FIC: Things That Change, 20/?
Title: Things That Change [20/?]
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][Part 6][Part 7][Part 8][Part 9][Part 10]
[Part 11][Part 12][Part 13][Part 14][Part 15][Part 16][Part 17][Part 18][Part 19]
[Part 20]
1.
Three days before the first of September, Hermione’s head appears in the fireplace.
“Granger wants to talk to you about something,” Malfoy says, prodding Harry to answer the Floo-call.
“Hullo Harry,” Hermione says over the whoosh of the floo. “The Weasleys are having a family dinner tomorrow night at the Burrow. Come and have supper. We haven’t seen you in a few weeks.”
Harry nods and says he’ll come. Behind him, he can hear Malfoy grumbling already, but he doesn’t really listen too closely.
He orders a Portkey for Friday afternoon, but Tomkins in the Department of Magical Transportation can’t get one any closer than a field a few miles off. “That’s all right,” Harry says, “we can walk the rest of the way.”
“Walk?” Malfoy spits, after they portkey into a raining field, sopping with mud puddles and deep trenches between furrows, filled with cold water. “Walk?” He flicks his wand and Harry’s wristwatch falls off. Malfoy catches it like a Snitch and transfigures it into a large, black umbrella that their children all huddle under.
Harry ducks his head under, but the rest of him doesn’t fit. His back grows damp with the drizzling rain and his shoes squelch in the mud. They walk aways until Harry recognizes a hillcrest and says, “It’s not too far from here.”
Beside him, Malfoy rolls his eyes.
“We didn’t we just Apparate?” Abraxas complains.
“Too much effort,” Harry says.
“Like this isn’t effort enough,” Malfoy mutters.
Harry rolls his eyes again.
The landscape has changed little since Harry was last here- the trees are a little taller, a big, wide oak has a split down its trunk and the hill seems smaller, but the fields and the small houses dotting the world remain the same. He walks on, before veering left onto a little muddy pathway through some scrubby bushes. “This way’s shorter,” he tells them.
“My robes are filthy,” Malfoy grumbles.
“Mine too,” Viola whines. “If I’d known you’d make us walk through the mud, Dad, I would have worn my jeans.”
“It’s not far,” Harry assures them. “Really.”
It has been a long time since he has walked this way. He knows the Burrow is close, just through this small copse of short bushes and tall oaks and elms, but when they reach an open hillside again, he doesn’t remember this way or this place at all.
Gravestones lie cluttered in clumps of twos and threes, spread across the hill, overturned and crooked, grass growing up the sides. They walk throw the widest row between graves, toward the field where Harry can see the main chimney of the Burrow sticking up into the grey sky.
“What a lovely walk we’re having,” Malfoy drawls, sarcastic and condescending. “A pleasant day and a pleasant stroll through a graveyard.”
Harry feels someone reach out and clutch his hand with a small, sweaty palm. He glances down at James, who walks close to him.
“It’s pretty,” Pyrrha says. “And kind of sad.”
“And dead,” Abraxas says. He steps out from under the umbrella and walks up to a gravestone, brushing some of the long grass away with the toe of his trainer. “’Here lies Hetty Fizzlewinkle- good in bed, but better dead’.”
“Abraxas!” Harry says sternly.
Abraxas shrugs. “That’s what the gravestone says, not me.”
Viola darts out from Malfoy, too, walking off slowly toward Harry as she weaves through the crumbling stones. “They’re all so old- 18-something and 17-something.” She walks past several more, stooping down to read the names. “Oh- here’s a more recent one- 1995!”
“Come on!” Malfoy says loudly. “Let’s hurry up and get to the Weasley’s shack before it’s dark.” Abraxas runs back under the umbrella and Harry and James do the same, standing close to Malfoy, walking as one eight-legged family unit.
Harry glances behind when Viola doesn’t come. He looks back to see her lingering over a gravestone, her brow scrunched but her eyes huge and wide.
“Viola?” he calls out.
She stares at the grave for a long moment longer, unmoving, before she rushes up to the rest of them. Her face is white and her mouth open. Harry can hear the shallow breathing from her lips.
“All right?” Harry asks.
“Was Cedric Diggory the boy who died when you were at school?” she asks, the words rushing out of her mouth in a jumble.
Harry stops walking. James tugs on his hand. “Yeah,” he whispers.
The memories come back- Cedric’s glassy eyes staring up at him, still flashing with the green light of the killing curse. Voldemort’s high-pitched voice, ringing in his ears:
Kill the spare!
Harry closes his eyes as a shiver courses through his body. “Yeah,” he says again.
2.
He can’t stop thinking about Cedric Diggory all night. Harry sits in the Weasley’s living room. It is smaller than ever and cramped with all these people. The stifling summer air only grows thicker by the minute with the damp rain keeping everyone inside. Pyrrha sits on the floor close by with Bill and Fleur’s eldest daughter, a tall willowy girl with pale red hair and pretty features.
Harry is wedged at the end of the couch beside Ginny and Neville. He stares at the paisley pattern of the window curtains. If he stares too long, Cedric’s long-dead face starts to materialize in them, his face open in the last expression he ever made.
Something pokes his arm. “All right, Harry?” Ginny asks him, smiling tightly. Her own face looks withdrawn and she has bags under her eyes.
“I’m fine,” Harry says. He stands up, “I was just thinking I’d- go get some air,” he offers.
“Mind if I come?” Ginny asks. She nods to Neville and follows Harry out, squeezing past Fred and George and Ron’s two sons.
Harry stumbles over something. He glances over his shoulder to see Malfoy scowling at him, his leg sticking out onto the carpet. Harry shrugs and opens the back door of the Burrow, stepping under the dripping porch.
Ginny closes the door behind them. “I’ve forgotten a bit what it’s like to be back with everyone. It’s different than the flat in London.”
Harry grunts in agreement.
“Harry-” Ginny reaches for his hand and grips it tight. Harry stiffens and turns to her, trying to pull away. “Harry- I have something to tell you.”
“What?” he mutters, wondering if Malfoy can see them through a window, if he’ll have to endure yet another fight and even more suspicions, just when things had been all right for a while.
“I’m pregnant- Neville and I are having a baby,” she says, then looks up at him, biting her bottom lip. She smiles, a little off-centred, and raises her eyebrows. “I’ve told everyone else, but I wanted to tell you in person.”
“Er…thanks?” Harry says. “I mean, you’ve been living together for a while, so I reckon its okay.”
“Mum wants us to get married- and Neville does too, but…” Ginny sighs and lets go of Harry’s hand. She steps out closer to the edge of the porch, close enough that the mist from the rain catches on the front of her shirt. “I’d always thought that maybe it would have been someone other than him sometimes is all. And I feel awful for it because Neville is wonderful and he loves me and you’re with Malfoy, but…”
“But what?” Harry prompts, trying not to push Ginny. He clears his throat and repeats himself, quieter the second time.
“I guess I never thought you’d stay with Malfoy this long- that…” She shakes her head, smiling the whole while. “It was stupid to think it- and you’re happy and I’m happy for you, Harry, but I don’t understand why him?”
Harry hesitates before reaching out, stepping towards Ginny and placing a hand on her upper arm. Her skin is cool and damp with the weather. She turns to him, her lips parted, shining with saliva from where she has licked them, her tongue darting out from between her teeth.
Harry leans down and kisses her on the cheek. It is Ginny’s turn to still when Harry pulls back and smiles, “I don’t know,” he mutters. “But I love him.”
“I had a feeling you did,” Ginny whispers.
“I’m sorry,” Harry says.
“I am, too,” Ginny says as she holds her arms, her fingers curling into her arm where Harry’s hand had touched her.
3.
He thinks about Ginny sometimes still, even though her photograph has long moved from his bedroom dresser downstairs to a table by the fireplace, rimmed with discolouration, but her smile just as bright as they day it was taken, years and years ago.
Harry looks at Malfoy as he sleeps, his blond hair mussed and falling over his eyes, the snores louder than any woman’s would ever be. He kicks in his sleep, especially when he has dreams that wake Harry- ones where he mumbles names and murmurs no and flings his arms across the bed. Harry reaches over to touch Malfoy’s shoulder, the only part of his body not hidden by a mound of cocooned blankets.
Malfoy wiggles his nose, his breathing catching for a moment before it resumes its regular rhythm.
It was a lie he told Ginny, and it eats his insides a little when he talks to her, smiles as he sees her stomach start to round out, her very own child at long last. It eats him up inside even more when he thinks about Ginny as he watches Malfoy like this, because he told Malfoy there was no one else and there is no one else and Ginny still makes him question himself.
“I love you,” he whispers, his words stirring Malfoy’s hair. He brushes them aside and presses his lips to Malfoy’s forehead, the skin warm and smooth.
“I love it when you say hello after I come home from the Ministry,” he mutters, “and when you complain about Dobby I want to hex you sometimes, because you piss the hell out of me, but then when I see you with Pyrrha, or Viola, or Abraxas, or James- and I see them in you and-” Harry sighs, stopping himself. “This is ridiculous,” he whispers as he shuffles down deeper into the sheets, the autumn chill starting to permeate even into their bed.
He closes his eyes, then feels a hand reach over, grazing his belly before clutching his own hand, their fingers twining together, rough skin and sweaty, but squeezing just enough to make Harry stop breathing when Malfoy mumbles, “I’m not asleep, idiot.”
Harry feels like the fool, but he laughs anyway.
4.
Autumn is an ugly mess of endless grey days and rainy, cold nights, but with the advent of December, the landscape changes into a beautiful canvas of frost-dusted tree branches and snow that dusts the ground around Christmas time, something that Harry doesn’t remember having happened in a long while.
He lights fires in the fireplace, burning crackling pine logs and fragrant cedar. The house smells of a forest when he throws in pinecones from the Apothecary’s, too, something that Malfoy approves of.
“We did that at the Manor when I was young,” he says.
Harry smiles and pulls his arm, dragging him close. Malfoy wraps around his waist and licks the side of Harry’s neck when James is in bed.
“You could fuck me here, and he wouldn’t know,” Malfoy drawls. He bites the end of Harry’s earlobe, making him gasp at the physicality of the gesture, then gasp again as Malfoy tugs it between his teeth.
“I could,” Harry concedes when Malfoy’s hand wiggles under his trouser waistband. Finger curl around his cock and stroke it, none too gentle.
Harry groans and pushes Malfoy to the couch, pushing up Malfoy’s robes and fucking him with the window curtains wide open to the outside world. Malfoy sinks into the cushions and his fingernails jab into Harry’s shoulders, but the hot, tight feeling surrounding his cock, the moans Malfoy makes, the way he flushes and thrusts his hips up- this, Harry could never tire of, nor afterward, when Malfoy lies next to him, half-covered with disheveled robes, talking of their children.
“She’s not coming home this year,” Malfoy says.
“There’s a Yule Ball,” Harry says. “She’s in her seventh year- and we’ll send her gifts, early if we need to.”
“Don’t use Hedwig- she’s too old and slow now.” Malfoy sighs and runs the sole of his foot along Harry’s shin, rubbing the hairs the wrong way.
“There’s going to be a photographer, too,” Harry says. “Colin Creevey’s wife works at the Ministry and she told me that Hogwarts hired him to do professional photos. I’ve filled out the form for Pyrrha already.”
“You want pictures of that?” Malfoy asks.
“Don’t you?” Harry asks him back.
Malfoy sighs. “Yeah, but- God, I feel old thinking about that. My bones will start to creak soon and you’ll only be able to fuck me missionary.”
I like it when you’re on top, Harry thinks. I can see your face when you come; I can see your mouth open when you moan my name; I can see you shudder and collapse on my chest. Instead of saying anything, he simply shakes his head and rolls his eyes at Malfoy.
It feels a little strange when Harry picks up only Abraxas and Viola at King’s Cross Station and drives home. It feels strange to eat those first few meals with more than just Malfoy and James and not have Pyrrha beside them at the table, talking about her Muggle Studies course, or the shops in Hogsmeade she visited on her last Hogsmeade weekend.
“How is Quidditch?” Harry asks Abraxas.
Abraxas looks up from his food and shrugs. “Same as last year. It would help if I had a better broom- my Starfire 3001 has been flying like shit this season.”
Harry frowns at Abraxas’ words, but says “Maybe you’ll get a broom servicing kit for Christmas.”
“I’d rather a new broom,” Abraxas mutters.
“You don’t need a new one- your Starfire is hardly a year old.”
“And ancient by broom standards. I mean- did you really fly Nimbus 2001s and Firebolts in school, Dad? They’re so bloody slow!”
“I had the first Nimbus 2001 in the school,” Malfoy says, smiling smugly from across the table.
“And I should have the first Starfire version 3.0, then,” Abraxas drawls, just as smug.
Harry shakes his head and glances over to Viola. “All right?” he asks her.
She looks up from staring at her food behind her long, red hair. Her lip starts to quiver and she pushes her chair back, shrieking, “Why can’t you just leave me alone?!” before running out of the kitchen, running up the stairs and slamming her bedroom door closed.
Malfoy shrugs when Harry mentions it later that night. “Maybe she’s- er…having cramps?” he says.
“Maybe,” Harry replies. “She didn’t even come down for tea. She loves tea- a bit odd, don’t you think?”
“She’s a girl, Potter. They’re all a bit odd. Pyrrha used to lock herself in her room sometimes.”
“No, that was Abraxas,” Harry says, “and he’s doing it again as we speak.”
“You know what sixteen year old blokes do,” Malfoy says, crawling across the bed and straddling Harry. He sits down slowly on top of Harry’s hips, grinding long enough to make Harry hiss and buck upwards.
“You didn’t spend your nights locked in your room polishing your broom,” Harry says, his hands sliding up to hold Malfoy’s sides, bunching the fabric of his robes in his fists. “God-” he moans, then adds, “you locked yourself in the Room of Requirement with that wardrobe.”
And he immediately regrets his words when he sees Malfoy’s eyes darken and the sly smile fall from his lips. Malfoy pushes himself off and sits at the far end of the bed, leaning over to hug his legs.
“I- that’s not something I’m proud of,” he murmurs. “Not now, anyway.”
“I know,” Harry says. “You- you’ve changed. Things have changed.”
He hears Malfoy sniffle once before Malfoy turns to him. His eyes shine in the dim light, the unfallen tears reflecting the bright, blinking lights of trees outside, green then gold then red and blue. Malfoy sighs, running his teeth along his bottom lip, before standing up.
Harry watches him as his robes rise above his head and his pale body is uncovered, his cock hanging between his legs, rising at Harry’s gaze. Harry takes Malfoy’s hand and touches Malfoy’s cock with their clasped hands, feeling him harden, seeing him close his eyes and swallow a lump in his throat.
“Lie down on top of me,” Harry whispers. He pulls of his glasses and sets them aside. Malfoy’s body blurs, the edges running together with the light from the city skyline streaming in from the window, orange and red and white, fragments of colour patching his skin.
Malfoy sinks down on Harry and moans, “Don’t let this end”.
Harry doesn’t know what Malfoy is talking about. Sex, or this, whatever they have together and have for eighteen years, for seemingly so long, but so fleeting as well. He groans back, “Never.”
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][Part 6][Part 7][Part 8][Part 9][Part 10]
[Part 11][Part 12][Part 13][Part 14][Part 15][Part 16][Part 17][Part 18][Part 19]
[Part 20]
1.
Three days before the first of September, Hermione’s head appears in the fireplace.
“Granger wants to talk to you about something,” Malfoy says, prodding Harry to answer the Floo-call.
“Hullo Harry,” Hermione says over the whoosh of the floo. “The Weasleys are having a family dinner tomorrow night at the Burrow. Come and have supper. We haven’t seen you in a few weeks.”
Harry nods and says he’ll come. Behind him, he can hear Malfoy grumbling already, but he doesn’t really listen too closely.
He orders a Portkey for Friday afternoon, but Tomkins in the Department of Magical Transportation can’t get one any closer than a field a few miles off. “That’s all right,” Harry says, “we can walk the rest of the way.”
“Walk?” Malfoy spits, after they portkey into a raining field, sopping with mud puddles and deep trenches between furrows, filled with cold water. “Walk?” He flicks his wand and Harry’s wristwatch falls off. Malfoy catches it like a Snitch and transfigures it into a large, black umbrella that their children all huddle under.
Harry ducks his head under, but the rest of him doesn’t fit. His back grows damp with the drizzling rain and his shoes squelch in the mud. They walk aways until Harry recognizes a hillcrest and says, “It’s not too far from here.”
Beside him, Malfoy rolls his eyes.
“We didn’t we just Apparate?” Abraxas complains.
“Too much effort,” Harry says.
“Like this isn’t effort enough,” Malfoy mutters.
Harry rolls his eyes again.
The landscape has changed little since Harry was last here- the trees are a little taller, a big, wide oak has a split down its trunk and the hill seems smaller, but the fields and the small houses dotting the world remain the same. He walks on, before veering left onto a little muddy pathway through some scrubby bushes. “This way’s shorter,” he tells them.
“My robes are filthy,” Malfoy grumbles.
“Mine too,” Viola whines. “If I’d known you’d make us walk through the mud, Dad, I would have worn my jeans.”
“It’s not far,” Harry assures them. “Really.”
It has been a long time since he has walked this way. He knows the Burrow is close, just through this small copse of short bushes and tall oaks and elms, but when they reach an open hillside again, he doesn’t remember this way or this place at all.
Gravestones lie cluttered in clumps of twos and threes, spread across the hill, overturned and crooked, grass growing up the sides. They walk throw the widest row between graves, toward the field where Harry can see the main chimney of the Burrow sticking up into the grey sky.
“What a lovely walk we’re having,” Malfoy drawls, sarcastic and condescending. “A pleasant day and a pleasant stroll through a graveyard.”
Harry feels someone reach out and clutch his hand with a small, sweaty palm. He glances down at James, who walks close to him.
“It’s pretty,” Pyrrha says. “And kind of sad.”
“And dead,” Abraxas says. He steps out from under the umbrella and walks up to a gravestone, brushing some of the long grass away with the toe of his trainer. “’Here lies Hetty Fizzlewinkle- good in bed, but better dead’.”
“Abraxas!” Harry says sternly.
Abraxas shrugs. “That’s what the gravestone says, not me.”
Viola darts out from Malfoy, too, walking off slowly toward Harry as she weaves through the crumbling stones. “They’re all so old- 18-something and 17-something.” She walks past several more, stooping down to read the names. “Oh- here’s a more recent one- 1995!”
“Come on!” Malfoy says loudly. “Let’s hurry up and get to the Weasley’s shack before it’s dark.” Abraxas runs back under the umbrella and Harry and James do the same, standing close to Malfoy, walking as one eight-legged family unit.
Harry glances behind when Viola doesn’t come. He looks back to see her lingering over a gravestone, her brow scrunched but her eyes huge and wide.
“Viola?” he calls out.
She stares at the grave for a long moment longer, unmoving, before she rushes up to the rest of them. Her face is white and her mouth open. Harry can hear the shallow breathing from her lips.
“All right?” Harry asks.
“Was Cedric Diggory the boy who died when you were at school?” she asks, the words rushing out of her mouth in a jumble.
Harry stops walking. James tugs on his hand. “Yeah,” he whispers.
The memories come back- Cedric’s glassy eyes staring up at him, still flashing with the green light of the killing curse. Voldemort’s high-pitched voice, ringing in his ears:
Kill the spare!
Harry closes his eyes as a shiver courses through his body. “Yeah,” he says again.
2.
He can’t stop thinking about Cedric Diggory all night. Harry sits in the Weasley’s living room. It is smaller than ever and cramped with all these people. The stifling summer air only grows thicker by the minute with the damp rain keeping everyone inside. Pyrrha sits on the floor close by with Bill and Fleur’s eldest daughter, a tall willowy girl with pale red hair and pretty features.
Harry is wedged at the end of the couch beside Ginny and Neville. He stares at the paisley pattern of the window curtains. If he stares too long, Cedric’s long-dead face starts to materialize in them, his face open in the last expression he ever made.
Something pokes his arm. “All right, Harry?” Ginny asks him, smiling tightly. Her own face looks withdrawn and she has bags under her eyes.
“I’m fine,” Harry says. He stands up, “I was just thinking I’d- go get some air,” he offers.
“Mind if I come?” Ginny asks. She nods to Neville and follows Harry out, squeezing past Fred and George and Ron’s two sons.
Harry stumbles over something. He glances over his shoulder to see Malfoy scowling at him, his leg sticking out onto the carpet. Harry shrugs and opens the back door of the Burrow, stepping under the dripping porch.
Ginny closes the door behind them. “I’ve forgotten a bit what it’s like to be back with everyone. It’s different than the flat in London.”
Harry grunts in agreement.
“Harry-” Ginny reaches for his hand and grips it tight. Harry stiffens and turns to her, trying to pull away. “Harry- I have something to tell you.”
“What?” he mutters, wondering if Malfoy can see them through a window, if he’ll have to endure yet another fight and even more suspicions, just when things had been all right for a while.
“I’m pregnant- Neville and I are having a baby,” she says, then looks up at him, biting her bottom lip. She smiles, a little off-centred, and raises her eyebrows. “I’ve told everyone else, but I wanted to tell you in person.”
“Er…thanks?” Harry says. “I mean, you’ve been living together for a while, so I reckon its okay.”
“Mum wants us to get married- and Neville does too, but…” Ginny sighs and lets go of Harry’s hand. She steps out closer to the edge of the porch, close enough that the mist from the rain catches on the front of her shirt. “I’d always thought that maybe it would have been someone other than him sometimes is all. And I feel awful for it because Neville is wonderful and he loves me and you’re with Malfoy, but…”
“But what?” Harry prompts, trying not to push Ginny. He clears his throat and repeats himself, quieter the second time.
“I guess I never thought you’d stay with Malfoy this long- that…” She shakes her head, smiling the whole while. “It was stupid to think it- and you’re happy and I’m happy for you, Harry, but I don’t understand why him?”
Harry hesitates before reaching out, stepping towards Ginny and placing a hand on her upper arm. Her skin is cool and damp with the weather. She turns to him, her lips parted, shining with saliva from where she has licked them, her tongue darting out from between her teeth.
Harry leans down and kisses her on the cheek. It is Ginny’s turn to still when Harry pulls back and smiles, “I don’t know,” he mutters. “But I love him.”
“I had a feeling you did,” Ginny whispers.
“I’m sorry,” Harry says.
“I am, too,” Ginny says as she holds her arms, her fingers curling into her arm where Harry’s hand had touched her.
3.
He thinks about Ginny sometimes still, even though her photograph has long moved from his bedroom dresser downstairs to a table by the fireplace, rimmed with discolouration, but her smile just as bright as they day it was taken, years and years ago.
Harry looks at Malfoy as he sleeps, his blond hair mussed and falling over his eyes, the snores louder than any woman’s would ever be. He kicks in his sleep, especially when he has dreams that wake Harry- ones where he mumbles names and murmurs no and flings his arms across the bed. Harry reaches over to touch Malfoy’s shoulder, the only part of his body not hidden by a mound of cocooned blankets.
Malfoy wiggles his nose, his breathing catching for a moment before it resumes its regular rhythm.
It was a lie he told Ginny, and it eats his insides a little when he talks to her, smiles as he sees her stomach start to round out, her very own child at long last. It eats him up inside even more when he thinks about Ginny as he watches Malfoy like this, because he told Malfoy there was no one else and there is no one else and Ginny still makes him question himself.
“I love you,” he whispers, his words stirring Malfoy’s hair. He brushes them aside and presses his lips to Malfoy’s forehead, the skin warm and smooth.
“I love it when you say hello after I come home from the Ministry,” he mutters, “and when you complain about Dobby I want to hex you sometimes, because you piss the hell out of me, but then when I see you with Pyrrha, or Viola, or Abraxas, or James- and I see them in you and-” Harry sighs, stopping himself. “This is ridiculous,” he whispers as he shuffles down deeper into the sheets, the autumn chill starting to permeate even into their bed.
He closes his eyes, then feels a hand reach over, grazing his belly before clutching his own hand, their fingers twining together, rough skin and sweaty, but squeezing just enough to make Harry stop breathing when Malfoy mumbles, “I’m not asleep, idiot.”
Harry feels like the fool, but he laughs anyway.
4.
Autumn is an ugly mess of endless grey days and rainy, cold nights, but with the advent of December, the landscape changes into a beautiful canvas of frost-dusted tree branches and snow that dusts the ground around Christmas time, something that Harry doesn’t remember having happened in a long while.
He lights fires in the fireplace, burning crackling pine logs and fragrant cedar. The house smells of a forest when he throws in pinecones from the Apothecary’s, too, something that Malfoy approves of.
“We did that at the Manor when I was young,” he says.
Harry smiles and pulls his arm, dragging him close. Malfoy wraps around his waist and licks the side of Harry’s neck when James is in bed.
“You could fuck me here, and he wouldn’t know,” Malfoy drawls. He bites the end of Harry’s earlobe, making him gasp at the physicality of the gesture, then gasp again as Malfoy tugs it between his teeth.
“I could,” Harry concedes when Malfoy’s hand wiggles under his trouser waistband. Finger curl around his cock and stroke it, none too gentle.
Harry groans and pushes Malfoy to the couch, pushing up Malfoy’s robes and fucking him with the window curtains wide open to the outside world. Malfoy sinks into the cushions and his fingernails jab into Harry’s shoulders, but the hot, tight feeling surrounding his cock, the moans Malfoy makes, the way he flushes and thrusts his hips up- this, Harry could never tire of, nor afterward, when Malfoy lies next to him, half-covered with disheveled robes, talking of their children.
“She’s not coming home this year,” Malfoy says.
“There’s a Yule Ball,” Harry says. “She’s in her seventh year- and we’ll send her gifts, early if we need to.”
“Don’t use Hedwig- she’s too old and slow now.” Malfoy sighs and runs the sole of his foot along Harry’s shin, rubbing the hairs the wrong way.
“There’s going to be a photographer, too,” Harry says. “Colin Creevey’s wife works at the Ministry and she told me that Hogwarts hired him to do professional photos. I’ve filled out the form for Pyrrha already.”
“You want pictures of that?” Malfoy asks.
“Don’t you?” Harry asks him back.
Malfoy sighs. “Yeah, but- God, I feel old thinking about that. My bones will start to creak soon and you’ll only be able to fuck me missionary.”
I like it when you’re on top, Harry thinks. I can see your face when you come; I can see your mouth open when you moan my name; I can see you shudder and collapse on my chest. Instead of saying anything, he simply shakes his head and rolls his eyes at Malfoy.
It feels a little strange when Harry picks up only Abraxas and Viola at King’s Cross Station and drives home. It feels strange to eat those first few meals with more than just Malfoy and James and not have Pyrrha beside them at the table, talking about her Muggle Studies course, or the shops in Hogsmeade she visited on her last Hogsmeade weekend.
“How is Quidditch?” Harry asks Abraxas.
Abraxas looks up from his food and shrugs. “Same as last year. It would help if I had a better broom- my Starfire 3001 has been flying like shit this season.”
Harry frowns at Abraxas’ words, but says “Maybe you’ll get a broom servicing kit for Christmas.”
“I’d rather a new broom,” Abraxas mutters.
“You don’t need a new one- your Starfire is hardly a year old.”
“And ancient by broom standards. I mean- did you really fly Nimbus 2001s and Firebolts in school, Dad? They’re so bloody slow!”
“I had the first Nimbus 2001 in the school,” Malfoy says, smiling smugly from across the table.
“And I should have the first Starfire version 3.0, then,” Abraxas drawls, just as smug.
Harry shakes his head and glances over to Viola. “All right?” he asks her.
She looks up from staring at her food behind her long, red hair. Her lip starts to quiver and she pushes her chair back, shrieking, “Why can’t you just leave me alone?!” before running out of the kitchen, running up the stairs and slamming her bedroom door closed.
Malfoy shrugs when Harry mentions it later that night. “Maybe she’s- er…having cramps?” he says.
“Maybe,” Harry replies. “She didn’t even come down for tea. She loves tea- a bit odd, don’t you think?”
“She’s a girl, Potter. They’re all a bit odd. Pyrrha used to lock herself in her room sometimes.”
“No, that was Abraxas,” Harry says, “and he’s doing it again as we speak.”
“You know what sixteen year old blokes do,” Malfoy says, crawling across the bed and straddling Harry. He sits down slowly on top of Harry’s hips, grinding long enough to make Harry hiss and buck upwards.
“You didn’t spend your nights locked in your room polishing your broom,” Harry says, his hands sliding up to hold Malfoy’s sides, bunching the fabric of his robes in his fists. “God-” he moans, then adds, “you locked yourself in the Room of Requirement with that wardrobe.”
And he immediately regrets his words when he sees Malfoy’s eyes darken and the sly smile fall from his lips. Malfoy pushes himself off and sits at the far end of the bed, leaning over to hug his legs.
“I- that’s not something I’m proud of,” he murmurs. “Not now, anyway.”
“I know,” Harry says. “You- you’ve changed. Things have changed.”
He hears Malfoy sniffle once before Malfoy turns to him. His eyes shine in the dim light, the unfallen tears reflecting the bright, blinking lights of trees outside, green then gold then red and blue. Malfoy sighs, running his teeth along his bottom lip, before standing up.
Harry watches him as his robes rise above his head and his pale body is uncovered, his cock hanging between his legs, rising at Harry’s gaze. Harry takes Malfoy’s hand and touches Malfoy’s cock with their clasped hands, feeling him harden, seeing him close his eyes and swallow a lump in his throat.
“Lie down on top of me,” Harry whispers. He pulls of his glasses and sets them aside. Malfoy’s body blurs, the edges running together with the light from the city skyline streaming in from the window, orange and red and white, fragments of colour patching his skin.
Malfoy sinks down on Harry and moans, “Don’t let this end”.
Harry doesn’t know what Malfoy is talking about. Sex, or this, whatever they have together and have for eighteen years, for seemingly so long, but so fleeting as well. He groans back, “Never.”