

She doesn’t spare me more than a curt hello, then focusses completely on Draco. Even though I’ve treated him with the usual spells, he is so sick he’s only half conscious. It doesn’t look like he even registered Hermione’s arrival.

“Did you ask him if he’s okay with this?”

“I haven’t had the time.”

“You’ve been putting it off,” she states, watching Draco as he thrashes around on his bed, struggling to draw breath. She pulls her wand from her pocket in an abrupt, business-like manner, but her brow has furrowed in compassion.

“Can you hear me? I’m going to try to find out what’s ailing you, alright? I’m just going to look at your head and chest,” she says softly, then, without bothering to turn around, she adds in a completely different, commanding tone, “Open his shirt, Harry.” 

When I’ve exposed his chest, she shoves me to the side unceremoniously and starts running her wand across his head and upper body. Then she puts her wand to her ear, using it like a stethoscope on his chest. Minutes go by as she stands bent over him, intently listening. At intervals she screws up her face and shakes her head. I don’t dare ask what she means by that. Standing on tiptoe, literally, I look on as she finally carefully pries his lips apart to move the tip of her wand across the inside of his cheek.

She murmurs an incantation I can’t make out, then she straightens herself and stuffs her wand back under her nightgown.

“Okay. This must be an illness caused by viruses or bacteria. There’s absolutely no trace of dark curses or potions in his system, or his aura. We’ll still have to wait for the lab results for the saliva sample, of course.”

“Okay.”

Her gaze is still on Draco.

“It’s really fascinating. They aren’t visible to the naked eye, but he has got tracheae and spiracles, everything.”

“What’s that.”

She gives me a soft roll-eye.

“It’s how insects breathe, Harry.”

“What, are you saying he doesn’t have lungs?”

“I’m saying his respiratory system isn’t like yours and mine. And that might make him susceptible to germs that wouldn’t harm you and me.”

“So this might be a kind of fairy flu?”

“That’s my best guess. On all accounts, I’m ninety-nine percent sure no dark magic or potion is being used to mess with him.”

“Ninety-nine percent.”

“There’s no such thing as one hundred percent in medicine, nor is there in witchcraft and wizardry, Harry. You should know that. Good night.”

She gathers her nightgown around her wispy frame, turns on her heels and is gone.

Ninety-nine percent isn’t a hundred. And Ron is right, it’s always good to do some field work. I’m going to do some investigating in the Potions Section. The first thing I do is call the works council and tell them they want to question Draco Malfoy, intern with the Potions Section, about his working hours and the safety conditions in the laboratories. I know the guys from the works council love that kind of tip-off, and that they are going to grill Draco for at least an hour. All I have to do now is put my map on my desk and check it every couple of minutes to see when he’s leaving the Potions Section. The moment I see his little dot has moved into the office of the works council on the third floor, I apparate down to the main lab.

There’s just Kendricks there, like the last time.

I tell him I was looking for Draco, then ask how he’s doing. I just let him talk for a while. He seems to be grateful for the interruption. Yeah, he doesn’t seem to be all that motivated as far as his job is concerned. He’s telling me detailed stories about the trip he’s planning. San Francisco. Capital of gay nightlife. He saved up for ages to go on that trip. All he wants is a mini break. But Jenkins is the boss from hell, he won’t give him even two days off. Keeps claiming he can’t spare anyone, the old bird.

I interrupt Kendricks’ complaining and ask what he was doing in the garage the other morning. He doesn’t look pleased at the change of subject.

“Oh, so this is an interrogation?”

“Maybe it is,” I say, not bothering to try and sound not threatening. “So. The parking garage.”

“I was waiting for the delivery van? We get new supplies every couple of days. Jenkins has us working around the clock more or less, which means we go through a lot of ingredients in a short space of time. And it’s not like we had extra staff for carrying boxes from the garage to the labs. So the old bird expects us to do that, too, on top of everything else.”

Kendricks goes on about Jenkins being this total slaveholder for another five minutes, then gets back to what seems to be his one true passion, travelling. He tells me about the trips to Berlin and Paris he took last year. He recommends places, and advertises the kinky stuff that’s to be found there, and explains to me that everything is a total frigging bargain because of the exchange rate.

Yeah, he seems to be a bit simple. But not like a criminal. Plus, he doesn’t have a motive to harm Draco. And he could give me a reason why he was down in the parking garage when we arrived there the other morning. It obviously wasn’t to try and snatch at an opportunity to sneak up on Draco. I’m going to double-check with Supplies, but I know they’ll confirm what Kendricks told me.

He’s charming, nice. I really don’t like him. He’s too muscly. His hands are paws, no, spades. He could do real harm with those hands.

And his hair is too sleek. Potion sleek.

Never trust a guy with perfect hair.

-

Professor Jenkins is at his desk reading in a thick book when I step into his office. His red hair is gleaming in the dim light of a single oil lamp. Small wonder his eyes are watering like they do if he doesn’t even use a decent reading light. When I say I’ve got a couple of questions for him, he tries to brush me off. Claims he’s got to attend to pressing matters. As if. All he’s been doing just now is catch up on his bloody reading.

“Professor Jenkins. Draco Malfoy has been repeatedly ill over the last weeks. What do you have to say about that.”

He purses his lips.

“It’s too bad, that's what I've got to say. I need him on the job." He shuts his book and sends it to the bookcase on the opposite wall with a short flick of his wand. The book is so fat it's got trouble staying airborne during its short flight and edging itself back into its space on the crammed top shelf. "Auror Potter, are you now suggesting I'm poisoning my own intern? Or have you simply come here to threaten me some more about exploiting him? I guess it was you who set the works council on us?”

I choose not to comment on that, I just keep fixating him, brows raised.

“Well, I’m not forcing him to work all those extra hours, believe it or not,” he says. “Mr. Malfoy is very driven. I couldn’t stop him from doing his research if I tried to.” He chuckles in a way that can only be described as fondly. Then he focusses his swimming gaze on me again. “You should know that, shouldn’t you. You’re his life partner, aren’t you?”

I don’t know if I’m Draco’s life partner, but it’s definitely a rare thing that a wizard of Jenkins’ age would use that term. The correct term. If it is correct in our case. It's definitely a point in his favour. Sure, this kind of thing should be normal, with this being times of tolerance and gay marriage being legally recognized and everything, but the fact is, it's not, and I find myself finding the sight of Jenkins drying his teary eyes with his wand yet again just this tiny bit less repulsive.

Would he poison Draco? Use him as a lab rat? Does he want him or his ground wings in his supply cabinet?

It doesn’t seem likely.

But then you never know with potions guys.

-

That night Draco confronts me, seething. Kendricks told him about my visit, and Draco put two and two together.

“What were you thinking, pulling something like that, Harry! Treating my boss like a murder suspect! Jenkins is a brilliant guy, and all he’s interested in is his work! And Sam is cool, too. He’d never harm anyone. All he wants is go to SF! Do you realize how you’ve embarrassed me with the whole thing? And then to make me sit through two full hours of those stupid questions from that works council lady!”

I try to interrupt him, but he won’t let me.

“Seriously, Harry, I don’t care for you doing this kind of shit. You know what? I think working as an Auror has messed with your head. Or maybe it’s your whole personal history. Like having to deal with a new villain every single school year and stuff. You’ve got to start to learn that not every situation is about defeating some evil, plotting enemy, okay?”

He’s pacing the kitchen like the very first night we spent together in my flat. Only then he was confiding his troubles to me, and seeking my help. Trusting me. Now he looks like he’d like to rip me to pieces.

“It’s important for me that this internship works out! I think you don’t get it. You think it’s just an underpaid job in unpleasant surroundings. And that I’m doing it because I’m related to house elves and like to be told what to do and to scrub things. But that’s not it, okay?”

Again, I try to stop his outburst, but he shakes his head.

“We are onto something big, see? Something really big. That potion Jenkins is working on, it's a cure for residual effects of dark magic. Well, he gave me free reign to experiment with it. The problem is that its main ingredient is in extremely limited supply, and just recently I had this idea how to deal with that. It was inspired by a science article I had come across on the Muggle net, dealing with something called polymerase chain reaction, and... anyway, it seems to be working out. I can’t tell you more at the moment, but there’s been a major breakthrough. All this is of considerable personal interest to me, see?”

“Because of your heart,” I whisper.

“Because of those bouts of breathing trouble, if you must know. That’s got nothing to do with you cursing me with Sectumsempra and me not being the athlete I used to be. And I’m not infected with anything, either. Sorry, I disagree with your mop-haired friend.”

I’ve told him I had Hermione examine him the last time he fell sick, and although he didn’t remember anything about it, he took the information in his stride. All he seemed to really care for was that she didn’t get to see his wings. I just wish he’d come round to be as cool and forgiving now.

“I know she’s good and everything,” he goes on, “but what’s happening to me doesn’t look like what a bug would do, does it. You know I do believe my father’s old curses might still be affecting me, and that’s all there is to it.”

“But you said you started to feel sick in your sixth year. That’s when I hit you with Sectumsempra and damaged your heart…”

“It’s also when my father went to Azkaban and started to have Crabbe hex me.”

“But...”

“Okay, let’s stop this. All I want to say is my work is really important to me. And it’s not only that I have these personal hopes concerning the Light drops. Potions is my thing. I want to make a name for myself in the field. Okay? So, please Harry. Don’t mess with my job.”

Humbled, I apologize, and promise to stay away from his work place in the future. After all he’s just told me, what else can I say? Even if he just gave me another motive why his boss might be wanting to kill him. If Draco solved a major problem with a potion that Jenkins has been working on for thirty years, Jenkins might very well be wanting to get rid of him so he'll be able to reap the benefits all by himself once that potion hits the shops. Only Draco doesn't want to see that, because he's part of Jenkins' team, and loyal to a fault. Of course Draco might have a point with what he said about my personal history; me getting confronted with a plotting enemy every school year. Maybe I did develop a penchant for paranoia because of that.

I’ll still keep my map.

Friday night. I’m late for after-work drinks, had to catch up on my reading. Interrogation transcripts. Such a bore. Nobody would ever want to be an Auror if they knew there’s such a thing as interrogation transcripts. When I slump down at our table in the Flying Pumpkin, Ron and Hermione are busy quarrelling.

Apparently Ron gave Ginny’s current suitor a black eye by making him look through Ron’s telescope during one of Ginny’s Quidditch matches. I know that telescope; it’s one of the bestsellers from George’s shop and punches you in the eye when you try to adjust the lens.

“Why would you do that, Ron? Why would you?”

“Why would he pinch my sister’s ass at half-time for everybody to watch on the big screen!”

“Never mind your sister’s ass! You’re going to get fired if you go on like this!”

“I won’t, I hit the guy with a forgetting spell afterwards,” Ron says smugly.

“But that’s even worse, you dickhead!” Hermione shrieks.

“Isn’t it legit to watch out for one’s family or what,” Ron retorts pompously. Hermione gives me a roll-eye that nearly dislodges her eye sockets, then ostentatiously pulls her chair around so she faces me, and Ron faces her back.

“Listen, Harry, I’ve dug up some highly interesting extra details on fairy-elf breeding. One of Portuba Muff’s early articles. Found it in an old edition of the Journal of Magical Beings.”

“Maybe some other time...” I say. I don’t want to discuss Portuba Muff’s findings on fairy-elf breeding in front of Ron. But Hermione doesn’t get that.  

“Okay. What she writes is that in spite of their male assets, the fairy-elves of Middle Earth had ovaries connected to the rectum. During intercourse the eggs got inseminated, then went to a special pouch off the rectal canal where they stayed for a few weeks to grow.”

“Are you seriously going to treat us to a lecture about male pregnancy?” Ron says, sounding almost as desperate as I feel. Hermione shakes her head vigorously.

“Pregnancy isn’t the adequate term in the context, Ron. Portuba Muff speaks of a special process related to metamorphosis. See, the eggs had to be pushed out before they got too big to fit through the anal passage. The fairy-elves stuck them under leaves in the undergrowth and left them there to ripe into larvae that would ultimately develop into fully-grown babies.”

Ron coughs wildly. When he’s done, he says, “Can we stop talking about Malfoy shitting extra big poo, then sticking it places in the garden you don’t see until it’s too late? Just so you know, Harry, I’m not gonna come help you with the weeding in your front garden when you’ve settled down with your little butterfly.”

I get up and hit him square in the face, right across the table. He spits out a gallon of blood and two teeth. It’s not enough. 

I’ve never been this mad at Ron in my life. I could kill him.

Hermione wriggles her tiny body between us, trying to shield Ron.

“Harry, cut it out! Stop it, now!” she cries.

She saves Ron’s life like that, I swear. She sees when I’ve regained control.

“Harry, really,” she says, sitting down and smoothing her hair and picking up a stray tooth from the blood-spattered table top. “You’ve never been like that. You’ve totally changed.”

Perhaps I should say something, try to defend myself. Apologize. But instead I just squeeze myself through the audience that has gathered around our table and get outside.

She’s right. I’ve never known this kind of madness. I’ve always been cool with Ron’s jibes about my sexuality. But this wasn’t about me, this was about Draco, and I won’t ever allow anyone to vilify him, not Ron, not anyone. He’ll recover from the blow. He’ll get a new pair of incisors. His fiancée is the daughter of two fucking dentists.

He’ll recover, and he’ll understand. This is about family loyalty after all, and it’s the one thing he believes in. He’s just not used to seeing me act on it. And Hermione isn’t, either. She’s right, I’ve never been like that. Because I’ve never had a family. But I have one now.

I have one now.

When we sit on the couch in the evenings, I’m permanently erect. It’s not exactly what you’d call unwind. It can’t be helped. I’ve got to respect his boundaries. He asked me to.

The other day I tried to find out why he always shuts me out like he does. I know he likes me. I’ve caught him looking at me with his eyes full of stars dozens of times now. It can only mean one thing, really. And he must know what he is to me. I’ve never told him, I’m too chicken-hearted for that kind of declaration it seems. But I haven’t been able to hide my need to protect him, have I. Not even close. And even if I don’t have fairy genes that can make my eyes sparkle like the Milky Way, at least part of my feelings must reflect in my gaze, too, whenever it comes to rest on him.

A couple of times lately I’ve tried to move things forward between us. Like catch his starry glance and answer it with a lazy bedroom smile. But each time I did that, he literally ran from the room. I’ve got no idea why he would do that. And the desire to get past this something that’s keeping us apart made me do what I did.

The other night when I was at my desk in the living room, going over a couple of interrogation transcripts I had brought home from work because I simply don’t seem to be able to ever get finished with those, I realized he was observing me. I knew the stars were there in his eyes, I can feel them on me by now. So I did it, I tried to read his mind. I know it was wrong, but I was just growing desperate.

I never really got in. I had only just touched the outskirts of his mind when I was like blinded. His consciousness radiated an emotion of such clarity it was like looking into the sun. I retreated and had to give my own mind a couple of seconds to recover. Then I cautiously extended my consciousness again. But when I tried to get close to his, that blinding light was gone. I found myself like groping about in a wall of thick fog. It made me turn around in my seat to check if he was still in the room with me.

He met my gaze squarely, sternly, all stars gone.

“Don’t do that again, Harry,” he said. I stuttered an apology, until he said, “I know I told you to try your Legilimency skills on me, but I was having an honest competition in mind, not an ambush.”

And when I apologized some more, he said, “It’s okay, just respect my boundaries?”

Like a question. It made me feel like a rapist.

So that’s what I’ve been doing since then, sit next to him on my couch in the evenings and respect his boundaries. It’s hard though. Pun intended.

He knows what’s going on with me. He doesn’t need any Legilimency to read me, not with the way I’ve got to adjust my sweat pants all the time. We’ve talked about it a couple of times, if briefly. He said he didn’t like the idea he was making me uncomfortable. I told him it was cool and it was my problem.

When we have the same conversation tonight, he doesn’t nod to that like he did before. Instead, he offers me a blowjob.

He offers me a blowjob.

I’m not one of those scumbags who’d have Summoned Fairyboy, I should say no, but I can’t. Not when I’ve been fantasizing about this for weeks. Years, really. But I can’t just say okay, fine, either, can I.

“I don’t know...”

“Come on, stud. Show me what you got.”

Okay. Fine.

When I pull my sweatpants and boxers down, my cock flexes forward like a living thing jumping for a treat. Draco throws me one of his trademark smirks before he pulls his legs up to kneel next to me. He bends his head over my lap. When I feel his mouth take me in and his tongue give my shaft the first lap, I almost come right then.

Having Malfoy suck me off is just one crazy fantasy. Yes, I’m calling him that in my head for a moment, then I stop thinking as bursts of pleasure pulse through my groin. Godric, this is one hell of a blowjob. It’s so intense I forget everything. Including boundaries. I put both my hands on him, one on the erection under his pyjama bottoms, the other on his ass. The cotton fabric of his trousers seems to be damp from precome everywhere. His cheeks are firm and fleshy. He feels so good. I squeeze him, then shove my hand under his waistband. My cock springs from his lips, he gives a shocked gasp, but I don’t really hear it. I pull him on top of me. He tries to free himself, but I don’t let him. Exposing him and making him straddle me, I curl one hand around his cock and put the other between his cheeks. Godric, he feels so fucking great, smooth and slick all over, like sweaty. His cock leaks a sort of goldenish slime, and when I put a fingertip to his entrance, the same stuff squirts forth from there. I see it when I pull my hand from his crack to check. When I lick the shining juice off my fingers, it’s sweet and spicy, like a mix of forest honey and sperm, and I know it’s fairy precome. He’s producing precome front and back. It’s so insanely hot I explode against his stomach before I can even think about getting into him. My spunk spreads over both our groins, his one hairless ivory, mine all red flesh and coarse black curls. Only when I’m spent and look into his eyes again, my breath still coming in gasps and groans, I see that he’s close to tears.

-

I’ve said sorry like a million times over. He has gone to take a shower. Now he sits next to me on the couch again, at a distance of a foot, and in two pairs of pyjama bottoms. I’ve got the suspicion he did the adhesive hex, Secunda Cutis, too. I say sorry again. He shakes his head.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not! I was way out of line, doing that to you. I know you aren’t ready, and we don’t even know if sex is a hazard for your heart...”

He shakes his head again, more vigorously.

“That’s bullshit. That’s not why I... Shit. Sorry.”

“Don’t say sorry, it’s not you who did anything wrong...”

“Please don’t talk about it. Please?”

“I won’t. Just... I just want you to know I think everything about you is perfection.”

He listens to that declaration, not showing a reaction. But he doesn’t move away.

“I do, Draco, and I want you so much. You know I do.”

He’s still looking down, but from the side, it looks like he’s smiling a very tiny smile.

“Give me a little more time, Harry?”

I say I will, I swear to him I will. And I ask him to let me touch him again, no private parts, just cuddling. So I know nothing’s broken between us.

He nods and I put my arm around his shoulder. Carefully, I pull him in and start stroking his wings. He accepts the caress, and after two minutes or so, his left wing lifts for an inch, allowing me access to the sensitive underside and the small cavity between his wing joint and his shoulder blade.

And I know that even if I didn’t get to touch his core and satisfy him tonight, one of these days, it’s going to happen.

-

“What’s this?”

Coming into the kitchen from the living room, Draco walks up to where I’ve just started clearing the dinner table. He’s got something in his hand, and when he thrusts his arm forward to push it into my face, I see it’s my map. The Ministry’s Map. It’s still in magnifying mode, showing the rooms and hallways of the Potions Section.

“That’s how you knew I had left the lab the other day? You’ve been stalking me?”

Technically, I still do. I pull the map from his hand.

“How did you get that map, Draco.”

“I was looking for the Y-pad in the cabinet and found that map in a drawer, that’s how, Auror Potter,” he snaps.

He doesn’t even know that’s not supposed to work. He doesn’t know my cabinet is a safe that only opens to me. That’s why I keep the map in there. Kept the map in there.

“Okay, get me a tissue from the cabinet. Second drawer from the top on the left,” I say.

“What’s a tissue,” he asks, confused.

“A throw-away handkerchief,” I say. “Muggles use them. Haven’t you seen those little boxes in the drugstore?”

“You stalk me, and now you think you can avoid talking about it by ordering me around and making me get you a handkerchief?”

“I hexed the tissues so they heal small wounds. I got a cut. Got it on the job today,” I say, showing him a cut in my palm I just gave myself with the pizza knife for the purpose.

“Oh, Harry,” he says, looking at the small trickle of blood in my hand with concern. “Oh Harry, I so hate that kind of thing. I hate you getting hurt.” He sighs and puts the map on the table. “I guess I shouldn’t be mad at you for watching out for me. I’d do the same thing for you if I could. Sorry for shouting at you?”

I feel really bad about my little trick. But as he walks over to the cabinet, I hold my breath, nearly bursting with curiosity.

The tissue drawer opens without the slightest hitch.

-

Saturday afternoon. Ron is at the door. I’m absurdly relieved Draco went out to the drugstore to stock up on shampoo and hair gel yet again. Probably eyeliner, too.

It turns out Hermione sent Ron over to collect some of the old wooden farm animals that I found in Sirius’ cabinet when I first checked through it.

“What on earth does she need those ancient toys for?” I ask.

“No idea,” he says sullenly. His speech is indistinct. He’s wearing a plastic prosthesis where his front teeth should be, and it doesn’t really fit. I know Hermione's stand on magical dental treatments. Quick and easy, but no lasting quality. There's nothing like Muggle odontotherapy when it comes to sustainable results, I've heard her preach on that often enough. It's obvious Ron wasn't given much choice in the matter, and I get why he isn't in the mood for talking.

I think I know why Hermione made him come to my flat to get those cows and sheep, though. We haven’t seen each other since our fight in the Flying Pumpkin, and she wants us to get back to normal. It comes in pretty handy, actually. Welcoming Ron in as warmly as I can, I take him into the living room and point at Sirius’ cabinet.

“All the toys are in the bottom drawer. Take what you need.”

“I can’t open that cabinet, you know that,” he grumbles.

“Please try?”

“Why?”

“To humour me?”

“Why would I want to humour you,” he says, but he does as asked. The drawer doesn’t open. I make him try the others, too, but the cabinet doesn’t allow him access. Like it’s supposed to.

In the end, I open the toy drawer myself. When Ron leaves with a bag full of bleating sheep and mooing cows with missing ears and tails, he’s even more pissed at me than he was.

-

A couple of days later, Draco is just down in the drugstore again, Hermione drops by with the news that Draco’s smear test didn’t yield any results indicating dark magic, so her diagnosis stands confirmed.

I use the opportunity to ask her to bring me a spell book from the cabinet.

“That’s Sirius’ cabinet,” she says.

“I know. The book is right there, in the glass case.”

She sits down, ignoring my request, eying me.

“Can Malfoy open your cabinet?” she says.

“He can, and I don’t understand why,” I say, accepting it’s pointless to try to be clever with her.

“Okay. Some antiquities, like your cabinet, bear carvings that make them reserve the right to open them to their owner. It’s a long-lost craft that makes these objects priceless.”

“Alright, I know all that...”

“Spouses,” Hermione continues, her voice raised, “spouses are by and large considered to have the right of usage concerning objects in the shared living area. Apparently your cabinet takes Draco for your legal spouse.”

I’m speechless.

Hermione grins devilishly.

“The question we’ve got to ask ourselves is, could it be the two of you have been engaging in activities here in the living room that might appear like marital behaviour to a simple-minded, old-fashioned piece of magical furniture?”

“Ron seems out of sorts lately. Don’t you think he has been acting different? I mean even before he lost those teeth? Like really strung up, you know. Lashing out at people for no reason. I’ve been wondering why. Everything alright between the two of you?”

It is a bit mean of me to use this, but it works. She bites her lip and stops talking about questions that need to be asked.

The Malfoys have been officially removed from the list of the Sacred Twenty-eight last night. It’s now the list of the Sacred Twenty-seven.

Of course the list isn’t really official, not anymore. But it’s still out there. Someone is hosting a site with the list, has made it accessible for every regular Y-pad, and they took the trouble of updating it.

And anyone who’s heard the rumours about Draco, anyone who takes and interest in these things, will have checked the list.

Like I did.

I knew it was going to happen, and it was still a shock to see the new caption, The Sacred Twenty-seven.

I can only imagine what kind of day Lucius Malfoy is having.

Even if he doesn’t own a Y-Pad because it’s modern filth, he’ll still know about that new number. It’s the one thing of interest to him, after all.

I don’t bring up what happened when I meet Draco by the fountain in the Ministry lobby that night, but I can tell he knows. He misses the flirty smile Reuben flashes his way when we pass his booth. Normally I’d gloat about that with petty schadenfreude, but tonight I’m just worried. I don’t want Draco to be too preoccupied to flirt with Reuben, or bite his lip in that distressed way.

“You know what I’d really like to do tonight? Get a pile of pizza and watch recaps of Waltzing Wizards all night through,” I say brightly. The smile that gets me is small but real.

“Sorry, I’ve already made plans for tonight. Marcus called and asked me to grab a drink with him. Obviously I would have loved it so much better to make you sit through hours of Waltzing Wizards. I do appreciate your readiness for self-sacrifice. I’ve said it before, you truly are hero material, Harry Potter.”

I can’t smile back. Marcus Flint, again? He reads my thoughts.

“He had heard about the list, you know. He said he was sure having some fun would help, and that he wanted to take a stand, show his support and stuff. I had to say yes.”

I guess. I still hate it. I don’t trust Marcus Flint.

And then there’s Lucius Malfoy, obviously.

“What if your father tracks you down,” I say. “Seriously, I’m not okay with you going out tonight. It’s a safe guess that your father is out of his mind with fury right now. What if he somehow finds you and does something to you?”

“He won’t. He won’t risk trying to Avada Kedavra me in a public place.”

“He could always hire a killer!”

“You don’t get him, Harry. Hiring someone to have me killed in a bar means he’s got a good chance at getting arrested, and he knows that. My father will never risk being sent back to Azkaban, or sullying our name by being sentenced for murder. All he wants is keep the Malfoy name clean. Be the great Lucius Malfoy of Malfoy manor.”

“I guess you’re right. But still, Draco. Please stop meeting Flint.”

“I told him it’s the last time, okay? I told him I’ve got loads to do, which is nothing less than the truth anyway. So I won’t see him again after tonight. Consoled?”

-

“You don’t get him.”

The sentence goes round and round in my head after Draco has disapparated from the flat. If that’s true, if I don’t get Lucius Malfoy, I’ve got to try harder. As an Auror I’m trained at analysing a suspect’s mind to guess at their next move. And no matter what Draco said, his father is a suspect. Because if what my gut tells me is right, he won’t accept being kicked from the ranks of pureblood aristocracy without a fight. Which means I need to figure out what he’s going to do. And quickly.

So, Lucius Malfoy. What do I know about Lucius Malfoy.

He has always negated his own non-human heritage. He was obsessed with blood purity and unable to accept a part-fairy son. He tried to keep Draco’s transformation at bay using dark magic that made his son sick. When he was in Azkaban, he used Crabbe, Crabbe who was permanently around Draco, who had Draco’s trust. That’s Lucius Malfoy’s style. Just like when he sneaked Tom Riddle’s diary into Ginny’s trunk in our second year. Subterfuge, pulling strings, using others for his own ends.

Later, he made Draco come back to Malfoy Manor claiming he needed his help. He understood Draco’s sense of loyalty, and he took advantage of it so he could go on casting curses at his son. Until Draco fled to London to try and build an independent life for himself.

Then, when Draco returned again, fully transformed and seeking shelter at the place that should have been his home, his father did the unforgivable, he attacked his own son with Sectumsempra to keep his fairy genes a secret. And he failed.

No Slytherin deals well with failure, and Lucius Malfoy certainly is no exception. And most certainly not in this particular case.

What if Lucius Malfoy has moved past making sense?

What if he is ready to face any risk just to still get at Draco? What if it’s his last goal in life to destroy the son who made the Malfoy name disappear from the list of the Sacred Twenty-eight?

I get my Y-pad to look at the list again, as if the answers lay in there.

What if. What if.

What if he’d even find himself ready to renounce his traditionalist ways for the goal of making his son disappear from the earth and use something like a Y-pad?

Every Y-pad has a registration number that’s kept on file in the Ministry. All data about Y-pad activities get stored there, too. The guys working in the Y-Mac Department can extract those data, and they do, if they have a court order to do so.

Or, in case they are my generation, if Harry Potter asks them to.

-

For once, I’ve been lucky. There was still someone at his desk in YD, he answered my Video Phono call, and he wasn’t a teen. My name worked its old magic.

Now I have a comprehensive list of all the search requests before me that have ever been conducted on Lucius Malfoy’s Y-pad, sent by express owl directly from the Ministry.

Yeah, Lucius Malfoy does possess a Y-pad after all. And he has made use of it. There’s a lot of visits on sites with illegal content about plans to re-establish the old system. A lot of porn, too, involving school girls. And repeated views of Hermione’s picture as class winner in the old Hogwarts’ year books. Yeah, Lucius Malfoy is obviously a fully-fledged pervert, but that’s not the worst thing about this list.

The worst thing is, I was right about him.

All these weeks he has been trying to kill his son. It’s because of Lucius Malfoy that Draco fell sick like he did. I don’t yet know how his father did it. But the endless search requests on the Muggle internet for anti-moth sprays and their mode of action are proof enough. He has looked up all the sites on insecticides. When I get my own Y-pad to check out one of those sites, on something called organophosphates, it’s right there.

The poison affects the respirational tract and the nervous system, leading to nausea, fatigue, and later to breathing paralysis.

Draco’s symptoms, to the letter.

But Lucius Malfoy never went near Draco since he moved in with me. What am I missing here.

As I go over the text describing the effects of organophosphates again, something flits about at the edges of my mind, like that black mouse in the Potions Section. Without really knowing what I’m looking for, I log myself into the Ministry’s database.

Marcus Flint. Background and bio.

Pureblood, Slytherin, Quidditch captain, blahblah. His criminal record.

And that job at Azkaban. He’s been working as a janitor in Azkaban.

I check the dates.

Why is it that I’ve never checked the dates before!

Oh my God.

Flint worked as a janitor in Azkaban from the August 1^st till September fifteenth. He worked there the night I saved Draco from the Dementor.

Suddenly everything is horribly clear.

Flint freed that Dementor and set it on Draco.

Flint works for Lucius Malfoy like Crabbe did before him, only he wasn’t hired to jinx Draco but to kill him.

Flint probably got impatient and tried to get the job done quickly with the help of a Dementor that night in September. And when the Dementor failed to do the job, Flint went back to using the method Lucius Malfoy had recommended.

Taking advantage of Draco’s sense of loyalty towards a supportive friend, getting him to join him for a drink as often as it would take, and each time poisoning him some more with a spray that looks like a perfectly harmless deodorant and yet will eventually kill him.

Because it really is an insecticide, and Draco is a fairy half-breed.

They are sitting in a corner behind the billiard tables. I spot them the moment I step through the Flying Pumpkin’s front door.

A small fat wizard in security uniform moves into my way.

“Wand, mister.”

“Sorry, just let me in, okay?”

“Wand, mister,” he repeats, this time letting his own wand pirouette in his pudgy right hand in an unmistakable warning.

“Let me through, I’m Harry Potter!”

Just three years back, that line would have gotten me into any vault at Gringott’s. But the guy doesn’t even bat an eyelid.

“Everyone leaves their wand in our wand safe, mister. House rules. You want to get in, you hand over your wand.”

From what I can see from where I’m standing, Draco is in no immediate danger. They seem to just have ended a game of billiard, and Draco is busy explaining the tactics he employed to win, judging from his animated gesturing with his wand cue. Flint doesn’t seem to have his spray on him. There’s no sight of the can, and that sweet smell isn’t hanging in the air, either. It’s just wafts of troll sweat that tickle my nose. So I can relax for the moment and take my time to make up my mind about the best course of action.

How do I get in there without Flint noticing and trying to get away? I want to deal with this once and for all, and that means I mustn’t let him escape. It’s obvious I’d need back-up for that. And an official warrant to get past this presumptuous security guy. But it would take much too long to call my colleagues and organize a raid, and maybe the Minister wouldn’t even give us the green light for taking Marcus Flint into custody. The evidence against him is rather flimsy after all; I haven’t yet got any proof for what I know to be true. He did try to kill Draco with those poison vapours, even though he is behaving in the most regular manner right now. Where is that spray can? Has he stopped with what he set out to do to Draco for some reason?

I take a step back from the security guy and take out my wand to use it as a telescope. I need to get a closer look at what’s going on to decide what's the most intelligent strategy now.

Flint has walked over to the counter and ordered two bacon butterbeers with the same booming voice he used to use for shouting abuse at people on the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch. When the barmaid places the mugs before him, he busies himself for a while with placing them on a tray. I can’t see what his problem is because his broad back blocks my view. Maybe he’s already too drunk to handle beer mugs. When he walks back over to where Draco is sitting, there’s not the slightest sway to his step, though.

I can’t hear what they’re saying, but it’s clear what’s happening. Flint is trying to make Draco take one of the mugs, and Draco tries to decline without hurting his feelings. He told me he hates flavoured butterbeer, and I’m sure he told Flint the same. So why would Flint try that hard to force that beer on him? It’s obvious Flint isn’t ready to take no for an answer. Shit, what’s the guy's deal?

As I adjust the magical lens on my wand, it suddenly zooms in on something white on Flint’s creasy robe front. A whitish powder. I’m positive it wasn’t there a couple of minutes back when Flint walked up to the bar.

I don’t know what that means, but I have decided on what I’ll do. I won’t enter into a duel with the security guy and raise Flint’s attention, I’ll go for the surprise effect instead and rely on my Krav Maga skills.

I drop my wand into the compartment of the wand safe the security guy has pointed out to me and enter the pub. Keeping to the walls, I silently move up to the billiard tables.

Flint is still holding out the beer mug to Draco. And I understand that there can only be one reason for that the same moment Draco takes the mug from Flint’s hand. He doesn’t want to disappoint an old mate. Gulping down a mug of bacon butterbeer is not that much of a sacrifice when it comes to tell an old mate a final goodbye. That’s what he’d say. That’s who he is. And that’s what his fiend of a father is counting on.

“Stop! Put that mug down, Draco!” I cry.

He’s dumbfounded to see me, but he does what I say, he puts the mug onto a table next to him, his eyes never leaving my face, his expression one big question. Flint throws me a crazed look and grabs him by the shoulders in furious frustration.

“Come on, don’t be a pussy, drink your beer, Malfoy!”

Draco tries to get up from his chair, but Flint won’t let him. Draco struggles against his grip, shock and understanding etching themselves into his features. I’ve got to take Flint down so he’ll never touch Draco again, but I can’t attack as long as he has his hands on Draco.

“Let him go, Flint!”

He doesn’t do it, he stands like immobilized, clutching Draco’s shoulders. He’s not the brightest person on the planet, he’s got trouble processing what’s going on, but it can’t be long before he’ll understand I’m no threat at all if he simply keeps holding on to Draco.

“Take your hands off him, Flint, or everyone will think you’re trying to make him date you!”

That does the trick, that makes him do what I want at last. Releasing Draco with an animal growl, he stomps up to me, fists balled, eyes drawn to slits, ready to do his troll thing.

I let my body careen against his full force so he topples over and we crash into the billiard tables. Wand cues are set flying, and about twenty balls start to jump about in a crazy dance, hitting people’s heads and smashing glasses.

I roll across the floor, wrestling with Flint, and using every mean kick and hit my Krav Maga trainer at the Auror Department ever showed me. Flint has clearly never had a lesson in combat sports, but he’s freakishly strong. Troll strong. And troll resilient, too. I manage to pull his head back full force a couple of times, a move that can break a regular person’s neck. But when I use it yet another time on Flint, and with the honest intention to kill, he just shakes himself, then grabs his beer mug from the floor and hits me over the head with it. Before I can recover, he has me in a headlock. Fuck. Where the fuck is that security guy.

There, someone is coming up from behind Flint. But it isn’t the security guy, it’s Draco. I try to will him to stay away. He’s so fragile, Flint could squash him with one hand. Close to panicking now, I fight with renewed vigour. Flint hits me over the head with his mug again, then he closes a fist around my throat and starts choking me. My reflex is to react with Stupefy, but of course I haven't got my wand. I shouldn't have left my wand with that fucking guy from security. For fuck's sake, where is he. I kick both my heels into Flint's shins and try to get my fist around his little finger. I actually manage to do that, and there's an ugly snap as I dislocate it. But instead of releasing me, Flint just roars with fury and tightens his grip on my throat. My vision blurs. I hear screams like from a far-away galaxy. I get afraid for the first time. This is serious. Fuck. Fuck, I came here to save Draco’s life, now I might die trying. The irony. Draco will laugh at me. I hear him. But he isn’t laughing, he’s crying. It’s such a desperate, lost sound it makes me muster my last ounces of strength. Aiming at Flint’s solar plexus, I ram my elbow backwards full force. I’ve already used the move half a dozen times on him by now, to no effect. It doesn’t make sense to even try again.

But for some reason, this time is different. Flint’s paws go limp around my throat. And he stops embracing me. Suddenly I can see again, I see him stumble backwards, away from me.

I see the security guy, too. He's still at the front door, pretending to be occupied. Crowded by a couple of agitated patrons, he turns around, and on seeing Flint close to knocked out fires a half-assed Stunning Spell at him. But Flint is getting back to his feet already and easily dodges it. He might be all kinds of stupid and ugly, but he’s got his skills.

And he’s got a sensitive spot, too. People stand in a half circle, the way they do when there’s a bar brawl. I only now fully realize we have a really big audience, and Flint does, too.

He looks about, then takes a step back and spits out, sending a slob of snot to the floor in a show of pure male chauvinism.

“I never tried to date the dirty fairy, okay? I tried to kill it because its father paid me good money for it, that’s what I was after! Nothing else! I’m not a bloody poof!”

And on that, he storms out.

No one holds him back. I don’t hold him back. I try to, but there’s simply not enough blood in my brain for action. I can’t move a muscle, and my head feels like it’s going to split in half. All I can do is trying to spot Draco from where I’m lying on the floor.

“Harry!”

There he is. Breaking to his knees by my side, his face streaked with tears. He’s holding his palms up. It’s a peculiar gesture, it looks like he’s been gathering cosmic energy or something.

And that’s exactly what he did, I realize. I don’t know how, but somehow he caused Flint to let go of me just now. Somehow he saved my life.

I scramble to my feet to sit on my hunches and to be able to pull him into an embrace when I see the sick pallor of his face. He’s struggling for breath, shit, that's hyperventilating.

“Draco! You didn’t drink from that mug, did you? Did you?”

“I didn’t, I’m okay.”

“You didn’t drink that beer.”

He puts his hands on my arm, still gasping with every breath he takes.

“No, Harry, everything is okay, you hear me?”

“But you’re not breathing normally,” I croak, struggling against the newly rising panic.

“That’s nothing, you know I get that arrhythmia thing under stress. It’s just that, okay? Relax, Harry!”

He closes his eyes for a short moment to get his breathing under control. And it's slowing down, it's evening out. I hold on to him, trying to comfort him, or myself, or both.

“Need any help, Sir?”

A man in a uniform. DLE. Someone called them. Draco looks up at the officer, and I can see the colour has come back to his cheeks.

“No, thanks, everything is okay,” he says. And the truth finally sinks into my muddled brain.

Thank Godric.

Everything is okay.

-

“How did you do it, Draco?”

“I don’t know. It was like with the Dementor. And when my father attacked me with Sectumsempra. Apparently I can work a kind of protective magic when I’m really scared. Just for a short period of time, but still. I’ve come to think it must be a fairy thing. An ancient relic of their magic that doesn’t require the use of a wand, you know? Perhaps with them being forest creatures, it was like their bodies were their wands or something.”

I nod in awe.

We are back home. Sitting on the couch like on just another regular night. The DLE took over at the Flying Pumpkin, questioning witnesses, trying to gather clues where Flint went off to.

“Isn’t it true that you were able to ward off jinxes non-verbally already back in the sixth year?” I ask. “Can it be that that was already your special magic as a fairy manifesting itself?”

“Might be,” he says, sounding tired. He has lost all his bounce now that he knows what Flint was up to. And that his father was behind it all. He didn’t even protest when I asked him to come along with me to St. Mungo’s for a blood test before we went home.

It was like I had expected. There were remnants of organophosphates in his blood. The doctor gave him a shot with an antidote, assured us he’d be fine, and ordered him to avoid exposure to insecticides for the rest of his life. Draco is smoothing down the sheet with the lab results in his hands, rereading it for the hundredth time.

“You were right. Man, I’d never have believed it. He has really been trying to poison me all this time, and on my father’s orders. That’s why he used to take me places where nobody would know us, and gave me Polyjuice Potion to make sure no one would remember me. And when that spray didn’t work, and I told Marcus I wouldn’t go out with him again, my father had him get that powder into my drink.” He shakes his head. “That’s why Marcus insisted on the bacon flavour. I wouldn’t have noticed the weird taste. You say that beer would have killed me within twenty-four hours?”

I just nod. No need to tell him how.

I called Ron before we left the Flying Pumpkin, I wanted him personally to confiscate Draco’s mug as evidence. Thankfully it didn’t get thrown over during my fight with Flint. When Ron showed up, I told him to have its contents checked for Muggle insecticides and to call me the moment they had identified any suspicious substance.

Two hours later I had my wand blink with a voice message from Ron. I went into the bathroom to check it so Draco wouldn’t hear it. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be the kind of news I’d like to share with him.

“Harry? They found something. Bacteria Thuringiensis. Seems to be a classical non-magical insecticide. I’m going to read to you what they write here, wait… Yeah. Once the bacteria have entered the insect’s intestines, they’ll destroy the cells lining the gut and create multiple lesions. The insect will suffer massive internal bleeding and will dissolve from the inside within twenty-four hours. Any fairy half-breed ingesting the substance in question is bound to suffer the same fate, and even immediate medical assistance won’t guarantee survival. Harry? You got that?”

Yeah, I got that. I only heard those sentences once, but I’ve known them by heart since, and they will haunt my dreams forever.

No, I can never tell Draco how exactly his father meant to murder him.

-

He has told me I’m his hero. Obviously I’m so not a hero, even less so than back when I defeated the Dark Lord.

It took me much too long to figure out what was going on. And all the time it was so painfully obvious. Lucius Malfoy planned to have Draco killed with Muggle insecticides so in case Draco’s death was investigated, no traces of dark magic would be found on his body. I told Draco myself once how wizard criminals use Muggle weaponry these days to stay undetected, and how we Aurors need to understand about Muggle technology to stay on top of the game and bring down modern day terrorists.

If I hadn’t found out at the last moment that old Lucius Malfoy wasn’t above using the Muggle net for his vile research, and Muggle poison to kill his son, he would have succeeded.

Draco would be dead, destroyed in the worst way imaginable. Like the vermin his father considers him to be.

God, I nearly let that happen.

And if it hadn’t been for Draco’s magic, Flint would have killed me, too, with a simple beer mug.

And to top things off, I let the guy escape.

No, so not the hero.

After a short night’s sleep, I get up, resolved to finally do what needs to be done and wrap this up. I’m going to hunt down Flint, and Lucius Malfoy, too.

Of course I expect Draco to try and stop me, and it’s exactly what he does.

“Don’t go after Flint. What’s the point? You’ve always resented doing a job that’s law enforcement, haven’t you. And this is classical law enforcement. Let the officers do their job.”

“And what if they don’t find him?”

“So what? He won’t come after me anymore now that he blew his own cover. It’s you who’s in danger now if you go after him! Don’t you understand? You called him gay in front of the whole pub, and that’s probably the worst thing anyone has ever done to him! He is that kind of guy, you know it! If he ever sees you again, he’ll want to hurt you in the worst way he can think of! Please, Harry, don’t do that to me.”

It’ll never stop to throw me when he lets his emotions show like this. When every single one of his words says just one thing, that he cares for me. It takes me a minute to collect my thoughts. Then I state the obvious.

“There’s still your father.”

“He’s even more dangerous than Flint, so leave him be!”

“I’m an Auror, and he’s a Death Eater who’s still active. Dealing with people like him is definitely not the DLE’s job, it’s mine. It’s what I’m trained for.”

“I know I can’t stop you from putting yourself on the line in your job. I accept it’s what you do. But I’m not going to lose you to my father.”

“And I won’t lose you to him! Or to Flint.”

He raises his hand to his chest and touches the spot where his father cut him with Sectumsempra. It’s what he always does when he’s thinking of his father.

“You won’t,” he says quietly.

“But…”

“Marcus hasn’t got any reason to go after me again if my father doesn’t pay him for his services anymore. And my father won’t do that.”

“You think he’ll give up persecuting you? He went out of his way to get to you, and now you believe he’ll just forget all about it?”

“He already has,” he says. “I took care of it.”

“But…”

“I took care of it, alright? I cut the cord.”

He Cut the Cord.

Of course he did.

The spell exists for children of fathers like his. But then it’s such a radical step to take I’ve never known anyone who’d actually have used the enchantment. Cutting the Cord.

A son or daughter can sever all ties to their parents with it, just by saying the words, I Cut the Cord. Those who do aren’t like orphans, it’s like they fell from the skies.

His father won’t try to harm him again, because Draco will forever be wiped from his mind. It’s like Lucius Malfoy never had a son. And not only in Lucius Malfoy’s mind, but in front of the law and society, too. That means the Malfoy name is back in the list of the Sacred Twenty-eight. It also means his father will never be brought to justice.

“Draco! Did you think this through? Everything he ever did in relation to you is like officially wiped from reality now. It means he won’t answer for what he did to you, he won’t serve time, and the world will never know how he wronged you! He’ll be able to walk with his head held high, and that’s just wrong in all possible ways! Your suffering should be recognized, and redeemed!”

“Harry. Your righteous indignation on my behalf is all the redemption I’ll ever need.”

It sounds like he’s mocking me even now. But I can sense his emotion, and it tells me he means every word. It’s obvious that he did think this through, and it’s not my place to argue with him about it.

But there’s yet another, more mundane aspect, and I can’t not say anything about it.

“You’re going to lose everything, Draco.”

And he will. He won’t inherit a Knut of the Malfoy family fortune. Malfoy Manor, the vast grounds, the village belonging to the estate, everything will fall to the crown. Along with everything that’s in the Malfoy vault at Gringott’s. He shrugs in that inimitably arrogant-looking way of his that spells pure boredom.

“It’s not my money.”

“It was going to be! It should! It’s your rightful heritage!”

“I’m going to survive. I’m good at potions. You said so yourself.”

“Of course, you’re right. Of course. Only it’s going to be hard, making your way without any family...”

“You got no family either. And you haven’t done that bad for a nobody.”

I don’t really register how he’s trying to provoke me.

He just said we were both the same because we both got no family.

I could be your family. You could be mine.

After all we’ve been through, I don’t know why I still don’t dare say it out loud.

-

So it’s over. The danger has passed.

But I still don’t seem to be able to relax. That panicky feeling in my chest has stayed with me. It’s flaring up at unpredictable intervals, mostly by night, exactly like when my scar was hurting back in the days of Voldemort.

And that never once ended well.

Hermione has got scratch marks on her face and arms. And a golden ring on her left hand. She’s constantly making the ring sparkle so people look at it. It’s rather distracting when you talk to her. She claims she doesn’t know what I’m talking about, but I know a Sparkle Hex when I see one. Magically affecting an opponent’s eye-sight is a common technique in duelling, after all.

She came to my office today to take me out to lunch. It’s the first time since forever. Hermione isn’t the type to go for lunch, she’s the type to have vegan wraps sent up to her office to save time. When I commented on that, she said she needed to hear everything about my fight with Marcus Flint. I didn’t buy it. I know her real design is to flash that new ring at me.

“Didn’t you tell me you don’t need that?” I say, gesturing at it. “What happened to out-of-date, and wrong on so many levels?”

She sighs.

“When I got home the other night, the whole flat was filled with red roses. Like really filled, from the floor to the ceiling, so you couldn’t move without getting scratches from the thorns and got petals in your mouth when you tried to speak. A Proposal Charm that got out of hand. It took Ron half an hour to find the spell book and make those flowers go away. Apparently he’d been thinking about the ultimate proposal for weeks. He was so depressed. You know Ron. Total blow to his self-esteem. What was I supposed to do?”

“Right, I get it, you had to say yes.”

“He didn’t ask, obviously, not after that disaster. You know Ron.”

“So...?”

“So I asked him, stupid. What was I supposed to do? Let him wallow in embarrassment for weeks? Let him try to work up the nerve to propose again for the rest of his life? And let him put this nice ring back on that Y-buy thing? I don’t think so.”

She flashes the ring so a ray of light hits me right in the eye. 

“Also, we want kids. And kids like it better when everyone in the family carries the same name.”

“Wow. So you’re going to be Professor Weasley?”

“No, why,” she asks, puzzled. Then she laughs. “Oh, I get it, how silly of me. No. It’s going to be Ronald Granger.” Again, she makes the ring sparkle, but suddenly there’s an even more irritating glow radiating from her eyes. “Ronald Granger,” she repeats, letting the syllables roll over her tongue in a way that makes me blush like a virgin. “Just the perfect name for a cop, don’t you think?”

-

So Ron has done it, he proposed. Or at least tried to.

The whole story goes to show that it doesn’t help to think too much about these things before doing them.

Not that it concerns me. I don’t believe in happy ever afters and the like personally, do I.

So it doesn’t make any sense that suddenly I’m permanently running proposal scenes through my head.

No sense at all.

 

We are on the couch, having our night cap, and I tell him about Ron and Hermione’s engagement, and Ron’s new name. He chuckles.

“She’s probably right about kids wanting everyone to share the same name, though,” he says.

“Is this you suggesting Malfoy Potter as our family name?” I joke.

He chuckles again, but the way he’s staring into his honey milk, blushing, tells me I wasn’t that far off the mark. Before I can think about the implications, he says, “You realize I can’t give you kids.”

I put my beer down.

“I never expected you to give me kids. Gay couples adopt. Or do the Elton John thing.”

“Gay couples,” he repeats after me, like a question.

“Yeah,” I say, pulling him in. For a short moment, he rests his silky head against my shoulder, and it feels like we just sealed a promise of our own. Then he asks, “So, what did this Elton John guy do.”

“He didn’t do anything yet. But there’s this prophesy saying he’ll use some kind of Muggle magic to father a child soon after his fiftieth birthday, so he and his husband will have their own family.”

“His fiftieth birthday?”

He looks so unhappy it makes me laugh.

“You really want those kids, don’t you, Draco.”

He shrugs, and for once, that trademark display of indifference of his is blatantly unconvincing.

“Draco? - Don’t tell me you’re already planning it, like thinking names, and... Godric, you’re already thinking names.”

“I thought it would be nice if we mixed our parents’ names. Like Lily Narcissa. Or James Lucius.”

That throws me off track.

“Seriously? Lucius? You’d want your father’s name for your son?”

He stirs some more honey into his milk, creating the usual mess on the couch table.

“It’s also my middle name,” he says quietly, then looks up at me with his eyes at their lightest grey. “I think it might help me deal with some of the breaches I’ve lived through lately. You know, those you can’t heal with a potion, or any magic. I have Cut the Cord to my father, but it’s still because of him that I am what I am. And Lucius means light. That’s beautiful, isn’t it.”

I can only nod.

“I also like Scorpius. Or Albus,” he adds. The suppressed eagerness simmering in his words is adorable. I look away to stop myself from imagining all the possible and impossible ways of knocking him up.

“Don’t freak out,” he says, misreading me. “It’s just… I never had any siblings. Growing up at Malfoy Manor really sucked, you know. All that gloom and empty space. I used to be crazy jealous of Ron Weasley. His big, noisy family.”

I only remember him smirking at Ron’s hand-me-downs. It’s so obvious to me now what he must have been feeling.

“Okay, part of the reason I hated him was the big family,” he corrects himself, looking down at his hands.

“Part of the reason,” I say, at a loss.

“Come on, Harry,” he says, turning to me with a lopsided grin. “Ron was your best friend, he was always with you. I was mad with jealousy already back that first day, when I saw the two of you had become friends on the Hogwarts Express. I tried to put you off him, which of course only put you off me, and then I fucked up worse and worse by the day. I just couldn’t deal. Fuck, I was sharing with Crabbe and Goyle, they were all I had by way of friends, and Ronald Weasley was sleeping in the bed next to yours!”

He shakes his head, smirking at his old, troubled self.

“Well, it’s probably a good thing I wasn’t in his place. I’d have spent every night beating off, I wouldn’t have been able to hold my wand in class!”

I laugh along with him.

But those names keep floating through my mind, along with images of Grimmauld Place reopened, renovated, and flooded with light and laughter.

Up to now, to me, fathers were either dead, like mine, or worse than the devil, like his. But we might be going to be fathers ourselves at some point in the future, and already the word is transforming in my head. Suddenly it’s ringing of challenge and the promise of a whole new kind of joy.

It’s been a crazy day. I’ve been on the road from seven in the morning, camouflaged as the eighteen-year-old redhead who had her hair cut in the seat next to me at my hair-dresser’s last week. Before I left, my hair professionally flattened, I pretended I had to lace my shoe and collected one of her curls from the floor. Now my hair has still got a reddish hue and there’s freckles on my nose and no stubble on my jaw, in spite of the late hour. I’ve also got residual curves in the wrong places. Polyjuice Potion. I hate the stuff; it always leaves me kind of dizzy in the head. And it’s weird to be in the wrong body. I wonder if this is what Draco felt like when he Changed.

I tried to track down a suspect today. A guy dealing with illegal potions. The guys from Law Enforcement asked the Auror Department to fill in, again. It’s not what I was trained for. Draco’s right, I resent these missions.

It doesn’t help that I got nearly shot, too. Some drunk patron didn’t like me stopping him and asking for his ID and fired a shot at me from his pistol. Looks like every common street criminal is equipped with Muggle arms these days. I was pretty lucky I wasn’t just wearing my shield amulet, but also my bullet-proof vest. They’re both compulsory equipment for Aurors anyway, but I used to consider protective gear what my colleagues call gay. It’s only since Draco came into my life that I’ve started to care about things. I seriously want to return from my missions in one piece.

So at least I managed to do that, but else I didn’t have any luck. No one in all the shady bars and corners south of London would tell the pretty little redhead where to find the guy who sells magi-crack. It’s been a waste of a day. And I’ve still got to write a report on it. It’s almost nine pm. I’ve apparated back to the Ministry. That is, as close to it as possible. I’m trudging along, the two miles of the safety radius seeming like ten. At a distance, I see Professor Jenkins walk by. He’s on his way home, no doubt, while Draco is still down in the labs, washing up. Draco. I feel a smile tug at my lips. Another hour and I’m going to collect him in the lobby to take him home. As I walk, I pull my map from my pocket, just to see his name and his little moving dot. Hopefully Kendricks isn’t in the same room. I can’t stand it when he is.

There’s Draco’s name, in the Potions Section’s main lab.

And there’s another name right next to his.

But it isn’t Samuel Kendricks.

It’s Marcus Flint.

-

As I’m racing towards the Ministry, crazed by the idea I might be too late, I know this is the worst seconds of my life. And that is saying something.

I don’t take the time to go into the lobby and raise alarm. As soon as I’m past the doors, I apparate down to the Potions Section.

The moment I’m there, I understand that I should have raised the alarm. I should have done what I’ve learnt, take the three golden steps. Breathe, concentrate, act. If I had done that, I wouldn’t have landed myself in a trap.

I’m inside a cupboard, pressed in between a dark, gleaming front that must be the door and rows and rows of shelves that line the back wall. I remember those lamp-like flasks, glowing with the liquid inside.

I’m inside Professor Jenkins’ secret cabinet.

When I try Video Phono to get Reuben from the lobby, my wand gives the signal it can’t reach beyond the cabinet’s walls. And there’s no handle or lock anywhere.

Still, I try Alohomora. It doesn’t work. Of course it wouldn’t be as simple as that. Thankfully Alohomora is not all I got these days. As I run my hands over the dark glass surface of the cabinet’s front, feeling for a secret latch, my eyes and ears adjust. Squinting through the glass, I can make out two figures in the lab outside.

One of them is Draco, the other one looks like Samuel Kendricks. As the glass of the cabinet seems to be clearing up, I see it really is Kendricks. And that echoing laugh is Kendricks’ laugh. But it has an evil edge to it that’s got nothing to do with Jenkins’ lazy assistant. Yes, I remember that laugh from Quidditch matches in Hogwarts an eternity back. And then there’s the stink and the front teeth. They are subtly protruding from Kendricks’ otherwise perfect mouth.

Marcus Flint isn’t an unregistered animagus after all, no black mouse. The truth is so much simpler.

Polyjuice Potion.

Flint can’t see me, he isn’t aware I’m there, and Draco isn’t, either. But I can see and hear everything like through an open window now, and it’s living hell.

Flint has ripped the lab robes off Draco, now he pulls the chain with the shield amulet from Draco’s shirt.

“The fairy is wearing jewellery to work, how gay is that,” he mocks. “Yeah, I don’t think we can allow that.”

Then he yanks the chain off Draco’s neck with such force his skin tears and blood spatters onto his white shirt.

“Porta Aperta,” I croak, feverishly poking my wand at the cabinet’s door. “Exitus Directus! Exitus Directus!”

On the other side, Flint is laughing at Draco.

“Oh, no,” he says with a fake frown. “We better get the rest of your clothes off of you, too, else everything is going to get seriously stained.”

He strips Draco of his shirt, trousers and briefs, this time using his wand. Draco is standing naked now. Flint circles him and laughs at him like the madman he is, at Draco’s hairless smooth skin, his missing nipple, and at his wings.

I’ve tried another half a dozen picklock charms, frenzied with horror and fear, when finally, at Transitio Subito, something clicks inside the glass of the door. And then, without a sound, it opens. Pure adrenaline is racing through me. But when I raise my wand, getting ready to charge, something glibbery slides down my hand and wrist, congealing on my skin. It’s a bright red substance that rapidly turns into an impenetrable coating, and I can feel it seal my wand, trapping its powers. It’s the kind of thing a potioneer would invent to protect what’s his, and it effectively turns me into a Squib. If I’m really quick, maybe I can still disapparate with Draco.

“Accio,” I cry against all odds, pushing the door fully open and pointing my wand at him. Flint whips around to face me as fast as if this was a Quidditch match.

“Stupefy,” he shouts, and the last thing I see is Draco’s eyes on me, huge and shining with unshed tears.

When I come to maybe a minute later, I’m lying in a heap, painfully squashed in between the cabinet’s walls. My useless wand is gone. The door is firmly shut again. I’m crouching on something soft, and I realize it’s Draco’s clothes. Apparently they reacted to my last, stunted spell and flew into the cupboard before Flint shut me back in.

Outside in the lab, Flint hasn’t yet started with his real agenda. Because he’s got to have one, this is not just a hate crime. He wouldn’t do this if there wasn’t anything in it for him. He’s the type who acts on orders, and for material gain. But he’s also a sadist. He wants to see Draco suffer, and make me see it. Whatever his plan, he’ll do the worst to Draco, and at least partly it’ll be for my sake. Because it’s true what Draco said, Flint feels I humiliated him, and now he wants to make me pay.

He pushes Draco back against the stone wall and spits in his face.

“I’m a dirty half-breed!” he shouts. “Come on, I want to hear you say it, fairy. I’m a dirty, filthy half-breed!”

When Draco keeps mum, Flint hits him so hard his head bounces against the wall. I roar out, powerless. Maybe Flint heard it. He throws a triumphant look at where I’m caged in the cabinet. The Saviour, condemned to watch the one man he’s meant to protect be destroyed. I almost wish Flint would use curses on him. He does it this way, the Muggle way, because he wants to degrade him to the ultimate limit. He doesn’t only wants to break Draco’s body, but his spirit, too. But Draco doesn’t cave. He’s bleeding from the lip and brow, and there’s scratches all across his side from where he hit the rough stone wall, stripped down like he is. But if there’s one thing you can’t take away from a Malfoy, it’s their pride. It still shines from his eyes.

A movement catches my gaze, a billowing blackish waft under the fume hood in the corner. Something is coming through there, forming into a familiar bird-like shape.

A Dementor.

I jump to my feet and cry the spell, Expecto Patronum, but I don’t have my wand anymore, I can’t do anything, anything. Despairing, I hammer against the glass walls with both my fists until the skin over my knuckles cracks open.

Draco has collapsed onto the flagstones.

“Didn’t expect to see that one again, did you,” Flint sneers. “Your old man complained when I set it on you the first time, he wanted to stick with the Muggle poison, was dead afraid he’d be found out. Silly old hag. But I’m going to deal with you my way now, the old way, like any self-respecting wizard should. And this time, your john won’t save you, you filthy whore, this time you’ll be on your own! Now defend yourself like a wizard if you can, half-breed!”

And leering in my direction, Flint hands Draco my ruined wand. He knows the wand doesn’t work, he knows Draco can’t do a Patronus, God, he can’t do a Patronus, and I can’t help him, and the Dementor is going to take his soul. The next time my one love will be looking at me, his spirit will be gone from his beautiful eyes. And my stars, my stars will be gone, too.

Draco is going to be a walking dead, and my stars will be gone, and he’ll never know he was my everything.

Draco has scrambled to his feet. He’s stumbling away from the Dementor, knocking over a cauldron. A gallon of what looks like bubbling milk spills all over the floor. Draco drops my wand into the mess. Quickly, he bends to pick it up again, his eyes fixed on the Dementor, but it won’t help him, nothing’ll help him. Already, the Dementor is swooping down towards him. It’s a horrible rerun of the scene in Knockturn Alley. Draco has closed his eyes. I can see his lips move. And from the tip of the wand in his hand erupts a blinding silver stream, forming into a four legged shape; a huge, shining beast. The Dementor shrinks back. Flint cowers in a corner. When the silver animal turns to the Dementor to charge, I see what it is. A giant, shaggy bull with a shock of coarse hair between its horns and a scar the shape of a lightning bolt on its brow. The bull breaks into a full gallop, its head lowered as if to pierce the Dementor with its twenty inches horns. The Dementor turns to flee, and in a matter of seconds, it has vanished up the fume hood.

It’s gone.

Draco flicks the wand again. It’s miraculously restored; it must have been the milky liquid that cleaned it, and Draco knew it would.

“Expelliarmus,” he cries. Flint’s wand flies through the air. But he should have used Avada Kedavra. I learnt to use it, but Draco never did. He couldn’t kill Dumbledore when his own life was at stake, and he didn’t kill Flint now. He signed his own death sentence like that.  

Flint rushes forward. Draco flicks my wand, it looks like he means to stupefy Flint, but before he can form any words, his former team captain has reached him and with a brutal punch to the chest sends him to the ground. My wand flips from his hand as he falls, and Flint kicks it across the floor, over to the stove in the corner, out of reach. Then he gets his own wand from where it landed under the workbench. His laugh is echoing off the walls.

“You aren’t going to get away this time, half-breed,” he shouts. Draco is crouching on the floor, looking up at Flint.

“Why do you want me dead, Marcus?”

“I don’t care if you live or die, Malfoy, but I never got my money from your dad, and when I visited him to remind him of his debts, he pretended he had forgotten all about our deal. Said he never heard of anyone named Draco, then chased me from his door step. But I’ll be damned if I’m not going to get my money in the end.”

He flexes his wand. Draco raises his hands.

“No, Marcus. Please. Please.”

“Too late for that, fairy. Now you’re going to get cut down to size. Too bad for you there’s a market for those disgusting things.”

And at long last, I, too, understand what’s going to happen. He’s going to use Sectumsempra on Draco, he’s going to cut off Draco’s wings.

I break to my knees next to the orderly, shiny shelves, retching.

Flint is brandishing his wand, shouting the horrible incantation. Draco has got to his feet. His palms still raised, he stands unscathed, although he isn’t doing anything to defend himself. It’s the fairy magic. It’s protecting him, but I know it’ll only hold up for a couple more seconds.

There, Draco gets hit. He’s thrown backwards. But it seems he hasn’t been hurt. His sneer is the same it has always been.

“You never had much aim, Flint, you suck at this just as much as you suck at billiard and at throwing a Quaffle!”

He knows he has lost, and that there’s nothing he can do anymore, nothing but to be true to himself in these last moments. To be Draco Mocking Malfoy.

“Try again, Flint. It’s what you do, isn’t it. Fail the first round. Same as with your NEWTs, if I remember correctly.”

Flint roars with rage. Throwing his wand to the side, he grabs the workbench with both of Kendricks’ spade-like hands. He lifts the workbench over his head to crush Draco.

Still on my knees, I turn away because I’m incapable of looking on anymore. On the cabinet’s floor, by my right knee, there’s Draco’s chain. There’s two pendants hanging from it, not just one. There isn’t just the amulet, there’s also a tiny, silver key.

The key I once saw Jenkins use on this very cupboard.

With trembling fingers, I gather up the key.

I feel for the inside lock in the cabinet's glass front, and find it.

I open the door.

With one flying leap, I’m by the stove, and I grab my wand from the stone floor.

“Wingardium Leviosa!”

The workbench is wrenched from Flint’s grip. As it jerks upwards, bottles, decanters, Bunsen burners are set sliding, then go down around Flint in a rain of shattering glass and splashing liquids of all the colours of the rainbow. Flint seems to be raising his face upwards in amazement as the bench hovers above his head for another moment. Then it comes crashing down, flattening him to the floor.

You’ve got to love Wingardium Leviosa. First-year spell, and all that’s needed to wipe out a troll. Kendrick’s form is buried under the bench. All that’s visible is one leg. It doesn’t look like Flint survived this, but then you never know with trolls. They do have skulls like rock. I don’t waste any time on checking.

All that’s on my mind is Draco.

I’m by his side to gather him into my arms, to convince myself he’s alright, and then I see it.

A crumpled, thin piece of cloth on the floor next to him. The first moment, I think it’s some part of his clothing that wasn’t sucked into the cupboard with the rest. Then I see the blackened veins running through the dull, brownish tissue.

It’s his wings. They are severed from his body. And my hands are soaked red from holding him. Blood is gushing from the back of his shoulders in thick, warm streams.

Flint hit him with the curse after all.

Sectumsempra. Forever Cut.

It’s like my old nightmare.

Only this is real.

“Draco, oh God, Draco,” I croak.

His face is turned towards mine, his eyes are open, but his gaze is dim and flickering, and I know he doesn’t see me.

He can’t be dying. He is dying, he is losing blood, so much blood.

God, I knew that claim in the books that cutting wings off fairies didn’t cost them their lives was a lie. I knew it. God, I need to do something. If only this one time, I’ve got to really be The Saviour.

Vulnera Sanentur. Snape did it for him the last time.

I adjust my wand in my slippery fingers and aim it at the gushing wounds at his back.

“No.”

It’s no more than the whisper of leaves. He’s conscious, he’s talking to me.

“No, please.”

“I won’t allow you to die on me, Draco.”

“My wings, please, my wings,” he sighs. He wants his wings. But there’s no way to reattach what got cut off by dark magic. No way...

“The Light Drops,” he whispers, feeble gesturing at the open cabinet.

“The bottles on the shelves? You sure? Are they safe? You sure they’ll work? Vulnera Sanentur will stop the bleeding, it’ll save your life! Trying those drops to save your wings might kill you!”

He doesn’t answer. His eyes have closed.

I get the flasks using Accio.

I open them with Alohomora.

For the rest, I’ll have to rely on my hands, and hope.

Gathering up the rags that have been his wings, I drape them over my knees. Then, holding his head up, I cautiously put the first flask to his lips and let the luminescent liquid trickle into his mouth. Most of it spills over his chin down onto his chest. I don’t know if he has swallowed anything, I haven’t got the faintest idea what would be the correct dose, so I just go on pouring the potion down his throat, pleading for a miracle in my head.

I only stop when he starts choking. It’s a feeble sound, like a dying breath. I’ve made him drink half a dozen bottles of these Light Drops, and there’s no effect. He’s still bleeding like a slaughtered lamb. The flagstones below him are covered in red. When I turn him over, he’s limp in my arms, a lifeless doll.

My head empty, I hold the wings to his shoulder blades, aligning the open wounds as best I can while his blood keeps washing over my hands.

This is wrong, I made the wrong choice. I’m losing him like this. I let go of his wings to get my wand. Blindly bringing its tip to his butchered back, I rasp, “Vulnera Sanentur.”

Almost instantly, the bleeding slows down. But he doesn’t move.

“Draco! Draco, come back to me!”

His eyes are broken, dull and dead like his wings.

It’s too late. I’ve lost him. I made the wrong choice.

“Vulnera Sanentur,” I whisper desperately. His lids sink down over his empty gaze, and it feels like the end. My wand falls from my grip, my hand drops onto his still body, and all I can do is close my eyes against what I did.

And that is when I feel it. A faint flutter.

His wing is fluttering below my fingers. I open my eyes, and there’s his wings before me, faintly glowing. The glimmer is feeble, but it still outshines the light of the oil lamps. The flow of blood has dried up, and as I touch his shoulders, I see it’s really true. His wings have grown back to his body. And as I look on, they slowly, slowly go back to their true, shining, silver green. The black pattern of dead veins has vanished; the vessels in the thin tissue throb as they fill with blood.

Draco comes to, gasping and curling up with a pain I can only imagine.

Quickly, I pick up my wand and cry, “Dolores Dimines!”

Another gut-wrenching ten seconds later, he stops writhing.

“My wings, my wings,” he stutters, his eyes glued to my face. They are filled with life again, and with the urgency of his question.

My nerves wrecked, I nod, then carefully feel the curves at the tops of his wings to make sure. Yeah. Yeah. They are firmly joint to his shoulder blades where they belong. The cavity at the underside is smooth and dry, I don’t even feel a scar. Just the familiar seam where his skin transitions to the slick tissue of the wings. They are supple to the touch again, vibrant. Alive.

“It’s all good, love. You’re whole again.”

He relaxes into my embrace. I stroke him wherever I can reach. His face and chest and wings are wet with my tears. I’m crying because I’ve lived through my worst nightmare, and because he’s whole again.

Looking up at me from softly sparkling eyes, the glimmering green of his wings framing his head, he laboriously lifts his hand and caresses my wet cheeks. He’s drawing slow, deep breaths.

On every other exhalation, he’s sighing my name.

It’s all over the papers. I couldn’t cover anything up, not with a man dead, killed on Ministry premises. Yeah, I killed Flint. Maybe he wasn’t part-troll after all. I have killed a couple of times by now, mostly in self-defence, or else to save a colleague. Draco keeps asking me how I’m coping with what happened. In a twisted way he seems to be feeling bad, like he forced me to kill Flint or something. I’ve told him he needn’t be afraid I’ll be haunted. The fact is, it has never felt more right to cross the ultimate frontier to save someone. No, Flint’s death is definitely not going to keep me awake at night. But it meant I had to file a report. So I did, like this was just another case. I turned my personal hour of hell into paperwork. And the tabloids turned it into a story to enjoy with a sandwich on the subway.

Hate killing in the Ministry prevented at the last second. The Saviour strikes again: Auror Harry Potter saves half-breed Ministry intern Draco Malfoy from getting chopped up.

He hadn’t been in the closet before; he had told individual people, and allowed me to do the same. But this is a whole different scale, obviously. He won’t be able to hide who he is from anyone now.

I’m a bit worried how he’ll cope. But then the single most important thing is that he survived unharmed. That the Light Drops healed him, completely healed him. It’s nothing short of a miracle. No way to reattach what got cut off by dark magic. That’s what Lin said. And she sure knows her shit as well as any Portuba Muff. But she didn’t take into account what a skilled specialist working in Magical Development can do. A whiz of a wizard like Draco Malfoy, who in a matter of weeks managed to create a potion that is stronger than Sectumsempra. Something his own boss hadn’t been able to do in three frigging decades.

And the Light Drops didn’t just make Draco recover from Flint’s attack. They healed his heart, too. They even made his left nipple grow back. There’s a medical report confirming that in one of his personal drawers in Sirius’ cabinet.

After the attack, I forced him to stay at home for three days, then took him to St. Mungo’s for a check-up. I just couldn’t take his way of continuously punching me in the stomach to prove his fitness anymore.

At St. Mungo’s, they declared him to be in top condition. I insisted on a second opinion and specially asked for Ernie Macmillan as a consultant. He’s a heart specialist at St. Mungo’s. Ernie was always top of the class back in Hogwarts, plus as a former Hufflepuff he can be trusted to be thorough. And to not let Draco’s reputation as a follower of Voldemort or the fact he’s got wings influence him. Anyway, Ernie ran all kinds of tests on Draco, then told him his heart was perfectly fine. In fact, he rated Draco’s cardiac performance way above the one-hundred percent mark in his age group.

Draco wouldn’t stop mentioning that rating the whole way home. I had taken him to St. Mungo’s in the car to keep the strain of travelling to a minimum for him. It meant I was forced to listen to his bragging for almost an hour, stuck in heavy traffic. Every couple of minutes he promised he’d make me look just so old the next time we’d meet on the Quidditch pitch. It was all kinds of annoying, but I couldn’t wipe that goofy grin off my face.

What I did to him years ago now is finally really in the past. He’s going to play Quidditch again.

And other games.

-

A week later he gets two Ministry letters by owl post. The first says his sentence got rescinded because of faulty procedure. His record has been cleared, and he’s licenced to carry a wand again.

The second letter is from the Department of Magical Development, Potions Section, and contains a document declaring Draco Lucius Malfoy to be First Assistant to Professor Jenkins as from Monday next week.

The promotion was to be expected. Sam Kendricks wasn’t aware what Flint was up to when he offered to go to work in Sam’s place so Sam could fly to San Francisco for a mini break. But he still got sacked, and Jenkins has the right to promote staff. Of course he’d want Draco as his First Assistant.

That’s the one good thing about what happened; Draco’s extraordinary skill as a potioneer has been proven to the world. The Light Drops have been officially acknowledged as an effective and safe healing potion against physical damage inflicted by dark magic, and were named the Malfoy Drops by the DMD. Jenkins renounced all claims at being a co-creator. Sometimes people with the most unattractive habits can turn out to be outright awesome.

So Draco may have lost the Malfoy fortune, but it looks like he’s still going to end up a millionaire. He grins when I tell him that.

“And you’re going to get Jenkins’ job, too, and before long, trust me,” I say. “The old bird looks like he’s a hundred, he’s got to retire at some point."

"Jenkins is not the type to retire."

"Well, he's not going to live forever."

Draco frowns at me.

“I hope he’s going to stick around for a long time.”

I raise my palms.

“Sorry. I just thought I was talking to Draco Malfoy here. Where’s all that Slytherin ambition?”

“Just so you know, I’m going to make those millions you’ve been talking about, redhead.”

He’s taken to calling me that since I saved him because apparently I still had reddish hair from the Polyjuice Potion when I showed up in Jenkins’ lab. When I complained about the name-calling, he asked if I’d prefer it if he called me tits.

“Yeah, and I’m going to use my money to buy Malfoy Manor back from the crown once my father’s gone,” he continues. “Hope that’s enough ambition for you, freckles. And Jenkins is a brilliant teacher, so my career can only benefit from me working with him, okay? Yeah, and FYI, he’s one-hundred-and-thirty-two.”

“One-hundred-and-thirty-two? Are you telling me he found out how to distil the Elixir of Life without the Philosopher’s Stone? That’s what you put in the Malfoy Drops?”

“No, it’s...”

He breaks off.

“It’s what?”

“Alright. I’ve seen Jenkins survive three major explosions since I joined the team, and each time, he was back to looking his old self within twenty-four hours. And that red is his natural hair colour. You’ll agree it puts even Ron Weasley’s foxy hue to shame.”

“Yeah? And?”

He rolls his eyes.

“A bit slow on the uptake when it comes to the solving of mysteries, The Chosen One, as usual. Seriously, haven’t you figured it out by now? Jenkins is a half-breed. Don’t spread it, though. He isn’t out.”

“Half-breed? But... what kind of half-breed?”

He rolls his eyes at me again.

“Okay, I’ll give you one more clue. Remember Fawkes?”

I know I’m gaping, but I can’t stop. He nods.

“The main agent of the Malfoy Drops is Jenkins’ tears.”

It’s like I’m being sucked into a pensieve and spit out in a gloomy basement office, seeing myself sitting at a table, building up anger at a belated interviewee and watching Jenkins drying his eyes with his wand. Collecting tears.

So that’s the mysterious, scarce ingredient. That’s the secret of the Malfoy Drops. Jenkins has got a great-great-grandfather who’s a frigging phoenix.

“Yeah, Potter. There are more of us out there than you’d think,” Draco says, and with a smirk, he adds, “Not everyone is just a boring regular human, you know.”

Yeah, I was worried about him getting outed like he was, but he’s going to deal just fine.

Half-breed or not, he’ll always be pure, arrogant Malfoy.

-

“Lin?”

“Yes. Harry.”

“I wanted to thank you.”

“What ever for.”

“For clearing Draco’s name.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on. His sentence was annulled. You are the only one who can engineer something like that. I’m glad you did.”

“You should thank Ernest Macmillan.”

“Ernie?”

“Susan Bones contacted me about the matter already a few weeks back, but it was Ernest who convinced me I had to do something about it. He called me the other day, said he had come across an injustice that needed to be corrected. Apparently he had examined Draco Malfoy as a patient at St. Mungo’s. He didn’t tell me anything about it; obviously he wouldn’t violate regulations like that. He only said he had noticed Draco wasn’t branded with the Dark Mark. And that he had assumed that to be an effect of something he called the Malfoy Drops at first.”

There’s a rushing and stuttering, telling me she just got a call on another line.

“Harry? Yeah, I’m back. What... Ah, the Malfoy Drops. Apparently that’s a new potion that’s supposed to reverse permanent physical damage induced by dark magic. Ernest tested those drops on a number of Death Eaters who had come to St. Mungo’s before with the request of having their Mark removed. The drops didn’t work on the marks.”

There’s a faint beep, then the connection breaks. Half a minute later, Lin calls me back. I only get her voice, no image this time.

“Yeah, Harry. Sorry about that. I’m really busy right now, lots of new projects. Where were we?”

“The Malfoy Drops don’t have the power to remove the Dark Mark.”

“Oh right. To sum things up, Ernest concluded that Draco Malfoy has never been a Death Eater, and that the charges against him were unfounded. I was compelled to agree. Any wizard who’s considered to be a Death Eater, or former Death Eater, is supposed to be wearing the Dark Mark. I could have told Ernest up front those Malfoy Drops wouldn’t work on the Dark Mark. It’s permanent, end of story. Those drops are nothing but a marketing scam. But obviously Ernest would feel he had to make absolutely sure. Hufflepuffs, eh.”

She chuckles. So she hasn’t heard the Malfoy Drops have been ministry-approved. Obviously she’s lost touch with what’s going on. There’s a lengthy whoosh in the line again.

“Harry? You still there?”

“Lin. The Malfoy Drops aren’t a marketing scam.”

“Oh, Harry. You are determined to admire Malfoy, aren’t you. Do you realize he launched a media campaign to help the sales of those drops? He’s been spreading a wild story that was even published in the Daily Prophet, about himself being part-fairy and getting attacked and having his wings cut off with Sectumsempra, and you magically appearing on scene to reattach them with the Malfoy Drops, which he himself had conveniently created just days earlier! Harry, he’s using your fame for his own business ends!”

“What if that story is the truth?”

“Come on, Harry, don’t try to fool me. The whole thing is nothing but low-quality fiction!”

I humph. I’m just too happy to fight.

“Anyway, without the Mark, Malfoy doesn’t count as a Death Eater. So I saw to it that his record was set straight. You know consistency is very important to me.”

“No abolishing of established facts and so on.”

“Precisely. In my job, that’s a key point.”

I feel playful today, so I just ask her.

“What is your job, Lin? What is it exactly that you do for a living? Just curious.”

She laughs, like me asking that question was completely surreal. This time, when the line goes dead, I know it’s for good.

So it’s Ernie Macmillan I owe. Didn’t see that coming. A nice guy, but I never expected him to ever be of any real consequence to my life. And even less so Susan Bones. Well. Thank Godric for Hufflepuffs, I guess.

I hope I haven’t made a mistake. I’ve given him a broom for Christmas this morning, a brand-new Ultra Rebel 3000. Only to be tried out under my personal supervision. After all, he has only just recovered from a near-fatal slasher attack, long-term poisoning, and chronic heart disease. I told him he must avoid any kind of overexertion. I also told him to keep the broom strapped in its case inside the flat at all times. The Rebel is notorious for being as rebellious as its name suggests. I don’t want my flat to end up like Ginny’s exe’s when Ron did that stunt with her Quidditch balls. Yeah, I hope I haven’t made a mistake buying the thing.

I’ve gone out to borrow those very balls from Ginny right after breakfast so Draco and I can play some Quidditch over the holidays. Book a trainings court, have some fun, just the two of us. He’s extremely confident about his flying skills, to put it mildly. He’s convinced he was always better than me back when we used to play against each other in Hogwarts. I can’t wait to teach him some modesty.

When I come back, I run into Hermione and Ron at the door to my building. They came to call on us, pay us a season’s visit. They are clearly aiming at Christmassy cheerfulness. Their smiles when we say hello are extra bright, especially Ron’s. His future in-laws did a terrific job on him; with those teeth, he could pass for a US movie star.

I’m really happy to see him, both of them. They still haven’t really met Draco yet, and it’s past time. Yeah, I’m really happy they are making this move to reach out, to welcome Draco into their lives. They even brought two presents. Plus the traditional plum pudding from Mrs. Weasley.

“By the way, the Malfoy Drops made George’s ear grow back. Isn’t that fantastic?” Hermione says as she’s walking up the stairs by my side. “Ron thinks it’s fantastic, don’t you, dear.”

Ron just grunts behind us, but he’s following us up the stairs to my flat. Oh Godric, I really, really want this to work out.

When I enter the flat, Ron and Hermione in tow and my pulse suddenly racing with nerves, I see the Rebel’s case in the hallway, empty. And from the living room comes the buzz of a flying broom. The next moment, there’s the sound of something shattering to pieces. Expecting the worst, I rush into the living room.

The floor is covered in broken Christmas balls. Draco is circling the ruffled-looking Christmas tree on his Rebel in elegant if hazardous curves, wearing nothing but a pair of silver Speedos, his wings spread out and glittering like candle light.

“Hey, Harry, you ready for your personal Christmas Special of Waltzing Wizards? I’m going to do the first ever airborne show act! I’m afraid that means you’ll have to keep your hands to yourself!”

Behind me, Ron makes a strange noise through his nose. But Hermione energetically steps up to my side.

“Merry Christmas, Malfoy,” she calls out. “I mean Draco.”

Draco stares down at the three of us, and the next moment, the Rebel bucks and twists, effectively unseating its rider. For a moment, Draco hangs off to one side, frantically flapping his wings, then he falls. I dive to catch him, and I do. I became Seeker of the Gryffindor Quidditch team at age eleven for a reason. Draco’s wings flutter against me like those of a man-sized Golden Snitch as I hold him pressed to my chest.

“You okay, baby?” I gasp, out of breath with shock. He nods, then wriggles out of my grip and hastens from the room, his wings swaying from his bare shoulders, the Speedos showcasing his bubble butt like only Speedos can.

Ron makes that noise in his nose again. Hermione says nothing for once.

Yeah, I guess this couldn’t have gone much worse.

-

Draco has changed into a pair of jeans and one of my sweat shirts. It covers his upper body like a tent. Everybody has said hello, nicely and formally, like no one is thinking about things like Speedos, or silver wings, or seven years of fighting each other.

Hermione has taken the lead in the conversation. She has made me unwrap our present. It’s for both of us, and it’s a Nativity scene. Traditional from the Alps, Hermione explains. Pimped with special care.

It’s what she’s been using Sirius’ farm animals for. When she explains how she's been thinking it would be nice for us to use them to set up a Christmas tradition, with the animals having been the toys of generations of Black kids, and with us both having roots in the Black family, it's a reminder of why she's my favourite girl in the world. She repaired every last wooden tail, and she did a really nice job with that Nativity scene. The sheep’s bleating isn’t exactly melodious, and every couple of minutes the donkey utters a shrieking eyore and the ox drops something that smells funny, but the angels flying about above the roof of the little stable will sing any Christmas hit known to mankind if you shout just the first few words of the lyrics at them. And little Baby Jesus waves at everyone whose gaze he catches as he’s sitting on mother Mary’s lap.

Hermione gives Draco a short summary of the Nativity story, and the life of Jesus, followed by an abstract of the history of Christianity. Ron keeps to wolfing down his mom’s plum pudding.

When Hermione is done, Draco gets up to serve everyone some more tea, then clears his throat.

“So, the two of you got no problem with me?”

“Somebody being a half-breed has never been a problem for any one of us, I think you know that much,” Hermione says smoothly.

Draco shifts on his feet and looks at Baby Jesus. Baby Jesus waves back at him, oblivious to his plight. I think it’s the first time anyone called Draco a half-breed to his face not to abuse him but as a simple stating of fact.

“We’ve been best friends with Hagrid from day one in Hogwarts, just as an example,” Hermione continues, then adds, “Hagrid is a half-giant.”

That’s Professor Hermione Granger for you, never above spelling out facts any baby knows, and sounding exactly like the annoying know-it-all she was at age eleven. Draco gives a short, tense nod, his face a flaming red. This is definitely the first time anyone compared him to Hagrid.

“Yeah, I know, that’s great. I mean it’s great that you... that I...”

He clears his throat again.

“What I meant to ask was, it’s no problem for you that I’m living here? That I’m with Harry? I mean, you never liked me, and I know why, and I think Ron told Harry the other day he won’t come see him anymore as long as he’s with me, and I get why, but now you’re here, and I hope that means we can... that perhaps we can... Okay, say something? Ron?”

Ron shrugs and takes a big spoonful of plum pudding, obviously wildly uneasy and incapable of glossing over the big deal this is. Me living with Draco Malfoy, and Draco Malfoy as good as pleading for his blessing.

Hermione, on the other hand, isn’t anywhere close to being out of her depths. Being unable to cope in any situation is something that’s simply not part of her genetic make-up. Lecturing Ron, on the other hand, most certainly is.

“Draco, everyone can see you’ve changed, even Ron here,” she states matter-of-factly. “And I don’t mean the wings, or the ears, or, you know.”

She waves at his face, forcing him to take a step back. The gesture could be insulting. But Hermione isn’t aware of that, she’s only aware of facts. And of her mission to get Ron to follow her lead and embrace that Draco is here to stay.

“Dumbledore used to say it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be. Dumbledore was a wise man, wasn’t he, Ron.”

Ron grunts something unintelligible, his mouth full of pudding.

“Plus, Harry has been lonely for a long time, and he says you’re his family now, Draco.” Okay, thanks for making me sound super pathetic, Hermione. And for telling him I claimed him to be my family in front of my friends before I ever asked him what we are. I sneak a glance at Draco to check his reaction. He looks right back at me, smirking, but his eyes radiate stars. They dim a bit at Hermione’s next words, though.

“And with your whole situation and all, having no money and nothing but an internship job-wise till a week ago, of course Harry would take you in.”

Yeah, his eyes are back to their usual grey now, but he doesn’t cast them down, he meets Hermione’s gaze, looking as arrogant as I have ever seen him. By now I know it’s his way of dealing; a simple reflex of self-preservation. And I know he understands she means to argue his case, if in her incorruptibly blunt way. I’d swear I see a smile tug at his lips when she concludes, “I think everyone agrees it’s legit for people to watch out for their family. Ron?”

Ron munches something around a mouthful of pudding that very much sounds like kiss my ass, then swallows and says, “Anyone in the mood for a game?”

He lets the present he brought levitate above the couch table and tear open mid-air. The paper sails into the bin in the corner and the present lands on the table with a thud. It’s a season’s version of Exploding Snap.

I never expected Ron to be all smiles and roses. I mean, he’s Ron. Graciousness is not exactly his middle name. But he can’t argue with his own words. And even less with his girlfriend. As he’s shuffling the cards in the air, he looks at her smug smile like he’d love to transform her into a kitten. Or just anything that can’t talk. God, I love my two best friends.

And I love them all the more for the fact they understand that people do change. And sometimes in even more fundamental ways than growing wings.

-

A couple of hours of nerve-wrecking Exploding Snap and aberrant amounts of seasonal food later, Draco and I are alone again.

He has given me his present, a Proteus Planner. It looks like a golden credit card, and there’s room for entries for every hour of the day from January 1^st 2002 into the indefinite future. There’s a stack of twenty-five identical cards to go with it.

“For your future students,” he says. “Like this, you’ll be able to hand out assignments simply by entering them into your own planner. Or to give people detention. Or to reschedule lessons.”

“Why would I reschedule lessons.”

“There’s always something that can come up, isn’t there.”

Living with him, I’ve learnt that’s true.

“I might not get to have any students, Draco. I’ve sent an application, but that doesn’t mean I’ll get the position.”

He scoffs.

“Alright.”

“Seriously…”

“You are Harry Potter, for fuck’s sake! They’ll fly you in on a Hippogriff and hold a three-day welcome banquet in your honour! You are so going to get that job, and you are going to keep it, too. You are going to be The One Who Stayed. Oh Merlin, those students are so going to freak out when they hear the news. Harry Potter to be the new Professor for Defence against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts!”

I honestly hope he’s right about my chances. At first I only thought about going into teaching because he had asked me to, but at some point I realized I’d really like to be a teacher, and that I won’t miss the fighting that has been my life for so long like, at all. I had a good time working as an Auror, but things change. I don’t really need all that anymore. Time to let others be the hero.

And I’ll still be able to spend every night with Draco, even if I work at Hogwarts and he stays in the capital. Thank Godric for apparition!

Draco is still happily envisioning me at Hogwarts.

“Yeah, they are so going to freak out," he says, sounding thoroughly pleased. "Only promise me one thing, Harry, don’t show them your Muggle moves, or the whole class will swoon!”

He’s talking about Krav Maga. He has asked me to teach him, and makes me demonstrate more or less the whole lesson whenever we practice.

“Not everyone is as easily impressed as you are,” I say.

“Okay, the girls and the gays will swoon.”

I shake my head, laughing, and lift one of the golden cards so it catches the light.

“These are truly beautifully designed, Draco. Don’t you think they’re a bit too valuable to give out to students? Is it really what you had in mind when you crafted them?”

“Well,” he says with just a hint of a smirk, “family life takes a lot of organizing, too, from what I’ve heard. Just think all those Quidditch games we are going to have to attend if we start this adoption thing. So I guess you could keep the cards for the kids.”

He smiles at me while I try to wrap my brain around the idea of twenty-five children. Of course he’s joking. He must be. I guess. How many multiplets are considered normal in fairy families again? I’ll have to ask Hermione.

He snatches the cards from my hand and puts them on the couch table, then takes my arm and wraps it around his shoulders.

“Relax, Potter,” he murmurs, settling his head against my shoulder.

We sit on the couch for a while, cuddling, and look at Hermione’s Nativity scene under the Christmas tree.

Eventually, his eyes on the tirelessly waving Baby Jesus, Draco says, “I like the story. The message. Too much gore for kids and too much fantasy and magic to be believable, obviously, but it’s still beautiful. But, you know, Harry, to me, the Saviour will always be you.”

“Don’t speak blasphemy,” I say, idly stroking his wings. “I did some tricks with my wand that happened to work out when it counted, but it’s not like I saved all mankind.”

“Perhaps you didn’t,” he says, snuggling into me. “But you did save me.”

We’re in bed, both stripped down. I’ve shut the door to the living room. I don’t need Sirius’ cabinet witnessing our first time, however simple-minded a piece of furniture it may be.

Draco has been touching and teasing my body all over. He definitely likes big snakes, the little Slytherin. In the end I had to stop him and turn the tables on him so I wouldn’t blow this. Now he’s lying in the crook of my arm as I stroke his cock and his nipples, alternating between right and left simply because it’s so good that I can. He moans and writhes. Like he’s desperate for more. But his wings are primly folded to his back, and it seems to me he’s trying to keep his thighs shut. I know how to handle a guy, normally. But I don’t want to overpower him, or do anything wrong. He might need special treatment, and I want to make this perfect for him.

“Tell me what you like, baby.”

“I like this, but... I don’t know,” he says, choking on his words. “I told you, all I’ve done is give people blowjobs, during those weeks in Knockturn Alley. Some tried to do stuff to me, but my fairy magic always stopped them. I’ve never had sex with anyone in my life. All I know is my magic won’t stop you. It didn’t that one time when you... you know.”

“But I don’t want to do anything you don’t want, so please, tell me...”

“I want you to fuck me,” he cuts me short in a pained whisper.

Alright. Alright. It must be a million times that I’ve been imagining him saying this very sentence to me. Deep breaths. Don’t blow this, Harry. Don’t come now. Don’t devour him. You can do this. Just go slow.

Gently, I put him on his back and lift his legs, and for the first time, I really look at him.

I have seen my fair share of holes. But never something like his. The size of a gold Galleon, and shaded a rich pink, it’s cushiony with a drawn-in, glistening centre the colour of cinnamon. And it’s wet with goldenish precome, like the tip of his cock. Or maybe this isn’t precome but natural lube. When I bring my palms to his thighs and carefully move my hands down, towards his crack, his hole twitches and opens and a gush of that shimmering gel streams forth from it. He utters a small scream of shame and clenches his butt, trying to roll onto his side to shield himself from view. I don’t let him. I shouldn’t be doing this, keeping him pinned down and forcing his thighs apart, I mustn’t trigger memories of his time on the streets. But I just can’t help myself. The spicy tang of his juices revs all my instincts into frantic overdrive.

When I touch his entrance, his wetness washes over my hand like a mouthful of warm soup. There’s still no magical energy forcing me away, but his moans sound like sobs.

“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay,” I say, my voice trembling with a crazed desire, then I slide a finger into his opening. And he submits instantly. His head falling back, he arches his back to better meet the penetration.

Diving over him, I kiss him like I always wanted to, feeling his mouth and his core at the same time, warm and wet and willing under me.

Oh wow. I could sweep a World Cup Quidditch stadium full of Dementors clean in a heartbeat right now.

I twirl my finger inside him, stretching the velvety walls of his hole as if to prep him. He doesn’t really need it; he’s ready to be fucked as he is. When I withdraw my hand, his ass lifts off of the mattress, his leaking hole opening and closing like it’s trying to catch me. I hear my own excited chuckle, an incredibly base, lecherous sound. It makes him switch back to using his brain. He shuts his thighs and skids up the bed, away from me.

“No, no, baby, come back here. Come here.”

He has averted his face. His blush has crawled down his throat to his chest. He gives a tense shake of the head.

“Please, baby. I wasn’t laughing at you, you know I wasn’t! You’re beautiful when you show me how much you want me!”

“I’m not, I’m losing all this slick when you touch me, and I don’t look anything normal, I know I don’t! I look like something giant stung me down there!”

Something giant is actually going to sting him down there, but I don’t say that, I say, “Don’t you know you are all I’ve ever dreamt of? Don't you know you are my everything?”

For a moment we both seem to wait. Then he reaches for me, warily opening his thighs again.

And I just do it.

Lifting his legs and putting them to my shoulders, I bring my cock in line with his entrance. And then, inch by inch, I edge into him. I could go in full length with one lazy push; his hole is made for intercourse. It’s me who needs the time. I want to give him the best possible first time, and plunging in to the hilt, then shooting my load wouldn’t be doing that.

So once I’ve joint us, I keep still, trying to get some kind of grip. I fist his regrown hair, its ample lightness rich between my fingers. He hasn't put anything in, neither his gel from the drugstore nor any magic, and I marvel at how nature made his hair just perfect, like all the rest of him.

Like his eyes, his chest, his... oh my God, his ass. It's not just deliciously loose and squishy, it's like kneading me in a sort of programmed massage designed to draw a lover’s load, to make a cock explode at maximum power.

I try to concentrate on my breathing.

He’s still burying his face by my shoulder as he clings to me, moaning.

“Draco, look at me,” I murmur. I stroke his brow. “Come on. I want to see your lovely eyes while I fuck you.” I feel his ass spill hot juice over my balls in response to those words, and he gives a distressed mewl.

“Baby,” I command him, and finally he obeys. There’s fear in his eyes, but there are also the stars that shine only for me.

I can’t hold back anymore, I tell him I love him over and over as I delve into his spasming, liquid hole, and it’s bliss beyond words.

He cries out my name then, like answering me, and I completely lose control.

I flip him over and start pounding into him at a fierce pace so his wings quiver. They are still folded to his back. I slow down.

“Open your wings,” I order. When he doesn’t do it, I say it again, this time going extra deep to help him understand I mean it. I want him all splayed out for me, ass, wings, everything. And he unfolds his wings with uncoordinated jerks until they are fully spread out below me.

Silver and green, the colours of Slytherin, they are set swaying with each thrust I deal him up his ass. Only now he has fully laid himself open to me. And it’s like he’s flying, like I’m riding him through the skies.

“My beauty. You’re my beauty, Draco.”

He groans something unintelligible and tries to rise onto his knees under me to take me in yet deeper. I let him, although I know I shouldn’t. He’s a first-timer, he shouldn’t get fucked till up beyond his rectal curve. But he’s pushing back against me like he’s craving the strain. I want him to come like this, now. I reach under his belly to work his shaft.

He holds up for ten seconds, then his cock spurts golden juice all over my fingers. But it’s not nearly the amount that shoots from his ass. The hot liquid is whipped into spirals of spray around my pumping cock, drenching my front up to my navel. The sight is beyond obscene.

But it’s his sounds that make me come, the rhythmic squirts of his backside ejaculation, and his raw screams.

I grab his hip with one hand and get hold of his wings with the other as all my powers concentrate in my balls. I fuck him so hard his buttocks are shoved up his back, until my body goes rigid and I start releasing my sperm into him with drawn-out, feral cries. He is past his own orgasm and has gone still under me. Resting his forehead against the mattress, he’s receiving shot after shot like a gift of mercy; like it’s a relief for him to have his churning insides coated with the thick balm of my climax at last.

Only when I’ve come down from that mad high, I let go of his wings. As I see them smooth back out before me, still creased in places from my grip, it hits me what I just did to him, what I became. A mindless, selfish, animal fuck machine.

He’s still clamping down on my root, applying a sort of wet suction. Somehow, that keeps my erection from fading.

I try to carefully withdraw, all I want is for him to be undamaged, for his body to lose any contortion it suffered and go back to being itself. But I can’t pull back from his hole, I’m stuck inside him.

“What’s happening, Harry,” he asks over the curve of his wing, sounding hoarse and helpless and shaken. I don’t know what’s happening.

But I suddenly remember one of Hermione’s more inappropriate lectures.

“Okay. A plug. It’s an ingenious concept evolution came up with to guarantee insemination in some species. Primarily insects. Basically, it’s a slime ball composed of the partners’ joint juices, sealing off the female’s channel once the male shot off his sperm so it’s kept inside.”

This must be an equivalent mechanism, with a sort of vacuum thingy going on. And I’m the slime ball.

It kind of fits.

“I’m sorry, Harry, I don’t know why I… ” Draco moans under me, trying to dislodge my cock and clearly hurting his butt in the process.

“Shh, love, don’t,” I shoo. “Your body’s holding me in, it’s going to pass. Let’s just wait for a bit and see.”

“I don’t mean to be doing this,” he begins again. “I didn’t mean to… to… What I did, I’m sorry…”

“Stop this, love,” I say in a tone I’ve never used with him before. It silences him on the spot, but there’s still the sound of his agitated breathing. “Listen, Draco. Don’t ever apologize again for coming on my cock. Now that I’ve seen you do it, I expect you to treat me to a rerun as often as you possibly can. Understood? And just so you know, I’ve always wanted a partner I can cuddle with after sex.”

I cradle him from behind, stroking his head, and he calms down. His breathing evens out as we lie together, as I rest my face in the crook of his neck, breathing kisses onto his skin, inhaling his scent. I can’t help but wondering if it’s really true he can’t give me kids. His sex is so very different, this is so very different from anything I’ve known before. For all we know, his reproductive make-up might be all fairy. But I won’t say anything about it, not for now. Not as long as he’s still so insecure about his singularities.

I feel him tense up around me at intervals.

“Don’t try and push me out. I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works. And don’t fool yourself, baby. Even if you succeed in the end, I won’t ever let you go.”

He sighs and lets his whole body melt against mine. Finally, he’s allowing the depth of his satisfaction to show.

“So it was good for you, baby?” I ask. “That’s what you like? Me riding you good and thorough?”

I don’t have to see his face by now to know when he’s smirking.

“You’re better in bed than on a broom, that’s for sure.”

Funnily enough, I feel it’s the best line he could have come up with at this moment.

“Hey, careful there, fairy,” I say, gently tickling him under his left wing. He giggles languidly, then turns his head to the side to kiss me.

“You know what, Harry, I've decided I’m going to teach you some of my flying tricks. I’d say it’s only fair after you showed me how things are done in bed. How about the Malfoy Double Loop for starters? I’ve booked a training court for us this afternoon.”

“You’ve booked a court? But it’s Saturday! Saturday is Laundry Day...”

I break off, cursing myself for thinking aloud. Too late. He scoffs under me, the sound rife with contempt.

“Seriously. Laundry Day. I’ll have you tested for house elf genes one of these days, Potter.”

“I didn’t mean... I’m coming with you, of course, I only meant...”

He kisses me again, silencing me.

“I love you, Harry.” –

Perhaps I’ve already known that, perhaps I’ve known for a long time. But the words hit me like a Transforming Spell. They are like the completion of the ancient magic he’s been weaving over me for more than ten years, and I know that only now I am the man I was destined to be since I was born.

Yeah, I am the kind of guy with a destiny, the kind that has weird middle-aged ladies come up with pretentious prophesies, and yes, one of those even turned out to be accurate. But in the end it would seem it missed out on the most important part of my story.

HEA, Happy ever after.

I don’t believe in happy ever afters. Or do I?

All kinds of things can happen in the future. That’s why prophesies tend to be kept deliberately murky. But what’s happening to us right now isn’t murky. Not murky at all. It’s pure brightness, like the light embedded in my lover’s wings.

“Love you, too,” I say, and I bury my face in them and let their gentle shine soak through my skin, my body, my trembling soul. –

When half an hour later he releases me and shuts himself against me, it’s too soon. There’s no leakage. It seems he has absorbed my semen to the last ounce and stored it away in some secret, mythical place deep inside himself. I experience a jolt of excitement at what that might mean. What might be, one day.

James Lucius. Albus Scorpius. Lily Narcissa.

He turns around in my arms to face me, and his grey eyes are alight with stars like a northern summer night sky. I pull him in, fiercely. Whatever the future might hold in store, I’ll stay true to my word, I won’t let him go. Ever.

When he had discovered the shield amulet I had sewed into his jacket, he asked me to give him a heads-up next time I decided to put jewellery on him. It’s a great line to work into a proposal. And I’ll say something about happy ever afters, too. How I’ve found it doesn’t really matter if you believe in them, but how it matters to make them happen. And then I’ll ask him to let me.

Because Sirius’ cabinet is right.

He is The One.

He’s insanely beautiful, and he’s got stars in his eyes when he looks at me. He’s anything but ordinary in bed; in all probability he’s the only bottom in both the wizarding and the Muggle world who can do anal ejaculation. And he’ll always cuddle with me after sex, if only because he won’t be able to help it.

Yeah, he’s all I ever dreamt of.

And everything I never knew I wanted, too.

A Slytherin and potions whiz who’s annoying like only a Malfoy can be, who mixes up my day, and who’s only, only mine.

 

* * *

PLEASE RETURN TO LIVEJOURNAL TO COMMENT! THANK YOU!