FIC: The Way Down - 9 (end)
Title: The Way Down
Rating: this chapter, pg
Length: this chapter, 4.6K
Warnings: sex
Characters: Harry/Draco, past Harry/Ginny
Epilogue: not epilogue compliant
Summary: Malfoy’s all, “Come out of there,” the way you say to a cat who is badly behaved. And Harry’s all like, “No, what, I’m a hermit! And I have a chest-monster! And I am crazy magically powerful!” and Malfoy’s all, “We all have problems, bub.” (thoughtfully) “You are crazy though. I’ll give you that.”
A/N: Well, I finally posted it all. Thank you so, so much to everyone who helped me with this, including alaana_fair, kjp_013, fat_teaspoon, lusiology,
bowdlerized, RR, and most of all, scabbyfish. I miss you, hon.
Thanks also to everyone who waited so long.
Go to: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8
Chapter 9
“What’s next?” Harry asked. Malfoy was curled up beside him, still in a shirt, but he had nothing else on. Harry was just in jeans, and he thought it was one of the most decadent things he’d done in a very long time, being in bed with Malfoy on a Sunday afternoon, the sun slanting through the blinds.
“Mm,” said Malfoy. “Pasta, probably.”
Harry dragged his hand up Malfoy’s back, his neck, ruffled Malfoy’s hair. “I meant, for you and me.”
This time Malfoy purred. “I’ve been thinking about that too.”
“Have you?”
“Yes.” Malfoy paused thoughtfully. He turned his head to put his chin on Harry’s chest and looked at him that way with bright eyes. “I’ve been thinking I might slick up my fingers. I might slip one inside you; I would stretch you out. It’s the sweetest thing, Harry. You feel very free. And then when I put another one inside you, you’ll feel like you can take anything.”
Malfoy was getting much better at intimacy.
Harry gulped. “Malfoy.”
Malfoy turned his head away again, so that the side of his face rested on Harry’s chest. He drew lines on Harry’s skin with a fingertip, and said, “Are you ever going to call me Draco?”
“Yes.”
Malfoy went on tracing lines. “Once I’m done with that, I would like to come inside you.”
Catching his breath, Harry stopped Malfoy’s hand. “Draco.”
“Too soon?”
Harry released his breath. “I want to.”
“But not yet.”
Harry let his hand go. “No.”
Malfoy went on tracing things. “I suspected as much. But I thought you should know. You can have it whenever you want. When you’re ready. Just tell me.”
Harry’s chest constricted under Malfoy’s head, under his hand, his words. He thought he felt the monster clawing and hated himself, not knowing why.
Then just as suddenly, it all let go, because Malfoy was lit up in gray light, and his hand was tracing circles, and he would wait. This wasn’t a monster, Harry realized. This must be what normal people felt when they realized how much they loved someone.
“I’ll tell you,” said Harry, and put his hand in Malfoy’s hair.
“Mm.”
They were quiet for a long time, Harry’s hand settled hot on Malfoy’s lower back. Malfoy let him ruck up the shirt there to touch bare skin, and it was one of Harry’s favorite spots. Malfoy’s skin was so smooth, and there was a dip there, down from the sharp wings of his shoulder blades and the round curve of his bony arse. Harry never told Malfoy, because Malfoy would rightly just say that he was a crazy person, but Harry wished sometimes he could stay there, in that valley on Malfoy’s body, stay there forever and never leave it because it was so quiet and beautiful and such a hidden secret spot on Malfoy; his hand fit splayed there as though it belonged.
“Are you ever going to tell me what it was like for you before you came to Chimera Downs?” Harry asked.
Malfoy paused. “Do I have to?”
“No.” Harry walked his fingers down Malfoy’s spine. “Was it hard to do those things? Get a flat, and your job?”
For a while, Malfoy didn’t say anything, doodling circles still on Harry’s skin, alternating the calloused pad of his finger and his bitten down nail. Harry never would have thought Malfoy would have bitten down nails, but he had. It was a bad habit. Malfoy sighed. “Yes. It was hard.”
“How did you do it?”
“Well, I saw a ‘for rent’ sign; I talked to this nice lady . . .”
“Did you go flat-hunting, like I did?”
For some reason, Malfoy laughed quietly into Harry’s chest. “Yes, Harry. It’s fairly normal, you know.”
“I know. I was just wondering.”
Malfoy was quiet again for a long time. When he spoke, his voice sounded reluctant. “If you must know, I wish I could get a place to live I actually like.”
Harry wondered why anyone could possibly want to live anywhere else, with the sunlight slanting through that way, and Malfoy snuggled up to him so warm and heavy and sleepy. The battered wood floors seem to glow, and the closeness of the room made everything feel safe, and his hand was on that spot on Malfoy’s back. Harry never wanted to leave. “You don’t like it here?”
Malfoy put his chin on Harry’s chest again, his expression incredulous. “Did you know me at all in school?”
“Yes. You changed.”
“I matured.” Malfoy turned his head back. “I didn’t turn into a ginger headed alien.”
“The Weasleys aren’t alien.”
“I never said they were.”
Harry moved his hand in the valley of Malfoy’s lower back. “How come you don’t like it?”
Malfoy pulled back to look at him, and as he did so his eyes softened almost imperceptibly. “I know how you like to be clausterphobic, Harry. It’s just not for me.”
“Why don’t you get a different place?”
Malfoy looked surprised, then leaned in again on Harry. “I don’t know. I suppose I . . .”
“What?”
“I suppose this works. The sort of place I want . . . there’s no reason to get it any how.”
“You said you didn’t want to live in Malfoy Manor again,” Harry said.
“No. Of course not.”
“But you’d like a place like that.”
“No.”
“Then like what?”
“I like the Goyles’.”
Harry startled. “The Goyles’.”
Malfoy pulled away. “Whatever. It’s stupid.”
Harry pulled him back. “No. It’s not stupid.”
“Yeah.” Sliding out of his grasp, Malfoy got up, swiped his trousers from the floor and put them on. He didn’t put on pants, and something about that-Malfoy just in his white t-shirt, in his kahki trousers, still looking rumpled and rather thoroughly fucked, made Harry just ache. Malfoy was so thin, with awkward angles everywhere, the turn of his mouth was lined and unhappy; light was coming from behind him.
The monster had never been farther from Harry’s mind.
“Hey,” said Harry. “It’s okay. I just didn’t expect . . .”
Malfoy smiled grimly. “I know. Of course. Who would really expect Draco Malfoy to want a house with a picket fence and a family and yard?”
Oh, thought Harry. Oh. “Getting married was on your list,” he said, his voice low.
Malfoy glanced at him, his expression unreadable. “Not any more.”
“Yes, but . . . did you want . . . ?”
“Didn’t you?”
Harry looked at his hands. “Yes.”
Malfoy went over to the window, looking out the blinds. The flat was in a wizard building, but the street was not, much like Grimmauld Place. Outside was a busy city street, not far from a tube station. “I always dreamed I would,” Malfoy said. “Of course, consciously I dreamed I would be Minister for Magic or maybe a magizoologist. But it was there, in the back of my mind. Get married. Have a son. Grow up just like . . .”
“Yeah.”
Malfoy still wasn’t looking at him. “We were very close.”
“What?”
“My mum and dad and I. I never pleased my father, but-but we were very close.”
Harry thought back over what Malfoy had said. “You mean you’d want to live with them?”
“What?” Malfoy glanced back at him. “No. Merlin preserve us. One cannot have the Malfoy patriarch far enough away, thanks.”
“Well, what you said about wanting a house . . .”
“I just mean it’s nice. You can have . . . friends, and it feels . . . there used to be the most splendid parties at the Manor, did you know?”
Mutely, Harry shook his head. It was more than Malfoy had ever said about his family, ever.
Malfoy nodded. “There were fairy lights, and floating lanterns on the pond. You could take a gondola, and there was always a band . . . I hated them, naturally. They never played Soul Sucking Succubi. There was dancing, and everybody dressed like . . .”
Trailing off, Malfoy stayed there looking out the window. Harry stood up, still in just jeans, and came up behind him. Malfoy spared him another glance. “Put your arms around me,” he said, and looked out the window.
Harry put his arms around him. When Malfoy settled his own arms over his, Harry moved a hand and found the raised red lines of the Dark Mark on Malfoy’s skin. “Do you miss it?”
“No. I was a kid. Those parties were all so old and stuffy, and I got in trouble for nicking the canapés.” Malfoy leaned back into him. “I do miss parties, though. The way there are lots of people, and everyone is happy. We used to have cracking ones in Slytherin.”
Harry remembered Malfoy’s bright face at Harry’s welcome home. “I didn’t know.”
“We don’t have them any more. There are too few of us.” Malfoy looked out the window, his hand covering Harry’s where it stroked the Dark Mark. “Since the war, we haven’t always been so good at being happy.”
Harry kissed him. He kissed him behind his ear just like he liked, then down his neck. Slowly, he turned Malfoy around, and then went down to his knees.
“Let’s go to the bed,” Malfoy said, but his hand sank into Harry’s hair and he didn’t move.
“I want to here.” Harry opened Malfoy’s trousers. “I think you should never wear pants.”
“There’d be chafing.” Malfoy was petting his hair, that line at the side of his mouth.
“Yeah, but it’s so hot,” breathed Harry, and proceeded to go down.
*
Some time later they had the pasta Malfoy had guessed at. Malfoy had come and then reciprocated; Harry had still protested. He was not good at letting go. Malfoy insisted. It took over half an hour.
Harry was weary and felt more drained than satisfied; he was sure that Malfoy’s jaw hurt. Malfoy had ended it by putting two fingers in him, like he had said he would, slow and slippery with lube and Harry was very tight; it was better than he had remembered, than he dreamed. Still, in those times the monster felt closer than any other time, and he wished that Malfoy didn’t seem to need his own release just as much as he seemed to need Malfoy’s.
Malfoy didn’t seem to mind it. He’d smirked afterwards, the line beside his mouth gone deep. His eyes had been quite bright. He always looked like he’d accomplished something spectacular when he made Harry come, rather like he looked when he caught the Snitch or made years of animosity up to someone in a kitchen. Harry supposed it was all worth it just for that.
Harry was thinking this about Malfoy after they finished the pasta. They were in the living room and Malfoy was fixing his wireless, Harry idly watching him. Malfoy was humming idly, off tune. “Did you say you wanted to be a magizoologist?” Harry asked suddenly.
Ceasing to hum, Malfoy glanced at him briefly. “I was nine.”
“Okay. But a zoologist?”
“Did you think I wanted to be a Ministry clerk working in Regulation of Magical Creatures my whole life?”
Harry went still. “I thought you liked your job.”
Malfoy was busy with his screwdriver and things. “It’s fine.”
“But it’s not what you wanted.”
“I wanted to be Minister for Magic,” said Malfoy, tinkering with something in the radio. “That should give you some indication of why some things don’t work out.”
“Okay. But what do you want?”
Malfoy was quiet for a while, still tinkering. At last he glanced at Harry again. “You haven’t talked to Mrs. Weasley-Thomas yet.”
Talking to Ginny was on Harry’s list. “We were talking about you.”
“Yes. I know.” Malfoy went back to his radio. “Are you afraid?”
Harry thought about that. “Yes.”
“Why?” When Harry didn’t answer, Malfoy put in a delicate little screw, and didn’t look at him. “Do you still love her?”
“Malfoy,” Harry began.
“It’s alright. I’m not jealous.” Malfoy twisted the screwdriver. “Well, maybe I’m a little jealous. But I don’t mind it. We all have dreams, Harry. Some of them don’t come true.”
Harry looked at Malfoy’s bright head, bent over the radio. His fingers were long and slender, nimble with the delicate work. Sun was slanting over him through the window. “Some dreams change.”
Malfoy finally, he got the screw in, and then very carefully set the radio aside. Just as carefully, he looked up. “I wanted to be the Care for Magical Creatures professor at Hogwarts.”
Harry sat there for a moment, trying to process.
“I know. It’s a little ridiculous.”
“It’s not ridiculous.” Harry thought about it. “Have you thought about teaching elsewhere?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“My father would never approve.”
“Why bloody not?”
“Malfoys shouldn’t teach.”
“What?”
Malfoy shrugged.
Harry took several moments to process this. “So,” he said slowly. “You’re not going to do what you want because your dad doesn’t think it’s posh enough.”
Malfoy flicked a glance his way. “It was instilled in me at a very young age. Even if now I can intellectually say it’s unreasonable, I can’t help the gut feeling.”
“What gut feeling?”
Malfoy rubbed his arm. “Shame.”
That was not the first time Harry thought about how much Malfoy’s parents might have fucked him up, but it was also not the last. “Malfoy,” he said, and started coming over toward the table.
“Mine isn’t a storybook ending either,” Malfoy said. “I don’t have to get everything that I want. Just some of them.” His looked up at Harry.
“You deserve them,” said Harry, sitting down beside him.
“Not everything.” Malfoy’s eyes slid away. Absently, he rubbed his arm.
“You should still try.”
“Some things are ingrained.”
Harry moved his hand, put his own over Malfoy’s Dark Mark. “I got my scar when I was one year old.”
At last, Malfoy looked at him, and held his eyes. “I’ll try if you will.”
“Do you mean it?”
Malfoy looked at Harry’s hand on his arm, and said quietly, “I can, if it’s for you.”
“It’s for me.” Harry scraped a nail across the scar raised on Malfoy’s skin.
When Malfoy looked at him, there was a light in his eyes and a smile beside his mouth. “Aren’t you just greedy,” he said, low and lazy.
“I think we’re worth it,” said Harry.
*
If Malfoy had had a list after the war, Harry was learning, on it would have been the same things he had put on Harry’s, that night at Chimera Downs: get a flat, get an occupation. If Malfoy had one now, Harry would have put on it, get a better flat and get a better occupation.
They were not such monumental things. Malfoy had done pretty well for himself, considering. He didn’t need to get counseling, anyway. But Harry kept thinking of Malfoy looking pale and worn, leaning against the door. I’m not any good, Malfoy had said. Realizing Malfoy might need him as much as he needed Malfoy made Harry want to keep going forward.
So he did.
When Harry saw Ginny, he knew that somewhere deep inside, there was old ache. He thought that he it if he looked for it, it could start to hurt again. But he didn’t look for it, and when Ginny smiled, he could smile too.
They had tea. Ginny was older, her features a little less fresh, the innocence quite gone and replaced with little lines about the eyes, and a firmness to the mouth. Harry thought she had never been quite so beautiful.
In the end, she kissed his cheek, and thanked him, and told him she was so glad they could do this. “And I should have said this a while ago,” she went on, “but I just couldn’t.”
“Said what?” said Harry.
“I think I was maybe jealous.” Then she lifted her brown eyes to him. “I think Draco Malfoy is . . . okay.”
Harry smiled. “He still cheats at Quidditch.”
“He does. But I think . . . I think finally I can forgive him.” Ginny looked warm like a summer morning: fiery, gorgeous and full of promise for the future.
Harry looked at her, and felt forgiven too.
*
Malfoy had begun to look for a different job. He got recommendations from Hermione, and looked into positions at the Magical Museum of London. Harry thought that if Malfoy thought that teaching grade school was déclassé, for some reason Harry couldn’t fathom, he thought becoming a higher level education professor might be a step up. Besides, he could go on writing those papers with Sinclair. Grudgingly, Malfoy began to look into wizarding universities.
Then they went to Hogwarts, and had tea in Hagrid’s new little house by the lake, which he shared as a summer residence with Madame Maxine. “You owe me so big, Potter,” Malfoy said afterward.
“I thought it might be nice.”
“You thought the mermaids might be nice, too.”
“So says the bloke who’s got a Sea Witch for a girlfriend.”
“You leave Bettina out of this,” said Malfoy, righteously indignant on the behalf of his fishy liaison.
“You liked Madame Maxine,” said Harry.
Malfoy brightened. “Such a lovely woman. Powerful, too. I like that.”
“Besides, I thought your discussion on the bloodlust of unicorns with Hagrid was rather nice.”
“It was, rather,” Malfoy said happily. “I didn’t know that about their hooves being sharp. I think the lightning from the eyes is bollocks, though. But when you consider griffins-don’t look at me like that, Potter. Hagrid was still shite at Care for Magical Creatures.”
“Like what?” said Harry, innocently.
“Like you think he’s Sinclair,” said Malfoy. “I utterly resent that comparison on the behalf of my good friend, and you should stop making it.”
Now Harry’s voice was contemplative. “I wonder if Hagrid’s seen Batman.”
Besides looking for a job, Malfoy was also looking for a new flat. He was very methodical about this, circling sections of the Prophet in bright red ink, and keeping a running spreadsheet on one of his walls with every possibility listed out. He was also very reluctant about this, because there was something wrong with every one of them.
“Are you Goldilocks?” Harry asked him.
“It’s got to be right, Potter.”
“I think you’re putting it off.”
Malfoy bristled. “Constant vigilance! That’s what it takes. You wouldn’t know; I did all your flat hunting for you.”
“You mean you tailed after me pestering me about my love life while I did all the leg work.”
Malfoy flapped a hand. “We both know I do all the work in this relationship. Love life pestering was heavy labor.”
Harry looked down. Once, in one of Malfoy’s rare moods of confession, he had told Harry all about Alfonse. The relationship hadn’t been serious; he had been trying to get over Harry. That hadn’t worked as well as Malfoy would have liked, because he had liked Alfonse. Harry had been perversely jealous, and yet he knew that that was okay, too. Afterwards, he had just been sorry it had taken him so long to be able to give Malfoy what he needed.
Malfoy snorted loudly. “Oh my god. Are you brooding again? What do I even do with you?”
“Have sex?”
Malfoy snorted again, and went back to his spreadsheet.
Harry kept on looking down at his hands. “Did you hear that Justin Finch-Fletchly has a son? His wife delivered a few weeks ago.”
Malfoy paused in his color coding, then went back to writing things on walls. “Yes,” he said. “I heard.”
“How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“I mean-”
Malfoy sighed, and put down his colored ink. “I know what you mean.” He allowed himself to think about it, and his shoulders settled. “I’m really glad there’s a child in that house again,” was what he finally sad. “And I’m triply glad that kid has nothing to do with me, or anything else.”
“Good.”
“I can’t live here,” Malfoy said, and crossed off another option. “There isn’t any skylight on the left side of the attic.”
Harry sighed.
*
One by one, Harry tried to go through his own list. Malfoy had added, find out what really happened to Umbridge, but he had said the things he put on it were suggestions anyway, and Harry didn’t take that one. He knew what he thought, deep down, something that would always be true whether he had done it or not: he had wanted to kill her. Not to protect anyone, not to save the world, but because he was tired, and he hated her. Harry would always know that he had felt that way, and use that knowledge to stop himself from ever hurting anyone ever again.
Instead, he visited Umbridge’s closest living family. Malfoy thought that this was also mad, and Harry supposed he had a point. He did not know how to go to Umbridge’s sister and say, “I’m sorry for killing your kin.” He went anyway, to say that he was sorry, maybe, or to express condolence.
Umbridge’s sister was a Squib in Manchester named Felicity. She welcomed Harry and assumed he was an old student, and Harry did not correct her. She plied Harry with tea and biscuits, and instead of cats she had children. There were four of them, and pictures of them everywhere, artwork by them; Felicity’s cloak had been “decorated” by them; she seemed more like Molly Weasley than Dolores Umbridge.
They spent the afternoon speaking of “dear Dolores”. Even though Felicity said that they had become estranged, she waxed poetic about “the good old days”, when she and “dear Dolores” played in mud and were always getting into trouble. Harry never did tell her the truth or why he came, and Felicity seemed perfectly content not to know. When he left, she seemed sad that he had not met the children, and delighted that at least “dear Dolores” had had one friend.
“I used to worry,” said Felicity. “Even after she passed.”
Harry realized then he would never tell Felicity DeVivre, nee Umbridge, that he was sorry, but that he was pretty sure he had killed her sister. Instead he said, “I’m sorry that she’s gone.”
Felicity DeVivre burst into tears, and Harry wondered how often happiness could be better than dredging up the past.
Other time, he supposed, it was necessary. Sometimes, Doctor Darwin did it a lot, asking questions about his childhood. He had told her that his mother and father were dead, and this made her scribble a lot and say, “Yes, I see,” several times. More often than not these days he talked about the Dursleys.
Harry had so often thought he was the way he was because Voldemort had tried to kill him when he was just over one year old. His mother’s love had saved him, and Voldemort had left a peace of himself with Harry. At Chimera Downs, Harry had tried to leave that darkness behind, that and all the misery Voldemort had brought after that.
Thinking of the cupboard, Harry wondered if perhaps his monster had come from somewhere else entirely, which meant he never could be rid of it. He could only live with it.
“Come live with me,” said Harry, in an afternoon of mutual quiet and solace in Malfoy’s flat.
“What?” Malfoy looked up from his book.
“I said come live with me.”
“I . . . Harry, where?”
“Let’s live at Chimera Downs.”
Malfoy snorted. “Harry, that place is even smaller than this one.”
“We’ll tear it down. We can build a house. Come on, it’s on your list.”
Malfoy looked interested in spite of himself. “Will it have a bath?”
“Whatever you want.”
“I do like baths,” Malfoy said, contemplatively.
Harry snorted. “I bet you do.”
“Hmm,” Malfoy purred. “I bet you would, too.”
“I think I know if I like baths or not.”
Malfoy hummed again and stood. “But you’ve never taken one with me.” He came over to the couch where Harry sat, and then was draped over him, kissing him.
“I suppose that’s a yes,” Harry murmured.
*
Six months after Harry asked Draco to move in with him, they had their first party at the new house on Chimera Downs.
Draco knew how to throw a party. Out back there was a large space cleared for dancing under the trees. Malcolm Baddock was in a band; they played jazz. Parkinson harrumphed and requested the Soul Sucking Succubi. Lanterns floated in the night, and the fence was draped in fairy lights. Ribbons and tiny bells shivered the branches, and laughter, full and rich and warm, drifted on the night air.
Harry was in the front yard, waiting for the final guests. Luna and Draco were inside, deep in a conversation about Snorkacks. Hagrid was no doubt dancing with Madame Maxine; Arthur was talking to Goyle about Disneyland, and Ginny seemed to be falling slowly in love with Sinclair while Libanos and Dean joked about it on the sidelines. The kids were playing with Teddy. Andromeda was talking to Molly Weasley, who had killed her sister.
It was the nicest party Harry had ever been to. He had never much cared for parties, having never gone to any when he was young, and later ones ending in disaster like Bill and Fleur’s wedding. But he was beginning to see the appeal of them, if you could have everyone you loved in just one place, and not want to tear it all down because somehow joy was more difficult to deal with than suffering.
The moon was low, the color of whiskey or white wine. Draco hadn’t put fairy lights out front, but there were fireflies, winking like yellow magic in the night. The sky was full of stars. Harry looked at the field, and waited.
They came late, winking to existence on the horizon of the slope, just where the wards ended. Then they began to walk down, Ron juggling tiny Rosie, and Hermione holding Hugo’s hand.
Behind Harry, the door opened, and yellow light spilled out. Bright laughter drifted down, then Draco was beside him.
“I thought I would find you here,” he said. His voice was low and knowing; he knew a thousand things; he knew Harry inside out. Yet he could still sound mysterious somehow, seductive; it made Harry want to follow him forever.
“I was just waiting for them,” said Harry, and kept watching Ron and Hermione.
“This is the first time they’ve been here,” Draco said, without asking.
Harry nodded, and Draco loosely wrapped a hand around Harry’s wrist. He did that instead of holding hands, and Harry liked it. “I should have had them come here before,” he said.
“Sometimes it takes something different,” Draco said lightly.
Harry pushed his shoulder against him.
When Ron got to the gate, he was complaining. “She heavy, is all I’m saying. Rosie, are you sure you’re not part giant?”
“You could just let her walk,” Hermione was saying, opening the gate.
“Through that grass, are you kidding?”
“I could fly,” Hugo offered.
“Harry, Draco, hello!” said Hermione. She kissed Harry on the cheek and swept Draco into her arms. Draco always became distracted by the way his nose got buried in her large hair. “Sorry we’re late,” she said, coming away from Draco pink and breathless.
Draco straightened up his shirt and pretended he was not inordinately pleased to get hugged by Hermione.
“That’s okay,” said Harry. “Hey, Ron.”
“So, this is it,” said Ron. “Hey Draco. This is the place.”
“Yep,” said Harry.
“It’s great,” said Ron. “It’s awesome. Congratulations.”
Harry laughed. “But?”
Ron scrunched his nose. “Have you thought about putting in a road?”
Harry looked at Draco. “I don’t think we need one.”
The End
This entry was originally posted to Dreamwidth. Read Comments | Reply
Rating: this chapter, pg
Length: this chapter, 4.6K
Warnings: sex
Characters: Harry/Draco, past Harry/Ginny
Epilogue: not epilogue compliant
Summary: Malfoy’s all, “Come out of there,” the way you say to a cat who is badly behaved. And Harry’s all like, “No, what, I’m a hermit! And I have a chest-monster! And I am crazy magically powerful!” and Malfoy’s all, “We all have problems, bub.” (thoughtfully) “You are crazy though. I’ll give you that.”
A/N: Well, I finally posted it all. Thank you so, so much to everyone who helped me with this, including alaana_fair, kjp_013, fat_teaspoon, lusiology,
bowdlerized, RR, and most of all, scabbyfish. I miss you, hon.
Thanks also to everyone who waited so long.
Go to: Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8
Chapter 9
“What’s next?” Harry asked. Malfoy was curled up beside him, still in a shirt, but he had nothing else on. Harry was just in jeans, and he thought it was one of the most decadent things he’d done in a very long time, being in bed with Malfoy on a Sunday afternoon, the sun slanting through the blinds.
“Mm,” said Malfoy. “Pasta, probably.”
Harry dragged his hand up Malfoy’s back, his neck, ruffled Malfoy’s hair. “I meant, for you and me.”
This time Malfoy purred. “I’ve been thinking about that too.”
“Have you?”
“Yes.” Malfoy paused thoughtfully. He turned his head to put his chin on Harry’s chest and looked at him that way with bright eyes. “I’ve been thinking I might slick up my fingers. I might slip one inside you; I would stretch you out. It’s the sweetest thing, Harry. You feel very free. And then when I put another one inside you, you’ll feel like you can take anything.”
Malfoy was getting much better at intimacy.
Harry gulped. “Malfoy.”
Malfoy turned his head away again, so that the side of his face rested on Harry’s chest. He drew lines on Harry’s skin with a fingertip, and said, “Are you ever going to call me Draco?”
“Yes.”
Malfoy went on tracing lines. “Once I’m done with that, I would like to come inside you.”
Catching his breath, Harry stopped Malfoy’s hand. “Draco.”
“Too soon?”
Harry released his breath. “I want to.”
“But not yet.”
Harry let his hand go. “No.”
Malfoy went on tracing things. “I suspected as much. But I thought you should know. You can have it whenever you want. When you’re ready. Just tell me.”
Harry’s chest constricted under Malfoy’s head, under his hand, his words. He thought he felt the monster clawing and hated himself, not knowing why.
Then just as suddenly, it all let go, because Malfoy was lit up in gray light, and his hand was tracing circles, and he would wait. This wasn’t a monster, Harry realized. This must be what normal people felt when they realized how much they loved someone.
“I’ll tell you,” said Harry, and put his hand in Malfoy’s hair.
“Mm.”
They were quiet for a long time, Harry’s hand settled hot on Malfoy’s lower back. Malfoy let him ruck up the shirt there to touch bare skin, and it was one of Harry’s favorite spots. Malfoy’s skin was so smooth, and there was a dip there, down from the sharp wings of his shoulder blades and the round curve of his bony arse. Harry never told Malfoy, because Malfoy would rightly just say that he was a crazy person, but Harry wished sometimes he could stay there, in that valley on Malfoy’s body, stay there forever and never leave it because it was so quiet and beautiful and such a hidden secret spot on Malfoy; his hand fit splayed there as though it belonged.
“Are you ever going to tell me what it was like for you before you came to Chimera Downs?” Harry asked.
Malfoy paused. “Do I have to?”
“No.” Harry walked his fingers down Malfoy’s spine. “Was it hard to do those things? Get a flat, and your job?”
For a while, Malfoy didn’t say anything, doodling circles still on Harry’s skin, alternating the calloused pad of his finger and his bitten down nail. Harry never would have thought Malfoy would have bitten down nails, but he had. It was a bad habit. Malfoy sighed. “Yes. It was hard.”
“How did you do it?”
“Well, I saw a ‘for rent’ sign; I talked to this nice lady . . .”
“Did you go flat-hunting, like I did?”
For some reason, Malfoy laughed quietly into Harry’s chest. “Yes, Harry. It’s fairly normal, you know.”
“I know. I was just wondering.”
Malfoy was quiet again for a long time. When he spoke, his voice sounded reluctant. “If you must know, I wish I could get a place to live I actually like.”
Harry wondered why anyone could possibly want to live anywhere else, with the sunlight slanting through that way, and Malfoy snuggled up to him so warm and heavy and sleepy. The battered wood floors seem to glow, and the closeness of the room made everything feel safe, and his hand was on that spot on Malfoy’s back. Harry never wanted to leave. “You don’t like it here?”
Malfoy put his chin on Harry’s chest again, his expression incredulous. “Did you know me at all in school?”
“Yes. You changed.”
“I matured.” Malfoy turned his head back. “I didn’t turn into a ginger headed alien.”
“The Weasleys aren’t alien.”
“I never said they were.”
Harry moved his hand in the valley of Malfoy’s lower back. “How come you don’t like it?”
Malfoy pulled back to look at him, and as he did so his eyes softened almost imperceptibly. “I know how you like to be clausterphobic, Harry. It’s just not for me.”
“Why don’t you get a different place?”
Malfoy looked surprised, then leaned in again on Harry. “I don’t know. I suppose I . . .”
“What?”
“I suppose this works. The sort of place I want . . . there’s no reason to get it any how.”
“You said you didn’t want to live in Malfoy Manor again,” Harry said.
“No. Of course not.”
“But you’d like a place like that.”
“No.”
“Then like what?”
“I like the Goyles’.”
Harry startled. “The Goyles’.”
Malfoy pulled away. “Whatever. It’s stupid.”
Harry pulled him back. “No. It’s not stupid.”
“Yeah.” Sliding out of his grasp, Malfoy got up, swiped his trousers from the floor and put them on. He didn’t put on pants, and something about that-Malfoy just in his white t-shirt, in his kahki trousers, still looking rumpled and rather thoroughly fucked, made Harry just ache. Malfoy was so thin, with awkward angles everywhere, the turn of his mouth was lined and unhappy; light was coming from behind him.
The monster had never been farther from Harry’s mind.
“Hey,” said Harry. “It’s okay. I just didn’t expect . . .”
Malfoy smiled grimly. “I know. Of course. Who would really expect Draco Malfoy to want a house with a picket fence and a family and yard?”
Oh, thought Harry. Oh. “Getting married was on your list,” he said, his voice low.
Malfoy glanced at him, his expression unreadable. “Not any more.”
“Yes, but . . . did you want . . . ?”
“Didn’t you?”
Harry looked at his hands. “Yes.”
Malfoy went over to the window, looking out the blinds. The flat was in a wizard building, but the street was not, much like Grimmauld Place. Outside was a busy city street, not far from a tube station. “I always dreamed I would,” Malfoy said. “Of course, consciously I dreamed I would be Minister for Magic or maybe a magizoologist. But it was there, in the back of my mind. Get married. Have a son. Grow up just like . . .”
“Yeah.”
Malfoy still wasn’t looking at him. “We were very close.”
“What?”
“My mum and dad and I. I never pleased my father, but-but we were very close.”
Harry thought back over what Malfoy had said. “You mean you’d want to live with them?”
“What?” Malfoy glanced back at him. “No. Merlin preserve us. One cannot have the Malfoy patriarch far enough away, thanks.”
“Well, what you said about wanting a house . . .”
“I just mean it’s nice. You can have . . . friends, and it feels . . . there used to be the most splendid parties at the Manor, did you know?”
Mutely, Harry shook his head. It was more than Malfoy had ever said about his family, ever.
Malfoy nodded. “There were fairy lights, and floating lanterns on the pond. You could take a gondola, and there was always a band . . . I hated them, naturally. They never played Soul Sucking Succubi. There was dancing, and everybody dressed like . . .”
Trailing off, Malfoy stayed there looking out the window. Harry stood up, still in just jeans, and came up behind him. Malfoy spared him another glance. “Put your arms around me,” he said, and looked out the window.
Harry put his arms around him. When Malfoy settled his own arms over his, Harry moved a hand and found the raised red lines of the Dark Mark on Malfoy’s skin. “Do you miss it?”
“No. I was a kid. Those parties were all so old and stuffy, and I got in trouble for nicking the canapés.” Malfoy leaned back into him. “I do miss parties, though. The way there are lots of people, and everyone is happy. We used to have cracking ones in Slytherin.”
Harry remembered Malfoy’s bright face at Harry’s welcome home. “I didn’t know.”
“We don’t have them any more. There are too few of us.” Malfoy looked out the window, his hand covering Harry’s where it stroked the Dark Mark. “Since the war, we haven’t always been so good at being happy.”
Harry kissed him. He kissed him behind his ear just like he liked, then down his neck. Slowly, he turned Malfoy around, and then went down to his knees.
“Let’s go to the bed,” Malfoy said, but his hand sank into Harry’s hair and he didn’t move.
“I want to here.” Harry opened Malfoy’s trousers. “I think you should never wear pants.”
“There’d be chafing.” Malfoy was petting his hair, that line at the side of his mouth.
“Yeah, but it’s so hot,” breathed Harry, and proceeded to go down.
*
Some time later they had the pasta Malfoy had guessed at. Malfoy had come and then reciprocated; Harry had still protested. He was not good at letting go. Malfoy insisted. It took over half an hour.
Harry was weary and felt more drained than satisfied; he was sure that Malfoy’s jaw hurt. Malfoy had ended it by putting two fingers in him, like he had said he would, slow and slippery with lube and Harry was very tight; it was better than he had remembered, than he dreamed. Still, in those times the monster felt closer than any other time, and he wished that Malfoy didn’t seem to need his own release just as much as he seemed to need Malfoy’s.
Malfoy didn’t seem to mind it. He’d smirked afterwards, the line beside his mouth gone deep. His eyes had been quite bright. He always looked like he’d accomplished something spectacular when he made Harry come, rather like he looked when he caught the Snitch or made years of animosity up to someone in a kitchen. Harry supposed it was all worth it just for that.
Harry was thinking this about Malfoy after they finished the pasta. They were in the living room and Malfoy was fixing his wireless, Harry idly watching him. Malfoy was humming idly, off tune. “Did you say you wanted to be a magizoologist?” Harry asked suddenly.
Ceasing to hum, Malfoy glanced at him briefly. “I was nine.”
“Okay. But a zoologist?”
“Did you think I wanted to be a Ministry clerk working in Regulation of Magical Creatures my whole life?”
Harry went still. “I thought you liked your job.”
Malfoy was busy with his screwdriver and things. “It’s fine.”
“But it’s not what you wanted.”
“I wanted to be Minister for Magic,” said Malfoy, tinkering with something in the radio. “That should give you some indication of why some things don’t work out.”
“Okay. But what do you want?”
Malfoy was quiet for a while, still tinkering. At last he glanced at Harry again. “You haven’t talked to Mrs. Weasley-Thomas yet.”
Talking to Ginny was on Harry’s list. “We were talking about you.”
“Yes. I know.” Malfoy went back to his radio. “Are you afraid?”
Harry thought about that. “Yes.”
“Why?” When Harry didn’t answer, Malfoy put in a delicate little screw, and didn’t look at him. “Do you still love her?”
“Malfoy,” Harry began.
“It’s alright. I’m not jealous.” Malfoy twisted the screwdriver. “Well, maybe I’m a little jealous. But I don’t mind it. We all have dreams, Harry. Some of them don’t come true.”
Harry looked at Malfoy’s bright head, bent over the radio. His fingers were long and slender, nimble with the delicate work. Sun was slanting over him through the window. “Some dreams change.”
Malfoy finally, he got the screw in, and then very carefully set the radio aside. Just as carefully, he looked up. “I wanted to be the Care for Magical Creatures professor at Hogwarts.”
Harry sat there for a moment, trying to process.
“I know. It’s a little ridiculous.”
“It’s not ridiculous.” Harry thought about it. “Have you thought about teaching elsewhere?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“My father would never approve.”
“Why bloody not?”
“Malfoys shouldn’t teach.”
“What?”
Malfoy shrugged.
Harry took several moments to process this. “So,” he said slowly. “You’re not going to do what you want because your dad doesn’t think it’s posh enough.”
Malfoy flicked a glance his way. “It was instilled in me at a very young age. Even if now I can intellectually say it’s unreasonable, I can’t help the gut feeling.”
“What gut feeling?”
Malfoy rubbed his arm. “Shame.”
That was not the first time Harry thought about how much Malfoy’s parents might have fucked him up, but it was also not the last. “Malfoy,” he said, and started coming over toward the table.
“Mine isn’t a storybook ending either,” Malfoy said. “I don’t have to get everything that I want. Just some of them.” His looked up at Harry.
“You deserve them,” said Harry, sitting down beside him.
“Not everything.” Malfoy’s eyes slid away. Absently, he rubbed his arm.
“You should still try.”
“Some things are ingrained.”
Harry moved his hand, put his own over Malfoy’s Dark Mark. “I got my scar when I was one year old.”
At last, Malfoy looked at him, and held his eyes. “I’ll try if you will.”
“Do you mean it?”
Malfoy looked at Harry’s hand on his arm, and said quietly, “I can, if it’s for you.”
“It’s for me.” Harry scraped a nail across the scar raised on Malfoy’s skin.
When Malfoy looked at him, there was a light in his eyes and a smile beside his mouth. “Aren’t you just greedy,” he said, low and lazy.
“I think we’re worth it,” said Harry.
*
If Malfoy had had a list after the war, Harry was learning, on it would have been the same things he had put on Harry’s, that night at Chimera Downs: get a flat, get an occupation. If Malfoy had one now, Harry would have put on it, get a better flat and get a better occupation.
They were not such monumental things. Malfoy had done pretty well for himself, considering. He didn’t need to get counseling, anyway. But Harry kept thinking of Malfoy looking pale and worn, leaning against the door. I’m not any good, Malfoy had said. Realizing Malfoy might need him as much as he needed Malfoy made Harry want to keep going forward.
So he did.
When Harry saw Ginny, he knew that somewhere deep inside, there was old ache. He thought that he it if he looked for it, it could start to hurt again. But he didn’t look for it, and when Ginny smiled, he could smile too.
They had tea. Ginny was older, her features a little less fresh, the innocence quite gone and replaced with little lines about the eyes, and a firmness to the mouth. Harry thought she had never been quite so beautiful.
In the end, she kissed his cheek, and thanked him, and told him she was so glad they could do this. “And I should have said this a while ago,” she went on, “but I just couldn’t.”
“Said what?” said Harry.
“I think I was maybe jealous.” Then she lifted her brown eyes to him. “I think Draco Malfoy is . . . okay.”
Harry smiled. “He still cheats at Quidditch.”
“He does. But I think . . . I think finally I can forgive him.” Ginny looked warm like a summer morning: fiery, gorgeous and full of promise for the future.
Harry looked at her, and felt forgiven too.
*
Malfoy had begun to look for a different job. He got recommendations from Hermione, and looked into positions at the Magical Museum of London. Harry thought that if Malfoy thought that teaching grade school was déclassé, for some reason Harry couldn’t fathom, he thought becoming a higher level education professor might be a step up. Besides, he could go on writing those papers with Sinclair. Grudgingly, Malfoy began to look into wizarding universities.
Then they went to Hogwarts, and had tea in Hagrid’s new little house by the lake, which he shared as a summer residence with Madame Maxine. “You owe me so big, Potter,” Malfoy said afterward.
“I thought it might be nice.”
“You thought the mermaids might be nice, too.”
“So says the bloke who’s got a Sea Witch for a girlfriend.”
“You leave Bettina out of this,” said Malfoy, righteously indignant on the behalf of his fishy liaison.
“You liked Madame Maxine,” said Harry.
Malfoy brightened. “Such a lovely woman. Powerful, too. I like that.”
“Besides, I thought your discussion on the bloodlust of unicorns with Hagrid was rather nice.”
“It was, rather,” Malfoy said happily. “I didn’t know that about their hooves being sharp. I think the lightning from the eyes is bollocks, though. But when you consider griffins-don’t look at me like that, Potter. Hagrid was still shite at Care for Magical Creatures.”
“Like what?” said Harry, innocently.
“Like you think he’s Sinclair,” said Malfoy. “I utterly resent that comparison on the behalf of my good friend, and you should stop making it.”
Now Harry’s voice was contemplative. “I wonder if Hagrid’s seen Batman.”
Besides looking for a job, Malfoy was also looking for a new flat. He was very methodical about this, circling sections of the Prophet in bright red ink, and keeping a running spreadsheet on one of his walls with every possibility listed out. He was also very reluctant about this, because there was something wrong with every one of them.
“Are you Goldilocks?” Harry asked him.
“It’s got to be right, Potter.”
“I think you’re putting it off.”
Malfoy bristled. “Constant vigilance! That’s what it takes. You wouldn’t know; I did all your flat hunting for you.”
“You mean you tailed after me pestering me about my love life while I did all the leg work.”
Malfoy flapped a hand. “We both know I do all the work in this relationship. Love life pestering was heavy labor.”
Harry looked down. Once, in one of Malfoy’s rare moods of confession, he had told Harry all about Alfonse. The relationship hadn’t been serious; he had been trying to get over Harry. That hadn’t worked as well as Malfoy would have liked, because he had liked Alfonse. Harry had been perversely jealous, and yet he knew that that was okay, too. Afterwards, he had just been sorry it had taken him so long to be able to give Malfoy what he needed.
Malfoy snorted loudly. “Oh my god. Are you brooding again? What do I even do with you?”
“Have sex?”
Malfoy snorted again, and went back to his spreadsheet.
Harry kept on looking down at his hands. “Did you hear that Justin Finch-Fletchly has a son? His wife delivered a few weeks ago.”
Malfoy paused in his color coding, then went back to writing things on walls. “Yes,” he said. “I heard.”
“How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“I mean-”
Malfoy sighed, and put down his colored ink. “I know what you mean.” He allowed himself to think about it, and his shoulders settled. “I’m really glad there’s a child in that house again,” was what he finally sad. “And I’m triply glad that kid has nothing to do with me, or anything else.”
“Good.”
“I can’t live here,” Malfoy said, and crossed off another option. “There isn’t any skylight on the left side of the attic.”
Harry sighed.
*
One by one, Harry tried to go through his own list. Malfoy had added, find out what really happened to Umbridge, but he had said the things he put on it were suggestions anyway, and Harry didn’t take that one. He knew what he thought, deep down, something that would always be true whether he had done it or not: he had wanted to kill her. Not to protect anyone, not to save the world, but because he was tired, and he hated her. Harry would always know that he had felt that way, and use that knowledge to stop himself from ever hurting anyone ever again.
Instead, he visited Umbridge’s closest living family. Malfoy thought that this was also mad, and Harry supposed he had a point. He did not know how to go to Umbridge’s sister and say, “I’m sorry for killing your kin.” He went anyway, to say that he was sorry, maybe, or to express condolence.
Umbridge’s sister was a Squib in Manchester named Felicity. She welcomed Harry and assumed he was an old student, and Harry did not correct her. She plied Harry with tea and biscuits, and instead of cats she had children. There were four of them, and pictures of them everywhere, artwork by them; Felicity’s cloak had been “decorated” by them; she seemed more like Molly Weasley than Dolores Umbridge.
They spent the afternoon speaking of “dear Dolores”. Even though Felicity said that they had become estranged, she waxed poetic about “the good old days”, when she and “dear Dolores” played in mud and were always getting into trouble. Harry never did tell her the truth or why he came, and Felicity seemed perfectly content not to know. When he left, she seemed sad that he had not met the children, and delighted that at least “dear Dolores” had had one friend.
“I used to worry,” said Felicity. “Even after she passed.”
Harry realized then he would never tell Felicity DeVivre, nee Umbridge, that he was sorry, but that he was pretty sure he had killed her sister. Instead he said, “I’m sorry that she’s gone.”
Felicity DeVivre burst into tears, and Harry wondered how often happiness could be better than dredging up the past.
Other time, he supposed, it was necessary. Sometimes, Doctor Darwin did it a lot, asking questions about his childhood. He had told her that his mother and father were dead, and this made her scribble a lot and say, “Yes, I see,” several times. More often than not these days he talked about the Dursleys.
Harry had so often thought he was the way he was because Voldemort had tried to kill him when he was just over one year old. His mother’s love had saved him, and Voldemort had left a peace of himself with Harry. At Chimera Downs, Harry had tried to leave that darkness behind, that and all the misery Voldemort had brought after that.
Thinking of the cupboard, Harry wondered if perhaps his monster had come from somewhere else entirely, which meant he never could be rid of it. He could only live with it.
“Come live with me,” said Harry, in an afternoon of mutual quiet and solace in Malfoy’s flat.
“What?” Malfoy looked up from his book.
“I said come live with me.”
“I . . . Harry, where?”
“Let’s live at Chimera Downs.”
Malfoy snorted. “Harry, that place is even smaller than this one.”
“We’ll tear it down. We can build a house. Come on, it’s on your list.”
Malfoy looked interested in spite of himself. “Will it have a bath?”
“Whatever you want.”
“I do like baths,” Malfoy said, contemplatively.
Harry snorted. “I bet you do.”
“Hmm,” Malfoy purred. “I bet you would, too.”
“I think I know if I like baths or not.”
Malfoy hummed again and stood. “But you’ve never taken one with me.” He came over to the couch where Harry sat, and then was draped over him, kissing him.
“I suppose that’s a yes,” Harry murmured.
*
Six months after Harry asked Draco to move in with him, they had their first party at the new house on Chimera Downs.
Draco knew how to throw a party. Out back there was a large space cleared for dancing under the trees. Malcolm Baddock was in a band; they played jazz. Parkinson harrumphed and requested the Soul Sucking Succubi. Lanterns floated in the night, and the fence was draped in fairy lights. Ribbons and tiny bells shivered the branches, and laughter, full and rich and warm, drifted on the night air.
Harry was in the front yard, waiting for the final guests. Luna and Draco were inside, deep in a conversation about Snorkacks. Hagrid was no doubt dancing with Madame Maxine; Arthur was talking to Goyle about Disneyland, and Ginny seemed to be falling slowly in love with Sinclair while Libanos and Dean joked about it on the sidelines. The kids were playing with Teddy. Andromeda was talking to Molly Weasley, who had killed her sister.
It was the nicest party Harry had ever been to. He had never much cared for parties, having never gone to any when he was young, and later ones ending in disaster like Bill and Fleur’s wedding. But he was beginning to see the appeal of them, if you could have everyone you loved in just one place, and not want to tear it all down because somehow joy was more difficult to deal with than suffering.
The moon was low, the color of whiskey or white wine. Draco hadn’t put fairy lights out front, but there were fireflies, winking like yellow magic in the night. The sky was full of stars. Harry looked at the field, and waited.
They came late, winking to existence on the horizon of the slope, just where the wards ended. Then they began to walk down, Ron juggling tiny Rosie, and Hermione holding Hugo’s hand.
Behind Harry, the door opened, and yellow light spilled out. Bright laughter drifted down, then Draco was beside him.
“I thought I would find you here,” he said. His voice was low and knowing; he knew a thousand things; he knew Harry inside out. Yet he could still sound mysterious somehow, seductive; it made Harry want to follow him forever.
“I was just waiting for them,” said Harry, and kept watching Ron and Hermione.
“This is the first time they’ve been here,” Draco said, without asking.
Harry nodded, and Draco loosely wrapped a hand around Harry’s wrist. He did that instead of holding hands, and Harry liked it. “I should have had them come here before,” he said.
“Sometimes it takes something different,” Draco said lightly.
Harry pushed his shoulder against him.
When Ron got to the gate, he was complaining. “She heavy, is all I’m saying. Rosie, are you sure you’re not part giant?”
“You could just let her walk,” Hermione was saying, opening the gate.
“Through that grass, are you kidding?”
“I could fly,” Hugo offered.
“Harry, Draco, hello!” said Hermione. She kissed Harry on the cheek and swept Draco into her arms. Draco always became distracted by the way his nose got buried in her large hair. “Sorry we’re late,” she said, coming away from Draco pink and breathless.
Draco straightened up his shirt and pretended he was not inordinately pleased to get hugged by Hermione.
“That’s okay,” said Harry. “Hey, Ron.”
“So, this is it,” said Ron. “Hey Draco. This is the place.”
“Yep,” said Harry.
“It’s great,” said Ron. “It’s awesome. Congratulations.”
Harry laughed. “But?”
Ron scrunched his nose. “Have you thought about putting in a road?”
Harry looked at Draco. “I don’t think we need one.”
The End
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