(no subject)
Title: Jealousy
Author: SilentAuror
Genre/Rating: Angsty romance; NC-17
Length: 3,403 words
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters.
Cheque #40: Harry to Draco: I promise to get jealous.
Also read it at Skyehawke, The Hex Files, or my journal.
Jealousy
The champagne flute that Draco had just ripped out of his hand shattered all over the piano as it was slammed down with undue force. Angry words rushed immediately to Harry’s lips - words which he realised at the moment he couldn’t say, as the sound of smashing glass had effectively halted every conversation in the ballroom.
Harry’s wand was in his hand in a second, spelling away the wine before it trickled over the edge of the baby grand’s lid and onto the strings within. “Draco!” he hissed, aware that everyone could hear him. “What the - what are you doing?”
The pupils in those usually cool grey eyes had eaten the grey away, turning Draco’s eyes to bottomless pools of a darkness that made Harry uneasy despite his anger. He found himself the sudden center of attention - forming the apex of an odd triangle between the nice man he’d been chatting with and his seething, quivering, enraged lover. Harry mentally shunned the term as more than a twist of annoyance made itself known to him. Boyfriend. Lover would have to be earned back, now.
Draco’s fists were clenched against his thighs. “We are leaving.” Every word came out in staccato, emphasised individually and laden with implied threat.
Harry felt his colour rise; he was not accustomed to being embarrassed in front of huge crowds of people, especially not at his friends’ engagement parties. He’d just been explaining, for the thousandth time, how he and Hermione had never been together, that it had always been Ron for her. The man - what was his name? Charles something-or-other, perhaps? - was a newcomer to London’s magical community, having lived abroad for some time. Harry had been about to point Draco out, to explain the exact connection there to further emphasise his point when the untoward interruption had occurred. He was angry. He was more than angry; he was furious. And these days, his fury was, or so Ron maintained, much worse than his anger, because it meant that Harry got quiet. As cold as Draco at his worst - which was also where Ron claimed it had come from. Harry had disagreed, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t move, but let himself go rigid.
“I,” he said, very clearly and very frostily, “am not going anywhere. You, however, are free to do as you choose.”
It was the tone that would have signalled Ron, Seamus, Neville or Dean to exit the room fairly much right then. However, the usual signals had never worked on Draco and would apparently only continue to incite him to further provoke Harry. Say something stupid to make things even worse. They’d never fought well.
Instead of flushing himself, Draco’s face drained of colour and his eyes went even darker. “In that case,” he said, spitting each word out with enough precision to make most of the room flinch, “let me rephrase that. I am leaving.” He let his eyes linger, allowing the connotation of permanence to penetrate Harry’s stream of thought, then abruptly turned on his heel and stalked across the silent ballroom. One heavily panelled oak door was pushed open and swung shut after him with a resounding bang.
There was another moment of uncomfortable silence, and then people began to murmur and mill about once more. Harry was numb with rage and humiliation - but particularly rage. His champagne had spilled a little onto his hand when Draco had yanked the glass away and he hadn’t noticed until now. Harry rubbed it against the wool of his trousers, hardly aware that he was doing it. Across from him, Charles cleared his throat surreptitiously. Harry glanced at him. The other looked apologetic.
“I suppose that’s the other reason you weren’t dating Hermione,” he said, his lip twisting.
“I was about to mention that,” Harry said moodily.
Charles cast an eye toward the doors. “Is he always… like that?”
“Yes,” Harry said shortly, his tone dark. “Pardon me. I think I had better… excuse me.” He put his wand away and resolved to make this up to Ron and Hermione somehow, making his way as inconspicuously as possible toward the doors. Charles was forgotten instantly. A thousand thoughts were crowding and jostling one another in Harry’s head, spanning everything from begging Draco not to do this again, not to leave him or threaten it, to taking out his wand and shoving it through Draco’s chest. He was furious, after all.
And he was also afraid.
It had happened before. Draco had left him once, and Harry’s entire life had fallen apart. Ron and Hermione had exchanged the sort of looks that told him beyond any doubt that they had fully expected this outcome all along - which helped neither Harry’s dignity nor his broken heart. And yet, none of this was Harry’s fault. On the contrary, it was Draco who’d gotten irrationally jealous over something that he had no reason to be jealous of again, made a humongous scene at his best friends’ engagement party and stormed out after humiliating Harry in front of hundreds of people. Harry was at the doors and still didn’t know exactly how he felt or what he was going to say, or if Draco would be out there, at the flat, or somewhere else altogether.
As it happened, Draco was in the hallway. About thirty meters down from the ballroom doors, lounging against the wall. One knee was bent, the foot propped up on the wall and Draco was smoking a Muggle cigarette. A habit which Harry hated, hated tasting or smelling on Draco, hated having the scent of on his clothing. And hated it most of all because Draco had gotten it from Zabini, whom he’d dated briefly after seventh year sometime. He hadn’t seen Draco smoke since their last break-up and the worry deepened perceptibly. Draco had only given it up for him in the first place.
He didn’t look at Harry or speak. Harry hesitated when he saw him, then hardened his resolve and his jaw both, closed the door behind him and began to walk down the hallway. He stopped about three meters from Draco, hands shoved into his pockets. He searched for words, and the silence hammered about his ears. “I don’t even know what to say,” he said finally.
Draco took a deep drag and exhaled toward the ceiling. “Then why say anything?”
The annoyance twinged again. “If you don’t want me to say anything, then why are you still here?” Harry bit out.
Draco’s eyes stayed on the wall opposite himself, but the brows shot up toward his hairline and his lips tightened. “I was about to leave, actually. I was going to give you five minutes to come and apologise, and if you didn’t come, I was going to leave.” The cool stare shifted to Harry’s, piercing. “For good.”
“Oh, fuck, Draco,” Harry said, everything suddenly coming to a boil. “I can’t take this any more. You can’t just keep doing that to me, keep this threat of breaking up again over my head for the rest of our lives! It’s not fair, and I don’t fucking have anything to apologise for!”
Draco dropped the cigarette and stood on it. “You don’t?” he shot. “I beg to differ.”
“Yeah, well, you can beg till you’re blue in the face!” Harry snapped. “It’s called a conversation, you paranoid - ”
“Don’t,” Draco said sharply, pushing himself off the wall. He came over to Harry in a way that brought to Harry’s mind’s eye an image of a predator stalking its prey. “It’s not paranoid to get upset when your lover is constantly off talking to other men at parties. It’s not paranoid to - ”
“Will you shut up!” Harry bellowed. “This isn’t about me talking to perfect strangers and trying to be friendly! This is about you ruining my best friends’ engagement party with your insecurities and embarrassing me in front of everyone! This is about you trying to keep me on a leash and jerking me back any time you think I’ve overstepped the lines. It doesn’t work like that!”
Draco shoved him back with both hands. “No? Then how does it work, Potter?” he spat. “You’re the only one who gets to call the shots? Is that it? You can just do whatever you like and I can’t say anything about it? Is that the way you want it?”
Harry glared, particularly at the Potter bit and grabbed Draco’s wrists, bending them back. “No, it’s - ”
“Because you can’t have it both ways,” Draco interrupted. “Remember the time at Dean’s, when you had a snit about me sharing a fucking butterbeer with Finnigan? Remember that? What was that, then? You don’t have any ‘insecurities’? Don’t give me that bullshit, because I - ”
“What?” Harry said, heart pounding so hard in a jumbled confusion of emotions that he was having difficulty breathing, getting the words out. “You’ll leave me again? Maybe it’s my turn to leave you.”
Draco was still struggling against him and stopped at this. “What?” he said, voice shrill. His face went pale with wrath. “You want to leave me?”
“That’s not what I said!” Harry shouted. “Would you just listen to me for a second, you idiot?”
“Oh, so now I’m an idiot, am I?” Draco stormed. He wrenched his wrists out of Harry’s grasp, swung back and slapped Harry across the face. Hard.
Harry heard himself say something he’d never said before just then. He found himself grabbing Draco’s shoulders and squeezing hard enough to leave marks that would last for days, without any clear intention as to what he planned to do next.
Kissing Draco had not been on the list of options. And yet there it was, his mouth hot on Draco’s, his tongue tasting the way Harry imagined ashtrays might, and it was ridiculous because he was still furious, but he was also hard and had no clear recollection as to when that had happened, either. He couldn’t breathe; their bodies were mashed together and somehow his back had gotten itself up against the wall behind him. Draco’s arms were like tourniquets around his ribcage, not that Draco would have understood or appreciated the simile, and Harry was torn between wanting to just go with it and wanting to shove Draco away and slug him. They’d never hurt each other before, not physically. At least not other than in pursuit of higher goals, Harry amended to himself, also noting that Draco’s thighs were pressing into his hard enough to cut off the circulation.
He grabbed Draco’s face with both hands and pried it off his own. “Stop it!” he panted, watching his fingertips making white dents in the flushed skin.
Draco closed his eyes and shook his head as though in pain. His hips rolled against Harry’s, almost too close to even gain any sort of friction. “No.” The jaw was clenched, tacitly refusing to talk any more.
Harry recognised it, the fact that Draco knew he’d gone too far at last and was in the stage of wanting to mend things, only he wasn’t sure he was ready for that just yet. “Stop,” he repeated, angry. “Draco. Stop it.”
“Harry - ” There was pleading there this time, and the eyes were still closed, but Draco moved his face past Harry’s, grinding a sharp cheekbone into Harry’s. He wouldn’t apologise, Harry knew. He never did. He’d once said that apologies weren’t something that he felt the need for, that people should just get over themselves and carry on with life. One of the many points they disagreed on, and further aggravated by the fact that Harry usually couldn’t stop apologising.
These thoughts flashed through Harry’s mind in seconds - fractions of seconds - all the while caught in this painfully tight embrace from which Draco would not release him, hating it and still preferring it to Draco being any further away than even this. He couldn’t speak around the tightness in his throat; the very brokenness of all of it was strangling him and he didn’t know the right words to fix it or make Draco just stop being the way he was all the time, or how to reassure him that he didn’t want anyone else and had never, to his conscious knowledge, flirted with another human being in his entire life, Draco included. Draco had pursued him, and he’d wanted to be pursued, and despite his apparent lack of social skills, they’d somehow managed to start a relationship. Twice. And so he stood there, holding Draco and hating the smell of smoke in his hair and yearning for some sort of magic beyond all of his training that could set things to rights.
Or else maybe it was time to admit that rightness would always elude them, and that perhaps they’d be better off going their separate ways. Perhaps there was only so much of this that one relationship could handle. The tightness in Harry’s throat grew.
“I love you,” Draco said. It was fierce and half-mumbled into Harry’s hair, but there it was nonetheless.
Harry was stunned. It had never been said before, not by either of them. He didn’t know how to react. He meant to think of something to say, but found himself crushing Draco even tighter against himself. They were moving again, but this time the goal was very much mutual and they’d both forgotten where they were in the first place, in every sense. Shirts were being yanked out of trousers and there was a distant-sounding clink as the button of Harry’s best trousers hit the floor.
“Your breath stinks,” Harry said, loosening Draco’s tie.
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be.” Harry didn’t smile, but attacked Draco with his mouth and it was nearly as furious as it had been before. But he’d initiated it, and it was rough and possessive and Draco was giving as good as he had in return. They were moaning, just bits of breath sounding in their throats and Harry’s was still painfully tight. Draco’s hands had somehow gotten underneath his shirt, which had come unbuttoned, and those fingers were pinching his left nipple hard enough that Harry gasped with pain. He snarled and turned them around, Draco’s face to the wall.
“No lube,” Draco panted.
Harry had no idea if he meant that he didn’t have any lube, that he didn’t want Harry to use any lube, or what. He ignored it and felt for his wand in his pocket - now somewhere near his knees - and cast a light lubrication spell. A very light spell. After all, he was still angry. He remembered the crowd of faces staring at them and pushed into Draco’s compliant body harder than he might have. There was a sound that might have indicated pain on Draco’s part, and Harry chose to ignore that, too. He pulled back and delivered a second thrust, hard enough to leave Draco breathless.
“You like that?” Harry breathed, lips against Draco’s ear. “I think you’re trying to get rid of me. I think you’re trying to blame me for something you know I haven’t done so that you’ll have an excuse to go. That’s what I think. But here’s something: you can’t get rid of me that easily. I’m tired of dealing with your shit, Draco. But I’m not going anywhere. If this is going to work, you’re going to have to promise me that you’re not going to threaten me like this any more. No more public humiliations.” Harry was moving faster now, his breath getting shorter. “No more saying you’re going to walk out on me unless you mean it for real and you do it permanently.” His hands stroked over Draco’s torso, his hips, his shoulders, found his cock, trapped against the cool marble wall, and he just left his hand there, fingers resting comfortably against the underside of the soft, heavy balls. He was pounding now, and they were both gasping. “You - need to promise me - ” Harry panted, a red fog glazing his vision.
Draco moaned loudly and grabbed Harry’s hand with his own, tightening both their hands around his cock. “God, Harry, please - ” They were fisting it together, Draco’s fingers interlacing with Harry’s. “I promise - ”
Harry’s hips snapped once, hard, and he was coming, hot streams roiling out of him like so much suppressed anger and Draco was nearly sobbing his need to come, too - he threw his head back beside Harry’s, throat white and exposed. Harry, still panting, sealed his mouth over Draco’s, jerking his fist around Draco’s cock until both their hands were covered with wet heat.
“What do you promise?” Harry demanded, lips moving over Draco’s cheek and down the line of his jaw to his neck, his shoulder.
“I promise to stay,” Draco said, closing his eyes. He found Harry’s other hand and moved it from his hip to his belly, intertwining their fingers there, too. “I promise not to embarrass you any more. I promise to make it up to Ron and Hermione sometime.”
Harry pulled out of him then and turned Draco around, smiling. “Good,” he said. They pulled themselves together, lest someone come by. “And I,” he continued grandly, a wicked gleam in his eyes, “promise to get jealous. I admit that I do it, and now you can admit that you do, too. I also promise you that I will never leave you for another man, no matter how much I talk to him during a cocktail hour, in a grocery store line, at a traffic light when I’m walking somewhere, on the tube, bus, plane, or train.”
“What about boats?” Draco asked with no discernible trace of humour.
“Boats are different,” Harry said. “Shipboard romances and all.”
Draco stared at him for a second, then laughed reluctantly. “You’ll be the death of me yet, Potter.”
Harry wound his arms around his lover’s neck. “Yes, but it’s the only death you’d choose,” he said.
“True. Heartless bastard.”
“That’s me. And it’s Harry.”
They kissed, or began to, but Draco cut it off, frowning. “Hey.”
“What?”
“I said I loved you.”
Harry cleared his throat and fiddled with a bit of Draco’s hair, tucking it behind one ear. “Right,” he said.
The frown deepened. “Well?” Draco demanded, his eyes beginning to darken again.
“I thought we didn’t… say stuff like that,” Harry said, uncomfortable.
Draco stared at him. “I also said that I didn’t do apologies, and I very distinctly recall having apologised for smoking, somewhere in there.”
“I suppose you did,” Harry acknowledged. “Well - did you mean it?”
“I ought to hit you again for that,” Draco said, trying to keep his voice light, but there was an entire raft of uncertainty beneath it. Uncertainty that was quite liable to turn into an entire war of its own, given half a chance, and that was what convinced Harry at last.
And he knew then that he even loved Draco’s insecurities. His petty jealousy and public tantrums. His obsessions over the most trivial things - the fact that Harry preferred white wine to red - or better yet, cheap, sparkling white wine (which Draco would have far rather died than order in public or be seen purchasing); the fact that Harry wore mismatched socks from time to time; the fact that his hair would simply never be straight and perfect like Draco’s, and a myriad host of other trivial things. And suddenly none of it bothered him in the least. Harry was quite sure that it would bother him again at some point, but it would be different now.
He smiled. “Well, what do you think, you idiot?”
To his relief, Draco actually smiled back, the smile breaking across the tension written all over his features. “Git. You had me worried.”
“It’s only fair, for all the worrying I’ve done about you ditching me,” Harry said. He kissed Draco again. “Come on, let’s go back inside. You owe me a glass of champagne.”
“True,” Draco conceded. “I’ll buy you a bottle later on. A good one, not that cheap shit you buy.”
Harry managed to refrain from commenting on this, took Draco’s hand - not something he normally did - and together they walked back down the long hallway to the ballroom, warm in the security of knowing that from here on in, things were going to be different.
-fin-
I'd love to know what you thought. :)
Author: SilentAuror
Genre/Rating: Angsty romance; NC-17
Length: 3,403 words
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters.
Cheque #40: Harry to Draco: I promise to get jealous.
Also read it at Skyehawke, The Hex Files, or my journal.
Jealousy
The champagne flute that Draco had just ripped out of his hand shattered all over the piano as it was slammed down with undue force. Angry words rushed immediately to Harry’s lips - words which he realised at the moment he couldn’t say, as the sound of smashing glass had effectively halted every conversation in the ballroom.
Harry’s wand was in his hand in a second, spelling away the wine before it trickled over the edge of the baby grand’s lid and onto the strings within. “Draco!” he hissed, aware that everyone could hear him. “What the - what are you doing?”
The pupils in those usually cool grey eyes had eaten the grey away, turning Draco’s eyes to bottomless pools of a darkness that made Harry uneasy despite his anger. He found himself the sudden center of attention - forming the apex of an odd triangle between the nice man he’d been chatting with and his seething, quivering, enraged lover. Harry mentally shunned the term as more than a twist of annoyance made itself known to him. Boyfriend. Lover would have to be earned back, now.
Draco’s fists were clenched against his thighs. “We are leaving.” Every word came out in staccato, emphasised individually and laden with implied threat.
Harry felt his colour rise; he was not accustomed to being embarrassed in front of huge crowds of people, especially not at his friends’ engagement parties. He’d just been explaining, for the thousandth time, how he and Hermione had never been together, that it had always been Ron for her. The man - what was his name? Charles something-or-other, perhaps? - was a newcomer to London’s magical community, having lived abroad for some time. Harry had been about to point Draco out, to explain the exact connection there to further emphasise his point when the untoward interruption had occurred. He was angry. He was more than angry; he was furious. And these days, his fury was, or so Ron maintained, much worse than his anger, because it meant that Harry got quiet. As cold as Draco at his worst - which was also where Ron claimed it had come from. Harry had disagreed, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t move, but let himself go rigid.
“I,” he said, very clearly and very frostily, “am not going anywhere. You, however, are free to do as you choose.”
It was the tone that would have signalled Ron, Seamus, Neville or Dean to exit the room fairly much right then. However, the usual signals had never worked on Draco and would apparently only continue to incite him to further provoke Harry. Say something stupid to make things even worse. They’d never fought well.
Instead of flushing himself, Draco’s face drained of colour and his eyes went even darker. “In that case,” he said, spitting each word out with enough precision to make most of the room flinch, “let me rephrase that. I am leaving.” He let his eyes linger, allowing the connotation of permanence to penetrate Harry’s stream of thought, then abruptly turned on his heel and stalked across the silent ballroom. One heavily panelled oak door was pushed open and swung shut after him with a resounding bang.
There was another moment of uncomfortable silence, and then people began to murmur and mill about once more. Harry was numb with rage and humiliation - but particularly rage. His champagne had spilled a little onto his hand when Draco had yanked the glass away and he hadn’t noticed until now. Harry rubbed it against the wool of his trousers, hardly aware that he was doing it. Across from him, Charles cleared his throat surreptitiously. Harry glanced at him. The other looked apologetic.
“I suppose that’s the other reason you weren’t dating Hermione,” he said, his lip twisting.
“I was about to mention that,” Harry said moodily.
Charles cast an eye toward the doors. “Is he always… like that?”
“Yes,” Harry said shortly, his tone dark. “Pardon me. I think I had better… excuse me.” He put his wand away and resolved to make this up to Ron and Hermione somehow, making his way as inconspicuously as possible toward the doors. Charles was forgotten instantly. A thousand thoughts were crowding and jostling one another in Harry’s head, spanning everything from begging Draco not to do this again, not to leave him or threaten it, to taking out his wand and shoving it through Draco’s chest. He was furious, after all.
And he was also afraid.
It had happened before. Draco had left him once, and Harry’s entire life had fallen apart. Ron and Hermione had exchanged the sort of looks that told him beyond any doubt that they had fully expected this outcome all along - which helped neither Harry’s dignity nor his broken heart. And yet, none of this was Harry’s fault. On the contrary, it was Draco who’d gotten irrationally jealous over something that he had no reason to be jealous of again, made a humongous scene at his best friends’ engagement party and stormed out after humiliating Harry in front of hundreds of people. Harry was at the doors and still didn’t know exactly how he felt or what he was going to say, or if Draco would be out there, at the flat, or somewhere else altogether.
As it happened, Draco was in the hallway. About thirty meters down from the ballroom doors, lounging against the wall. One knee was bent, the foot propped up on the wall and Draco was smoking a Muggle cigarette. A habit which Harry hated, hated tasting or smelling on Draco, hated having the scent of on his clothing. And hated it most of all because Draco had gotten it from Zabini, whom he’d dated briefly after seventh year sometime. He hadn’t seen Draco smoke since their last break-up and the worry deepened perceptibly. Draco had only given it up for him in the first place.
He didn’t look at Harry or speak. Harry hesitated when he saw him, then hardened his resolve and his jaw both, closed the door behind him and began to walk down the hallway. He stopped about three meters from Draco, hands shoved into his pockets. He searched for words, and the silence hammered about his ears. “I don’t even know what to say,” he said finally.
Draco took a deep drag and exhaled toward the ceiling. “Then why say anything?”
The annoyance twinged again. “If you don’t want me to say anything, then why are you still here?” Harry bit out.
Draco’s eyes stayed on the wall opposite himself, but the brows shot up toward his hairline and his lips tightened. “I was about to leave, actually. I was going to give you five minutes to come and apologise, and if you didn’t come, I was going to leave.” The cool stare shifted to Harry’s, piercing. “For good.”
“Oh, fuck, Draco,” Harry said, everything suddenly coming to a boil. “I can’t take this any more. You can’t just keep doing that to me, keep this threat of breaking up again over my head for the rest of our lives! It’s not fair, and I don’t fucking have anything to apologise for!”
Draco dropped the cigarette and stood on it. “You don’t?” he shot. “I beg to differ.”
“Yeah, well, you can beg till you’re blue in the face!” Harry snapped. “It’s called a conversation, you paranoid - ”
“Don’t,” Draco said sharply, pushing himself off the wall. He came over to Harry in a way that brought to Harry’s mind’s eye an image of a predator stalking its prey. “It’s not paranoid to get upset when your lover is constantly off talking to other men at parties. It’s not paranoid to - ”
“Will you shut up!” Harry bellowed. “This isn’t about me talking to perfect strangers and trying to be friendly! This is about you ruining my best friends’ engagement party with your insecurities and embarrassing me in front of everyone! This is about you trying to keep me on a leash and jerking me back any time you think I’ve overstepped the lines. It doesn’t work like that!”
Draco shoved him back with both hands. “No? Then how does it work, Potter?” he spat. “You’re the only one who gets to call the shots? Is that it? You can just do whatever you like and I can’t say anything about it? Is that the way you want it?”
Harry glared, particularly at the Potter bit and grabbed Draco’s wrists, bending them back. “No, it’s - ”
“Because you can’t have it both ways,” Draco interrupted. “Remember the time at Dean’s, when you had a snit about me sharing a fucking butterbeer with Finnigan? Remember that? What was that, then? You don’t have any ‘insecurities’? Don’t give me that bullshit, because I - ”
“What?” Harry said, heart pounding so hard in a jumbled confusion of emotions that he was having difficulty breathing, getting the words out. “You’ll leave me again? Maybe it’s my turn to leave you.”
Draco was still struggling against him and stopped at this. “What?” he said, voice shrill. His face went pale with wrath. “You want to leave me?”
“That’s not what I said!” Harry shouted. “Would you just listen to me for a second, you idiot?”
“Oh, so now I’m an idiot, am I?” Draco stormed. He wrenched his wrists out of Harry’s grasp, swung back and slapped Harry across the face. Hard.
Harry heard himself say something he’d never said before just then. He found himself grabbing Draco’s shoulders and squeezing hard enough to leave marks that would last for days, without any clear intention as to what he planned to do next.
Kissing Draco had not been on the list of options. And yet there it was, his mouth hot on Draco’s, his tongue tasting the way Harry imagined ashtrays might, and it was ridiculous because he was still furious, but he was also hard and had no clear recollection as to when that had happened, either. He couldn’t breathe; their bodies were mashed together and somehow his back had gotten itself up against the wall behind him. Draco’s arms were like tourniquets around his ribcage, not that Draco would have understood or appreciated the simile, and Harry was torn between wanting to just go with it and wanting to shove Draco away and slug him. They’d never hurt each other before, not physically. At least not other than in pursuit of higher goals, Harry amended to himself, also noting that Draco’s thighs were pressing into his hard enough to cut off the circulation.
He grabbed Draco’s face with both hands and pried it off his own. “Stop it!” he panted, watching his fingertips making white dents in the flushed skin.
Draco closed his eyes and shook his head as though in pain. His hips rolled against Harry’s, almost too close to even gain any sort of friction. “No.” The jaw was clenched, tacitly refusing to talk any more.
Harry recognised it, the fact that Draco knew he’d gone too far at last and was in the stage of wanting to mend things, only he wasn’t sure he was ready for that just yet. “Stop,” he repeated, angry. “Draco. Stop it.”
“Harry - ” There was pleading there this time, and the eyes were still closed, but Draco moved his face past Harry’s, grinding a sharp cheekbone into Harry’s. He wouldn’t apologise, Harry knew. He never did. He’d once said that apologies weren’t something that he felt the need for, that people should just get over themselves and carry on with life. One of the many points they disagreed on, and further aggravated by the fact that Harry usually couldn’t stop apologising.
These thoughts flashed through Harry’s mind in seconds - fractions of seconds - all the while caught in this painfully tight embrace from which Draco would not release him, hating it and still preferring it to Draco being any further away than even this. He couldn’t speak around the tightness in his throat; the very brokenness of all of it was strangling him and he didn’t know the right words to fix it or make Draco just stop being the way he was all the time, or how to reassure him that he didn’t want anyone else and had never, to his conscious knowledge, flirted with another human being in his entire life, Draco included. Draco had pursued him, and he’d wanted to be pursued, and despite his apparent lack of social skills, they’d somehow managed to start a relationship. Twice. And so he stood there, holding Draco and hating the smell of smoke in his hair and yearning for some sort of magic beyond all of his training that could set things to rights.
Or else maybe it was time to admit that rightness would always elude them, and that perhaps they’d be better off going their separate ways. Perhaps there was only so much of this that one relationship could handle. The tightness in Harry’s throat grew.
“I love you,” Draco said. It was fierce and half-mumbled into Harry’s hair, but there it was nonetheless.
Harry was stunned. It had never been said before, not by either of them. He didn’t know how to react. He meant to think of something to say, but found himself crushing Draco even tighter against himself. They were moving again, but this time the goal was very much mutual and they’d both forgotten where they were in the first place, in every sense. Shirts were being yanked out of trousers and there was a distant-sounding clink as the button of Harry’s best trousers hit the floor.
“Your breath stinks,” Harry said, loosening Draco’s tie.
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be.” Harry didn’t smile, but attacked Draco with his mouth and it was nearly as furious as it had been before. But he’d initiated it, and it was rough and possessive and Draco was giving as good as he had in return. They were moaning, just bits of breath sounding in their throats and Harry’s was still painfully tight. Draco’s hands had somehow gotten underneath his shirt, which had come unbuttoned, and those fingers were pinching his left nipple hard enough that Harry gasped with pain. He snarled and turned them around, Draco’s face to the wall.
“No lube,” Draco panted.
Harry had no idea if he meant that he didn’t have any lube, that he didn’t want Harry to use any lube, or what. He ignored it and felt for his wand in his pocket - now somewhere near his knees - and cast a light lubrication spell. A very light spell. After all, he was still angry. He remembered the crowd of faces staring at them and pushed into Draco’s compliant body harder than he might have. There was a sound that might have indicated pain on Draco’s part, and Harry chose to ignore that, too. He pulled back and delivered a second thrust, hard enough to leave Draco breathless.
“You like that?” Harry breathed, lips against Draco’s ear. “I think you’re trying to get rid of me. I think you’re trying to blame me for something you know I haven’t done so that you’ll have an excuse to go. That’s what I think. But here’s something: you can’t get rid of me that easily. I’m tired of dealing with your shit, Draco. But I’m not going anywhere. If this is going to work, you’re going to have to promise me that you’re not going to threaten me like this any more. No more public humiliations.” Harry was moving faster now, his breath getting shorter. “No more saying you’re going to walk out on me unless you mean it for real and you do it permanently.” His hands stroked over Draco’s torso, his hips, his shoulders, found his cock, trapped against the cool marble wall, and he just left his hand there, fingers resting comfortably against the underside of the soft, heavy balls. He was pounding now, and they were both gasping. “You - need to promise me - ” Harry panted, a red fog glazing his vision.
Draco moaned loudly and grabbed Harry’s hand with his own, tightening both their hands around his cock. “God, Harry, please - ” They were fisting it together, Draco’s fingers interlacing with Harry’s. “I promise - ”
Harry’s hips snapped once, hard, and he was coming, hot streams roiling out of him like so much suppressed anger and Draco was nearly sobbing his need to come, too - he threw his head back beside Harry’s, throat white and exposed. Harry, still panting, sealed his mouth over Draco’s, jerking his fist around Draco’s cock until both their hands were covered with wet heat.
“What do you promise?” Harry demanded, lips moving over Draco’s cheek and down the line of his jaw to his neck, his shoulder.
“I promise to stay,” Draco said, closing his eyes. He found Harry’s other hand and moved it from his hip to his belly, intertwining their fingers there, too. “I promise not to embarrass you any more. I promise to make it up to Ron and Hermione sometime.”
Harry pulled out of him then and turned Draco around, smiling. “Good,” he said. They pulled themselves together, lest someone come by. “And I,” he continued grandly, a wicked gleam in his eyes, “promise to get jealous. I admit that I do it, and now you can admit that you do, too. I also promise you that I will never leave you for another man, no matter how much I talk to him during a cocktail hour, in a grocery store line, at a traffic light when I’m walking somewhere, on the tube, bus, plane, or train.”
“What about boats?” Draco asked with no discernible trace of humour.
“Boats are different,” Harry said. “Shipboard romances and all.”
Draco stared at him for a second, then laughed reluctantly. “You’ll be the death of me yet, Potter.”
Harry wound his arms around his lover’s neck. “Yes, but it’s the only death you’d choose,” he said.
“True. Heartless bastard.”
“That’s me. And it’s Harry.”
They kissed, or began to, but Draco cut it off, frowning. “Hey.”
“What?”
“I said I loved you.”
Harry cleared his throat and fiddled with a bit of Draco’s hair, tucking it behind one ear. “Right,” he said.
The frown deepened. “Well?” Draco demanded, his eyes beginning to darken again.
“I thought we didn’t… say stuff like that,” Harry said, uncomfortable.
Draco stared at him. “I also said that I didn’t do apologies, and I very distinctly recall having apologised for smoking, somewhere in there.”
“I suppose you did,” Harry acknowledged. “Well - did you mean it?”
“I ought to hit you again for that,” Draco said, trying to keep his voice light, but there was an entire raft of uncertainty beneath it. Uncertainty that was quite liable to turn into an entire war of its own, given half a chance, and that was what convinced Harry at last.
And he knew then that he even loved Draco’s insecurities. His petty jealousy and public tantrums. His obsessions over the most trivial things - the fact that Harry preferred white wine to red - or better yet, cheap, sparkling white wine (which Draco would have far rather died than order in public or be seen purchasing); the fact that Harry wore mismatched socks from time to time; the fact that his hair would simply never be straight and perfect like Draco’s, and a myriad host of other trivial things. And suddenly none of it bothered him in the least. Harry was quite sure that it would bother him again at some point, but it would be different now.
He smiled. “Well, what do you think, you idiot?”
To his relief, Draco actually smiled back, the smile breaking across the tension written all over his features. “Git. You had me worried.”
“It’s only fair, for all the worrying I’ve done about you ditching me,” Harry said. He kissed Draco again. “Come on, let’s go back inside. You owe me a glass of champagne.”
“True,” Draco conceded. “I’ll buy you a bottle later on. A good one, not that cheap shit you buy.”
Harry managed to refrain from commenting on this, took Draco’s hand - not something he normally did - and together they walked back down the long hallway to the ballroom, warm in the security of knowing that from here on in, things were going to be different.
-fin-
I'd love to know what you thought. :)