And part 3
Before the Rumblings of the Storm Part 3
The phrase was simple, the wand movement easy to do. Harry waited and watched as Malfoy’s parents kissed their son.
“It is not good bye,” Narcissa said firmly. “I have faith in the both of you.” She turned to him, her expression set. “Consider your debt to me repaid. You will be a welcome addition to our family.”
Oh god, and that was something he hadn’t even considered. “…Thank you, Mrs Malfoy,” he stammered. “I will do everything I can.”
“Certainly, Mr Potter.” Lucius touched his son’s hair and drew back. “It seems your destiny was always entwined with ours, and now you will be our most beloved son in law.” The smile that accompanied these honeyed words did not comfort him. He watched them glide out the door with a frown.
“Fear not, Potter,” Malfoy interjected sardonically. “Thanks to you, father is defanged, and surprisingly content to be so. He has found he prefers political intrigue and private dabbling in the more…esoteric…of magic, to servitude.”
“Well that’s a relief,” he muttered. He shuffled awkwardly. “Let’s do this,” he said firmly enough. “We don’t have much time.”
Malfoy hesitated. “Wait. Let’s sit on the bed. I don’t want us to fall and crack our brains open.”
“…Okay.” He followed the blond onto the bed and they sat facing each other, close enough to join hands. “Alright. Let’s go.”
His companion nodded, his face flushed, body trembling. Harry sucked in a deep breath and said the words.
***
He opened his mind to murky chaos. This was nothing like viewing a pensive memory, with a fall and a stroll. This was thrashing around submerged in an ocean, no pole to orientate to, no solidity to stand on. Impressions, jumbles of words, half-phrases, images, snippets of scenes, all supported in a pervasive, gelatinous matrix of chaotic emotion. Draco’s mind was struggling against the initial violation as was his, and he could feel his magic gushing out uncontrollably, mixing with a flood of magic not his yet not strange. This was Draco, and he knew Draco. It seemed best to ride out this initial confusion and trust that it would settle enough for him to find some way forward, a thread to grasp.
It seemed logical to try and grasp an early memory and follow down the expected timeline, and when he found a flash of a small broom and a manor room, he snatched at it eagerly. [House elves, many toys, parents so big and beautiful. Cupboard, Loud red fat face mustache yelling smacking pain. Flying, lessons, straight back, etiquette. Darkness, frying pan, eggs and bacon, hungry, lonely. Manor stairs, junior potions book, dinner parties, tinkling laughter, boredom. Housework, resentment, Dudley pointing his finger, weariness.] In his eagerness, he had forgotten that Malfoy could snatch back. He wasn’t embarrassed about the memories, exactly, and it was satisfying to know that Malfoy would never again claim he’d had a cossetted, spoilt childhood, but this was uncomfortable. He could feel a flood of disbelief and a discomfort different to his own and decided to move on.
[Madam Malkins, small, scruffy boy with pretty eyes. Want to impress. Small, pointy blond boy, intimidating. Train. Red head. Weasley. Insults. Enmity.] The thoughts flickered back and forth, the same but from different perspectives. But they were meeting, their minds starting to get the hang of being enmeshed. Malfoy had been nervous, he realized with astonishment. As inexperienced as him in making friends, and brought up to believe he was superior. Trying to impress him.
You didn’t know? This was Malfoy of the present day. You didn’t know.
I was intimidated by you. You were like Dudley.
Yes, I see.
Ron. You were your mother’s little dragon. The insult stung.
He could feel Malfoy flinch, both in his mind and physically.
Move on, let’s move on.
There was more, more from Malfoy; Snape, praising him. Dueling with him in second year. Slytherin common room politics, Slytherin one-upmanship, lessons, holidays seeking his father’s praise, all saturated with Potter, Potter, I hate you, Potter and all the while wondering if anyone really liked him.
Snape liked you. He cared about you.
You didn’t.
I didn’t see the real you. Only what you showed me, he retorted.
And honestly, there were things not to like. He had been spiteful, he had been immature. In the beginning, his pureblood beliefs had felt right and proper. He was deeply, thoroughly, spectacularly resentful.
And what about you? Draco’s voice sneered. Arrogant. Glory seeking. Always in the Prophet, always the teacher’s favourite.
Yes, there were all the old feelings of hate flooding him, every bit as all-encompassing and irrational as Harry’s own had been. He didn’t mind the irrational hate, it was…it was theirs, it always had been theirs, and it was passionate and hot and alive and strangely accepting. Pulling in. But the dislike…it was cold, and it hurt, which must have been due to this stupid ‘bond’ because he wouldn’t normally feel that way. Except that he did and would have. You never saw what it was really like, Harry thought resentfully.
Then show me. Malfoy was impatient.
So much of their dislike was because they’d been too young to understand. If only he could explain, then maybe he could make the dislike fade; cobwebs he could bat away. Not arrogant. Impatient, sometimes. Quick to judge. Saw things in black and white, in the beginning. Yes, need to watch that. Never glory seeking, the school turned on me almost every year, the prophet kept lying, Fudge claiming I was crazy…Draco, look.
Troll, Devil’s Snare, Chess, Keys, Quirrell, Voldemort, Acromantula, Chamber, basilisk, Tom Riddle Ginny diary pain…
Malfoy’s mind thrashed, pushed away, and he realized the boy was overwhelmed by the flood of too many memories, too much emotion heaped upon him all at once.
Later, sift later, Malfoy projected. Stop, stop, stop.
He tried to quiet his mind, aware of Draco’s astonishment.
Merlin’s testicles, Potter, came his awed voice.
He laughed. That’s only up to second year.
Gently. We need to merge, it’s too hard if it’s too much at once. We’ll sort the rest out later.
He nodded and tried to be open. He felt Malfoy sift through his memories, and received flashes of his own in return. Felt Malfoy’s deep, thrilling excitement to have such intimate access to him. Felt ribbons of jealousy associated; not connected to him, connected to height, red, freckles, Weasley.
Malfoy drifted through later memories, of Sirius, of the department of mysteries. He did not linger over the pain, and for that he was grateful.
I was so angry at you, but seems like you couldn’t control anything.
Yeah, well, I didn’t even try to imagine how you felt.
There was a feeling of agreement, but Malfoy allowed him to focus on his memories. Sixth year. That was a revelation.
You were so scared. More scared than I ever dreamt.
I thought it was going to be my chance to prove I was powerful. Only it wasn’t. By the end, I used to wish you would find out and save me from it.
I wish I had. But I wanted to see you as nothing but a prat.
He could feel Malfoy…Draco…smile then, a secretive, delighted smile.
Because that twisting, thrilling tingle in your belly scared you.
Harry felt a deep, wracking shudder consume him and a sudden, deep fright. No, I…
Let me see, damn you! I know, I felt it!
He felt Draco dig, searching, probing, jittery and expectant. Then a memory popped up without his volition.
Oh no, Draco, no….
But Draco was excited. Yes, Harry, Yes!
The first time he’d masturbated. Being alone in the quidditch showers, buck naked, his broom between his legs, pressing it up against his balls rhythmically, rocking against it, his face red and embarrassed from swelling up from the feeling of flying and competing against Draco. No one to talk to about it, no one to ask. He could feel Malfoy’s fascination, and thrashed in embarrassment.
Don’t fight it.
Don’t look, he insisted. Don’t look!
But Malfoy wanted to look. He lingered on it, enjoying it, sighing with a deep, glutting throb of arousal when Harry came. So sensual, Harry, so erotic.
Inevitably, it only brought up the darker moments that made him burn with shame. Sometimes dreams, sometimes fantasies, but none he had ever wanted anyone to know about. Draco snatched at every memory he tried to suppress. The night he had gone to talk to Sirius and saw him wanking through the ajar door, and he had stayed and watched and rubbed himself to a shattering orgasm. Unwanted, horrifying dreams of Snape, of Lucius, and of being naked on his knees and sodomized in the graveyard. Harry wanted to die, knowing that Draco knew he’d come. Fantasies…so many unacknowledged, suppressed fantasies he’d guiltily masturbated to in the nights; wrestling with Draco, fighting with him, frotting violently, kneeling before him, sucking on his cock.
Oh, Harry. Oh Harry, Draco gasped.
Stop, stop looking! he moaned. But Malfoy was quivering, both physically and mentally, he could feel an amorphous well of sensation building up inside him, something from Draco, something he didn’t recognize.
He sought out Draco’s memories in revenge, going back down the twisting helix of memories they’d blended, till he found that moment; as Draco seethed and fumed and watched him in the shower after losing the game, wanting to push him, wanting to hurt him, and feeling a wholly unexpected tightening and stiffening. He explored the distant echoes of Draco’s shock, his embarrassment, trying to minimize the event to his teasing friends. An insidious network of want, rage, lust, hate spread out from that singularity to underlie his every waking moment. He gasped as that amorphous feeling coagulated into an insidious, twisting snake, from somewhere dark, suppressed, unacknowledged.
Want RAGE humiliation LUST shame VENGANCE shame TAKE shame WANT want MUST have TAKE mount YES thrust OWN.
Harry gasped as a shocking, trembling cord of excitement and want weakened his legs as long-restrained angry lust gushed out like a burst dam. Malfoy lunged at him, forcing him onto his belly on the bed. His legs thrashed off the edge, and he tried to kick the blond away, but he trembled too badly and he was ashamed at how easily he assumed a submissive position, how easily Malfoy spread his legs wide. He made no move to stop Malfoy from stripping him of clothing.
I will have you, PotterHarry.
He couldn’t bring himself to vocally admit how turned on he was; he let his posture speak for him, and reveled in the sharp pulsing in his prick as Draco slid a finger up his arse. It was slippery with something, he was vaguely aware the boy had summoned a bottle from the dispensary cupboard, he didn’t care, for another finger slid in and it felt glorious. Draco was panting, the boy mounted him and prodded, pushed, and this was all rushed and fumbling and awkward and not at all hearts and flowers and slow tender preparation that first-timers ought to have but so fucking what, Draco’s prick pushed all the way up inside him and even with the pain it made him moan. They were so in synch now he could feel himself-Draco on top of him, warm, sweating, and flushed with bliss and guilt. He-Draco started pumping with quick, rhythmic jerks and their shared excitement was so pleasurable it was almost too much to bear, and oh, it was tightening, rising, spiraling higher, gushing, spreading… HarryDraco felt his entire body tighten and the pleasure climaxed in a shaking, trembling wave.
He felt his upper body tremor and his lower body sink onto the bed. They panted together, hot and sweaty, and as they slowly, tenderly fell back down from the heights, their minds, magic, all that they were settled, and so gently he barely felt it, clicked into place, silently, triumphantly.
He felt the last few symbols on Malfoy’s back evaporate away, releasing wisps of a black, cloudy substance into the air, and they both sighed in profound relief.
“Ha ha, fucker,” he mumbled.
Draco sniggered above him and rubbed at his shoulder before rising onto his haunches. Harry turned onto his back, supported himself on his elbows and watched the blond go to work with his wand, cleaning them both.
“Pass me a robe, will you?” he asked. “I suppose McGonagall or your parents will be back to check on us sooner or later, and I don’t want to show them my bits.”
Draco flicked his wand and a snowy white robe dropped onto his chest. “I like your bits,” he said as he eased into a robe of his own. He ran a sharp nail down the front of his chest. Harry hissed in a sharp breath. “They’re my bits, now. Only mine. Ever.”
Oh Merlin, such gloating. “Yeah, well, unless you hid it very well, your bits were just as virginal so less of the smug attitude.” Draco flushed, and Harry frowned. “Well, presumably that worked, because we both survived, but…this doesn’t feel as invasive as expected. I mean, I can feel you, your magic, how you’re feeling, but your thoughts aren’t as…well, in my face as they were at first.”
The blond smirked condescendingly. “Because I’m occluding, moron. It does take concentration, though, so I won’t be able to do it all the time. But I think since we aligned so well, it might not be as bad as father made out.” Draco scrambled over to sit beside him on the bed.
“That’s good. Not that I mind,” Harry continued quickly. “Since I learned a lot about you that was really interesting…”
“Yeah, well…wanker.”
Harry snickered, then sobered. “But it would suck if it was that intense all the time.”
“You’re just sore that I saw all those dirty little fantas-fuck, ow! Wanker.” Draco hit him back and rubbed his arm, scowling. “It’s not like you didn’t get to see how pathetically obsessed I was,” he mumbled.
“Yeah. Shocked me. I mean, really.” Harry nudged him. “Just so you know, I was never going to suddenly realize that all that anger and taunting and insulting was your way of showing you cared. This whole mess turned out to be something of a good thing,” he mused.
“Yeah well, wait till I get tired of occluding,” Draco returned sourly. “I’m going to have to teach you. We can take it in turns. It still won’t make everything easy, but it ought to make things manageable.”
Harry nodded. “…I expect things are going to be mental, especially at first.”
Malfoy shrugged a little awkwardly, then smirked. “At least now I understand why you’re such a moron; your mind is a mess. I’ve never known anyone more desperately in need of Occlumency. It’s insane.”
“Yeah, well…Fuck you, Malfoy.”
He felt Draco glow with amusement. “It’s not your fault,” he added generously. “You do have potential, it’s just that your life has been insane. You’re going to have to show me the rest soon. You’d think with everything you’ve had to do, Dumbledore would have also taught you how to manage it. But it seems you’ve had to just fumble along on your own.”
A mix of pleasure at Draco’s indignation and guilt because he agreed with him made him flush.
“Never fear, though, rescue is at hand.” Draco continued. “I guess since we’re stuck with this, I can help you put some order to it all. It’s going to take ages, though.”
He fell quiet, and put out his hand. Harry placed his in it. They sat side by side, pressing their hands together. Draco stared straight ahead.
“I’m sorry I got so…aggressive.”
Harry flushed. “I liked it.”
“I know.” Then the blond leaned over and kissed him, briefly, on the lips, before drawing away to stare at him. Harry licked his lips, tasting the boy’s saliva.
“Do you want to call your parents?”
“In a little while. Not just yet.”
Malfoy slowly let his head rest on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around the blonde’s thin body and held him securely.
They rested.
At the Altar
Now to take away your life -
Devour your soul afresh upon
The birth of every dawning day
- The spawn of sun and earth -
As of the way Prometheus lost hepatic flesh -
He stole fire! You stole gropes
And f*cks of me; so suffer thee!
Oh yes, perspire! Drizzle down the beads
Upon that crimson, blotchy skin -
I see the once cocksure pose, my man,
Is wearing terribly thin.
Indeed, an absence of repose
Discloses thumping in your chest -
Irregularly rhythmic - like the humping
(When you thought I was a body to molest) .
No more! my little man, for I shall wrest
The living essence from your
Paling, quivering form! -
You’ve had your gentle calm
Before the rumblings of the storm!
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2010
The phrase was simple, the wand movement easy to do. Harry waited and watched as Malfoy’s parents kissed their son.
“It is not good bye,” Narcissa said firmly. “I have faith in the both of you.” She turned to him, her expression set. “Consider your debt to me repaid. You will be a welcome addition to our family.”
Oh god, and that was something he hadn’t even considered. “…Thank you, Mrs Malfoy,” he stammered. “I will do everything I can.”
“Certainly, Mr Potter.” Lucius touched his son’s hair and drew back. “It seems your destiny was always entwined with ours, and now you will be our most beloved son in law.” The smile that accompanied these honeyed words did not comfort him. He watched them glide out the door with a frown.
“Fear not, Potter,” Malfoy interjected sardonically. “Thanks to you, father is defanged, and surprisingly content to be so. He has found he prefers political intrigue and private dabbling in the more…esoteric…of magic, to servitude.”
“Well that’s a relief,” he muttered. He shuffled awkwardly. “Let’s do this,” he said firmly enough. “We don’t have much time.”
Malfoy hesitated. “Wait. Let’s sit on the bed. I don’t want us to fall and crack our brains open.”
“…Okay.” He followed the blond onto the bed and they sat facing each other, close enough to join hands. “Alright. Let’s go.”
His companion nodded, his face flushed, body trembling. Harry sucked in a deep breath and said the words.
***
He opened his mind to murky chaos. This was nothing like viewing a pensive memory, with a fall and a stroll. This was thrashing around submerged in an ocean, no pole to orientate to, no solidity to stand on. Impressions, jumbles of words, half-phrases, images, snippets of scenes, all supported in a pervasive, gelatinous matrix of chaotic emotion. Draco’s mind was struggling against the initial violation as was his, and he could feel his magic gushing out uncontrollably, mixing with a flood of magic not his yet not strange. This was Draco, and he knew Draco. It seemed best to ride out this initial confusion and trust that it would settle enough for him to find some way forward, a thread to grasp.
It seemed logical to try and grasp an early memory and follow down the expected timeline, and when he found a flash of a small broom and a manor room, he snatched at it eagerly. [House elves, many toys, parents so big and beautiful. Cupboard, Loud red fat face mustache yelling smacking pain. Flying, lessons, straight back, etiquette. Darkness, frying pan, eggs and bacon, hungry, lonely. Manor stairs, junior potions book, dinner parties, tinkling laughter, boredom. Housework, resentment, Dudley pointing his finger, weariness.] In his eagerness, he had forgotten that Malfoy could snatch back. He wasn’t embarrassed about the memories, exactly, and it was satisfying to know that Malfoy would never again claim he’d had a cossetted, spoilt childhood, but this was uncomfortable. He could feel a flood of disbelief and a discomfort different to his own and decided to move on.
[Madam Malkins, small, scruffy boy with pretty eyes. Want to impress. Small, pointy blond boy, intimidating. Train. Red head. Weasley. Insults. Enmity.] The thoughts flickered back and forth, the same but from different perspectives. But they were meeting, their minds starting to get the hang of being enmeshed. Malfoy had been nervous, he realized with astonishment. As inexperienced as him in making friends, and brought up to believe he was superior. Trying to impress him.
You didn’t know? This was Malfoy of the present day. You didn’t know.
I was intimidated by you. You were like Dudley.
Yes, I see.
Ron. You were your mother’s little dragon. The insult stung.
He could feel Malfoy flinch, both in his mind and physically.
Move on, let’s move on.
There was more, more from Malfoy; Snape, praising him. Dueling with him in second year. Slytherin common room politics, Slytherin one-upmanship, lessons, holidays seeking his father’s praise, all saturated with Potter, Potter, I hate you, Potter and all the while wondering if anyone really liked him.
Snape liked you. He cared about you.
You didn’t.
I didn’t see the real you. Only what you showed me, he retorted.
And honestly, there were things not to like. He had been spiteful, he had been immature. In the beginning, his pureblood beliefs had felt right and proper. He was deeply, thoroughly, spectacularly resentful.
And what about you? Draco’s voice sneered. Arrogant. Glory seeking. Always in the Prophet, always the teacher’s favourite.
Yes, there were all the old feelings of hate flooding him, every bit as all-encompassing and irrational as Harry’s own had been. He didn’t mind the irrational hate, it was…it was theirs, it always had been theirs, and it was passionate and hot and alive and strangely accepting. Pulling in. But the dislike…it was cold, and it hurt, which must have been due to this stupid ‘bond’ because he wouldn’t normally feel that way. Except that he did and would have. You never saw what it was really like, Harry thought resentfully.
Then show me. Malfoy was impatient.
So much of their dislike was because they’d been too young to understand. If only he could explain, then maybe he could make the dislike fade; cobwebs he could bat away. Not arrogant. Impatient, sometimes. Quick to judge. Saw things in black and white, in the beginning. Yes, need to watch that. Never glory seeking, the school turned on me almost every year, the prophet kept lying, Fudge claiming I was crazy…Draco, look.
Troll, Devil’s Snare, Chess, Keys, Quirrell, Voldemort, Acromantula, Chamber, basilisk, Tom Riddle Ginny diary pain…
Malfoy’s mind thrashed, pushed away, and he realized the boy was overwhelmed by the flood of too many memories, too much emotion heaped upon him all at once.
Later, sift later, Malfoy projected. Stop, stop, stop.
He tried to quiet his mind, aware of Draco’s astonishment.
Merlin’s testicles, Potter, came his awed voice.
He laughed. That’s only up to second year.
Gently. We need to merge, it’s too hard if it’s too much at once. We’ll sort the rest out later.
He nodded and tried to be open. He felt Malfoy sift through his memories, and received flashes of his own in return. Felt Malfoy’s deep, thrilling excitement to have such intimate access to him. Felt ribbons of jealousy associated; not connected to him, connected to height, red, freckles, Weasley.
Malfoy drifted through later memories, of Sirius, of the department of mysteries. He did not linger over the pain, and for that he was grateful.
I was so angry at you, but seems like you couldn’t control anything.
Yeah, well, I didn’t even try to imagine how you felt.
There was a feeling of agreement, but Malfoy allowed him to focus on his memories. Sixth year. That was a revelation.
You were so scared. More scared than I ever dreamt.
I thought it was going to be my chance to prove I was powerful. Only it wasn’t. By the end, I used to wish you would find out and save me from it.
I wish I had. But I wanted to see you as nothing but a prat.
He could feel Malfoy…Draco…smile then, a secretive, delighted smile.
Because that twisting, thrilling tingle in your belly scared you.
Harry felt a deep, wracking shudder consume him and a sudden, deep fright. No, I…
Let me see, damn you! I know, I felt it!
He felt Draco dig, searching, probing, jittery and expectant. Then a memory popped up without his volition.
Oh no, Draco, no….
But Draco was excited. Yes, Harry, Yes!
The first time he’d masturbated. Being alone in the quidditch showers, buck naked, his broom between his legs, pressing it up against his balls rhythmically, rocking against it, his face red and embarrassed from swelling up from the feeling of flying and competing against Draco. No one to talk to about it, no one to ask. He could feel Malfoy’s fascination, and thrashed in embarrassment.
Don’t fight it.
Don’t look, he insisted. Don’t look!
But Malfoy wanted to look. He lingered on it, enjoying it, sighing with a deep, glutting throb of arousal when Harry came. So sensual, Harry, so erotic.
Inevitably, it only brought up the darker moments that made him burn with shame. Sometimes dreams, sometimes fantasies, but none he had ever wanted anyone to know about. Draco snatched at every memory he tried to suppress. The night he had gone to talk to Sirius and saw him wanking through the ajar door, and he had stayed and watched and rubbed himself to a shattering orgasm. Unwanted, horrifying dreams of Snape, of Lucius, and of being naked on his knees and sodomized in the graveyard. Harry wanted to die, knowing that Draco knew he’d come. Fantasies…so many unacknowledged, suppressed fantasies he’d guiltily masturbated to in the nights; wrestling with Draco, fighting with him, frotting violently, kneeling before him, sucking on his cock.
Oh, Harry. Oh Harry, Draco gasped.
Stop, stop looking! he moaned. But Malfoy was quivering, both physically and mentally, he could feel an amorphous well of sensation building up inside him, something from Draco, something he didn’t recognize.
He sought out Draco’s memories in revenge, going back down the twisting helix of memories they’d blended, till he found that moment; as Draco seethed and fumed and watched him in the shower after losing the game, wanting to push him, wanting to hurt him, and feeling a wholly unexpected tightening and stiffening. He explored the distant echoes of Draco’s shock, his embarrassment, trying to minimize the event to his teasing friends. An insidious network of want, rage, lust, hate spread out from that singularity to underlie his every waking moment. He gasped as that amorphous feeling coagulated into an insidious, twisting snake, from somewhere dark, suppressed, unacknowledged.
Want RAGE humiliation LUST shame VENGANCE shame TAKE shame WANT want MUST have TAKE mount YES thrust OWN.
Harry gasped as a shocking, trembling cord of excitement and want weakened his legs as long-restrained angry lust gushed out like a burst dam. Malfoy lunged at him, forcing him onto his belly on the bed. His legs thrashed off the edge, and he tried to kick the blond away, but he trembled too badly and he was ashamed at how easily he assumed a submissive position, how easily Malfoy spread his legs wide. He made no move to stop Malfoy from stripping him of clothing.
I will have you, PotterHarry.
He couldn’t bring himself to vocally admit how turned on he was; he let his posture speak for him, and reveled in the sharp pulsing in his prick as Draco slid a finger up his arse. It was slippery with something, he was vaguely aware the boy had summoned a bottle from the dispensary cupboard, he didn’t care, for another finger slid in and it felt glorious. Draco was panting, the boy mounted him and prodded, pushed, and this was all rushed and fumbling and awkward and not at all hearts and flowers and slow tender preparation that first-timers ought to have but so fucking what, Draco’s prick pushed all the way up inside him and even with the pain it made him moan. They were so in synch now he could feel himself-Draco on top of him, warm, sweating, and flushed with bliss and guilt. He-Draco started pumping with quick, rhythmic jerks and their shared excitement was so pleasurable it was almost too much to bear, and oh, it was tightening, rising, spiraling higher, gushing, spreading… HarryDraco felt his entire body tighten and the pleasure climaxed in a shaking, trembling wave.
He felt his upper body tremor and his lower body sink onto the bed. They panted together, hot and sweaty, and as they slowly, tenderly fell back down from the heights, their minds, magic, all that they were settled, and so gently he barely felt it, clicked into place, silently, triumphantly.
He felt the last few symbols on Malfoy’s back evaporate away, releasing wisps of a black, cloudy substance into the air, and they both sighed in profound relief.
“Ha ha, fucker,” he mumbled.
Draco sniggered above him and rubbed at his shoulder before rising onto his haunches. Harry turned onto his back, supported himself on his elbows and watched the blond go to work with his wand, cleaning them both.
“Pass me a robe, will you?” he asked. “I suppose McGonagall or your parents will be back to check on us sooner or later, and I don’t want to show them my bits.”
Draco flicked his wand and a snowy white robe dropped onto his chest. “I like your bits,” he said as he eased into a robe of his own. He ran a sharp nail down the front of his chest. Harry hissed in a sharp breath. “They’re my bits, now. Only mine. Ever.”
Oh Merlin, such gloating. “Yeah, well, unless you hid it very well, your bits were just as virginal so less of the smug attitude.” Draco flushed, and Harry frowned. “Well, presumably that worked, because we both survived, but…this doesn’t feel as invasive as expected. I mean, I can feel you, your magic, how you’re feeling, but your thoughts aren’t as…well, in my face as they were at first.”
The blond smirked condescendingly. “Because I’m occluding, moron. It does take concentration, though, so I won’t be able to do it all the time. But I think since we aligned so well, it might not be as bad as father made out.” Draco scrambled over to sit beside him on the bed.
“That’s good. Not that I mind,” Harry continued quickly. “Since I learned a lot about you that was really interesting…”
“Yeah, well…wanker.”
Harry snickered, then sobered. “But it would suck if it was that intense all the time.”
“You’re just sore that I saw all those dirty little fantas-fuck, ow! Wanker.” Draco hit him back and rubbed his arm, scowling. “It’s not like you didn’t get to see how pathetically obsessed I was,” he mumbled.
“Yeah. Shocked me. I mean, really.” Harry nudged him. “Just so you know, I was never going to suddenly realize that all that anger and taunting and insulting was your way of showing you cared. This whole mess turned out to be something of a good thing,” he mused.
“Yeah well, wait till I get tired of occluding,” Draco returned sourly. “I’m going to have to teach you. We can take it in turns. It still won’t make everything easy, but it ought to make things manageable.”
Harry nodded. “…I expect things are going to be mental, especially at first.”
Malfoy shrugged a little awkwardly, then smirked. “At least now I understand why you’re such a moron; your mind is a mess. I’ve never known anyone more desperately in need of Occlumency. It’s insane.”
“Yeah, well…Fuck you, Malfoy.”
He felt Draco glow with amusement. “It’s not your fault,” he added generously. “You do have potential, it’s just that your life has been insane. You’re going to have to show me the rest soon. You’d think with everything you’ve had to do, Dumbledore would have also taught you how to manage it. But it seems you’ve had to just fumble along on your own.”
A mix of pleasure at Draco’s indignation and guilt because he agreed with him made him flush.
“Never fear, though, rescue is at hand.” Draco continued. “I guess since we’re stuck with this, I can help you put some order to it all. It’s going to take ages, though.”
He fell quiet, and put out his hand. Harry placed his in it. They sat side by side, pressing their hands together. Draco stared straight ahead.
“I’m sorry I got so…aggressive.”
Harry flushed. “I liked it.”
“I know.” Then the blond leaned over and kissed him, briefly, on the lips, before drawing away to stare at him. Harry licked his lips, tasting the boy’s saliva.
“Do you want to call your parents?”
“In a little while. Not just yet.”
Malfoy slowly let his head rest on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around the blonde’s thin body and held him securely.
They rested.
At the Altar
Now to take away your life -
Devour your soul afresh upon
The birth of every dawning day
- The spawn of sun and earth -
As of the way Prometheus lost hepatic flesh -
He stole fire! You stole gropes
And f*cks of me; so suffer thee!
Oh yes, perspire! Drizzle down the beads
Upon that crimson, blotchy skin -
I see the once cocksure pose, my man,
Is wearing terribly thin.
Indeed, an absence of repose
Discloses thumping in your chest -
Irregularly rhythmic - like the humping
(When you thought I was a body to molest) .
No more! my little man, for I shall wrest
The living essence from your
Paling, quivering form! -
You’ve had your gentle calm
Before the rumblings of the storm!
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2010