Chapter Twenty-One of 'A Black Stone in a Glass Box'- A Many-Colored Rest
Chapter Twenty.
Title: A Black Stone in a Glass Box (21/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione, Blaise/Astoria
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Weird magic, DH-compliant in most ways but ignores epilogue, some angst, OC character death.
Summary: Harry has made a sacrifice to protect the wizarding world. And Draco Malfoy is going to find a way to reverse it if it kills him. After all, if he doesn’t reverse it, then he’ll only die of boredom anyway.
Author’s Notes: This is based on the fairy tale of Koschei the Deathless, which is where the familiarity in the plot will probably come from. It’s going to be an action/adventure and humor story more than a romance, mostly in Draco’s POV, and although the first chapter is fairly dark, the rest are definitely lighter
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty-One-A Many-Colored Rest
“What are we doing back here? I thought you would want to finish the chain ritual off as soon as possible.”
Draco smiled at Harry as he helped him through the wards on the edge of the Malfoy property. A slight examination of those wards from the corner of his eye showed that they didn’t have any damage from the pounding on them that Harry had done the other day. Good. Draco didn’t want to explain that to his father, who was barely reconciled to his choice of partners as it was.
“It’s true that we should probably finish it off soon,” Draco said, and Levitated Harry off the ground and into his arms. Harry made a surprised grunting sound, and Draco nearly made the same. Harry was heavier than he’d thought, although part of that was probably that his clothes still had some swamp water soaked in. He cast a Lightening Charm and took care of one part of the problem. “But one more day won’t make any difference, and we both need some rest.”
Harry blinked up at him, and Draco checked, but it seemed to be true: his eyes really were that guileless. “But, Draco, we spent all last night resting.”
“I think,” Draco said, bending over to whisper into Harry’s ear as if it was a great secret, “that I’m feeling the need for something more than that. Such as more time, and a leisurely meal, spent in the presence of someone I like.”
Harry blinked a little, as though the thought of being liked at all was extraordinarily new to him. Then he smiled a little, as if forced against his will. “Well. How can I say no to that?”
Draco smiled and pretended to fan himself as he carried Harry inside the house. “How relieving. I had the impression that you never took a holiday.” He raised his voice. “Niri!”
The house-elf who had brought them their drinks the night before appeared at once, eyes widening as he stared at the way Draco cradled Harry. “Master Harry is being injured?” he breathed, as if he couldn’t imagine anything more horrifying.
“Not injured, just tired,” Draco said, because he didn’t want to deal with a frantically squeaking house-elf right now. “Can you help me get him up to his bedroom and get him comfortable in the bed?”
That made Harry’s face turn a delightful shade of red. Draco leered at him, ignored by Niri, who bobbed his head fast enough to make his ears flap against his cheeks and exclaimed, “Yes, of course, Master Draco!” He reached out and took Harry’s feet, and as always happened with house-elves, who could handle loads much larger than their size would indicate, Draco felt as though he was suddenly holding a small package. He took the stairs almost two at a time, to watch Harry’s eyes cross. He didn’t seem to know who he should watch with more surprise, Draco or Niri.
They reached the top of the stairs and turned right, and Draco nodded approvingly as the oaken door opened to reveal Harry’s rooms. They were the ones reserved for the most honored guests of the house, which of course Harry was. But his mother must have arranged them, because Draco knew his father would probably have preferred to show Harry the cellars.
The rooms behind were a small suite, only sitting room, private dining room, bedroom, and bathroom, but then, most of the guests who stayed here would expect to eat and spend the majority of their day with the family. The colors were deep blues and browns, making Draco feel as though he walking underwater. Harry grunted and struggled a little as they carried him into the bedroom.
“This is getting silly,” he hissed, when Draco bent down so he could hear him. “I can walk, you know. And I wasn’t hurt.”
“I don’t want to take chances with you,” Draco said.
Harry fell silent and eyed him as though he had no idea whether he was serious. Draco let him go on wondering as he placed Harry gently down on the royal blue sheets of the bed and began to tug off his shoes.
“You don’t need to do that.” Harry sat up and held his hands over his shoes as though he imagined that Draco would be driven to ravish him by the sight of his naked ankles.
Draco beckoned Niri back and stepped away himself, holding Harry’s eyes and smiling until Harry blushed and looked away. Draco clucked his tongue. “Of course you must let us do what we can to make you comfortable,” he said, pitching his voice low. “Niri, will you go and get some hot water and massage oil for me?”
“At once, Master Draco!” Niri said, his ears jerking and his eyes practically overflowing with tears. Then he vanished.
“Massage oil?” Harry gaped at him. Draco had to laugh, though he managed to contain it to mostly silent chuckles. He thought Harry would be put off if he decided Draco was making fun of him. “You don’t need to do that. I didn’t even strain a muscle!”
Draco sniffed. “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” he asked. “With the way that you were being flung around in the water and into trees, I wouldn’t be surprised if you did get injured. Maybe you didn’t feel it, what with the adrenaline and the need to guard your back, but you will soon. And I don’t know anyone I trust more than myself to tend to you.”
“But I don’t have anything.” Harry clutched his shirt. “And wouldn’t I have to take my clothes off for you to give me a massage?”
“That is the general idea.” Draco leered at him.
“But it’s silly,” Harry said, and now he seemed to have decided that Draco was under a delusion that Harry could talk him out of if he just used small words. “Don’t you understand? I’m not injured. You don’t need to spend the time helping me.”
Draco let the smile fade, and stepped closer when Harry had just begun to look uncomfortable. “But I want to,” he whispered.
Harry looked at him, the same long and careful look that Draco thought he would have given to someone under the Imperius Curse, to make sure this was really what they wanted. Draco tried to look as powerful and convincing as he could when he had no idea whether this would work out or not. He was glad that Harry wasn’t a vampire, or simply gifted like a few of the lovers Draco had had in the past, and thus couldn’t hear his heart beating wildly.
“You really want to,” Harry said. “You don’t think you still need to convince me to trust you?”
Draco decided that he might as well push the boundaries a little more, since Harry hadn’t fled screaming, and picked Harry’s hand up long enough to plant a kiss on the back of it. “I don’t need to do that now, do I?” he whispered.
Harry’s face turned red much more slowly than it had before, as though he had had time to think about this blush. Then he turned his back to Draco, swallowing slowly, and began to undress.
Draco let Harry take his time with his shirt, and leaned back so that he could take in every inch of the lingeringly revealed skin. It was red, too. When Harry decided that he was going to blush in delicious embarrassment, he certainly didn’t do it halfway.
“Relax,” Draco whispered, as Niri came back with the oil and Harry jumped as though Lucius had walked into the room. “You’re safe with me.” He held up the oil and let Harry see exactly how much was in the canister, even as he shook it teasingly back and forth. “I wouldn’t let anyone hurt you.”
“Anyone else in the house, either?” Harry was delaying, his eyes flickering back and forth between Niri and the door.
“Not anyone else in the house, either,” Draco said, and although he smiled, he reached out and put a hand on Harry’s shoulder that didn’t shake at all. Why should it, when Draco meant what he said? “Not anyone at all.”
Harry closed his eyes and breathed in a few times, and either that calmed him down enough to accept this, or he decided that he wasn’t going to understand and he might as well just go with it. He stretched himself out on the bed on his stomach, grunting a little. Draco nodded. He had mainly proposed this because he thought Harry needed to relax and Draco wanted to touch him, but it wasn’t impossible that Harry had a strained muscle or two somewhere after all.
Draco let his hands carefully and casually explore Harry’s back for a few minutes before he settled down to stroking. Harry jerked and bucked a few times, but he calmed faster than Draco had thought he would. He even glanced over his shoulder when perhaps five minutes had passed, his brows lifted. “I thought massage was also supposed to involve oil at some point,” he said.
“Just admiring you,” Draco said.
He made sure to meet Harry’s eyes directly, and say that with no smile. He would have done those things anyway, because they were true, but Harry still flushed deeply and ducked his head, swallowing against the sheets.
There was a lot to admire, Draco thought, as he finally poured oil onto his palms and prepared to massage Harry. Not that Harry was overly-muscled, the way some of the Aurors were who spent hours and hours working on their physical condition. That he wasn’t was part of the point, Draco felt. He got results despite being slender, and he had scars, some of them pale and curving down around his ribs, but he was still alive.
Gloriously so, Draco thought, and licked his lips, and slid his hands into place.
Harry sucked in his breath hard enough that Draco thought his hands would fly off Harry’s back for a second. Draco rolled his eyes and pressed down, keeping still but steady. Harry finally sighed and let his breath out again.
“That’s it,” Draco whispered into his ear, his hands smoothing back and forth in slow circles, his thumbs sinking down into muscle until Harry groaned. “It’s fine. I’m not going to hurt you. You don’t need to worry about anything here.”
He pressed down again and again, choosing different spots but exerting about the same pressure, until Harry began to truly relax. Before, he had seemed to hold himself in check from moving or distrusting Draco, but now he lay there and was limp beneath his touch, giving into it, surrendering.
“You can do this,” Draco whispered into Harry’s ear, not bothering to conceal his wonder and delight. Harry turned his face slightly towards him, though not more than enough to reveal one bright eye. “I didn’t think you could, but you can. Even when you’re still influenced by the chain ritual, even when you don’t have much reason to trust me. You can.”
Harry smiled and closed his eye again. Draco moved back up and knelt on the bed behind Harry. It was starting to seem less important that Harry hadn’t removed his trousers. So Draco couldn’t massage him everywhere. That didn’t matter. It mattered far more what he could touch on Harry’s back, the bare skin and the smooth scars, and the way that Harry, after a long hesitation in which Draco could practically feel the breath dancing up and down in his lungs, parted his legs so that Draco could kneel between them, close to his arse. For that, Draco rewarded him with the hardest pressure yet, and then skated his hands up the middle of Harry’s back, along his spine, sliding in until he could feel Harry’s vertebrae beneath his nails.
“Why does that work?” Harry said, so stifled with the breath traveling out of him that Draco should have had trouble understanding him, but didn’t. He attributed that to how attuned to Harry’s voice he was now. Harry could whisper his name on the other side of a dark room, and Draco would hear it.
“What do you mean?” Draco whispered, near Harry’s ear, wishing to see what would happen.
Harry didn’t start or try to move away, just turned his head blindly in Draco’s direction. His eyes were shut, his mouth slightly open, and it seemed to take him long seconds to speak because he was trying to get his tongue and teeth into order to do it. “You’re pressing so hard. Why does it feel so good?”
Draco kissed the edge of his forehead and moved back again, so that he could really kneel and work Harry’s lower back, near his arse. “You’ve never had a massage before, Harry?” he asked. “Or just not one like this?”
Harry swallowed, and then the carefully-gathered air came out in a groan. Draco smiled and increased the weight of his massage. The sounds Harry was making didn’t encourage him to move away, he had to admit.
“Never had one before,” Harry finally said.
Draco had to close his eyes and concentrate on the regular movements of his fingers for long seconds before he could continue. “So you’re a virgin in several senses of the term,” he said.
Harry grew tense again for a second beneath him, though mostly in his legs and feet, not in the parts Draco was touching. Then he huffed and shook his head. “Only you would think of it that way. What does it matter whether I’m a virgin or not?”
“What do you mean, what does it matter?” Draco dug into a knot that hovered right above Harry’s waistline, and noticed the tremors that ran up his legs, firming them. Draco wanted to touch, but kept his hands where he knew they were welcome. “Of course I’m going to value every experience that I’m the first one to introduce you to.”
“But-”
Harry fell silent, not because of the way that Draco touched him, Draco knew, but because he was wrestling with something. That wouldn’t do. Draco dug in again, and Harry gasped, back flexing.
“No silences between us,” Draco whispered. “Why would you think that I wouldn’t want you to be a virgin?”
Harry snorted into his pillows this time, but Draco’s teasing tone seemed to have given him his confidence back, the way Draco intended. This was the arena they knew each other from, the competition of trading insults, flickering back and forth as fast as swords. “Because everyone knows that virgins don’t make good lovers. Or virgins in other areas don’t make good partners, either. You have to spend all your time coaxing them and teaching them and-God knows what else.”
“You wouldn’t know, would you?” Draco whispered, bending down to lick his ear. Harry shivered, but didn’t retreat.
“What do you mean?” Harry asked. “If you mean, I wouldn’t know because I am one, well, right.”
Draco shook his head, making sure that he kept near enough to Harry’s face that his hair moved there and stirred Harry’s skin into prickling little bumps of gooseflesh. “No, you wouldn’t know because you’ve never been with me, or anyone like me,” he murmured.
Harry laughed this time, and that sound made Draco close his eyes and tilt his head back. “A high opinion of yourself seems to be required to be a Malfoy,” Harry muttered, and again Draco could make out every word, despite half of them being said into cloth.
“Well,” Draco said, and closed his eyes, bending down like a branch above Harry, moving his lips to the back of Harry’s neck. “You know, I’m not claiming that I’m unique. Just rare.”
Harry paused, then said, “You mean you’re not talking about Malfoys being better lovers than anyone else?”
“No,” Draco said, and he let the smile stay in his voice, the way he wouldn’t have for anyone but Harry. “I’m talking about people who value new experiences, who like the fact that they’re teaching someone for the first time. Yes, there are people who don’t enjoy virgins. They take time. They take effort. They take patience.” He focused his thumbs on the place on Harry’s nape where his hair had brushed. “But think of the way I’ve pursued you, Harry. What in that particular combination of activities makes you think that I don’t enjoy focusing on you?”
Harry breathed in and out, and put things together in the logic of his mind, including all the effort Draco had been willing to spend on him when he didn’t know if there would be a result. At least, Draco thought he was doing that, hoped he was doing that. His hands continued to rub and roll, and then he moved back so that he was straddling Harry’s hips, grinding down a little so there could be no doubt about what Harry was doing to him.
Harry caught his breath in a little gasp, but didn’t act nervous. Instead, he said, steadily this time, “I wouldn’t think of you as a patient person.”
Draco laughed into his ear. “Well, it’s true that it takes the right combination of factors to make me want to be patient. But you have them.”
A pause, and Harry asked, the stutter back, “W-what are they?”
Draco closed his eyes. “Hmm. You’re not the sort to compliment-fish. You really don’t know.” Harry quivered beneath him, but Draco continued. “Fire. Determination. You throw yourself whole-heartedly into things, and so do I. You’ve led an unusual life, and you’re still alive. I like that, Harry. I could love it, if you let me.”
Harry took a deep, shivering breath, as if he was standing on the edge of a precipice and about to fling himself off.
And then he lay there and let Draco touch him, which might be the bravest thing he had ever done.
Draco kissed his neck, and kept caressing him.
Chapter Twenty-Two.