Tight-Lacing
Title: Tight-Lacing
Summary: Lucius' death threatens to tear Harry and Draco apart.
Rating: NC-17
Length: 3, 129
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Content/themes: Cross-dressing , asphyxiation
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter franchise, nor do I profit from this.
Author's note: The second (and most likely final) part to Corseting .
Gossamer threads of morning light filtered in where the heavy drapery was not perfectly aligned, creating intricate, little patterns on Draco’s back for Harry to be groggily fascinated by. Draco slept nude, curled up tight into a long-limbed ball. The knobs of his spine and the sharp juts of his scapula pressed against the pale skin in which they were wrapped. Since their relationship’s tenuous start a blur ago, he hadn’t been wearing corsets as often (he said he no longer needed them with Harry in his life, however, he had quite a collection and Harry delighted in the challenge of ripping them off) but his ribcage still narrowed into an unusually slender waist. Sometimes it frightened Harry, the fine-boned slip of existence Draco Malfoy was, but he knew firsthand that that fragility was deceptive. With an absentminded smile, he trailed a finger down the minute curve of Draco’s spine.
The air was unpleasantly cold; no rare occurrence in Harry’s virtually-derelict anachronism of a house despite numerous warming charms. Gooseflesh prickled Draco’s bare skin, the pale hairs on his arms standing straight up. As Harry reached for the Weasley-made quilt, Draco rolled onto his back, peering into Harry’s face with eyes too lucid for a sleeper.
“Good morning,” said Harry, pressing a kiss onto the corner of Draco’s mouth. “What happened yesterday? I was really looking forward to seeing you, you know.”
He’d been gone on a week-long stint in South Africa; Auror-related business. He and Draco were supposed to have made up for lost time by spending the evening together. Harry had waited up until his tired body demanded rest at ten o’clock.
Whenever his work separated him from Draco, he was reminded of exactly how this relationship was both motivation and distraction; motivation to make it home safely and quickly lest he wither with an obsessive sort of lovesickness, and often responsible for taking up enough of Harry’s cerebral activity that it made good judgement secondary and carelessness more abundant. Several avoidable injuries could attest to that.
“Sorry. Lost track of time; I Apparated into your foyer a little after midnight, but you were asleep. I figured I would apologise by being the first thing you saw when you woke up…” He pulled Harry’s arm over his torso, cradling his hip into Harry’s, siphoning body heat from their intimacy. “By the way, I’m not comforted by the fact that a trained Auror can sleep soundly with an intruder clomping about on his whiny floorboards, much less getting into bed with him.”
An amused, slightly embarrassed chuckle filled his ears, the stubble on Harry’s chin scraping his cheek. “Don’t you think it’s a tad early for scathing social commentary?”
“If that’s the case, I hope it’s not too early for a fuck, as well.”
Harry’s eyebrows rose, momentarily lost beneath his unruly fringe, and his cock gave an interested throb. “Miss me that much, did you?”
“Well, the way I see it,” Draco started, bony fingers tugging at the drawstring of Harry’s plaid pyjama bottoms, “I’m naked and you’re halfway there; this seems the next logical step. Consider it a hero’s welcome.”
“Christ. You’re going to kill me someday.”
Draco responded by licking at his unshaven chin. He then removed Harry’s arm from where he’d draped it and pushed the other man onto his back, lips and tongue sloppily melding with Harry’s while his hands worked at getting those tatty trousers out of the way. He didn’t bother shoving them past mid-thigh after Harry’s cock sprang free, erect and dark between them. He curled his fingers around it, pumping it almost reverently, as if memorising every detail, the smooth ridge of every vein. He’d forgotten exactly how much he missed this; missed Harry’s touch and feel. It was worrisome how consumed he was by this raw need; the need to connect.
“Shit,” Harry grunted, slipping a broad hand over the one tossing him off, forcing Draco’s fingers to tighten and his hand to slide faster over Harry’s cock. Harry’s hips bucked on their own volition as Draco skilfully manipulated his foreskin on every upward stroke. Pre-ejaculate glistened on the purplish head of his cock, sticky-wet strings clinging to Draco’s fingers. He closed his eyes, his breath quick and heavy as he forced his cock into the warm, firm hand. He could feel Draco’s erection digging into his hipbone.
“Are you close?” Draco whispered throatily, his breath damp and warm on the shell of Harry’s ear.
“Yeah… Getting there…” He kissed the corner of Draco’s mouth.
“Don’t come yet,” Draco angled his head so that his lips were on Harry’s. “I want you to come inside me.”
It took all of Harry’s self-restraint to dig his teeth into his bottom lip and pry Draco’s hand off his cock. He watched, mesmerised, as Draco’s pink, wet tongue collected the stringy mess off his fingers. He was so bloody close, and the explicit invitation only pushed him further over the edge. He flipped their positions so that he was now on top, forearms braced on either side of Draco’s head. The pyjama bottoms were oversized with the drawstring loosened; gravity pooled them around his knees. He kicked them off with comically hurried movements, prompting Draco to have a quiet wheeze of a laugh at his expense. He swallowed it with his mouth as grinded his erection into Draco’s.
“Merlin, don’t tease me, Potter.” Draco’s eyes were squeezed shut, reddened lips glistening and slack.
He pushed up the backs of Draco’s thighs so that his cock rubbed tauntingly against Draco’s hole. “How do you want this?”
Bruises formed where Harry’s fingers sank into Draco’s skin as he thrust violently into him from behind. The headboard slammed noisily into the wall over and over, accompanied by pleasured grunts and moans, and Harry was glad that he didn’t live in a flat like Draco did or else he’d have angry neighbours to contend with. There was nothing gentle about this; it wasn’t making love. It was aggressive, unbridled fucking. Draco had made sure of that; begged Harry not to use lubricant because he couldn’t wait; shrugged away from caresses and soft kisses; slapped Harry’s hand when he tried to jerk him off. Fast and hard was what they did best, but something about the whole thing felt wrong underneath the heady friction. He pulled back so that his cock slipped completely out of Draco’s arse.
Draco’s head whipped around in a flash of platinum hair; face flushed and eyes dilated and desperate over his bony shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“Want you on your back, is all,” Harry replied.
Draco watched him, contemplatively licking his bottom lip before quickly falling onto his back, legs wantonly splayed in a picturesque display of debauchery. Harry wasted no time in sinking back into him, pounding him into the mattress as though their very lives depended on this.
They were both far gone when Draco rasped a clear, “Choke me.” And without thinking, Harry did. He came with Draco’s legs thrown over his shoulders and his hands wrapped around Draco’s neck, muscles spasming around Harry’s cock and under his squeezing fingers.
That had never happened before.
He felt so bloody guilty, serenaded by Draco’s loud gulps of air from a fingerprint-discoloured throat. The fact that Draco had come all over Harry’s stomach didn’t make him feel any better about it; it only added another layer to the disgusting confusion.
“I…I’ll put on some tea,” he stammered, clambering off the bed. He grabbed his pyjama bottoms, not even attempting to put them on in his haste to escape the bedroom.
The roar of the shower echoed throughout the decaying house, water rushing through the old, rusted pipes. Harry was at the kitchen sink, filling the tin kettle with shaky hands. His heart thumped madly against his ribs, thoughts chaotic in his skull. It would seem as though his knack for fucking everything up would follow him to the grave. Something disturbing had transpired, and he up and left after fucking well choking his-whatever Draco was to him. He set the kettle on the stove, lighting a flame beneath it. Now what? The peeling walls offered no answers.
He sat at the kitchen table. Kreacher had brought in The Daily Prophet, rather grudgingly if its crumpled state was anything to go by. Harry didn’t read the newspaper, and there were literally hundreds of them unread in yellowed, dusty piles about Grimmauld Place. In spite of this, Kreacher made sure one was on the table every morning; one of the only chores the irritable house-elf deigned to carry out. Harry’s reluctance to ascend the rickety stairs and look reality in the face allowed him to unfold The Prophet for the first time in years. The headline on the front page made his blood run cold.
‘Lucius Malfoy Dead: Former Death Eater Found Hanging in Manor Yesterday Evening’
The kettle shrieked, water furiously bubbling.
Harry bolted up the stairs, heartbeat hammering in his ears. The bedroom was deathly quiet; the only signs Draco had been there were the damp, rumpled sheets and the wet bathroom tiles.
~~
Days rolled by, the knife in Harry’s chest twisting deeper with each passing hour. Harry hadn’t seen or heard from Draco since that bizarre morning, the memory of his hands around Draco’s neck refusing to be forgotten. He’d taken to stopping by Draco’s flat after work, but Draco was never there. He’d gone as far as entering on his own; the wards had been set to let him in, but there was no evidence of Draco’s presence. It felt empty. The air had been stale and all the Owls Harry vomited his feelings into were a damp stack on the balcony outside the master bedroom.
The irony wasn’t lost on Harry: he’d gone from being irritated by the mere sight of a newspaper to compulsively reading them in order to connect himself to Draco. He saw Draco’s name highlighted in the articles about Lucius’ death, articles which made tongue-in-cheek mentions of the family’s flawed past, occasionally accompanied by outdated photographs. He heard Draco’s name on the tips of the wagging tongues of the gossip mill, most of it inaccurate and scornful. He wanted to defend Draco, and he had a few times, but he’d always felt foolish after doing so. Eventually he stopped and instead gritted his teeth. Draco shut him out; removed him from his life without so much as a goodbye kiss. It was as if their time together had meant nothing to Draco while he’d become Draco’s satellite, forced to orbit by strange attraction. Draco hadn’t even told him what happened that morning, just fucked him and left for good. He felt so fucking used. Good enough for a few shags and then discarded without a second thought.
Recent photographs surfaced on the pages of The Daily Prophet a week and a half later. They’d been taken at Lucius’ interment after a small, private funeral. Narcissa had been holding his hand, her face expressionless but for the tears behind her black veil. Pansy Parkinson clutched Draco’s other arm, dark eyes both sad and resilient. It was as if she was holding him up despite the fact that he loomed over her. Rather pathetically, Harry rubbed his thumb over Draco’s impassive face in a pale imitation of the caresses he’d taken for granted. Draco had slicked his hair back, reminiscent of the way he’d styled it at Hogwarts. Surrounded by a small circle of mourners and headstones, black robes against his pasty skin, he looked perfectly put together, not a hair out of place, his shoulders high and back straight.
Harry needn’t undress him to know Draco was wearing a corset beneath his mourning garb. Harry had become familiar with Draco’s posture; learned to notice the insignificant hunch when he wasn’t wearing a corset, how one shoulder was a millimetre higher than the other when his muscles grew fatigue, the slight crookedness of his spine when he bent over.
But none of that mattered anymore, and perhaps it never did. Draco was corseting again; he no longer needed Harry.
The knife in Harry’s chest had gone as deep as it could go.
~~
“Harry, is everything alright? You’ve been so… distant lately,” Hermione enquired over a glass of sparkling water. No alcohol would burn the back of her throat for the next six months now that she and Ron were expecting their first child. Her slender fingers were lovingly tangled with her husband’s thick, freckled ones, and it made Harry bitterer than a good friend should ever be.
“We’re worried about you, mate,” added Ron. “You’ve just not been yourself.”
It was another Friday dinner. He would’ve wriggled out of it by feigning illness again, but they’d probably have turned up at his house, and it wouldn’t do for them to see how the place had fallen further into shambles with whisky bottles masquerading as figurines.
“I’m fine.” Harry jabbed a fork into his steak, brownish fluid dribbling out of the pink meat. He almost revelled in Hermione’s disgusted frown. Her obsession with the concept of ‘humane’ had led her to becoming vegan. She hadn’t cut Ron off meat completely; as long as it was ‘cruelty-free’, it was allowed in their ‘democratic’ house. Ron complained about it nonetheless behind her back.
“You know you can tell us anything, right?” Ron prodded on.
“There are some things talking can’t fix,” said Harry acerbically.
Ron appeared utterly clueless while Hermione pensively observed him, her head slightly tilted. “It might not fix things, but talking about it might help you feel better,” she said, forking salad into her mouth.
Ron nodded, eyes gleaming that proud, awed gleam they always got when he believed Hermione said something profound.
“I said I was fine.”
“Harry-”
Harry stood. “I can’t do this today.” And then he was out through the door, leaving Ron and Hermione in stunned, worried silence.
He’d walked the entire distance to Grimmauld Place; he was in no hurry to return to the moth-eaten loneliness. It was cold out and the air was damp and unfriendly. Something to look forward to: another abandoned night with rain and a pillow which had long lost Draco’s scent for company. He entered the property through the mangled, wrought-iron fence, greeted by the overgrown lawn and long-dead tree, a solitary barn owl watching him from its perch on a rotten branch. He headed straight to the kitchen.
The last bottle of whisky was missing from its place in the armoire, a clean circle on the grimy shelf where it should’ve been. He knew he hadn’t drunk it; he’d been saving it for his weekly bout of alcoholic self-pity.
The sound of glass shattering against hardwood came from upstairs, tearing holes in the stillness. Harry wasted no time in withdrawing his wand, a reflex more than anything else. He Apparated to the top floor; the floorboards would have screeched under his weight no matter how stealthily he glided across them. The doors along the hallway were how he’d left them; closed, with the exception of the bathroom door from which a shaft of light spilled.
“Draco?” Harry was incredulous, elated, and angry all at once. Draco sat in the perpetually grimy bathtub, knees drawn up to his chest and fully dressed, clutching the now mostly empty bottle of whisky. The broken remnants of a shot glass glinted in the orange light.
“I’ve been here for over an hour,” said Draco quietly.
“I’ve been here for weeks,” Harry scoffed, throwing himself onto the toilet seat.
“You’ve a right to be angry at me.” Draco rested the whisky bottle on the floor and then fished about in his pocket, producing a crushed carton of cigarettes. He tapped a stick out, lighting it with wandless magic before taking a deliberate drag. Harry had been surprised the first time he’d seen Draco smoking. Draco claimed to have picked it up in Paris; ‘Everyone smokes in Paris, Potter.’
Harry leant, grabbing for the whisky bottle. He took a swig.
“Father wanted me to get married to a witch of appropriate standing and have a son. It was easy to ignore when I was in France, but he’s dead now, Harry. He’s dead and I failed him again… I know how most people feel about him, but he was my father.”
“Did you come here to tell me you’re getting married?” Harry wanted to sound callous, but his voice cracked.
Draco continued as if he hadn’t heard him. “He’d been tying loose ends before he killed himself. Donating to charities, licking the Ministry’s arse… Mother hadn’t noticed anything wrong; she thought he’d just been trying to restore the Malfoy name. In…the note he’d left… he said he’d done his part and that the rest… was up to me. Even picked out potential wives: Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass’ younger sister, Astoria.”
The photograph of Pansy’s arm interlocked with Draco’s in the cemetery flashed behind Harry’s eyes. A lump developed in his throat. “Which one are you going to choose?”
“Potter, you know better than anyone that I’m a faggot,” Draco spat wryly, and Harry smiled a small smile. “Pansy’s virtually married to Zabini, at any rate.”
“Then what are you going to do now?”
Draco shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve been staying at the Manor; Mother needs all the support she can get right now.”
“I see.”
“If I went back to Paris, would you miss me?”
Harry gave Draco a funny look. “I missed you when you were right here. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. In Paris, I didn’t have to worry about any of this shite. And now Father is fucking with my life again, and he’s not even alive…” For a moment, Harry thought Draco was going to cry, but he quickly composed himself. “I had to sort things out; decide it I want to be a Malfoy or if I want to be Draco. I couldn’t see you when I was like that.”
“You saw Pansy,” Harry muttered.
“She’s a childhood friend, not the bloody Boy Who Lived to End up Fucking Draco Malfoy. I know you never think ahead, but would you honestly be fine with me for however long we last? Everyone still hates me, Harry.”
“I don’t give a fuck about what people think. You should know that.”
Draco extended a hand, and without thinking, Harry held it.
It was ludicrous, really, Harry seated on the toilet holding an empty bottle of whisky and Draco’s hand, a cigarette nestled between Draco’s fingers.
Draco tightened his grip. “I’m sorry I treated you like shit.”
“Doesn’t matter; you’re here now. I’m sorry about your father.”
“Thank you.”
~~
Summary: Lucius' death threatens to tear Harry and Draco apart.
Rating: NC-17
Length: 3, 129
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Content/themes: Cross-dressing , asphyxiation
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter franchise, nor do I profit from this.
Author's note: The second (and most likely final) part to Corseting .
Gossamer threads of morning light filtered in where the heavy drapery was not perfectly aligned, creating intricate, little patterns on Draco’s back for Harry to be groggily fascinated by. Draco slept nude, curled up tight into a long-limbed ball. The knobs of his spine and the sharp juts of his scapula pressed against the pale skin in which they were wrapped. Since their relationship’s tenuous start a blur ago, he hadn’t been wearing corsets as often (he said he no longer needed them with Harry in his life, however, he had quite a collection and Harry delighted in the challenge of ripping them off) but his ribcage still narrowed into an unusually slender waist. Sometimes it frightened Harry, the fine-boned slip of existence Draco Malfoy was, but he knew firsthand that that fragility was deceptive. With an absentminded smile, he trailed a finger down the minute curve of Draco’s spine.
The air was unpleasantly cold; no rare occurrence in Harry’s virtually-derelict anachronism of a house despite numerous warming charms. Gooseflesh prickled Draco’s bare skin, the pale hairs on his arms standing straight up. As Harry reached for the Weasley-made quilt, Draco rolled onto his back, peering into Harry’s face with eyes too lucid for a sleeper.
“Good morning,” said Harry, pressing a kiss onto the corner of Draco’s mouth. “What happened yesterday? I was really looking forward to seeing you, you know.”
He’d been gone on a week-long stint in South Africa; Auror-related business. He and Draco were supposed to have made up for lost time by spending the evening together. Harry had waited up until his tired body demanded rest at ten o’clock.
Whenever his work separated him from Draco, he was reminded of exactly how this relationship was both motivation and distraction; motivation to make it home safely and quickly lest he wither with an obsessive sort of lovesickness, and often responsible for taking up enough of Harry’s cerebral activity that it made good judgement secondary and carelessness more abundant. Several avoidable injuries could attest to that.
“Sorry. Lost track of time; I Apparated into your foyer a little after midnight, but you were asleep. I figured I would apologise by being the first thing you saw when you woke up…” He pulled Harry’s arm over his torso, cradling his hip into Harry’s, siphoning body heat from their intimacy. “By the way, I’m not comforted by the fact that a trained Auror can sleep soundly with an intruder clomping about on his whiny floorboards, much less getting into bed with him.”
An amused, slightly embarrassed chuckle filled his ears, the stubble on Harry’s chin scraping his cheek. “Don’t you think it’s a tad early for scathing social commentary?”
“If that’s the case, I hope it’s not too early for a fuck, as well.”
Harry’s eyebrows rose, momentarily lost beneath his unruly fringe, and his cock gave an interested throb. “Miss me that much, did you?”
“Well, the way I see it,” Draco started, bony fingers tugging at the drawstring of Harry’s plaid pyjama bottoms, “I’m naked and you’re halfway there; this seems the next logical step. Consider it a hero’s welcome.”
“Christ. You’re going to kill me someday.”
Draco responded by licking at his unshaven chin. He then removed Harry’s arm from where he’d draped it and pushed the other man onto his back, lips and tongue sloppily melding with Harry’s while his hands worked at getting those tatty trousers out of the way. He didn’t bother shoving them past mid-thigh after Harry’s cock sprang free, erect and dark between them. He curled his fingers around it, pumping it almost reverently, as if memorising every detail, the smooth ridge of every vein. He’d forgotten exactly how much he missed this; missed Harry’s touch and feel. It was worrisome how consumed he was by this raw need; the need to connect.
“Shit,” Harry grunted, slipping a broad hand over the one tossing him off, forcing Draco’s fingers to tighten and his hand to slide faster over Harry’s cock. Harry’s hips bucked on their own volition as Draco skilfully manipulated his foreskin on every upward stroke. Pre-ejaculate glistened on the purplish head of his cock, sticky-wet strings clinging to Draco’s fingers. He closed his eyes, his breath quick and heavy as he forced his cock into the warm, firm hand. He could feel Draco’s erection digging into his hipbone.
“Are you close?” Draco whispered throatily, his breath damp and warm on the shell of Harry’s ear.
“Yeah… Getting there…” He kissed the corner of Draco’s mouth.
“Don’t come yet,” Draco angled his head so that his lips were on Harry’s. “I want you to come inside me.”
It took all of Harry’s self-restraint to dig his teeth into his bottom lip and pry Draco’s hand off his cock. He watched, mesmerised, as Draco’s pink, wet tongue collected the stringy mess off his fingers. He was so bloody close, and the explicit invitation only pushed him further over the edge. He flipped their positions so that he was now on top, forearms braced on either side of Draco’s head. The pyjama bottoms were oversized with the drawstring loosened; gravity pooled them around his knees. He kicked them off with comically hurried movements, prompting Draco to have a quiet wheeze of a laugh at his expense. He swallowed it with his mouth as grinded his erection into Draco’s.
“Merlin, don’t tease me, Potter.” Draco’s eyes were squeezed shut, reddened lips glistening and slack.
He pushed up the backs of Draco’s thighs so that his cock rubbed tauntingly against Draco’s hole. “How do you want this?”
Bruises formed where Harry’s fingers sank into Draco’s skin as he thrust violently into him from behind. The headboard slammed noisily into the wall over and over, accompanied by pleasured grunts and moans, and Harry was glad that he didn’t live in a flat like Draco did or else he’d have angry neighbours to contend with. There was nothing gentle about this; it wasn’t making love. It was aggressive, unbridled fucking. Draco had made sure of that; begged Harry not to use lubricant because he couldn’t wait; shrugged away from caresses and soft kisses; slapped Harry’s hand when he tried to jerk him off. Fast and hard was what they did best, but something about the whole thing felt wrong underneath the heady friction. He pulled back so that his cock slipped completely out of Draco’s arse.
Draco’s head whipped around in a flash of platinum hair; face flushed and eyes dilated and desperate over his bony shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“Want you on your back, is all,” Harry replied.
Draco watched him, contemplatively licking his bottom lip before quickly falling onto his back, legs wantonly splayed in a picturesque display of debauchery. Harry wasted no time in sinking back into him, pounding him into the mattress as though their very lives depended on this.
They were both far gone when Draco rasped a clear, “Choke me.” And without thinking, Harry did. He came with Draco’s legs thrown over his shoulders and his hands wrapped around Draco’s neck, muscles spasming around Harry’s cock and under his squeezing fingers.
That had never happened before.
He felt so bloody guilty, serenaded by Draco’s loud gulps of air from a fingerprint-discoloured throat. The fact that Draco had come all over Harry’s stomach didn’t make him feel any better about it; it only added another layer to the disgusting confusion.
“I…I’ll put on some tea,” he stammered, clambering off the bed. He grabbed his pyjama bottoms, not even attempting to put them on in his haste to escape the bedroom.
The roar of the shower echoed throughout the decaying house, water rushing through the old, rusted pipes. Harry was at the kitchen sink, filling the tin kettle with shaky hands. His heart thumped madly against his ribs, thoughts chaotic in his skull. It would seem as though his knack for fucking everything up would follow him to the grave. Something disturbing had transpired, and he up and left after fucking well choking his-whatever Draco was to him. He set the kettle on the stove, lighting a flame beneath it. Now what? The peeling walls offered no answers.
He sat at the kitchen table. Kreacher had brought in The Daily Prophet, rather grudgingly if its crumpled state was anything to go by. Harry didn’t read the newspaper, and there were literally hundreds of them unread in yellowed, dusty piles about Grimmauld Place. In spite of this, Kreacher made sure one was on the table every morning; one of the only chores the irritable house-elf deigned to carry out. Harry’s reluctance to ascend the rickety stairs and look reality in the face allowed him to unfold The Prophet for the first time in years. The headline on the front page made his blood run cold.
‘Lucius Malfoy Dead: Former Death Eater Found Hanging in Manor Yesterday Evening’
The kettle shrieked, water furiously bubbling.
Harry bolted up the stairs, heartbeat hammering in his ears. The bedroom was deathly quiet; the only signs Draco had been there were the damp, rumpled sheets and the wet bathroom tiles.
~~
Days rolled by, the knife in Harry’s chest twisting deeper with each passing hour. Harry hadn’t seen or heard from Draco since that bizarre morning, the memory of his hands around Draco’s neck refusing to be forgotten. He’d taken to stopping by Draco’s flat after work, but Draco was never there. He’d gone as far as entering on his own; the wards had been set to let him in, but there was no evidence of Draco’s presence. It felt empty. The air had been stale and all the Owls Harry vomited his feelings into were a damp stack on the balcony outside the master bedroom.
The irony wasn’t lost on Harry: he’d gone from being irritated by the mere sight of a newspaper to compulsively reading them in order to connect himself to Draco. He saw Draco’s name highlighted in the articles about Lucius’ death, articles which made tongue-in-cheek mentions of the family’s flawed past, occasionally accompanied by outdated photographs. He heard Draco’s name on the tips of the wagging tongues of the gossip mill, most of it inaccurate and scornful. He wanted to defend Draco, and he had a few times, but he’d always felt foolish after doing so. Eventually he stopped and instead gritted his teeth. Draco shut him out; removed him from his life without so much as a goodbye kiss. It was as if their time together had meant nothing to Draco while he’d become Draco’s satellite, forced to orbit by strange attraction. Draco hadn’t even told him what happened that morning, just fucked him and left for good. He felt so fucking used. Good enough for a few shags and then discarded without a second thought.
Recent photographs surfaced on the pages of The Daily Prophet a week and a half later. They’d been taken at Lucius’ interment after a small, private funeral. Narcissa had been holding his hand, her face expressionless but for the tears behind her black veil. Pansy Parkinson clutched Draco’s other arm, dark eyes both sad and resilient. It was as if she was holding him up despite the fact that he loomed over her. Rather pathetically, Harry rubbed his thumb over Draco’s impassive face in a pale imitation of the caresses he’d taken for granted. Draco had slicked his hair back, reminiscent of the way he’d styled it at Hogwarts. Surrounded by a small circle of mourners and headstones, black robes against his pasty skin, he looked perfectly put together, not a hair out of place, his shoulders high and back straight.
Harry needn’t undress him to know Draco was wearing a corset beneath his mourning garb. Harry had become familiar with Draco’s posture; learned to notice the insignificant hunch when he wasn’t wearing a corset, how one shoulder was a millimetre higher than the other when his muscles grew fatigue, the slight crookedness of his spine when he bent over.
But none of that mattered anymore, and perhaps it never did. Draco was corseting again; he no longer needed Harry.
The knife in Harry’s chest had gone as deep as it could go.
~~
“Harry, is everything alright? You’ve been so… distant lately,” Hermione enquired over a glass of sparkling water. No alcohol would burn the back of her throat for the next six months now that she and Ron were expecting their first child. Her slender fingers were lovingly tangled with her husband’s thick, freckled ones, and it made Harry bitterer than a good friend should ever be.
“We’re worried about you, mate,” added Ron. “You’ve just not been yourself.”
It was another Friday dinner. He would’ve wriggled out of it by feigning illness again, but they’d probably have turned up at his house, and it wouldn’t do for them to see how the place had fallen further into shambles with whisky bottles masquerading as figurines.
“I’m fine.” Harry jabbed a fork into his steak, brownish fluid dribbling out of the pink meat. He almost revelled in Hermione’s disgusted frown. Her obsession with the concept of ‘humane’ had led her to becoming vegan. She hadn’t cut Ron off meat completely; as long as it was ‘cruelty-free’, it was allowed in their ‘democratic’ house. Ron complained about it nonetheless behind her back.
“You know you can tell us anything, right?” Ron prodded on.
“There are some things talking can’t fix,” said Harry acerbically.
Ron appeared utterly clueless while Hermione pensively observed him, her head slightly tilted. “It might not fix things, but talking about it might help you feel better,” she said, forking salad into her mouth.
Ron nodded, eyes gleaming that proud, awed gleam they always got when he believed Hermione said something profound.
“I said I was fine.”
“Harry-”
Harry stood. “I can’t do this today.” And then he was out through the door, leaving Ron and Hermione in stunned, worried silence.
He’d walked the entire distance to Grimmauld Place; he was in no hurry to return to the moth-eaten loneliness. It was cold out and the air was damp and unfriendly. Something to look forward to: another abandoned night with rain and a pillow which had long lost Draco’s scent for company. He entered the property through the mangled, wrought-iron fence, greeted by the overgrown lawn and long-dead tree, a solitary barn owl watching him from its perch on a rotten branch. He headed straight to the kitchen.
The last bottle of whisky was missing from its place in the armoire, a clean circle on the grimy shelf where it should’ve been. He knew he hadn’t drunk it; he’d been saving it for his weekly bout of alcoholic self-pity.
The sound of glass shattering against hardwood came from upstairs, tearing holes in the stillness. Harry wasted no time in withdrawing his wand, a reflex more than anything else. He Apparated to the top floor; the floorboards would have screeched under his weight no matter how stealthily he glided across them. The doors along the hallway were how he’d left them; closed, with the exception of the bathroom door from which a shaft of light spilled.
“Draco?” Harry was incredulous, elated, and angry all at once. Draco sat in the perpetually grimy bathtub, knees drawn up to his chest and fully dressed, clutching the now mostly empty bottle of whisky. The broken remnants of a shot glass glinted in the orange light.
“I’ve been here for over an hour,” said Draco quietly.
“I’ve been here for weeks,” Harry scoffed, throwing himself onto the toilet seat.
“You’ve a right to be angry at me.” Draco rested the whisky bottle on the floor and then fished about in his pocket, producing a crushed carton of cigarettes. He tapped a stick out, lighting it with wandless magic before taking a deliberate drag. Harry had been surprised the first time he’d seen Draco smoking. Draco claimed to have picked it up in Paris; ‘Everyone smokes in Paris, Potter.’
Harry leant, grabbing for the whisky bottle. He took a swig.
“Father wanted me to get married to a witch of appropriate standing and have a son. It was easy to ignore when I was in France, but he’s dead now, Harry. He’s dead and I failed him again… I know how most people feel about him, but he was my father.”
“Did you come here to tell me you’re getting married?” Harry wanted to sound callous, but his voice cracked.
Draco continued as if he hadn’t heard him. “He’d been tying loose ends before he killed himself. Donating to charities, licking the Ministry’s arse… Mother hadn’t noticed anything wrong; she thought he’d just been trying to restore the Malfoy name. In…the note he’d left… he said he’d done his part and that the rest… was up to me. Even picked out potential wives: Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass’ younger sister, Astoria.”
The photograph of Pansy’s arm interlocked with Draco’s in the cemetery flashed behind Harry’s eyes. A lump developed in his throat. “Which one are you going to choose?”
“Potter, you know better than anyone that I’m a faggot,” Draco spat wryly, and Harry smiled a small smile. “Pansy’s virtually married to Zabini, at any rate.”
“Then what are you going to do now?”
Draco shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve been staying at the Manor; Mother needs all the support she can get right now.”
“I see.”
“If I went back to Paris, would you miss me?”
Harry gave Draco a funny look. “I missed you when you were right here. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. In Paris, I didn’t have to worry about any of this shite. And now Father is fucking with my life again, and he’s not even alive…” For a moment, Harry thought Draco was going to cry, but he quickly composed himself. “I had to sort things out; decide it I want to be a Malfoy or if I want to be Draco. I couldn’t see you when I was like that.”
“You saw Pansy,” Harry muttered.
“She’s a childhood friend, not the bloody Boy Who Lived to End up Fucking Draco Malfoy. I know you never think ahead, but would you honestly be fine with me for however long we last? Everyone still hates me, Harry.”
“I don’t give a fuck about what people think. You should know that.”
Draco extended a hand, and without thinking, Harry held it.
It was ludicrous, really, Harry seated on the toilet holding an empty bottle of whisky and Draco’s hand, a cigarette nestled between Draco’s fingers.
Draco tightened his grip. “I’m sorry I treated you like shit.”
“Doesn’t matter; you’re here now. I’m sorry about your father.”
“Thank you.”
~~