FIC: Stay 3/3
Sirius left Draco sleeping early the next morning and headed down to the kitchen, whistling cheerfully. Harry was sitting at the table, gripping a mug and staring into it.
“Morning, Harry,” Sirius said, pouring himself a cup of tea from the kettle. “Any plans for today?”
“I think that maybe I should go stay with the Weasleys, after all,” Harry said tensely, not looking up.
Sirius’ stomach dropped and his good mood dissipated. “Why?”
“Jesus, Sirius. Last night, I…” Harry was blushing furiously. “I could hear you. With Malfoy.”
“Oh,” Sirius said, horrified. Of course he hadn’t put up a Silencing Spell - he hadn’t known Draco was going to try to seduce him, and by the time they’d gotten into it… And Harry wouldn’t have been able to cast his own spell, because he wasn’t allowed to do magic. Fuck.
Oh, gods, Remus had probably been able to hear them, too. But at least he could use magic to block the noise.
Sirius sat down at the table. “Harry, I -”
“You’re sleeping with him. You didn’t tell me that.”
“I’m not! Or, I wasn’t. Until last night. And once before that, but that was different…” Sirius forced himself to stop babbling. “It’s not important.”
“How can you say that? It’s Malfoy. Even if he wasn’t an evil git -” Harry made a face. “Don’t you think he’s a bit young for you? I mean, he’s my age, Sirius.”
“I know,” Sirius said, the now-familiar guilt starting to rise back up from where he had firmly stamped it down last night. “I know it’s hard to understand -”
“Oh, I understand it,” Harry said, to Sirius’ surprise. “I understand completely. You were in prison for twelve years, and Malfoy is…well, I’m not blind. I get it, Sirius. It’s weird and gross and about eight kinds of wrong, but I get it.”
“You’re not angry?”
“Not really.”
Sirius knit his brow. “Then why do you want to leave?”
“Because I don’t want to listen to it! If you want to mess around with Malfoy, that’s your business, but Christ - I don’t need to know he’s a screamer, you know?”
Sirius grimaced, knowing how angry and embarrassed Draco would be if he found out that Harry had heard him last night. “Harry, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t expecting - and I didn’t think… I promise it won’t happen again.”
“When you say it won’t happen again, you mean you won’t forget a Silencing Spell again, right? Not that you won’t sleep with Malfoy again.”
“Harry -”
“It’s okay, Sirius. You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I’ve already told you what I think. The rest of it is really none of my business.” Harry gave Sirius a meaningful look. “Really, really none of my business. Ever. Please.”
“I promise.”
“Thanks.”
“You’ll stay?” Sirius asked, trying to keep the plaintiveness in his voice to a minimum.
“Yeah,” Harry said. “As long as it doesn’t happen again. I already have enough nightmares.”
***
The rest of July passed quickly. True to his word, Draco continued to be a git, treating Remus with barely-concealed contempt and Harry with open hatred. He purposely annoyed Sirius as much as possible, too, calling him “Cousin” just to irritate him and generally being a smart-mouthed brat.
To his great consternation, Sirius found that the more Draco provoked him, the more Sirius wanted to fuck him. He knew that couldn’t be healthy, but it was undeniable.
They shagged every day, often more than once. Sirius was pleasantly surprised to learn that Draco was an insatiable lover. He was also horribly greedy and selfish in bed, but for some reason that just turned Sirius on more. It would have been a problem if Draco had been topping, but Draco only ever bottomed - he had never once asked to top or even hinted that he might want to try it. Sirius wondered rather viciously what Lucius Malfoy would think if he knew his son was such an eager bottom.
Outside, the war continued apace. Wizards and witches were dying and disappearing every day, and it seemed that the Order could barely even keep up with the Death Eaters, let alone get ahead of them. Although Grimmauld Place was still technically headquarters, they had taken to having their meetings at Hogwarts. Most of the Order members were simply too leery of a Malfoy in the house to feel comfortable discussing their plans.
Sirius went to the meetings, even though he didn’t like leaving Draco alone in the house and there wasn’t really much he could do, anyway. He had always been useless at research, and he couldn’t accept any assignment that would take him away from Draco. But Remus was attempting to infiltrate Greyback’s pack - and having serious problems with it - and Sirius needed to support him.
Draco spent most of his time in the library and, strangely, the foyer. He had built a rapport with the portrait of Sirius’ mum, much to Sirius’ disgust, and the two could talk for hours at a time. But sometimes Sirius found Draco just sitting on the stairs, staring at the front door with a look of intense concentration on his face. Sirius thought Draco was probably fantasizing about escaping, and that hurt more than he would have ever admitted out loud.
The only time Sirius could get Draco to talk honestly and non-combatively was at night, right after sex, when it was pitch-black and they were both sated and sleepy. It was one such night, after a particularly vigorous session, that Sirius dared to broach the subject of Draco’s aversion to anti-anxiety spells and potions.
“I just hate the way they make me feel,” Draco said, shifting against Sirius’ side. He was lying half on top of Sirius, who was flat on his back.
“How do you know how they make you feel?” Sirius asked. “Someone your age shouldn’t have a lot of call for anti-anxiety treatments.”
Draco was silent for a moment, his breath steady against Sirius’ chest. “When I was a child, my father thought I was too excitable,” he finally said. “‘Highly-strung’, he called it. He wanted me to learn composure and self-control, so he started me taking those potions on a regular basis. He’d use the spell when I needed something more.”
Sirius’ stomach churned. “How old were you?”
“I don’t remember. Five, perhaps.”
“Five?” Sirius felt even sicker. “No five-year-old has composure or self-control. It wouldn’t be natural.”
He felt Draco shrug, and that was what upset him the most - Draco’s casual acceptance of the various ways his father had fucked him up. It was as though Draco didn’t know that the things his father had done to him, although perhaps not as obvious as beatings and hexes, definitely constituted abuse.
“How long did you take them?”
“My father thinks I still do,” Draco said. “But I haven’t taken them since my first year at Hogwarts.”
“Why not?”
“Professor Snape found them. He was so angry - those potions aren’t meant to be taken regularly. They can have serious side effects. When I told him how long I’d been taking them, he almost exploded. I’d never seen…” Draco trailed off.
“What?” Sirius prompted him, even though he found talking about Snape about as pleasant as talking about Blast-Ended Skrewts. It was rare for Draco to talk so openly about his past.
“I’d never seen him so upset. About anything. I’ve known him my whole life, you know. I think that was part of the problem - he was angry that he hadn’t noticed sooner.”
Sirius kept quiet. He thought he probably knew why Snape had been so upset, although he didn’t want to believe that Snape had actually had those kinds of feelings for Draco when the boy had been eleven. Even Snape wasn’t that perverted.
“He was going to go to Dumbledore, but I begged him not to. I begged him not to say anything to anyone, not even my father. He promised he wouldn’t, but only if I stopped taking the potions. So I did. I wanted to stop taking them anyway.”
Sirius digested that for a minute. “You said they can have side effects. What kinds?”
“Oh.” Draco tensed up. “It’s just…when you take them for too long, they interfere with your body’s ability to regulate anxiety naturally. Especially if you take them when you’re a child. If I was highly-strung before, it’s nothing to what I am now. I can’t handle stress at all.”
There was an odd note of defiance in his voice, as if he was daring Sirius to make fun of him. But nothing was further from Sirius’ mind. Instead, he was thinking about everything that had happened to Draco that summer - his father’s imprisonment, his mother’s betrayal and abandonment, the forced marriage, his isolation and confinement - and seeing it in the new light of a boy whose nervous system had been shot to hell by potion abuse. It was a wonder Draco hadn’t fallen completely apart at the seams.
“I’m sorry,” Sirius said, knowing the words were inadequate but not having anything else to offer.
Draco shrugged again. His muscles were strung as tightly as they had been before the sex, and he was stiff and unyielding in Sirius’ arms. Sirius only knew one way to relax Draco, and he kissed Draco’s mouth softly before sliding out from underneath him and licking a path down his body.
Draco shifted uncomfortably, and Sirius knew he was being too gentle - Draco couldn’t stand any kind of sexual touch that spoke of tenderness or affection. But Sirius couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t stop thinking about what Draco could have been if Lucius hadn’t done his best to ruin him, what Draco could still be if he put his mind to it. Sirius had seen it himself - the intelligence, the perceptiveness, the flashes of humour, the moments of compassion that Draco did his best to hide. It made Sirius ache with the need to comfort and protect him.
This wasn’t about his needs, though. It was about Draco’s. So Sirius grasped Draco’s hips and flipped him over roughly, spreading the cheeks of his arse and leaning down to press an urgent kiss against his hole.
If a good rimming couldn’t take Draco’s mind off the past, Sirius didn’t know what could.
***
Sirius had known it was a bad idea to have Harry’s birthday party at Grimmauld Place from the moment he had suggested it. But once the words had been spoken, it had been too late to take them back, and Harry’s look of astonished pleasure had sealed the deal.
Everything was fine for the first hour or so. Thanks to the combined efforts of Kreacher and Molly Weasley, the food was excellent, and everyone was in good spirits. Harry seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, which Sirius found gratifying. Every day he was more proud of his godson than the day before. Harry was growing into a truly good man, and Sirius just wished James and Lily were there to see it.
And if he wasn’t mistaken, there was something brewing between Harry and Ginevra Weasley - despite Harry’s vehement protestations to the contrary.
After a while had passed with no signs of trouble, Sirius started to relax. And so of course that was the exact moment he heard a shriek from the library. He wasn’t even surprised; there was a part of him that had been expecting this all along. He just jumped up from his chair and dashed up the stairs.
The library door was open, giving him a clear view of the tableau inside. Draco was backed up against one of the bookcases by the Weasley twins, who both had their wands drawn. There was a small burn on his cheek that was undoubtedly the result of a hex.
The sight of Draco hurt and frightened filled Sirius with the fiercest rage he’d felt in quite some time. Without a further thought, he drew his wand and shouted, “Expelliarmus!”
The spell was so strong that the twins’ wands ricocheted off the far wall even as they both flew backwards to crash into the table behind them. Sirius ignored them, moving to Draco’s side and taking him by the elbow.
“Are you all right?”
Draco looked at him with wide, stunned eyes. He nodded wordlessly.
Sirius whirled to face the twins, who were wincing in pain as they got to their feet. Good. Sirius had always quite liked Fred and George, but attacking an unarmed wizard was inexcusable. “What the hell is the matter with you two?” he demanded. “Can’t you see he hasn’t got a wand?”
“Like that would have stopped him!” one of them said. They both seemed shocked that Sirius was defending Draco.
“I don’t care. And I don’t care what he did or said that made you angry. You never turn your wand on someone who’s unarmed! Are you Gryffindors or not?”
“But -” the other one started to say.
“Get out,” Sirius said harshly. “Get out of my house. And if you ever hurt my husband again, it won’t be an Expelliarmus coming your way.”
The twins exchanged a quick look, then headed for the door, stopping only to pick up their wands on the way out. Sirius turned back to Draco to examine the burn on his cheek.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Draco said.
“Of course I did.” Sirius tapped his wand against Draco’s cheek, healing the burn. “I’m sure you said something absolutely appalling to set them off, but that’s no excuse for drawing their wands on you. They should know better.”
“I didn’t!”
Sirius raised his eyebrows.
“Well, I may have said something about their mother,” Draco admitted. “But it’s their fault. I was in here, innocently minding my own business. They sought me out.”
“Why would they do that?”
“We’re not exactly best friends, in case you haven’t noticed. They just wanted to make my life even more miserable. Taunt me.”
“Taunt you?” Sirius said warily. He knew Fred and George had a mean streak, but to go searching for Draco just to make fun of him? Either Fred and George were crueler than he’d thought, or the relationship between Draco and the Weasleys was more fraught than he’d been told.
“About you. They were saying…” Draco’s cheeks flushed pink. “It doesn’t matter.”
Sirius could tell from Draco’s blush exactly what kinds of things the twins had been saying, and it made him even angrier. He took a deep breath to calm himself. “They’re gone now. They won’t come near you again, I promise.”
“How do you know that?” Draco said. “You’re not always here, Sirius. And it’s not just the twins - anyone in the Order could come through the Floo at any time, looking for revenge or payback or just a little fun. And I’m trapped here. Defenseless.”
Sirius frowned. He hadn’t thought about it in those terms before, but it was obvious Draco had. No wonder the boy was always on edge. “I don’t have to leave,” he said, even though that wasn’t true.
Draco gave him a disgusted look. “Brilliant. So we’d both be prisoners, then. There’s no way you’d start resenting me for that.”
“I can’t give you your wand back, Draco,” Sirius said. He’d thought that had been firmly established, as Draco hadn’t asked again since the day Harry had moved in.
“You won’t give me my wand back,” Draco retorted. “But it doesn’t matter. I don’t need it. I just need something to protect me.”
“I’ll protect you,” Sirius said, insulted.
“And when you’re not here?” When Sirius didn’t have an answer for that, Draco continued, “You don’t know what it’s like. Every second you’re gone, I feel like someone is going to come looking for me, trying to hurt me. I don’t feel safe here.”
Sirius wanted to tell Draco that he was being silly, that nobody in the Order would ever do such a thing, but he couldn’t. Because, as the twins had proved, it wasn’t true. And Sirius couldn’t be here to protect Draco every second of every day.
“I’ll think about it,” he finally said.
“Fine,” said Draco. “I’m going to stay in my room until everyone leaves. Come and find me when they’re gone.”
***
The party continued until close to midnight, when Harry left to spend the night at the Weasleys’. Sirius hadn’t been able to fully enjoy it, though, because his mind had been on Draco’s predicament and the possible solutions to it. Giving Draco his wand was out of the question; Sirius still didn’t trust him. He knew that Draco wanted to leave, and that he wouldn’t hesitate to do so if given the slightest opportunity.
Sirius finally hit on a compromise. After he had seen the last of the guests off, he went up to the place in his bedroom where he had hidden Draco’s wand and altered the wards a bit. Then he went to Draco’s room.
Draco was lying in bed, reading. He looked up when Sirius entered, his cool grey eyes like looking in a mirror. “I assume the unwashed masses have taken their leave?” he said.
“Don’t be a git,” Sirius said, but he was so used to Draco’s bitchiness by now that it didn’t really bother him anymore. “Come upstairs with me. I want to show you something.”
“I’ve already seen it,” Draco drawled, his gaze sweeping Sirius from head to toe.
Sirius chuckled and took Draco by the hand, pulling him up to stand. “Not that. I think I’ve found a solution to our dilemma.”
He led Draco upstairs and showed him the hidden panel in the wall that stored his wand. Draco ran his hand over it. “You changed the wards,” he said.
“You knew it was here?” said Sirius, surprised.
“Of course. I can sense the wards. What else would you guard so heavily in your own room?”
Sirius was impressed. Not all wizards could sense wards with such acuity; it was an ability that had to be well-trained. “You’re right. I did change them. Normally, you wouldn’t be able to get past them without a wand, but I built a fail-safe into them.”
He took Draco’s hand and flattened it against the panel.
“If you’re ever in danger and I’m not here, just press your palm against the wall like this and say, ‘It’s an emergency.’”
“It’s an emergency,” Draco repeated.
The panel in the wall swung open, revealing Draco’s wand. Sirius winced at the alarms it set off in his head. He’d have to remember to turn down the volume on that particular spell later. He reached out and closed the panel, which reset the wards and silenced the internal alarm.
Draco kept staring longingly at the wall. Sirius gently turned his chin so that Draco was facing him. “Any time that panel opens, I’ll know,” he said. “It’s alarmed. So don’t think you can sneak your wand out in the middle of the night, or when I’m not here. If I hear those alarms, I’ll come straight home. You won’t have time to get out. Understood?”
“I’m not an idiot,” Draco said with a glare.
“I know. And I’m counting on you being intelligent enough to handle this responsibly.”
Draco nodded, his eyes drifting back to the wall.
Sirius slipped an arm around his waist and kissed his neck. “Feel better?” he asked.
“You have no idea,” Draco said softly.
***
Despite all his precautions, Sirius was on edge for the next couple of weeks. He was half-convinced that he had been wrong to trust Draco as far as he had, and that Draco was going to try to pull something stupid. But the days passed without incident, and every time Sirius left for a meeting or to visit the Weasleys and came back without ever hearing the alarms, he relaxed a little more.
Draco woke him up early one Friday morning in the middle of August, kissing Sirius’ neck and shoulders and rubbing against him like a cat. Sirius was more than happy to be woken in such a way, especially since Draco had never been so aggressive before. In fact, he had never seen Draco so eager to be touched, to be fucked - he was desperate for it, almost frantic.
“What was that about?” Sirius panted afterwards, as they lay sated on sweat-soaked sheets.
Draco just shook his head and burrowed more tightly against Sirius’ side. Sirius decided not to press the issue. If Draco was feeling hornier than usual, that could only mean good things for him.
There was an Order meeting scheduled for that afternoon; apparently Remus had good news to share. Sirius kissed Draco before he left, startled and a little concerned by the way Draco clung to him when he did.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked. “I can stay home -”
“No, no,” Draco said. “I’m fine. Go on. I’ll see you when you get home.”
“If you’re sure -”
“I’m sure.”
Sirius shrugged and Flooed to Hogwarts. Draco was so moody sometimes.
***
“I’m in,” Remus said, his face glowing with accomplishment. “I’ve been accepted into Greyback’s circle.”
There were excited murmurs and exclamations of congratulations all around the table. Sirius clapped Remus on the shoulder, happy for him. Remus had been working on this all summer with little to show for it, until now.
“Excellent work, my boy,” Dumbledore said proudly.
“Oh, Remus, that’s wonderful news,” said McGonagall. “With an eye on Greyback’s pack -”
“We’ll be able to get the nasty buggers before they get us!” Mad-Eye boomed.
McGonagall made an exasperated noise, but Sirius saw her lip twitch.
“It took you long enough,” Snape said with a sneer.
Sirius leapt to Remus’ defense. “Not everyone is a natural-born snake in the grass, Snape. Some people have to actually put effort into espionage.”
Snape raised his eyebrows. “Was that intended as an insult?”
“It’s fine, Sirius,” Remus said, cutting off Sirius’ intended retort. “Severus is right; it did take me a long time. In fact, I might still be on the outside looking in, if it hadn’t been for Mr. Malfoy’s help.”
That got everyone’s attention. “Draco?” Sirius said in confusion. “How did he help?”
“It was the oddest thing,” Remus said. “It was a few weeks ago - I’d been working all day, trying to gain the wolves’ trust, and I’d gotten nowhere. I was frustrated, and I ran into Draco in the library. He said something cutting, and I reacted in a rather uncharacteristic manner.”
Sirius grinned. That was Remus’ way of saying he’d told Draco off.
“He just stared at me for a few seconds,” Remus continued. “Then he said it wasn’t his fault that I couldn’t lie to save my own life, I shouldn’t take it out on him, and - the strangest part - that if I wanted the wolves to trust me, I should make a mistake. An obvious one. Let them catch me at it. He said that if I slipped up in a small way and admitted to it, they would let their guards down around me because they would think they had already seen the extent of my manipulation.” Remus shook his head bemusedly. “And he was right.”
Sirius stared at Remus, an icy chill going down his spine.
You haven’t tried to touch me again…What if I wanted you to?
I’m not that easily manipulated…You should have worked up to it more slowly. Might’ve had me.
I should make a mistake…Let them catch me at it…They would let their guards down.
Sirius clutched the edge of the table.
You don’t know Malfoy like I do, Sirius; he’s smarter than he looks.
No. No. He was overreacting. Besides, the alarms hadn’t gone off…
Because he was in Hogwarts. Where the wards were so thick that there was no way a simple alarm spell in London was going to reach him.
A wave of dizziness swept over Sirius. He forced himself to breathe. Even if Draco had gotten his wand out, he wouldn’t have been able to leave the house yet. Sirius hadn’t been gone more than twenty minutes; that wasn’t near enough time for Draco to work through and disable the wards on the Floo or the front door…
Oh, Merlin. The front door. Which Draco had spent hours staring at, for weeks.
I can feel the wards.
Draco hadn’t been fantasizing about his escape; he’d been planning it. Feeling out the wards, learning them, so that when the time came, he’d be able to dismantle them as easily as Sirius could.
That didn’t mean today was the day, though. Sirius had been in Hogwarts for longer than this over the past two weeks, and Draco hadn’t made a move.
But this morning…Draco’s intensity, his clinginess…
Go on. I’ll see you when you get home.
Sirius lurched to his feet. Everyone in the room was staring at him as if he were possessed.
Except for Snape, who was smirking. “Realized something, have you?” he said nastily.
“I have to go,” Sirius croaked out, and then he was running for the Floo.
***
He stumbled into the kitchen in Grimmauld Place like a drunk, feeling nauseous and lightheaded. He was so stupid. Sirius had never thought himself the type to be swayed by a pretty face and a willing arse, but he’d let Draco make a fool out of him.
Now that he was out of Hogwarts, Sirius could hear the alarms shrieking in full force. He growled a Finite to shut them up. There was no point to them now. Draco was probably long gone.
Sirius trudged up the stairs. He could feel from here that the wards on the front door were down. He clenched the banister tightly. Draco couldn’t become a Death Eater after Sirius had formally forbidden it, but he didn’t need the Mark to help Voldemort. Or to get himself killed.
He was halfway across the foyer, castigating himself every step of the way, before he realized he wasn’t alone.
Draco was sitting on the stairs.
Sirius’ heart seemed lodged in his throat. For a crazy second, he thought he was hallucinating. That couldn’t really be Draco sitting on the stairs, holding his wand and looking back at Sirius silently. But it was.
Numb, Sirius said, “I thought you’d be gone by now.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“So did I,” Draco said quietly.
He didn’t say anything more, and Sirius’ numbness began to give way to anger. “You played me.”
Draco didn’t deny it. “How did you know?”
“Remus. You shouldn’t have given him your espionage tips.”
“I know,” Draco said. “I knew when I was telling him that it was stupid. But I did it anyway.”
“You pretended to be trying to seduce me, knowing I would see right through it,” Sirius said. Every word was like a dagger through his heart, but he forced himself to say them, forced himself to face his own foolishness. “And then you let me think that you were sleeping with me reluctantly, even though it had been your intention all along.”
“Yes,” Draco whispered.
“You goaded the Weasley twins into attacking you, didn’t you? You knew that would push things over the edge, that it would upset me just enough to give you the opening you needed.”
Draco nodded, his eyes on the floor.
“I knew you were smart,” Sirius said in disgust, “but apparently I underestimated your intelligence. Or maybe I overestimated your basic human decency.”
Draco’s eyes jerked up to his, and he seemed honestly hurt. But the word honestly had no meaning with Draco. Sirius knew that now.
“I’m still here,” Draco pointed out.
“Because I got home in time to stop you!”
Draco laughed bitterly. “Sirius, I’ve been sitting here for a good ten minutes. You didn’t get home in time for anything.”
That brought Sirius up short. “Why didn’t you leave, then?”
“I don’t know,” Draco said helplessly. “I don’t really have anywhere to go, but anywhere would be better than here. I just…I didn’t…” Draco swallowed. “I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
Sirius’ jaw dropped.
Draco’s face twisted in self-loathing. “And I suppose that one sentence sums up exactly how pathetic I’ve become.”
“You didn’t want to hurt my feelings?” Sirius repeated slowly.
“You could have made my life a living hell in a hundred different ways,” Draco said. “It’s what I would have done in your position. But you didn’t. You were…kind to me. You tried to make things better for me. You protected me. And I’m…” Draco frowned, as if he didn’t know how to finish that sentence.
“Grateful?” Sirius suggested.
Draco’s eyes widened a bit, the concept of gratitude obviously a new one for him. “Yes,” he conceded. “Grateful.”
“Then why did you do this?”
“Because I can’t stay here!” Draco spat. “You may be fine with pretending that there’s nothing wrong with this, with forgetting who we are and why we shouldn’t be together, but I can’t do it. I can’t forget why my father is in Azkaban, and I can’t forgive it.”
Sirius made an incoherent noise of frustration. “Draco, your father did something illegal and you know it. When are you going to start blaming him for his problems? Besides, he only has a three-year sentence! He’ll be out in no time, and little the worse for wear.” Unfortunately, he added silently.
“It doesn’t matter! He would expect me to avenge him, he would expect -”
“Your father expects you to be the second bloody coming of Merlin. Stop living for him and start living for yourself.”
Draco was shaking his head, as if trying to shake away Sirius’ words. “I have to go. I have to.”
“To Voldemort?”
Draco flinched.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Sirius said cruelly. “Voldemort. If you can’t even hear his name spoken, how do you expect to be able to serve him?”
“I’ll find a way. He’s the only one -”
“And when he orders you to kill for him?”
Draco shut his mouth, looking startled.
“He will, you know,” Sirius pressed. “He’ll make you kill people, torture them. Could you do that?”
“I…”
“Could you kill a Muggle baby? Could you torture someone you know to death? Could you kill me?”
Draco didn’t respond. His face was ashen.
“Those are all things he’s likely to order you to do. And if you don’t do them, he’ll kill you himself.”
“No,” Draco said. He sounded like he was desperately trying to convince himself.
“Yes,” said Sirius. His anger suddenly deepened to fury. For this boy, this child, to stand in front of Sirius and insist he knew what Voldemort was capable of was beyond ridiculous. Sirius had had enough. “Stand up,” he snapped. “Stand up.”
Draco didn’t move, so Sirius jerked him to his feet and dragged him down the last few steps of the staircase until they were standing face-to-face.
“You want to leave?” he demanded. “You want to go join Voldemort? Go ahead. But you’re going to have to kill me first.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Draco said with a bit of his usual fire. “You know I can’t beat you in a fight. Just lock me in my room and have done with it.”
“I didn’t say anything about fighting. I said you’d have to kill me.” Sirius grabbed Draco’s wand hand and pressed the tip of the wand against his chest. “So kill me.”
Draco’s face had gone from ashen to dead white. His eyes were wider than Sirius had ever seen them. “What?” he gasped.
“Think about how proud Voldemort would be if you came to him, having killed Harry Potter’s godfather,” Sirius said. “He’d probably spring your father from Azkaban just for that. Let you in the inner circle. Everyone would be so impressed. So do it. Now’s your chance. It’s just two words.”
There was an eternal, breathless moment in which Draco just stared at Sirius, his entire body trembling. Then the silence was broken by the sound of a wand clattering to the ground.
Draco closed his eyes. “I can’t.”
“I know,” Sirius said, his body flooded with relief and triumph. “Do you think I would have wasted my time on you if I thought you were that far gone?”
“I have to help him,” Draco said, clutching Sirius’ arms.
“You don’t. Your father spent your entire life trying to make you into what he wanted you to be, but did anyone ever ask you what you want?”
“No,” said Draco. His expression showed a bit of amazement. Was the thought of being asked his opinion about his own life really that foreign to him?
“Well, I’m asking you now. What do you want, Draco? Not what do you think you should want, or what does your father expect you to want. What do you want?”
Sirius could see the struggle playing out behind Draco’s eyes, but he had said all he could. Only Draco could make this decision now.
Finally, brokenly, Draco said, “I want to stay.”
“Then stay.”
They kissed, Sirius pulling Draco hard against him. He Apparated them to his bedroom, Draco’s wand lying forgotten on the floor.
Sirius backed Draco up against the bed, and Draco sat down, looking up at him. “I never lied to you. I’m actually not a very good liar. I just…presented things in a certain way. But everything I said to you was true, at its core.”
“When you said you didn’t want to want me?” Sirius asked.
“True. Both parts.”
“And now?” He had to know.
“It’s still true. The first part a little less than before.”
Sirius joined Draco on the bed, Draco sliding backwards even as he wrapped his arms around Sirius to kiss him. “Are you angry with me?” Draco broke the kiss to ask.
“Yes.” It was true, although the anger was quickly fading.
Draco looked at him seriously. “I’m not going to say I’m sorry. I did what I thought I had to do, and I won’t apologize for that.”
“I know,” Sirius said. And he knew that he had already forgiven Draco - had forgiven him the moment he’d had the strength to say he wanted to stay.
He unbuttoned Draco’s shirt and slid it off his shoulders. Draco, taken aback by his sudden gentleness, said, “Sirius -”
“Let me.”
Draco bit his lip and then nodded. Sirius kissed Draco’s body slowly, tenderly. He was certain that the reason Draco didn’t like to be touched this way was because it reminded him of their first time together, but Sirius wanted to change that. This time, he kissed Draco not to relax him, but to forgive him.
They undressed leisurely, Sirius worshipping Draco’s skin with his mouth and hands, trying to express his acceptance and pleasure. By the time Sirius slid into Draco’s body, Draco was shaking and there were tears in his eyes. Sirius kissed them away.
“Sirius…” Draco said, almost too softly to be heard.
“Yes,” Sirius answered.
He kept his thrusts deliberate and unhurried, instead of the frenzied pace they were both used to. The lust rose in a different way, warm instead of burning, flooding his entire body instead of concentrating in one area. Sirius found Draco’s prostate and circled his hips, grinding his cock against it. Draco gripped at him with his arms and legs, twisting restlessly as his moans grew sharper and sharper until he let out a low, shuddering cry and spilled his release between them, his cock untouched.
Sirius groaned and took Draco’s mouth, letting his orgasm rise and sweep through him, forcing himself as deep into Draco as he could get. He stayed deep inside as his climax passed, relishing the feeling. Draco belonged to him now - not just in name, but for real.
He looked into Draco’s eyes, and Draco looked back steadily. No shame, no guilt. Not anymore.
“Stay with me,” Sirius said.
“Yes,” said Draco. “I’ll stay.”
Part Two