(no subject)

[setissma]

Part two. Onward, soldiers! Therein lies boykissing.

Fixed in a Morning Sun
It worked out better than he’d thought. He patched up Lupin after the full moon because Bill asked him to - it was only mildly terrifying - and sorted out three or four of Ron’s headaches before Ron actually listened to what Draco was saying about having too much magic.

He tried making him cast more complex spells, but that didn’t work either, so he got Ron to drain some of it off - a little into him, since his reserves were still low, some into Harry, and a bit to Tonks, who’d been casting too much lately.

It made him itchy under his skin - probably an allergy to Gryffindors, Draco decided - but then again, that might’ve been Ron’s tendency to flop over on Draco’s bed or the way he looked when he read at night, backlit by the dim glow of an old lamp.

Draco turned eighteen toward the beginning of August, nearly a month after he’d come, and it wasn’t until he was blowing out the candles and everyone cheered that he realized he might actually have friends here, and not just the sort that you practiced hexes on.

“Sort of weird, isn’t it,” he said to Ron, later, flushed from too much wine, trying to figure out how exactly to assemble the cage for the snake Harry had given him.

Ron was eating a third helping of birthday cake, curled up in a way that ought to have been impossible for someone so large, and sending Draco’s new shirts (McGonagall was nothing if not practical) into the closet. “What?”

“This,” Draco replied. “Me.”

“Nah,” Ron said, sending an atrocious plaid jumper toward the back. “You’re not all bad.”

“Do you ever think -” Draco considered, leaning back against the side of his bed. “No one came after me, really. What if - I hadn’t left because I wanted to?”

“We’d go after you, if anything happened,” Ron said, simply, and crossed the room to fiddle with the top of the cage.

Draco closed his eyes and kept them shut until Ron slid an arm across his shoulders, sitting close, and, Draco thought, smelling rather stupidly of soap and atrocious Gryffindor cologne, the same stuff Harry wore. “Hey,” Ron murmured. “You’re okay.”

Draco buried his face against Ron’s shoulder, settled his nose just between the stiff collar of his awful school shirt and the neck of his horrible, good-for-nothing Gryffindor jumper, and most assuredly didn’t cry.

He might’ve felt ridiculous, but three days later, Ron got an owl at the breakfast table and went abruptly pale. “Excuse me,” he said, and Draco finished a piece of bacon before Harry could get up.

“I’ve got it,” he said, and didn’t bother to knock when he went into their bedroom.

Ron was lying face down on his bed, so Draco toed off his shoes and set a hand on the small of his back. “Well?” he said, ignoring the faint flutter low in his stomach at the heat he could feel through Ron’s thin t-shirt.

“They want me to - ” Ron began, then quit mid-sentence, so Draco (who probably had no shame and most assuredly lacked the sort of morals that prevented riffling through other people’s mail) picked up the owl and read it.

It was an offer to one Ronald Weasley for the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, with a subnote about coaching the Interhouse Dueling League for additional pay, signed by Headmistress Minerva McGonagall.

“Well,” Draco said, and settled down beside him. “You could say yes.”

“But I’m not even any good at Defense,” Ron protested. “I only took a NEWT because the instructor wanted to get to his lunch break.”

“You could say no,” Draco said, stretching out.

“But the pay’s sort of good,” Ron mumbled. “I - could put some away.”

Draco waited until Ron rolled over to raise an eyebrow.

“I’m only eighteen,” he said, finally.

“Snape was about that,” Draco said, with a reassuring yawn. Ron made a face.

“And look how everyone likes him.”

“Well, he’s sort of awful,” Draco replied, and Ron considered.

“I’d have to teach my sister,” he mumbled. “I’d be rubbish at the whole thing.”

“So say no,” Draco said, tucking his elbow against Ron’s ribs.

Ron inhaled slowly. “There’s a curse on the position.”

Draco snorted. “Snape stayed two years, remember? He’s just back to potions next.”

“They should ask someone else,” Ron said.

“They’re sort of scraping the bottom of the barrel, with you,” Draco replied, and turned sideways, so he could set his head on Ron’s stomach, which he’d only recently discovered was considered by Gryffindors to be an acceptable display.

“Prat,” Ron said, then, after a really long pause, “I really want this.”

Draco rolled over to look up at him, considering, wriggling his bare toes against the duvet because he’d never been allowed to run about without shoes on, before coming here. “So write back and say yes, and then go ask Lupin for his syllabus, because you’re an idiot, and then see McGonagall for an allowance regarding robes and things, because you’ll never afford them on your own.”

“Thanks,” Ron said, then passed a hand through Draco’s hair - something which never failed to make him jump - and went downstairs to find an owl.

He’d always sort of thought that joining the Order at least might be diverting, but in truth, nothing much happened most of the time. There were occasions when he had to patch people up from varying scuffles with people who he was relatively sure were heading back to the Manor, but the vast majority of fighting seemed to involve prolonged battles with greasy pans and struggles to get rid of colds. Lupin decided, rather abruptly, that part of Draco’s job was helping Ron out with his beginning-of-term shopping, which Draco chose to view as an attempt to get Ron to actually use the Hogwarts professor budget rather than an endeavor to get him out of the house.

Tonks used rather enough appearance-changing charms to convince anyone that he was around twenty-five, with sharp features and neat black hair, Ron collected a shopping list, and they ended up in a subset of Malkin’s so Ron could appropriately attire himself and Draco could buy some winter clothing. He hadn’t thought to pack very much.

“Do these fit, do you think?” Ron said, about a pair of standard black robes.

“No,” Draco said, because they were two sizes too small, and found a larger pair.

He straightened Ron’s collar and looked up to find that their eyes met, then his breath was coming a little faster as his heart rate increased. Draco had decided, conveniently, that moments like this ought to be taken as an indication that he’d been inhaling too many fumes from potions, ignored the fact that this face could apparently flush, and went back to adjusting Ron’s robes.

“They don’t pull so across the shoulders,” Ron said, finally, when he’d looked away toward the mirror, sounding a little off.

“That’s because they fit,” Draco said, absently turned away to finger the wool of a jumper, thinking as many anti-Gryffindor thoughts as he could. “Not that you’d understand that sort of thing.”

“Oh, shut up,” Ron said, and got three pair in the same size. Draco found a discounted pair of dress robes in an approvable shade of navy for him while Ron picked out collared shirts and jumpers. Draco made sure they weren’t all maroon, steered him away from the school ties and toward some black ones, and realized, a little abruptly, that his body probably kept readjusting itself to turn toward him because Ron Weasley had gotten rather suddenly attractive.

He was going to look an awful lot like Bill, Draco decided, though he did have Charlie’s mouth. At least the hair was more auburn, better than the ridiculous carrot color it had been several years back. “That looks nice,” he said, distracted by aggravatingly Gryffindor broad shoulders, in regards to charcoal trousers and a dark gold jumper, and Ron met his eyes in the dressing room mirror, looking thoroughly startled.

“Really?” he murmured, and Draco pulled a shirt over his head rather quickly, so he wouldn’t have to respond.

The only person who even remotely took any notice of Draco was a bookkeeper at the shop where Ron filed his receipts at the end of the day. Ron introduced him as Malcolm Locke, a friend who had attended Beauxbatons, and Draco was too busy stuttering over having been called Malcolm to incur further interest.

The first of September was almost cold, and Lupin told Draco he thought it best if he didn’t go to the train station. It was a little bit strange, Draco thought, doing the breakfast dishes, not to be in a hurry to get ready. Ron had looked older, he’d thought, stuck with train duty while McGonagall and Snape flooed straight through to Hogwarts. He almost looked authoritative, except when he insisted on tugging his sleeves down - as if Draco would have consented to an ill-fitting purchase - and nearly stuck his elbow in Harry’s oatmeal.

Bill and Harry took Ginny to King’s Cross, but Ron apparated almost half an hour later. “Don’t do anything stupid,” Draco had informed him. “Or Gryffindor.”

“I’ll try not to,” Ron had replied, with a rather crooked smile, and then disappeared.

He found it stupidly hard to sleep alone without steady, even breathing across the room, and finally sneaked into Harry’s room at nearly two. “Awake?” he said, and Harry said, “Yeah,” because Bill had stayed over at Hogwarts to check on some wards, so he settled in on the cold side of the bed and finally fell asleep.

Draco had been told he could floo through to Hogwarts if he needed to reach McGonagall or Snape or Ron, for emergencies, and he decided at half four that seeing how Ron’s first day of teaching had gone counted, because you never knew what a Gryffindor could do with hundreds of students and a castle.

“You look unutterably awful,” Draco proclaimed when he got through, because bits of Ron’s hair were pink and Draco could feel the scrape all up his forearm.

“Hold me,” Ron said, dryly, feet up on his desk, cradling a cup of tea, and Draco was forced to knock over a vase because he’d quite obviously inhaled too many fumes from the batch of doxie remover he’d brewed earlier.

“Maybe after tea,” Draco replied, as evenly as possible, while putting it back together, and then Ron buried his head in his hands and looked about twelve.

“Fuck, it’s awful,” he said, sounding all of a sudden tired and a bit defeated, so Draco of course had no choice but knock a cup of tea into his lap.

“Clumsy today,” Ron remarked, when he’d finished laughing, and Draco pulled up a second chair and felt a bit better.

“No one over fifth year wants to listen to me,” Ron said, a couple minutes later, when Draco was nearly through finishing the last block of Ron’s incomplete crossword. “And the little ones just want to hear about Harry.”

“You should have show and tell,” Draco replied, slyly, still readjusting. “Harry and Bill could snog.”

“Obviously an oversight on Lupin’s part, we should definitely add that to the syllabus,” Ron said.

“Perhaps closer to Christmas,” Draco agreed, and then Ron butted his head against Draco’s shoulder until Draco gave in to his annoying, inferior house demands and rubbed the back of his neck, still penciling in the last few clues.

He stayed through two glasses of scotch, reading a book in an armchair while Ron marked summer homework, then realized that the low buzzing in his skull was the fact that Ron hadn’t gotten much sleep, the night before.

“Come here,” he said, finally, and rolled up Ron’s sleeve.

“Third years,” he said, tiredly. “I tried a demonstration and they knocked over a podium.”

“Not enough sleep,” Draco scolded, because Gryffindors were forever doing truly idiotic things.

“It’s a bit -” Ron went vaguely pink. “Lonely, here.”

“Oh, shut up,” Draco said, and took the other side of the bed. They both slept nearly through dinner.

Draco visited for tea nearly every day for a month, had to hide under the bed twice when students came by, and added a ventilation shaft in the door of his washroom lab. Then things got horribly, suddenly busy, a whole week where people stumbled through in the middle of the night, hexed, and Draco’s patients were unconscious more often than not. He owled Poppy Pomfrey seven times, and found out what the human liver felt like, up to his elbows in blood while trying to put Fred Weasley back in working order, or at least some sort of order that didn’t involve the kitchen table being covered in blood while George sat in a wicker chair with absolutely no color in his face.

“No more,” Lupin had said, tight-lipped, when Fred was in bed, still a little green and with a broken arm, but it had been the best Draco could do.

He stumbled through Ron’s floo at just past three in the morning. “He’s all right,” he’d said, more than a little shaken.

“Yes, but what about you?” Ron said, and guided Draco into a bathroom, undid his shirt and waited for him to step out of his trousers, still blood-covered, before pushing him into a blissfully hot shower. He washed Draco off, because Draco couldn’t seem to - he was so tired - and found an old school shirt for him.

Ron didn’t protest when Draco settled against his back, nearly passed out from exhaustion.

“Gryffindors,” Draco managed, because that just about, he thought, summarized the entire situation, and fell asleep.

He woke up the next afternoon to dull winter sunlight spilling in through the false window in Ron’s bedroom. Ron was lying next to him, stretched across the bed marking papers, tie half-undone, collar loosened, shirt half untucked. Draco could see all the places he’d been thinking about for months in clear-cut detail, wrists to shoulders to the place where Ron’s hair kept falling in his eyes, and he was so very tired.

“Did you know,” Ron murmured, with that same warm smile, leaning in when he noticed Draco was awake, “that onions are apparently quite effective against vampires, when you ask third years?”

Draco reached up and slid two fingers into the knot of his tie, pulled Ron down, and kissed him.



Ron managed a soft, startled noise against his mouth before he pulled back, looking at Draco for a long moment. Draco almost said something, feeling tight and miserable, but then Ron was kissing back, slow and warm and wonderful, and it was all right, after all.

He settled on one elbow over him, and Draco tangled his fingers in his collar and kept him close, kissing, lazy and deep, until he could feel it in every inch of his body.

“Oh,” Draco said, dizzy and thoroughly distracted, when Ron pulled back to breathe, flushed. “I kissed a Weasley.”

Ron burst out laughing against his shoulder, but only drew him into another kiss, nudging his nose against Draco’s as he deepened it, licking against Draco’s lower lip. The next time Draco thought to think about anything, Ron had gotten his shirt unbuttoned and was rubbing slow, absent arcs across his stomach. At least, Draco thought, he’d pulled Ron’s tie undone, but they couldn’t seem to stop kissing, couldn’t move away from the slow slide of mouth against mouth.

“Ron,” Draco murmured, breathing uneven, as Ron settled his face against his neck and inhaled slowly.

“I like you,” Ron whispered, without Draco entirely having to ask, and curled a hand around the back of his neck, reassuring.

“Well, that’s all right, then,” Draco said, dryly, a little relieved. “Only I’d thought we were researching onions,” and Ron laughed again.

“Dinner on Saturday?” Ron murmured against his jaw, tangling their fingers together.

“Yeah,” Draco managed, and then Ron was sliding down to nuzzle across his stomach, all warm breath and a little bit of five-o’clock-shadow and fuck, Draco thought, Gryffindors.

“Do you like -” Ron murmured, and Draco drew up a knee, feeling his face heat a little.

“I think so,” he replied, sliding a hand down to tangle in astonishingly red hair, and Ron laughed against his stomach, but it was affectionate. Draco could tell that he was hard, a low, insistent warmth pooling at the base of his spine.

“You think so?” Ron said.

“Yes, I know,” Draco replied, blithely, looking away. “They promised me sex, and then I found out that the only person getting any was Potter. Quite disappointing.”

“Less people for me to beat up, then,” Ron said, gravely, and nudged his nose behind Draco’s knee, looking softly pleased.

“Oh,” Draco said, then thought maybe Weasleys might be good for some things, like understanding.

His train of thought caught up, a moment later. “Oh my god,” he managed, amazed that he was speaking at all. “You’re going to - ”

“Yeah,” Ron said, and laughed softly, reaching up to tug off Draco’s boxers.

Draco tried to remember to breathe, but gave up when Ron wrapped warm, slow fingers around his erection, curling his tongue against a spot just beneath the head. He slid his free hand up to tangle their fingers together over Draco’s hip, and moved his fingers so he could slide his mouth down a little further.

“Fuck,” Draco said, and thought, rapidly, gryffindors, gryffindors, gryffindors, which worked for all of three seconds before Ron closed his mouth and pressed up with his tongue. Draco came, arched off the bed, feeling his body flush all over.

“I,” Draco managed, when Ron slid back up for a kiss, but most of his mind was occupied with a triumphant dance of blowjobs! so he gave up and just kissed, fingers curled against Ron’s shoulder.

“Your shirt is still on,” he murmured, a little later, and undid all the buttons to shove it back, then discovered that he had to stop kissing to get Ron’s tie off, which he found distinctly unfair.

Ron made a soft, low noise in the back of his throat when Draco slid his hands up across his ribs to splay over his chest. He waited until Ron was leaning back on his elbows to slip into his lap, settling close. “Yeah?” he said, but Ron’s eyes were already half closed.

“Yeah, Draco,” Ron murmured, and his cheeks went pink when Draco slid his hands down to undo his belt buckle.

Ron got a hand under his shirt, spread against the small of his back, and pulled him down and close to rub up against him. “Oh,” he managed, and Draco pressed slow, open-mouthed kisses against his jaw so he could slide his hands between them, shove Ron’s trousers down, and settle their hips together.

“Fuck,” Ron whispered, burying his face against Draco’s neck, breathing hard as Draco got a hand down to curl around Ron’s cock and then his own, a minute later, when Ron’s hips stuttered back.

Draco nudged his free hand up, warm against the back of Ron’s neck, and pulled him down for a kiss. Ron came all over his stomach, Draco’s wrist still pressed against the inside of his thigh. Draco followed before Ron had entirely caught his breath, leaning heavily against his shoulder.

He kept his face buried against Ron’s shoulder, letting his eyes close, and was almost surprised to find Ron tugging him down with a soft laugh. “Falling asleep?” Ron whispered, sliding a hand up to stroke through Draco’s hair as he murmured a cleaning charm and kicked his trousers off the edge of the bed.

“Mm,” Draco managed, not quite paying attention, and let Ron pull him down so he could stretch out.

“Maybe more than just like, then,” Ron said, finally, stroking his fingers up and down Draco’s spine, beneath the shirt they’d never quite managed to get rid of.

“Gryffindors,” Draco mumbled, against his shoulder, and fell asleep.

Draco was mostly surprised to find that preparing for a date with a Weasley was only mildly panic inducing, aside from the way that Harry kept wandering in and out of his bedroom making ridiculous guesses as to where he was going. He only refrained from getting angry the third time Harry suggested that he was going out with Tonks because it almost seemed like Harry was bothering him to distract himself from something; he was edgy and wouldn’t stop readjusting things on Draco’s nightstand.

“Bye,” Harry said, finally, as Draco was gathering up the floo powder, and then jumped up from the bed and hugged him.

Draco strongly suspected that all the rumors about Potter had finally come true - he really had cracked - but he decided that the insanity defense would probably get him off the hook for any trouble he got into before Bill got home.

The nerves lingered for thirty seconds after he stepped through the floo.

“Well,” Ron said, finally, looking grave, “you look bloody awful,” and Draco laughed and relaxed.

They got through ninety percent of dinner without incident - the room of requirement did a decent job of looking like an actual restaurant, though the chaise lounge against the wall seemed a bit more like a bed every time Draco checked.

Ron was easy and thoughtful, and it wasn’t, as Draco had thought it might be, a painful affair involving knowing how to arrange salad forks with consideration for who poured the wine. It was quiet and simple, and Draco found that he could unwind after a day of sorting out everyone else’s headaches. Ron’s foot against his under the table felt good, reassuring even, and by the time they got to desert, he’d calmed down substantially.

“I can’t believe you still support the Magpies -” Ron began, and then, suddenly, the whole room shifted to a replica of the Infirmary, leaving Draco with a forkful of cake and a distinct headache.

It took him a moment to realize that the pounding was someone at the door and not just blood rushing to his head.

“He’s really an idiot,” George said sort of gravely, and stepped aside to reveal Lupin, with Harry in his arms, pale and unmoving.

“Quite,” Lupin said, but his voice was tighter than Draco had ever heard it, so he didn’t say anything about potential neck injuries and settled his fingers against the inside of Harry’s wrist instead, feeling his heart resettle somewhere near his throat - infected by Gryffindors, yet again.

It was there, but only barely. He didn’t, however, feel much of anything - just a little lightheaded - so he imagined that it wasn’t so bad as it seemed, after all.

“His heart stopped,” Lupin told him, as Draco located a bed (formerly the chaise lounge) and settled Harry down into it.

“How long?” Draco said, and found that just what he was looking for had appeared at his fingertips, a scalpel, and he nicked a spot in Harry’s wrist, just below the base of his thumb. Almost nothing happened - the room stayed quiet.

“Nearly ten seconds, I think,” Remus murmured.

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Draco said, and found - stupidly - that the room was nudging a cart toward him, a muggle sort of contraption with a bag of blood labeled as belonging to a hospital in Glasgow. He let the room guide his fingers. It wasn’t hard to know what to do, because he needed to, and the room provided.

“I can’t think how, there isn’t a mark on him,” George said, finally, a moment later, and Draco noticed that Ron was sitting at the dinner table, still, white and looking rather shocky.

“Come here,” Draco said, in the tone of voice he usually reserved for House Elves and Hufflepuffs, but Ron came, close enough so Draco could lean back against him as he worked. George blinked, twice, then apparently decided better of questions.

“Well?” Draco said, to Lupin, not feeling much like explaining the sort of hexes that might do that.

“He’s - Voldemort’s dead,” Lupin said, finally, and Ron nearly went down, until Draco elbowed him, hard, right between the ribs.

“Where on earth is everyone else, then?” Draco said, because it seemed strange, that there wasn’t a herd of Gryffindors hovering about outside the door, especially if Harry Potter, Wizarding Savior Though Generally Hopeless at Relationships, might be dead.

“At a birthday,” Lupin said, too wryly to be joking, and Draco settled four blankets over Harry, whose breathing had evened a little. Draco noticed that the bag had replaced itself - he wondered, a little absently, if the room of requirement could provide such things as cups of cocoa that never ran out.

“He snuck out,” George said, matter-of-factly.

“Sneaked,” Lupin corrected, as Draco settled his hands on Harry’s stomach, checking. “He didn’t tell anyone. We only knew because the wards went off when they started getting into it.”

“There isn’t anything, really,” Draco said, finally. “Just the exsanguination hex.”

The bed widened, a little, and Draco gave in to the inevitable. “His body temperature’s down,” he pointed out, then slid in behind Harry. Ron stood, looking lost, until Draco reached across Harry to tug him down. “Get on his other side.”

Ron settled in, careful not to touch, until Draco laughed and pulled him over.

“He’ll be all right,” he murmured, nudging Ron’s arm across Harry’s stomach, until they were curled against each other. Lupin looked oddly relieved.

“I always thought it’d be a bit more dramatic,” Ron mumbled, against Harry’s shoulder.

It occurred to Draco that perhaps houses were contagious both ways. Harry had been very Slytherin.

“Thank god it wasn’t,” Lupin said, and the room provided a chair, and what looked like a rather thick book. There was a fireplace forming against one wall, and carpet, now.

“How thoughtful,” Remus murmured, sinking down, and George shifted from foot to foot.

“He’ll be all right?” he said, cautious.

“Just has to wake up,” Draco said, knowing that might be easier said than done.

“I should -” he looked conflicted.

“Go to Fred,” Draco replied, firmly. “That fireplace will do, I think.” There was a canister of floo powder on the mantle, and George disappeared a moment later. Draco thought for a moment, and opened his mouth.

“We portkeyed here,” Remus said, folding over a page. “Before you berate me for transporting him.”

Draco waited a few minutes, until Ron had fallen asleep, face against Harry’s neck. “What about the Death Eaters?”

“I do believe,” Remus replied, flipping another page, “that most of them will be in Azkaban by morning.”

Draco checked Harry’s vitals again - a little better.

“The imperius defense, however, is difficult to counter,” Lupin pointed out. “It did work the first time.”

It mattered less to Draco than he thought it should. It was a little unnerving, until he realized that you could probably only love someone as much as they loved you first. His father hadn’t come through in any of the ways that mattered, and as much as it hurt, the way Lupin was looking at him, with thoughtful affection, made it all right.

“Can I stay?” Draco asked, propping himself up on one elbow. Remus looked up, a little startled, then smiled.

“Poppy Pomfrey has always been rather insistent that when this mess was over, she was taking the first portkey to Majorca she could book.”

“Oh,” Draco said, and thought of all the things he hadn’t wanted to do - colds and scraped knees and minor hexes - and then, really, of what he did want.

“McGonagall’s very grateful for the knitting needles,” Remus pointed out, and Draco smiled.

Bill came through the door in a rush, still in dress robes and covered in soot. Draco thought, slightly amused, that they’d better never adopt, because he’d never be able to handle it. “He’s all right,” he said, when Bill opened his mouth - inevitably to yell. “Just sleeping.”

Draco moved quickly so that when Bill crumpled down with relief, it could be against Harry’s back. Draco didn’t want to worry about anyone crying against his shoulder. He found a second chair and a cup of cocoa - quite possibly everlasting - and read until he couldn’t think anymore. Lupin nodded off and the chair slid into a recliner when Draco wasn’t looking at it. The bed widened out again, later, on Ron’s side. Draco slid underneath the blankets gratefully, thinking it was utterly ridiculous to have four people in one bed, and drifted off.

He woke to find Harry watching him, thoughtful.

“You’re an idiot,” Draco murmured.

“So,” Harry whispered, voice a little rough, but he’d managed a smile. “Is he good in bed?”

“You can’t tell anyone,” Draco informed him, leaning a little closer to Ron, who’d rolled over to settle against his side, dead weight.

“Well, that’s all right,” Harry said. “He’s rather fit.”

“For a Weasley,” Draco agreed, with a smile.

In the end, he decided, maybe Gryffindors weren’t quite so awful after all.