FIC: Things That Change, 5/?
Title: Things That Change [5/?]
Rating: NC17
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Summary: After Hogwarts, everything changes.
Author's Notes: Thank you so much to my beta, B, without which I wouldn't have had the drive to finish this.
[Part 1][Part 2][Part 3][Part 4][Part 5]
1.
Granger is the secret keeper and Weasley is the godfather. Draco doesn’t know which is worse.
Even after six months, Potter still receives bunches of helium balloons and hatemail at his office. Who is she?!? some of the letters read. I love you, Harry Potter! others say.
Draco is neither female nor does he love Harry Potter, and yet all of these women and girls and sometimes the occasional boy demand to know about that secret wife and mother of his child that The Daily Prophet claims Potter has stashed away in Muggle suburbia. He laughs at the thought, but he collects all the letters in a great big brown box in the spare and reads them over when he’s bored.
Since Christmas day, not a word has been said between Potter and himself about that kiss. Those kisses, he reminds himself. They live parallel lives, in the same home, eating the same food, doing the same things with the baby, but they never come together. This is not the life his parents had, his first family. His mother and father would kiss and touch and dance and speak of things beyond the mundane- weather, Quidditch scores, Potter’s lack of washing his clothes and leaving great piles of sweaty, muddy robes all over the house.
Perhaps if he’d married Pansy he would have had a life that he craves deep-down inside. She fawned over him, she kissed him, petted him, touched his hair, her hands were constantly on his body in school. He’d shrugged it off them, but he doesn’t think he’d mind having an arm around his waist. Sometimes when Potter sits in front of the talking box in the evening, Draco has the urge to stretch his arm out behind Potter, but he never, ever dares too.
He doesn’t know what he wants anymore. He finds his eyes lingering on Potter when he steps out of the shower in the mornings, wearing nothing but a low-slung towel. He finds himself waiting impatiently in the evenings for Potter to come home with food, so he can tell Potter just what Pyrrha did today (since he never does anything himself). He wants to make Potter laugh at his jokes and smile at him, and not just a half-arsed glance that he gets once in a while.
He hasn’t left Potter’s house. He wants to know what Potter wants: surely he can’t stay here until Pyrrha goes off to school, because she will, Draco knows it. There hasn’t been a squib in the family since his Great-Great Uncle Flavius and no one ever spoke of him because he lived locked up in the attic for a good forty years.
He wants attention. He stares into the stacks of letters and note cards in the box, and he contemplates going to The Daily Prophet with his story. However, he sincerely doubts they would believe him unless he showed them and there is absolutely no bloody way he is showing anyone what the potion did to him down there, not even Potter.
2.
It is his twenty-first birthday tomorrow. He wonders if Potter even knows. Every wizard knows Potter’s birthday and he has since he was small, but he doesn’t think anyone would really care when Draco Malfoy’s birthday is, firstly, because his friends have disowned him and his family is dead and secondly, because he is supposedly to be an MIA Former Death Eater, potentially and probably armed and dangerous.
He doesn’t ever dissuade Potter from thinking he was a Death Eater because Potter never asks him about that and he doesn’t want to tell Potter that he was always a coward, he couldn’t kill Dumbledore, he couldn’t kill Muggles, he was weak and pathetic and that is what got his family killed. The guilt eats him up inside, even years later after he’s had time to think on it long and hard.
When he sees his daughter smile at him, with her gummy grin and her bright eyes, he reckons it can’t have all been wrong.
She has fine, fair hair now. The downy black hair fell out months ago and he’d nearly panicked, considering to hand himself over to the Ministry if it meant she could see a Healer at St. Mungo’s to make sure she hadn’t caught some Muggle disease. But Weasley- damn him!- had told Potter that several of his brothers were worn with black hair until it fell out in turn.
Draco had feared the worst then, a head of Weasley-red hair on his only living relative, but when it grew in, like a gilded crown, he’d sighed with relief.
Potter says little to him when he stumbles through the doorway at half-past seven. Draco is put off, he’s been waiting two hours for bloody dinner and “What the hell have you been doing, Potter?” he asks when he notices Potter has no bag of food for them to eat. “What do you expect me to eat for dinner, then?”
Potter rolls his eyes and trudges past Draco. He barely bothers to look at the baby, who babbles happily in the middle of the carpet with a chew toy, like a well-behaved dog. He drops his sack and his cloak down in the kitchen and pulls out a beer from the fridge.
“Well,” Draco snaps at him, “I’m hungry!”
“Then ring for bloody pizza!” Potter snaps back at him. “Do I have to do everything for you?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he says stiffly, eyeing the ringing machine on the counter. He charms it to silence in the days because he hates the noise and doesn’t know how Muggles make it stop. Potter has never told him.
Potter ends up ringing the pizza place and an hour later, Draco finally is able to eat greasy, cheesy pizza, which settles in his stomach after he crawls into bed. It is a warm night and his window is open, but he shivers under the sheets, convinced that Potter hates him more than usual. When he closes his eyes, Potter snaps at him. Do I have to do everything for you? What the fuck are you doing? You drugged me, Malfoy!
He falls asleep after dawn and when Pyrrha wakes an hour later, demanding to be fed and entertained and changed and played with, he can barely keep his eyes open, let alone remember what day it is. Potter has left for work already, but Draco would rather be alone anyway.
He is napping when Potter comes home. It is four o’clock, according to the Muggle clocks Potter has placed around the house. Draco misses the ring of the grandfather clocks they had in the Manor. They were soothing and familiar and physical, rather than these digital, unfriendly Muggle devices.
Something shakes his shoulder and he rubs his eyes. Potter stands in the room, holding Pyrrha over his shoulder. “Get up,” he says.
“Why?”
“Just get up,” he says again.
Draco sighs and tries to charm his hair flat, because he can feel a piece sticking up awkwardly. The right side of his face is warm where he has slept on it. When he walks downstairs into the kitchen, he frowns and realizes how awful he looks because Weasley and Granger are standing there, Weasley looking suitably uncomfortable and staring at the toasting machine with great interest.
“Here,” Potter says, handing the baby to Granger. Draco winces inside at how she handles the baby, her Mudblood hands all over her, but he says nothing and grits his teeth until Potter hands her a diaper bag, too.
“What are you doing?” he hisses to Potter.
Granger’s lips twitch and Weasley narrows his eyes. Potter shrugs and says, “Hermione and Ron said they would babysit her tonight.”
“But- why?” he says, sneering at Granger, who simply continues to give him a strange look that makes him feel decidedly uncomfortable, even in Potter’s house, where he has lived a good six months.
“Isn’t it your birthday?” Potter asks, casually leaning on the counter.
Oh. That.
Draco blinks and kind of grunts. He doesn’t like seeing Pyrrha smiling at him, perched on Granger’s shoulder as she and Weasley leave the house, but that feeling is replaced with something completely different when he feels Potter’s arm slide around his waist. His insides go numb and he can’t move, everything in his lower belly feels warm and light; he turns around to say something, anything to Potter, but the glint in Potter’s eye, the way he looks at Draco’s mouth makes the world stop moving.
“I- I mean, we’re alone and since- well, I thought you might like to-” Potter bites his lip and his hand starts to slide off Draco’s waist as he shakes his head. “I mean if you don’t want to, I-”
It takes Draco a moment to take what Potter means in. He sees the flush in Potter’s cheeks and the way Potter’s fingers curl on his hip makes him shiver. He nods and says, “Yeah”.
They sit on the couch, just the two of them. Potter shuts the curtains and looks at him, with a sloppy smile starting to fall off his face. He touches Draco’s chin and he shivers, because no one has ever brushed fingers so lightly across his skin, like a ghost, but so warm and so alive.
When he drugged Potter, it was different. None of these light, tentative touches. A hand on a knee, moving a little higher until Draco shakes his head. A thumb on his lips. A mouth on the shell of his ear, followed by a hot, hot tongue that makes his breath catch. It was physical before, with a purpose. Now, there is no purpose but them.
Draco doesn’t know what to think of it. Instead, he goes with it, opening his mouth as Potter’s tongue dances slowly inside and he pushes Draco down onto the couch cushions, his weight both heavy and comfortable on top of him. Potter’s legs shifting alongside his as he rubs his body, testing, seeing, discovering with his hands, fingers, mouth, everything.
Time doesn’t occur. Draco counts the minutes by the pants from Potter when he pulls back, his eyes glazed and his lips shiny with saliva. He counts the hours by Potter snaking his fingers under his shirt; he gasps at the touch- it is too intimate and he doesn’t know what to make of it, besides suck his stomach in and mutter, “No” because he doesn’t want Potter to see scars, he doesn’t want Potter to go to far with this because his body wants to and he knows as soon as Potter sees, feels, knows what’s down there, everything will be ruined.
They come apart when voices are heard outside in the drive. Draco pats down his flyaway hairs, but Potter doesn’t bother, instead quite happily he pads to the doorway to let Weasley and Granger in, even though his shirt is wrinkled and his cheeks are pink now. Draco refuses to look at them and wordlessly takes a sleeping Pyrrha up to bed.
“Did the dirty Mudblood infect you with anything?” he whispers, checking her over for signs of foulplay, or Muggle-ness. Her diaper, a little loose, her sleeper, a little bunched. He frowns and puts her to bed, limp and supine in her basket, which seems to get smaller by the day.
He dreams of Potter kissing him breathless, and the green eyes staring into his soul. He wakes up in the middle of the night, shivering, and his belly is sticky from where he’s come.
3.
Sometimes Potter will cook supper. Usually, it consists of unevenly cooked bacon and toast, sometimes omelets or fried chicken with peas that are too mushy for Draco, so he tries spooning them into Pyrrha’s mouth. She likes them well enough, but he spends more time with peas crusted to his clothes than she does.
Sometimes on the weekends, they’ll walk to a local park. Draco pushes the pram, white-knuckled, and says nothing because his tongue is paralyzed with the fear that someone will see, be they wizard or Muggle. He doesn’t want to be sent to Azkaban, even though Potter says with the upcoming elections for Minister of Magic, it’s unlikely they’ll focus on finding him for a good while. He doesn’t want the Muggles to see him and Potter, together with a baby, and think Bloody poofs! because Potter does walk close to him and lean over and whisper things and speak in a low voice, the kind that lovers use when they’re alone and he does sometimes do the things that poofs do at home but he’s not, he just likes having Potter around.
Sometimes, he and Potter stay up late and kiss. On the couch, in the kitchen, standing on the stairs. He can smell baby spew and talcum powder and peas all over himself, but Potter never says anything, never once complains. Potter tastes of garlic, of chocolate, of Cheery-Os and curry, sometimes. Tea and pumpkin juice, too. Draco will lean into the wall, clutching Potter’s hair as his tongue swipes across his neck, his jaw, his shoulders. He wants to dissolve. Potter makes his knees weak and he clings, digging his fingers into Potter’s back. Potter makes him weak because he wants this, and he wants more.
They stumble upstairs and crash into the wall, teeth clacking and noses hitting and Draco pulls back to hiss, “Watch it!” Potter mutters an apology, quickly forgotten as his hand strays down Draco’s hip and his tongue pushes back into his mouth, hot and wet and tasting of supper. His lips are rough, his tongue smooth and he rubs himself on Draco’s thigh.
He likes to feel Potter’s cock there, to know that Potter’s randy enough to want him that way. He likes the hard feel of it through Potter’s trousers. When he’s bold, he squeezes a hand between their bodies and clutches Potter’s cock, cupping it and Potter gapes and gasps on his shoulder.
Potter’s hand is steady when he pulls Draco into his bedroom. His hand is steady when he shrugs off his trousers and unbuttons his shirt. Draco watches the clothes fall to the floor, keeping his eyes on Potter’s as he climbs onto the bed and kisses him, fierce and possessive and bit too hard. Potter’s underpants tent and he rubs himself on Draco, more and more, thrusting between his thighs, grunting and flexing his hips as though this is sex, and not just rubbing. He’s seen Potter before, yes, once, but it was dark and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to get it over as quickly as he could.
Now, he likes moving his palms across Potter’s chest. He likes the salt of sweat on Potter’s upper lip. He likes Potter’s heavy weight and the flush of pink on his cheeks.
But when Potter wiggles a hand between their chests and fiddles with the buttons of Draco’s robes, he always pushes him away. “Don’t!” he hisses. “Don’t do that!”
Potter adjusts his glasses and shakes his head. “I thought you wanted-”
Draco is silent for a moment. He sits up and mutters, “Just don’t, Potter.” Potter reaches for his shoulder, but he shrugs it off and says, “Fuck off.”
The baby is sleeping, and if she wasn’t, the dark, dark look in Potter’s eyes makes Draco think he would throw something, or hex him, or shout. Instead, he simply snorts, his lips pulled up in a sneer, and says, “Then get out.”
Draco lies on his back, listening to the chirps of the crickets in the lawn below his window. He touches his cock under the sheets, wondering what it would be like to feel Potter’s hand there, something different than his own predictable strokes. But he always feels something else there, too, behind his balls and he knows that even if Potter wanted him, wanted a bloke, he would want a normal one.
4.
The game is cyclical. They kiss, they touch, Potter drags Draco into his bedroom and tries to cop a feel too-close for comfort and Draco panics, Potter gets mad and they don’t speak or touch or do anything for three days, then it starts again. They do talk, yes, but only about Pyrrha. Draco sits and stews, pushing the food Potter cooks around his plate. He loathes spaghetti, but he’s too proud to say this to Potter when he’s angry about other things.
They argue now, too. When he pushes Potter away, Potter tells him to fucking stop it, that he can feel Draco through his robes. Draco knows that, too, he’s hard and he would much rather have someone stir his cauldron for him instead of his own hand, but then he’ll shatter a lamp or throw Potter’s awful Muggle clock on the wall and stomp out.
Until three days later.
It goes on for a month, maybe more. Maybe the baby notices. She’s moody now and she’s cranky and Draco wonders if it’s the arguments or if she’ll be teething soon.
On Monday, after Potter comes home from work, he announces in terse voice that he is going out tomorrow with Weasley and Granger for his birthday. He doesn’t look Draco in the eye. He stabs his fish with a steak knife, again and again and again until its mash. He downs one bottle of beer from the refrigerator and opens a second bottle before the first is even finished.
Draco’s bed is damp and uncomfortable. He left the window open in the spare all day and it rained on and off in the afternoon. Now he pays the price, laying there, his stomach growling angrily, a cold lead forming around his navel. Last night, they’d argued again. This time, it was Potter who shouted “Why the fuck do I even bother with you? You’re a fucking coward now as much as you were at school!” Draco was so angry a window shattered behind him, but Potter’s words still echo in his mind.
He doesn’t want to be a coward, and he’s afraid Potter is going to snap soon and kick him out of his house, as well as his bedroom. He has nowhere and nothing except this. He tosses and turns and the pajamas he filched from Potter stick to his legs. He doesn’t sleep, until, exhausted and desperate, it comes just before dawn.
He thinks about it all day when Potter is at work. He has never been one to do things impulsively. His Father always said it’s better to think before you act, and Draco reckons it’s true, unless you’re Longbottom and have nothing to think with. He feels utterly foolish contemplating this, but after Potter comes home in a whirl, dropping off take-away and changing his robes and Apparating off, Draco steps into the shower anyway.
The water is cool, but his body is hot. He can practically see the steam rising off his skin and but he’s so pale because he almost never leaves the house and he’s nearly sick with the thought of if something goes wrong but his cock is flushed and he touches himself, rubbing his balls in his hands, thumbing the head of his cock until he comes, leaning on the tiled wall and gasping a name he’s afraid to say aloud.
Pyrrha sleeps soundly in the spare bedroom. He tiptoes in to check on her briefly, and then he tiptoes into Potter’s bedroom. Even in the dark, he can see how devoid of detail the room is. Potter’s bed, in the middle, a calendar hanging on the wall, a lamp, repeatedly smashed and fixed, the clock the same. He has scattered clothes on the floor. Draco picks up a shirt and sniffs it, before inhaling the smell deeply. Sweat and curry takeaway and cheap cologne and soap and toothpaste and something else that mingles it all together, musky and strong.
Is this what I want? he thinks. He has no answer, but he drops his robes and slips between Potter’s sheets, sliding his damp limbs along the cool sheets. It feels different, lying in a bed nude. He feels very sensual and his hand floats down between his legs, lingering for a moment before he takes it away.
He watches the numbers on the clock change. At 11:56, he hears the sound of the door downstairs creek open as Potter slinks inside. He stops breathing and lies as stuff as a board, listening to the soft sounds of Potter’s footsteps trudging up the stairs. He can barely hear anything above the pounding of his heart, banging against his ribcage.
The door to Potter’s bedroom opens and the faint light from the hallway filters inside. Potter stands there for a moment, eclipsed in the light and says, “Malfoy?”
In his mind, he has a small speech worked out. I’m naked. I’m willing. It’s your birthday. Now do something before I change my mind. However, he feels so faint and heavy at the same time, confused and anxious and worried beyond belief that Potter is going to shout, or possibly fall over to the floor, drunk as that gameskeeper at Hogwarts, that he manages to blurt out simply “I’m starkers”.
Potter is silent. He walks across the room on steady feet, closing the door behind himself. His clothes smell of beer and fried food, pub food, but he peels them off, standing for a moment, just as starkers as Draco is. “I’m going to…” he sighs. “Whichever way you want is all right.”
“It’s your birthday,” Draco croaks. He clears his throat to try again, but Potter places a finger on his lips and shakes his head.
“Shut up, Malfoy,” he says. Then he pulls back the sheet, far enough to get in, but not far enough that he can see Draco. Draco is relieved, but his chest has swollen and he can’t breathe, not until Potter’s mouth meets his own, and then he gasps into it, tasting the alcohol on Potter’s tongue.
Potter wants him. Potter wants this. He can feel Potter’s cock pressing against his hip and it makes his own cock swell, harder, because Potter is lucid, Potter is in control, Potter’s hands are running down his sides, resting on his hips. His hands are warm and sweaty and they hold Draco in place. There is a knee between his legs, lips, mouth, tongue on his neck, his collar. He moans and wraps his arms around Potter, because he’s afraid of falling, because he’s afraid he’ll want this too much.
The sheets bunch under his back, arching, arching as Potter moves down his belly. He’s dark, he can’t see the marks, the reminders, but Draco can feel them, Draco knows they are there and he wonders if Potter notices. He’s panting. He can’t see anything besides Potter’s dark head, with soft hair, smelling of stale smoke, like his clothes. His thighs shudder, wrapped around Potter, and he moans, groans, clutches Potter like a lifeline, but he doesn’t stop, not even when his fingers dip between his legs and feel something.
Draco closes his eyes, his breath caught in his throat. He’s so hard, he’s on fire, his cock so swollen it aches with need. Potter’s nose brushes the side of his cock and he hisses, his toes curling in anticipation. When Potter’s fingertips curl inside him, into that warm place behind his balls, that he oughtn’t have, he chokes. Shock, fear, melting into desire because Potter pumps his fingers in and out, slow and steady as his tongue tests Draco’s cock.
The heat, the slickness, his body shudders, going still for an instant, before he lets himself go, Potter’s name on his lips, Potter’s hair in his fists.
He climbs out of the sheets, very carefully and on shaking knees, and straddles Potter’s thighs, his hands resting on Potter’s hips, but Potter pushes him off. “No, no- I want to…” he trails off, but his hands remain on Draco, painting the sweat across his sternum with fingertip brushes. “I just want to be in you tonight,” he whispers.
“Not my arse,” Draco whispers, frantic in case Potter has any ideas he’s a poof.
“All right,” he murmurs, already crawling on top again. His breath is hot in Draco’s ear. It makes him shiver. He wants Potter to whisper more things, to make the hairs of his neck stand up and his back arch, but he grows silent as Potter moves down his body, shifting, twining, snakelike motions of his limbs around Draco’s, moving together and constricting.
He’s wet inside, waiting for Potter. His thighs are slick, with his come, too, but mostly from inside. He’s numb there, aching, practically begging for Potter to push in and to satisfy that sweet pain. Potter’s back is slick under his fingertips. The air smells heady, of sex and desire. He can taste it on his tongue, between kisses.
Potter pushes inside and this is no drunken haze, like the first time. Potter pushes in and he knows Potter is there, he can feel Potter’s cock, throbbing against him, all around. Potter breathes hard, on his face, panting hot and sticky on his lips. Draco licks them, tasting tasting as he squeezes himself. Potter gasps and collapses from his elbows, his hips jutting, his cock thrusting inside.
Draco burns inside, slow and steady, not with the rush of wanking, but a saccharine build up that he wants to release, soon, but not yet. He moans under Potter, his head pushed deep into the pillows, his thighs clenching, but Potter falls first, gasping and shuddering and spurting, hot and deep inside.
He weaves his hands through Potter’s damp hair, as he rests on Draco’s chest, making the invisible hairs rise and fall. “Happy Birthday, Potter,” Draco murmurs.
Rating: NC17
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Summary: After Hogwarts, everything changes.
Author's Notes: Thank you so much to my beta, B, without which I wouldn't have had the drive to finish this.
[Part 1][Part 2][Part 3][Part 4][Part 5]
1.
Granger is the secret keeper and Weasley is the godfather. Draco doesn’t know which is worse.
Even after six months, Potter still receives bunches of helium balloons and hatemail at his office. Who is she?!? some of the letters read. I love you, Harry Potter! others say.
Draco is neither female nor does he love Harry Potter, and yet all of these women and girls and sometimes the occasional boy demand to know about that secret wife and mother of his child that The Daily Prophet claims Potter has stashed away in Muggle suburbia. He laughs at the thought, but he collects all the letters in a great big brown box in the spare and reads them over when he’s bored.
Since Christmas day, not a word has been said between Potter and himself about that kiss. Those kisses, he reminds himself. They live parallel lives, in the same home, eating the same food, doing the same things with the baby, but they never come together. This is not the life his parents had, his first family. His mother and father would kiss and touch and dance and speak of things beyond the mundane- weather, Quidditch scores, Potter’s lack of washing his clothes and leaving great piles of sweaty, muddy robes all over the house.
Perhaps if he’d married Pansy he would have had a life that he craves deep-down inside. She fawned over him, she kissed him, petted him, touched his hair, her hands were constantly on his body in school. He’d shrugged it off them, but he doesn’t think he’d mind having an arm around his waist. Sometimes when Potter sits in front of the talking box in the evening, Draco has the urge to stretch his arm out behind Potter, but he never, ever dares too.
He doesn’t know what he wants anymore. He finds his eyes lingering on Potter when he steps out of the shower in the mornings, wearing nothing but a low-slung towel. He finds himself waiting impatiently in the evenings for Potter to come home with food, so he can tell Potter just what Pyrrha did today (since he never does anything himself). He wants to make Potter laugh at his jokes and smile at him, and not just a half-arsed glance that he gets once in a while.
He hasn’t left Potter’s house. He wants to know what Potter wants: surely he can’t stay here until Pyrrha goes off to school, because she will, Draco knows it. There hasn’t been a squib in the family since his Great-Great Uncle Flavius and no one ever spoke of him because he lived locked up in the attic for a good forty years.
He wants attention. He stares into the stacks of letters and note cards in the box, and he contemplates going to The Daily Prophet with his story. However, he sincerely doubts they would believe him unless he showed them and there is absolutely no bloody way he is showing anyone what the potion did to him down there, not even Potter.
2.
It is his twenty-first birthday tomorrow. He wonders if Potter even knows. Every wizard knows Potter’s birthday and he has since he was small, but he doesn’t think anyone would really care when Draco Malfoy’s birthday is, firstly, because his friends have disowned him and his family is dead and secondly, because he is supposedly to be an MIA Former Death Eater, potentially and probably armed and dangerous.
He doesn’t ever dissuade Potter from thinking he was a Death Eater because Potter never asks him about that and he doesn’t want to tell Potter that he was always a coward, he couldn’t kill Dumbledore, he couldn’t kill Muggles, he was weak and pathetic and that is what got his family killed. The guilt eats him up inside, even years later after he’s had time to think on it long and hard.
When he sees his daughter smile at him, with her gummy grin and her bright eyes, he reckons it can’t have all been wrong.
She has fine, fair hair now. The downy black hair fell out months ago and he’d nearly panicked, considering to hand himself over to the Ministry if it meant she could see a Healer at St. Mungo’s to make sure she hadn’t caught some Muggle disease. But Weasley- damn him!- had told Potter that several of his brothers were worn with black hair until it fell out in turn.
Draco had feared the worst then, a head of Weasley-red hair on his only living relative, but when it grew in, like a gilded crown, he’d sighed with relief.
Potter says little to him when he stumbles through the doorway at half-past seven. Draco is put off, he’s been waiting two hours for bloody dinner and “What the hell have you been doing, Potter?” he asks when he notices Potter has no bag of food for them to eat. “What do you expect me to eat for dinner, then?”
Potter rolls his eyes and trudges past Draco. He barely bothers to look at the baby, who babbles happily in the middle of the carpet with a chew toy, like a well-behaved dog. He drops his sack and his cloak down in the kitchen and pulls out a beer from the fridge.
“Well,” Draco snaps at him, “I’m hungry!”
“Then ring for bloody pizza!” Potter snaps back at him. “Do I have to do everything for you?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he says stiffly, eyeing the ringing machine on the counter. He charms it to silence in the days because he hates the noise and doesn’t know how Muggles make it stop. Potter has never told him.
Potter ends up ringing the pizza place and an hour later, Draco finally is able to eat greasy, cheesy pizza, which settles in his stomach after he crawls into bed. It is a warm night and his window is open, but he shivers under the sheets, convinced that Potter hates him more than usual. When he closes his eyes, Potter snaps at him. Do I have to do everything for you? What the fuck are you doing? You drugged me, Malfoy!
He falls asleep after dawn and when Pyrrha wakes an hour later, demanding to be fed and entertained and changed and played with, he can barely keep his eyes open, let alone remember what day it is. Potter has left for work already, but Draco would rather be alone anyway.
He is napping when Potter comes home. It is four o’clock, according to the Muggle clocks Potter has placed around the house. Draco misses the ring of the grandfather clocks they had in the Manor. They were soothing and familiar and physical, rather than these digital, unfriendly Muggle devices.
Something shakes his shoulder and he rubs his eyes. Potter stands in the room, holding Pyrrha over his shoulder. “Get up,” he says.
“Why?”
“Just get up,” he says again.
Draco sighs and tries to charm his hair flat, because he can feel a piece sticking up awkwardly. The right side of his face is warm where he has slept on it. When he walks downstairs into the kitchen, he frowns and realizes how awful he looks because Weasley and Granger are standing there, Weasley looking suitably uncomfortable and staring at the toasting machine with great interest.
“Here,” Potter says, handing the baby to Granger. Draco winces inside at how she handles the baby, her Mudblood hands all over her, but he says nothing and grits his teeth until Potter hands her a diaper bag, too.
“What are you doing?” he hisses to Potter.
Granger’s lips twitch and Weasley narrows his eyes. Potter shrugs and says, “Hermione and Ron said they would babysit her tonight.”
“But- why?” he says, sneering at Granger, who simply continues to give him a strange look that makes him feel decidedly uncomfortable, even in Potter’s house, where he has lived a good six months.
“Isn’t it your birthday?” Potter asks, casually leaning on the counter.
Oh. That.
Draco blinks and kind of grunts. He doesn’t like seeing Pyrrha smiling at him, perched on Granger’s shoulder as she and Weasley leave the house, but that feeling is replaced with something completely different when he feels Potter’s arm slide around his waist. His insides go numb and he can’t move, everything in his lower belly feels warm and light; he turns around to say something, anything to Potter, but the glint in Potter’s eye, the way he looks at Draco’s mouth makes the world stop moving.
“I- I mean, we’re alone and since- well, I thought you might like to-” Potter bites his lip and his hand starts to slide off Draco’s waist as he shakes his head. “I mean if you don’t want to, I-”
It takes Draco a moment to take what Potter means in. He sees the flush in Potter’s cheeks and the way Potter’s fingers curl on his hip makes him shiver. He nods and says, “Yeah”.
They sit on the couch, just the two of them. Potter shuts the curtains and looks at him, with a sloppy smile starting to fall off his face. He touches Draco’s chin and he shivers, because no one has ever brushed fingers so lightly across his skin, like a ghost, but so warm and so alive.
When he drugged Potter, it was different. None of these light, tentative touches. A hand on a knee, moving a little higher until Draco shakes his head. A thumb on his lips. A mouth on the shell of his ear, followed by a hot, hot tongue that makes his breath catch. It was physical before, with a purpose. Now, there is no purpose but them.
Draco doesn’t know what to think of it. Instead, he goes with it, opening his mouth as Potter’s tongue dances slowly inside and he pushes Draco down onto the couch cushions, his weight both heavy and comfortable on top of him. Potter’s legs shifting alongside his as he rubs his body, testing, seeing, discovering with his hands, fingers, mouth, everything.
Time doesn’t occur. Draco counts the minutes by the pants from Potter when he pulls back, his eyes glazed and his lips shiny with saliva. He counts the hours by Potter snaking his fingers under his shirt; he gasps at the touch- it is too intimate and he doesn’t know what to make of it, besides suck his stomach in and mutter, “No” because he doesn’t want Potter to see scars, he doesn’t want Potter to go to far with this because his body wants to and he knows as soon as Potter sees, feels, knows what’s down there, everything will be ruined.
They come apart when voices are heard outside in the drive. Draco pats down his flyaway hairs, but Potter doesn’t bother, instead quite happily he pads to the doorway to let Weasley and Granger in, even though his shirt is wrinkled and his cheeks are pink now. Draco refuses to look at them and wordlessly takes a sleeping Pyrrha up to bed.
“Did the dirty Mudblood infect you with anything?” he whispers, checking her over for signs of foulplay, or Muggle-ness. Her diaper, a little loose, her sleeper, a little bunched. He frowns and puts her to bed, limp and supine in her basket, which seems to get smaller by the day.
He dreams of Potter kissing him breathless, and the green eyes staring into his soul. He wakes up in the middle of the night, shivering, and his belly is sticky from where he’s come.
3.
Sometimes Potter will cook supper. Usually, it consists of unevenly cooked bacon and toast, sometimes omelets or fried chicken with peas that are too mushy for Draco, so he tries spooning them into Pyrrha’s mouth. She likes them well enough, but he spends more time with peas crusted to his clothes than she does.
Sometimes on the weekends, they’ll walk to a local park. Draco pushes the pram, white-knuckled, and says nothing because his tongue is paralyzed with the fear that someone will see, be they wizard or Muggle. He doesn’t want to be sent to Azkaban, even though Potter says with the upcoming elections for Minister of Magic, it’s unlikely they’ll focus on finding him for a good while. He doesn’t want the Muggles to see him and Potter, together with a baby, and think Bloody poofs! because Potter does walk close to him and lean over and whisper things and speak in a low voice, the kind that lovers use when they’re alone and he does sometimes do the things that poofs do at home but he’s not, he just likes having Potter around.
Sometimes, he and Potter stay up late and kiss. On the couch, in the kitchen, standing on the stairs. He can smell baby spew and talcum powder and peas all over himself, but Potter never says anything, never once complains. Potter tastes of garlic, of chocolate, of Cheery-Os and curry, sometimes. Tea and pumpkin juice, too. Draco will lean into the wall, clutching Potter’s hair as his tongue swipes across his neck, his jaw, his shoulders. He wants to dissolve. Potter makes his knees weak and he clings, digging his fingers into Potter’s back. Potter makes him weak because he wants this, and he wants more.
They stumble upstairs and crash into the wall, teeth clacking and noses hitting and Draco pulls back to hiss, “Watch it!” Potter mutters an apology, quickly forgotten as his hand strays down Draco’s hip and his tongue pushes back into his mouth, hot and wet and tasting of supper. His lips are rough, his tongue smooth and he rubs himself on Draco’s thigh.
He likes to feel Potter’s cock there, to know that Potter’s randy enough to want him that way. He likes the hard feel of it through Potter’s trousers. When he’s bold, he squeezes a hand between their bodies and clutches Potter’s cock, cupping it and Potter gapes and gasps on his shoulder.
Potter’s hand is steady when he pulls Draco into his bedroom. His hand is steady when he shrugs off his trousers and unbuttons his shirt. Draco watches the clothes fall to the floor, keeping his eyes on Potter’s as he climbs onto the bed and kisses him, fierce and possessive and bit too hard. Potter’s underpants tent and he rubs himself on Draco, more and more, thrusting between his thighs, grunting and flexing his hips as though this is sex, and not just rubbing. He’s seen Potter before, yes, once, but it was dark and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to get it over as quickly as he could.
Now, he likes moving his palms across Potter’s chest. He likes the salt of sweat on Potter’s upper lip. He likes Potter’s heavy weight and the flush of pink on his cheeks.
But when Potter wiggles a hand between their chests and fiddles with the buttons of Draco’s robes, he always pushes him away. “Don’t!” he hisses. “Don’t do that!”
Potter adjusts his glasses and shakes his head. “I thought you wanted-”
Draco is silent for a moment. He sits up and mutters, “Just don’t, Potter.” Potter reaches for his shoulder, but he shrugs it off and says, “Fuck off.”
The baby is sleeping, and if she wasn’t, the dark, dark look in Potter’s eyes makes Draco think he would throw something, or hex him, or shout. Instead, he simply snorts, his lips pulled up in a sneer, and says, “Then get out.”
Draco lies on his back, listening to the chirps of the crickets in the lawn below his window. He touches his cock under the sheets, wondering what it would be like to feel Potter’s hand there, something different than his own predictable strokes. But he always feels something else there, too, behind his balls and he knows that even if Potter wanted him, wanted a bloke, he would want a normal one.
4.
The game is cyclical. They kiss, they touch, Potter drags Draco into his bedroom and tries to cop a feel too-close for comfort and Draco panics, Potter gets mad and they don’t speak or touch or do anything for three days, then it starts again. They do talk, yes, but only about Pyrrha. Draco sits and stews, pushing the food Potter cooks around his plate. He loathes spaghetti, but he’s too proud to say this to Potter when he’s angry about other things.
They argue now, too. When he pushes Potter away, Potter tells him to fucking stop it, that he can feel Draco through his robes. Draco knows that, too, he’s hard and he would much rather have someone stir his cauldron for him instead of his own hand, but then he’ll shatter a lamp or throw Potter’s awful Muggle clock on the wall and stomp out.
Until three days later.
It goes on for a month, maybe more. Maybe the baby notices. She’s moody now and she’s cranky and Draco wonders if it’s the arguments or if she’ll be teething soon.
On Monday, after Potter comes home from work, he announces in terse voice that he is going out tomorrow with Weasley and Granger for his birthday. He doesn’t look Draco in the eye. He stabs his fish with a steak knife, again and again and again until its mash. He downs one bottle of beer from the refrigerator and opens a second bottle before the first is even finished.
Draco’s bed is damp and uncomfortable. He left the window open in the spare all day and it rained on and off in the afternoon. Now he pays the price, laying there, his stomach growling angrily, a cold lead forming around his navel. Last night, they’d argued again. This time, it was Potter who shouted “Why the fuck do I even bother with you? You’re a fucking coward now as much as you were at school!” Draco was so angry a window shattered behind him, but Potter’s words still echo in his mind.
He doesn’t want to be a coward, and he’s afraid Potter is going to snap soon and kick him out of his house, as well as his bedroom. He has nowhere and nothing except this. He tosses and turns and the pajamas he filched from Potter stick to his legs. He doesn’t sleep, until, exhausted and desperate, it comes just before dawn.
He thinks about it all day when Potter is at work. He has never been one to do things impulsively. His Father always said it’s better to think before you act, and Draco reckons it’s true, unless you’re Longbottom and have nothing to think with. He feels utterly foolish contemplating this, but after Potter comes home in a whirl, dropping off take-away and changing his robes and Apparating off, Draco steps into the shower anyway.
The water is cool, but his body is hot. He can practically see the steam rising off his skin and but he’s so pale because he almost never leaves the house and he’s nearly sick with the thought of if something goes wrong but his cock is flushed and he touches himself, rubbing his balls in his hands, thumbing the head of his cock until he comes, leaning on the tiled wall and gasping a name he’s afraid to say aloud.
Pyrrha sleeps soundly in the spare bedroom. He tiptoes in to check on her briefly, and then he tiptoes into Potter’s bedroom. Even in the dark, he can see how devoid of detail the room is. Potter’s bed, in the middle, a calendar hanging on the wall, a lamp, repeatedly smashed and fixed, the clock the same. He has scattered clothes on the floor. Draco picks up a shirt and sniffs it, before inhaling the smell deeply. Sweat and curry takeaway and cheap cologne and soap and toothpaste and something else that mingles it all together, musky and strong.
Is this what I want? he thinks. He has no answer, but he drops his robes and slips between Potter’s sheets, sliding his damp limbs along the cool sheets. It feels different, lying in a bed nude. He feels very sensual and his hand floats down between his legs, lingering for a moment before he takes it away.
He watches the numbers on the clock change. At 11:56, he hears the sound of the door downstairs creek open as Potter slinks inside. He stops breathing and lies as stuff as a board, listening to the soft sounds of Potter’s footsteps trudging up the stairs. He can barely hear anything above the pounding of his heart, banging against his ribcage.
The door to Potter’s bedroom opens and the faint light from the hallway filters inside. Potter stands there for a moment, eclipsed in the light and says, “Malfoy?”
In his mind, he has a small speech worked out. I’m naked. I’m willing. It’s your birthday. Now do something before I change my mind. However, he feels so faint and heavy at the same time, confused and anxious and worried beyond belief that Potter is going to shout, or possibly fall over to the floor, drunk as that gameskeeper at Hogwarts, that he manages to blurt out simply “I’m starkers”.
Potter is silent. He walks across the room on steady feet, closing the door behind himself. His clothes smell of beer and fried food, pub food, but he peels them off, standing for a moment, just as starkers as Draco is. “I’m going to…” he sighs. “Whichever way you want is all right.”
“It’s your birthday,” Draco croaks. He clears his throat to try again, but Potter places a finger on his lips and shakes his head.
“Shut up, Malfoy,” he says. Then he pulls back the sheet, far enough to get in, but not far enough that he can see Draco. Draco is relieved, but his chest has swollen and he can’t breathe, not until Potter’s mouth meets his own, and then he gasps into it, tasting the alcohol on Potter’s tongue.
Potter wants him. Potter wants this. He can feel Potter’s cock pressing against his hip and it makes his own cock swell, harder, because Potter is lucid, Potter is in control, Potter’s hands are running down his sides, resting on his hips. His hands are warm and sweaty and they hold Draco in place. There is a knee between his legs, lips, mouth, tongue on his neck, his collar. He moans and wraps his arms around Potter, because he’s afraid of falling, because he’s afraid he’ll want this too much.
The sheets bunch under his back, arching, arching as Potter moves down his belly. He’s dark, he can’t see the marks, the reminders, but Draco can feel them, Draco knows they are there and he wonders if Potter notices. He’s panting. He can’t see anything besides Potter’s dark head, with soft hair, smelling of stale smoke, like his clothes. His thighs shudder, wrapped around Potter, and he moans, groans, clutches Potter like a lifeline, but he doesn’t stop, not even when his fingers dip between his legs and feel something.
Draco closes his eyes, his breath caught in his throat. He’s so hard, he’s on fire, his cock so swollen it aches with need. Potter’s nose brushes the side of his cock and he hisses, his toes curling in anticipation. When Potter’s fingertips curl inside him, into that warm place behind his balls, that he oughtn’t have, he chokes. Shock, fear, melting into desire because Potter pumps his fingers in and out, slow and steady as his tongue tests Draco’s cock.
The heat, the slickness, his body shudders, going still for an instant, before he lets himself go, Potter’s name on his lips, Potter’s hair in his fists.
He climbs out of the sheets, very carefully and on shaking knees, and straddles Potter’s thighs, his hands resting on Potter’s hips, but Potter pushes him off. “No, no- I want to…” he trails off, but his hands remain on Draco, painting the sweat across his sternum with fingertip brushes. “I just want to be in you tonight,” he whispers.
“Not my arse,” Draco whispers, frantic in case Potter has any ideas he’s a poof.
“All right,” he murmurs, already crawling on top again. His breath is hot in Draco’s ear. It makes him shiver. He wants Potter to whisper more things, to make the hairs of his neck stand up and his back arch, but he grows silent as Potter moves down his body, shifting, twining, snakelike motions of his limbs around Draco’s, moving together and constricting.
He’s wet inside, waiting for Potter. His thighs are slick, with his come, too, but mostly from inside. He’s numb there, aching, practically begging for Potter to push in and to satisfy that sweet pain. Potter’s back is slick under his fingertips. The air smells heady, of sex and desire. He can taste it on his tongue, between kisses.
Potter pushes inside and this is no drunken haze, like the first time. Potter pushes in and he knows Potter is there, he can feel Potter’s cock, throbbing against him, all around. Potter breathes hard, on his face, panting hot and sticky on his lips. Draco licks them, tasting tasting as he squeezes himself. Potter gasps and collapses from his elbows, his hips jutting, his cock thrusting inside.
Draco burns inside, slow and steady, not with the rush of wanking, but a saccharine build up that he wants to release, soon, but not yet. He moans under Potter, his head pushed deep into the pillows, his thighs clenching, but Potter falls first, gasping and shuddering and spurting, hot and deep inside.
He weaves his hands through Potter’s damp hair, as he rests on Draco’s chest, making the invisible hairs rise and fall. “Happy Birthday, Potter,” Draco murmurs.