Happy HD Hols aoifeism! Surreptitious (R)
For
aoifeic
Title: Surreptitious
Rating: R
Summary: Post-Hogwarts, post-war. Draco gets his happily-ever-after.
Disclaimer: JKR owns. I merely dream (and plot).
A/N: I'm sorry I didn't manage to fit all the kinks in - I hope you'll like it anyway! Suffice to say I was a bit blind-sided by one squick (no fluff!) and everything snowballed from there. *blows (extremely belated) Christmas kisses*
Surreptitious
There were dark circles under his eyes, underlining them like mascara.
That infernal goodness was still there, dormant under a layer of jadedness. Unlike the months after the war when he had looked careworn and battleweary - and lost - he smiled now, and each quirk of the lips was as smooth and impenetrable as silk.
Ron had betrayed him.
Granger had died screaming.
Draco supposed that was enough reason for anyone to feel a little disenchanted, and to hone bitterness and detachment into an impeccable façade.
Potter circled the gathered crowd of glittering socialites and Ministry bigwigs, holding the ladies’ wrists against his lips and the men’s gaze with his eyes. Draco watched him from under lowered lids, raising a cocktail - his fingers cupping its delicate glass stem - before wetting his mouth with the acrid taste of vodka.
The velvet waistcoats of the staff, lurking unobtrusively in the shadows, gleamed against their glasses of chilled champagne. Draco smiled as he caught the eye of a particularly toothsome waiter. The party was interminable - it was a charity event for such blighted creatures as house-elves and werewolves, and the only reason why anyone was here was because of Potter.
Potter, whose dark green robes shifted against the angles of his body like shards of light, making each movement unfold in an exquisite play of shadow.
Potter, whom - after the war and his choice to remain in its aftermath - no one could get enough of.
Gabriel Foret, a French aristocrat whom Draco knew by name and by sight, had Potter’s attention now, and he was leaning in to murmur into Harry’s ear against the din of clinking glasses and falsetto laughter. The light from a nearby chandelier shone directly into Draco’s eyes as the man accidentally grazed Harry’s cheek, lingering against stubble and making Harry’s lips curve in a slight, ironic smile.
Gabriel was well-known in the pureblood set. A Beauxbatons boy, he had been Triwizard champion in his time, and combined hearty good looks with exquisite manners.
Being one himself, he was also known for his predilection of fucking beautiful, powerful men.
Draco watched Potter and Gabriel together, and the close proximity of Gabriel’s lush lips to Potter’s. Against the dark foliage of the tropical palms that dotted the marble hall, the two men stood out like glittering gems - one in satin and the other in brocade - like a matched set.
Draco’s eyes followed the arch of Harry’s neck as he laughed, tipping his head backwards, in response to something Gabriel was murmuring into his ear. His fine-rimmed glasses were pushed back against his nose in a school-boyish manner that Draco remembered from Hogwarts - one of few habits that still remained.
He realised that his trousers - grey-worsted wool - were tented, and that his mouth was uncharacteristically dry.
A slow burn of arousal lit Draco’s stomach, even as his fingers tightened around the glass flute.
Somehow, watching Potter always made him hard.
Draco gracefully lowered his head - to hide the flush he could feel cresting his cheeks, and to avoid the sight of Gabriel putting a casual hand on Potter’s forearm, within touching distance of his waist. Watching the two, chatting intimately, turned toward each other, he felt a sudden pang in his stomach that felt suspiciously like - pain.
‘Malfoy. Lurking in a corner, as usual.’
Draco forced his fingers to still, and looked up into dark eyes and a sly, familiar smile. He inclined his head, taking in a bulkier figure and the enormous bloodstone adorning one long, spider-like finger.
‘After the dungeons, you learn to appreciate the shadows. As you well know.’ His response was insouciant, automatic - Potter was talking animatedly now, and Gabriel’s arm was still fastened on his forearm.
Only a flicker of the eyelids betrayed the direction of his gaze, but Nott, clever bastard that he was, raised his eyebrows infinestimally.
‘Looking for someone?’ The expression on Nott’s face was coolly amused, and Draco brought himself back to wary attention. Nott had distinguished himself during the war, turning informant for Severus long before Draco had ultimately capitulated. He had turned over his parents, both steeped in Death Eater business, without a hint of compunction. Draco instinctively repressed a shudder, before remembering what he had, without regrets, done to his father to protect his mother.
He turned to Nott, simultaneously doing a quick check to see whether his Occlumency wards were in place. Voldemort or no, Nott and Draco were - first and foremost - Slytherin.
‘I was wondering whether that monstrosity on Figg’s hat is an actual replica of her cat,’ Draco smirked sardonically - Arabella was a few feet away from Gabriel and Harry. Nott followed his gaze, but stopped a few yards short. ‘What do you think are the odds?’
‘The odds of you lying, or of Potter bedding the French crumpet tonight?’ Nott ran his tongue along his teeth as he smiled, a habit that Draco had always found singularly repulsive.
Holding Nott’s gaze, Draco forced himself to unclench his fingers. For all that no one really thought of him, or considered him, Nott was dangerous, and dangerously subtle.
‘I would think the odds on both,’ Draco smiled, ‘would be quite high.’ He tilted his head. ‘We lived in the same dorm for six years - I forget you know me too well.’
Nott laughed, like the rasp of a breeze over dry bones.
‘I doubt anyone really knows you, Draco, especially since your old guard have found more comfortable accommodation at Azkaban.’ His eyes crinkled when he smiled.
‘And as to the odds of Potter straying tonight, I think you’ll find he has -’ Nott’s eyes flicked up and down Draco’s body, a mere flutter of his eyelids, ‘more insidious plans than sampling our foreign delicacies, delectable though they may be.’
Draco felt his heart beat faster; no one knew that he, that he - He pulled himself together.
‘Why, Teddy,’ Draco coyly lowered his eyelids. ‘You either underestimate Foret’s charms, or vastly overestimate my own, or haven’t a clue about Potter’s proclivities.’
He flicked his eyes upwards through the soft fall of his hair, and smiled the smile that he had inherited from his father - eroticism nuanced with malevolence, a play of lips against teeth. ‘Regardless, I never knew you … cared.’
Nott stilled, his eyes turning beady as he surveyed the sight Draco portrayed, his crimson robes raising a flush to his cheeks, turning his hair silver, as he leaned against the marble balustrade.
Of all the skills Draco had acquired during the war, sensuality was a gift he wielded effortlessly. The droop of a bottom lip, the twist of his body - the beautiful angles his face created against the moonlight were weapons that were a shame to leave unexploited.
For a moment, they stood still, silhouetted.
‘Gentlemen?’ The tone was quiet, amused - but Draco would know that voice anywhere. He turned, raising his head, to see Potter right behind him, his eyes inscrutable, bright viridian.
Despite himself, Draco couldn’t help his body’s instinctive reaction to turn towards Potter, like a plant toward the sun, like a moth winging to flame. Nott, shrewd as ever, noticed the slight movement, and Draco could see the shutters falling as he catalogued this further bit of knowledge.
‘Potter.’ Nott drawled the name out, savouring each consonant on the tip of his tongue, much like Draco used to do at school. Harry’s eyes drifted over Nott, and Draco stifled the sudden urge to trace each faint line budding across that celebrated forehead.
‘Nott. Pleasure to meet you again.’ Harry’s smile was easy, practiced, and a far cry from the awkwardness of the boy Draco remembered. With a wry twist of the lip, he watched as Nott and Harry clasped hands - somehow, somewhere, Potter had learnt to arch an eyebrow. ‘Far be it for me to steal away your companion, but I have some matters to discuss with Malfoy, about the Werewolf Emancipation Act. Will you excuse us?’
Nott fingered the stem of his port glass, and returned Harry’s smile with a slow one of his own. ‘By all means, Potter, be my guest. After all,’ he inclined his head and surreptitiously passed a tongue over his lips, ‘Draco’s … all yours.’
The sight of Nott, eyes alight with contemplation, followed Draco across the gleaming hall.
::
The warming charms cast inside didn’t extend to the exterior of the cavernous manor, and Draco found himself folding his fingers into his sleeves, like a first-year without gloves, as they moved wordlessly toward the eastern battlements.
Harry was silent as they approached a little copse of trees; far enough for the faint hum of laughter to recede, near enough for the spill of light from the entrance to reflect on darkened snow.
After pausing, Harry took in the faint shivers that wracked Draco’s body, the position of his arms, and wordlessly cast a warming charm over them both before leaning against stone and closing his eyes.
Draco watched the faint smudges Harry’s eyelashes made against his cheek and felt a pang of - something, low in his abdomen. There was a moment when he hesitated, standing in the darkness, before stepping through snow and laying a hand gently against Harry’s face.
Harry turned his head into Draco’s embrace, his lips grazing the groove of Draco’s heart-line.
‘Your hands are cold.’
Draco smiled wanly - not that Harry, with his eyes closed, ever saw. He stepped closer, aligning their chests together, letting their cloaks mingle in a parody of red and green. ‘Warm me up, then.’
They stood, huddled against stone wall, for a moment, in which Draco dared to tuck his head into the nook of Harry’s neck, breathing in Harry’s scent of white flowers and fresh snow, overlaid with the sharpness of alcohol. Harry’s hand came up, briefly, to stroke his fingers through the waterfall of Draco’s hair, before he stopped.
‘I thought Nott was bothering you. What did he want?’
Draco sighed quietly against the warm wool of Harry’s sweater before raising his eyes, meeting Harry’s. ‘He’s being a bit of an arse. He saw me looking at you and - Gabriel.’
‘What of it?’ Harry’s hand stilled.
‘He thought I fancied you. That’s all. Twat.’
From this angle, Draco could see the shadows that Harry’s frown cast upon his face. ‘He knows, then?’
‘He suspects. He doesn’t know anything.’
Draco could feel Harry relax - the loosening of muscles in his jaw, around his eyes, and the way his arm came up around Draco, pulling him onto himself, into the shelter of Harry’s cloak. Draco followed willingly.
After a moment of quiet breathing, hearing the wind whistle through the trees and the crackle of breaking twigs, Harry lowered his lips and pressed them against Draco’s. One slow swipe, two - with a sigh, Harry nuzzled their mouths, covering his lips.
Cupping his palm beneath Draco’s jaw, Harry licked the corner of Draco’s mouth until it fell open, and quietly slipped his tongue inside. Draco tilted his head and felt the worn grooves of stone behind his back.
In the shadows of the party cast in Harry’s honour, away from the light, they kissed - soundlessly.
Feeling the slow burn of Harry’s tongue against his own, thrusting forcefully into his mouth, Draco shivered. His hand came up of its own volition, tangling in the unruly strands of midnight hair even as the cold frame of Harry’s glasses pressed against his cheekbone.
He sucked on Harry’s tongue as he felt Harry’s hand delve under his robes, squeezing his arse through a layer of velvet. A moment - a whispered spell, a sudden draft - and Draco felt a nimble finger, chilled by the cold, slip furtively into the furrow of his crack.
He moaned.
He allowed Potter to finger, then fuck him in the moonlight, with his legs around Potter’s waist, his head arched back against the wall.
He saw the moon, before seeing stars explode on the insides of his eyelids.
::
It was cold, against the crumbling wall, watching snow fall from within the bubble of the Invisibility Charm and hearing the far-off rustles and mutters of the party dying.
Draco closed his eyes, feeling the faint tickle of Harry’s lips feathering across his jaw, the soddenness of the trousers bunched around his knees.
He had never advocated talking after sex, or about sex - but with Harry, he felt the strange, inexplicable urge to just -
‘You’re tense.’ There was a light gleam in Harry’s eyes that Draco had only seen post-orgasm, which transformed his smile into the one Draco remembered on a wide-eyed, guileless eleven-year-old boy, and not a twenty-one-year old veteran of war. It was this smile, Draco sometimes thought, that was the root of all his problems.
Feeling the slickness coating his insides, and the soreness of his thighs still draped around Potter’s hips, Draco looked back into green eyes helplessly.
‘Hey.’ When Draco didn’t speak, Harry trailed a light finger down the side of his cheek. ‘What’s wrong?’
I love you.
Draco sometimes wondered where his life had gone awry. He had had a wonderful childhood, and loving parents, and somewhere along the line he had gone to school to become a wizard and now all his friends were dead and a man was fucking his brains out in the snow.
A man who had never pretended to love him back.
Avoiding Harry’s eyes, Draco watched the glide of Harry’s silk shirt against velvet, the dark green of his cloak against incarnadine. Instead of we never talk, or nobody knows that we’re together, or it’s been… two years, Harry - what happened to come out of Draco’s mouth, in a harsh whisper against Harry’s chest, was ‘Gabriel.’
He felt Harry’s brow furrow in a frown, as Harry quietly shifted Draco’s knees from around his waist, setting them back on the ground. Stubbornly, Draco hung onto Harry’s neck, feeling the slowing pulse in the crook of his clavicle flicker against his fingers.
‘Gabriel Foret?’
Draco closed his eyes tiredly - so they were going to have this parody of a conversation. He felt curiously vulnerable, moulded half-naked against the warmth of Harry’s body, their figures casting a single silhouette in the moonlight. ‘He was … touching you, I noticed, at the party.’
He didn’t need to open his eyes to sense Harry’s sudden stillness, his withdrawal.
‘Even if he was, what of it?’
‘He … has a reputation, for impeccable taste in men.’
The sharp bark of Harry’s laughter reverberated against his ear, before Draco felt the gentle press of Harry’s fingers under his chin, forcing him to look up.
‘Draco.’
The word was a whisper, uttered against Draco’s trembling mouth in the instant before Harry took it in a hard kiss, ravaging it, pressing Draco back against grey stone.
Draco bit Harry’s lip, and felt his heart silently breaking even as Harry rained kisses on the open gash of his mouth. Why did Harry sound so amused?
‘Malfoy.’
He gasped when Harry suddenly lowered his head, nibbling on the tender flash of his neck as his fingers fell on the little velvet buttons that adorned his shirt. The material shifted like water as Harry spread it wide, and softly fingered the peak of a stiffening nipple in the open vee.
‘Gabriel sits on the pureblood panel that oversees house-elf rights - I was going over the proposed bill with him tonight. And I’m glad you think I’m a great catch… and he might even be willing … but … he’s nowhere as beautiful as you.’
Each little jumbled of words was branded onto Draco’s skin like fire, as Harry nibbled his way down Draco’s neck onto his chest. Watching the most powerful man in the world flick a tongue around his nipple, Draco buried his hands in Harry’s hair and whispered, ‘You’re such a whore, Potter’.
‘You’re the only one I let into my bed.’ There was a sudden softness in Harry’s eyes that Draco hadn’t seen since - since fifth year, and he swallowed the uncharacteristic lump in his throat.
Forcing Harry’s head up, a million questions ran through Draco head - but I don’t live with you, or tell you I love you, and you don’t... love me - but all he could manage, as he unthinkingly laced Harry’s fingers through his own in the cold, was ‘Why?’
‘Of all the men throwing themselves at your feet, Potter,’ Draco cleared his throat, and forced himself to drawl lightly, ‘why me?’
Against the lost howl of the wind and falling dribbles of snow, Harry Potter looked into Draco’s eyes, and at silver-blonde hair glinting like fine metal against the callused pads of his fingers.
‘You’ve never pretended to feel anything but hate for me,’ the twist of Harry’s mouth was almost cruel, against the shining trust in his eyes. ‘And after… after the way Ron betrayed us, I respect that.’
Draco watched the wry, bittersweet smile quirk the corner of Harry’s lips, and - letting his eyes fall, watching the shadows gathering in pools about his feet - he pressed a soft, fleeting kiss on the rise of Harry’s knuckles.
Feeling Harry relax into his touch, Draco murmured into his skin, smelling the scent of white flowers and snow, ‘You’re right, Potter. My feelings for you haven’t changed a bit.’
fin
aoifeic
Title: Surreptitious
Rating: R
Summary: Post-Hogwarts, post-war. Draco gets his happily-ever-after.
Disclaimer: JKR owns. I merely dream (and plot).
A/N: I'm sorry I didn't manage to fit all the kinks in - I hope you'll like it anyway! Suffice to say I was a bit blind-sided by one squick (no fluff!) and everything snowballed from there. *blows (extremely belated) Christmas kisses*
Surreptitious
There were dark circles under his eyes, underlining them like mascara.
That infernal goodness was still there, dormant under a layer of jadedness. Unlike the months after the war when he had looked careworn and battleweary - and lost - he smiled now, and each quirk of the lips was as smooth and impenetrable as silk.
Ron had betrayed him.
Granger had died screaming.
Draco supposed that was enough reason for anyone to feel a little disenchanted, and to hone bitterness and detachment into an impeccable façade.
Potter circled the gathered crowd of glittering socialites and Ministry bigwigs, holding the ladies’ wrists against his lips and the men’s gaze with his eyes. Draco watched him from under lowered lids, raising a cocktail - his fingers cupping its delicate glass stem - before wetting his mouth with the acrid taste of vodka.
The velvet waistcoats of the staff, lurking unobtrusively in the shadows, gleamed against their glasses of chilled champagne. Draco smiled as he caught the eye of a particularly toothsome waiter. The party was interminable - it was a charity event for such blighted creatures as house-elves and werewolves, and the only reason why anyone was here was because of Potter.
Potter, whose dark green robes shifted against the angles of his body like shards of light, making each movement unfold in an exquisite play of shadow.
Potter, whom - after the war and his choice to remain in its aftermath - no one could get enough of.
Gabriel Foret, a French aristocrat whom Draco knew by name and by sight, had Potter’s attention now, and he was leaning in to murmur into Harry’s ear against the din of clinking glasses and falsetto laughter. The light from a nearby chandelier shone directly into Draco’s eyes as the man accidentally grazed Harry’s cheek, lingering against stubble and making Harry’s lips curve in a slight, ironic smile.
Gabriel was well-known in the pureblood set. A Beauxbatons boy, he had been Triwizard champion in his time, and combined hearty good looks with exquisite manners.
Being one himself, he was also known for his predilection of fucking beautiful, powerful men.
Draco watched Potter and Gabriel together, and the close proximity of Gabriel’s lush lips to Potter’s. Against the dark foliage of the tropical palms that dotted the marble hall, the two men stood out like glittering gems - one in satin and the other in brocade - like a matched set.
Draco’s eyes followed the arch of Harry’s neck as he laughed, tipping his head backwards, in response to something Gabriel was murmuring into his ear. His fine-rimmed glasses were pushed back against his nose in a school-boyish manner that Draco remembered from Hogwarts - one of few habits that still remained.
He realised that his trousers - grey-worsted wool - were tented, and that his mouth was uncharacteristically dry.
A slow burn of arousal lit Draco’s stomach, even as his fingers tightened around the glass flute.
Somehow, watching Potter always made him hard.
Draco gracefully lowered his head - to hide the flush he could feel cresting his cheeks, and to avoid the sight of Gabriel putting a casual hand on Potter’s forearm, within touching distance of his waist. Watching the two, chatting intimately, turned toward each other, he felt a sudden pang in his stomach that felt suspiciously like - pain.
‘Malfoy. Lurking in a corner, as usual.’
Draco forced his fingers to still, and looked up into dark eyes and a sly, familiar smile. He inclined his head, taking in a bulkier figure and the enormous bloodstone adorning one long, spider-like finger.
‘After the dungeons, you learn to appreciate the shadows. As you well know.’ His response was insouciant, automatic - Potter was talking animatedly now, and Gabriel’s arm was still fastened on his forearm.
Only a flicker of the eyelids betrayed the direction of his gaze, but Nott, clever bastard that he was, raised his eyebrows infinestimally.
‘Looking for someone?’ The expression on Nott’s face was coolly amused, and Draco brought himself back to wary attention. Nott had distinguished himself during the war, turning informant for Severus long before Draco had ultimately capitulated. He had turned over his parents, both steeped in Death Eater business, without a hint of compunction. Draco instinctively repressed a shudder, before remembering what he had, without regrets, done to his father to protect his mother.
He turned to Nott, simultaneously doing a quick check to see whether his Occlumency wards were in place. Voldemort or no, Nott and Draco were - first and foremost - Slytherin.
‘I was wondering whether that monstrosity on Figg’s hat is an actual replica of her cat,’ Draco smirked sardonically - Arabella was a few feet away from Gabriel and Harry. Nott followed his gaze, but stopped a few yards short. ‘What do you think are the odds?’
‘The odds of you lying, or of Potter bedding the French crumpet tonight?’ Nott ran his tongue along his teeth as he smiled, a habit that Draco had always found singularly repulsive.
Holding Nott’s gaze, Draco forced himself to unclench his fingers. For all that no one really thought of him, or considered him, Nott was dangerous, and dangerously subtle.
‘I would think the odds on both,’ Draco smiled, ‘would be quite high.’ He tilted his head. ‘We lived in the same dorm for six years - I forget you know me too well.’
Nott laughed, like the rasp of a breeze over dry bones.
‘I doubt anyone really knows you, Draco, especially since your old guard have found more comfortable accommodation at Azkaban.’ His eyes crinkled when he smiled.
‘And as to the odds of Potter straying tonight, I think you’ll find he has -’ Nott’s eyes flicked up and down Draco’s body, a mere flutter of his eyelids, ‘more insidious plans than sampling our foreign delicacies, delectable though they may be.’
Draco felt his heart beat faster; no one knew that he, that he - He pulled himself together.
‘Why, Teddy,’ Draco coyly lowered his eyelids. ‘You either underestimate Foret’s charms, or vastly overestimate my own, or haven’t a clue about Potter’s proclivities.’
He flicked his eyes upwards through the soft fall of his hair, and smiled the smile that he had inherited from his father - eroticism nuanced with malevolence, a play of lips against teeth. ‘Regardless, I never knew you … cared.’
Nott stilled, his eyes turning beady as he surveyed the sight Draco portrayed, his crimson robes raising a flush to his cheeks, turning his hair silver, as he leaned against the marble balustrade.
Of all the skills Draco had acquired during the war, sensuality was a gift he wielded effortlessly. The droop of a bottom lip, the twist of his body - the beautiful angles his face created against the moonlight were weapons that were a shame to leave unexploited.
For a moment, they stood still, silhouetted.
‘Gentlemen?’ The tone was quiet, amused - but Draco would know that voice anywhere. He turned, raising his head, to see Potter right behind him, his eyes inscrutable, bright viridian.
Despite himself, Draco couldn’t help his body’s instinctive reaction to turn towards Potter, like a plant toward the sun, like a moth winging to flame. Nott, shrewd as ever, noticed the slight movement, and Draco could see the shutters falling as he catalogued this further bit of knowledge.
‘Potter.’ Nott drawled the name out, savouring each consonant on the tip of his tongue, much like Draco used to do at school. Harry’s eyes drifted over Nott, and Draco stifled the sudden urge to trace each faint line budding across that celebrated forehead.
‘Nott. Pleasure to meet you again.’ Harry’s smile was easy, practiced, and a far cry from the awkwardness of the boy Draco remembered. With a wry twist of the lip, he watched as Nott and Harry clasped hands - somehow, somewhere, Potter had learnt to arch an eyebrow. ‘Far be it for me to steal away your companion, but I have some matters to discuss with Malfoy, about the Werewolf Emancipation Act. Will you excuse us?’
Nott fingered the stem of his port glass, and returned Harry’s smile with a slow one of his own. ‘By all means, Potter, be my guest. After all,’ he inclined his head and surreptitiously passed a tongue over his lips, ‘Draco’s … all yours.’
The sight of Nott, eyes alight with contemplation, followed Draco across the gleaming hall.
::
The warming charms cast inside didn’t extend to the exterior of the cavernous manor, and Draco found himself folding his fingers into his sleeves, like a first-year without gloves, as they moved wordlessly toward the eastern battlements.
Harry was silent as they approached a little copse of trees; far enough for the faint hum of laughter to recede, near enough for the spill of light from the entrance to reflect on darkened snow.
After pausing, Harry took in the faint shivers that wracked Draco’s body, the position of his arms, and wordlessly cast a warming charm over them both before leaning against stone and closing his eyes.
Draco watched the faint smudges Harry’s eyelashes made against his cheek and felt a pang of - something, low in his abdomen. There was a moment when he hesitated, standing in the darkness, before stepping through snow and laying a hand gently against Harry’s face.
Harry turned his head into Draco’s embrace, his lips grazing the groove of Draco’s heart-line.
‘Your hands are cold.’
Draco smiled wanly - not that Harry, with his eyes closed, ever saw. He stepped closer, aligning their chests together, letting their cloaks mingle in a parody of red and green. ‘Warm me up, then.’
They stood, huddled against stone wall, for a moment, in which Draco dared to tuck his head into the nook of Harry’s neck, breathing in Harry’s scent of white flowers and fresh snow, overlaid with the sharpness of alcohol. Harry’s hand came up, briefly, to stroke his fingers through the waterfall of Draco’s hair, before he stopped.
‘I thought Nott was bothering you. What did he want?’
Draco sighed quietly against the warm wool of Harry’s sweater before raising his eyes, meeting Harry’s. ‘He’s being a bit of an arse. He saw me looking at you and - Gabriel.’
‘What of it?’ Harry’s hand stilled.
‘He thought I fancied you. That’s all. Twat.’
From this angle, Draco could see the shadows that Harry’s frown cast upon his face. ‘He knows, then?’
‘He suspects. He doesn’t know anything.’
Draco could feel Harry relax - the loosening of muscles in his jaw, around his eyes, and the way his arm came up around Draco, pulling him onto himself, into the shelter of Harry’s cloak. Draco followed willingly.
After a moment of quiet breathing, hearing the wind whistle through the trees and the crackle of breaking twigs, Harry lowered his lips and pressed them against Draco’s. One slow swipe, two - with a sigh, Harry nuzzled their mouths, covering his lips.
Cupping his palm beneath Draco’s jaw, Harry licked the corner of Draco’s mouth until it fell open, and quietly slipped his tongue inside. Draco tilted his head and felt the worn grooves of stone behind his back.
In the shadows of the party cast in Harry’s honour, away from the light, they kissed - soundlessly.
Feeling the slow burn of Harry’s tongue against his own, thrusting forcefully into his mouth, Draco shivered. His hand came up of its own volition, tangling in the unruly strands of midnight hair even as the cold frame of Harry’s glasses pressed against his cheekbone.
He sucked on Harry’s tongue as he felt Harry’s hand delve under his robes, squeezing his arse through a layer of velvet. A moment - a whispered spell, a sudden draft - and Draco felt a nimble finger, chilled by the cold, slip furtively into the furrow of his crack.
He moaned.
He allowed Potter to finger, then fuck him in the moonlight, with his legs around Potter’s waist, his head arched back against the wall.
He saw the moon, before seeing stars explode on the insides of his eyelids.
::
It was cold, against the crumbling wall, watching snow fall from within the bubble of the Invisibility Charm and hearing the far-off rustles and mutters of the party dying.
Draco closed his eyes, feeling the faint tickle of Harry’s lips feathering across his jaw, the soddenness of the trousers bunched around his knees.
He had never advocated talking after sex, or about sex - but with Harry, he felt the strange, inexplicable urge to just -
‘You’re tense.’ There was a light gleam in Harry’s eyes that Draco had only seen post-orgasm, which transformed his smile into the one Draco remembered on a wide-eyed, guileless eleven-year-old boy, and not a twenty-one-year old veteran of war. It was this smile, Draco sometimes thought, that was the root of all his problems.
Feeling the slickness coating his insides, and the soreness of his thighs still draped around Potter’s hips, Draco looked back into green eyes helplessly.
‘Hey.’ When Draco didn’t speak, Harry trailed a light finger down the side of his cheek. ‘What’s wrong?’
I love you.
Draco sometimes wondered where his life had gone awry. He had had a wonderful childhood, and loving parents, and somewhere along the line he had gone to school to become a wizard and now all his friends were dead and a man was fucking his brains out in the snow.
A man who had never pretended to love him back.
Avoiding Harry’s eyes, Draco watched the glide of Harry’s silk shirt against velvet, the dark green of his cloak against incarnadine. Instead of we never talk, or nobody knows that we’re together, or it’s been… two years, Harry - what happened to come out of Draco’s mouth, in a harsh whisper against Harry’s chest, was ‘Gabriel.’
He felt Harry’s brow furrow in a frown, as Harry quietly shifted Draco’s knees from around his waist, setting them back on the ground. Stubbornly, Draco hung onto Harry’s neck, feeling the slowing pulse in the crook of his clavicle flicker against his fingers.
‘Gabriel Foret?’
Draco closed his eyes tiredly - so they were going to have this parody of a conversation. He felt curiously vulnerable, moulded half-naked against the warmth of Harry’s body, their figures casting a single silhouette in the moonlight. ‘He was … touching you, I noticed, at the party.’
He didn’t need to open his eyes to sense Harry’s sudden stillness, his withdrawal.
‘Even if he was, what of it?’
‘He … has a reputation, for impeccable taste in men.’
The sharp bark of Harry’s laughter reverberated against his ear, before Draco felt the gentle press of Harry’s fingers under his chin, forcing him to look up.
‘Draco.’
The word was a whisper, uttered against Draco’s trembling mouth in the instant before Harry took it in a hard kiss, ravaging it, pressing Draco back against grey stone.
Draco bit Harry’s lip, and felt his heart silently breaking even as Harry rained kisses on the open gash of his mouth. Why did Harry sound so amused?
‘Malfoy.’
He gasped when Harry suddenly lowered his head, nibbling on the tender flash of his neck as his fingers fell on the little velvet buttons that adorned his shirt. The material shifted like water as Harry spread it wide, and softly fingered the peak of a stiffening nipple in the open vee.
‘Gabriel sits on the pureblood panel that oversees house-elf rights - I was going over the proposed bill with him tonight. And I’m glad you think I’m a great catch… and he might even be willing … but … he’s nowhere as beautiful as you.’
Each little jumbled of words was branded onto Draco’s skin like fire, as Harry nibbled his way down Draco’s neck onto his chest. Watching the most powerful man in the world flick a tongue around his nipple, Draco buried his hands in Harry’s hair and whispered, ‘You’re such a whore, Potter’.
‘You’re the only one I let into my bed.’ There was a sudden softness in Harry’s eyes that Draco hadn’t seen since - since fifth year, and he swallowed the uncharacteristic lump in his throat.
Forcing Harry’s head up, a million questions ran through Draco head - but I don’t live with you, or tell you I love you, and you don’t... love me - but all he could manage, as he unthinkingly laced Harry’s fingers through his own in the cold, was ‘Why?’
‘Of all the men throwing themselves at your feet, Potter,’ Draco cleared his throat, and forced himself to drawl lightly, ‘why me?’
Against the lost howl of the wind and falling dribbles of snow, Harry Potter looked into Draco’s eyes, and at silver-blonde hair glinting like fine metal against the callused pads of his fingers.
‘You’ve never pretended to feel anything but hate for me,’ the twist of Harry’s mouth was almost cruel, against the shining trust in his eyes. ‘And after… after the way Ron betrayed us, I respect that.’
Draco watched the wry, bittersweet smile quirk the corner of Harry’s lips, and - letting his eyes fall, watching the shadows gathering in pools about his feet - he pressed a soft, fleeting kiss on the rise of Harry’s knuckles.
Feeling Harry relax into his touch, Draco murmured into his skin, smelling the scent of white flowers and snow, ‘You’re right, Potter. My feelings for you haven’t changed a bit.’
fin