Happy H/D Holidays, son_of_darkness!
Author: ravenna_c_tan
Recipient: son_of_darkness
Title: Burning Day (Part 1/2)
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco
Summary: Changed by the long war and unhappy with his life, Harry starts a new one in Muggle London, but something is still missing. Unfulfilled, Harry looks for it in back alleys and back rooms, but it’s elusive.
Rating:NC-17
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Warning(s):Bondage, spanking, corporal punishment, BDSM of various kinds.
Word Count: 14,900
Author's Notes:Thanks to my beta for late night beta duties. This request stumped me for a while, because I kept trying to leap forward to that point in their relationship where they could be going to SM clubs together. I finally realized I had to back up and write the explanation for myself of how Harry became a badass!top and what put him and Draco together. I also found the corset to be a stumbling block for the longest time. I just could not come up with a reason why Harry would have one, nor how to get Draco into it. I hope you like the solution I came up with. I managed to work in nearly all of the requested kinks (except the water-torture and public scene), but the part of the request that really stuck with me the most was "A Harry who is able to be quite cruel during play, but ultimately loving and with Draco's best interests and safety at heart" and "in-control!Harry, good-guy!Harry." I hope you enjoy it!
No one ever won an argument with me by saying "that's what Dumbledore would have wanted." In fact, it's a guaranteed way to lose my attention, my respect. Dumbledore, apparently, wouldn't have wanted me to turn out to be such a stubborn bastard about everything. I'm sure he didn't want the war to drag on for years as it did. I'm sure he didn't want me to suffer the way I did. What does it matter? When Hermione finally used the argument with me, when I told her I was thinking of leaving the Wizarding world, that was when I realized how far apart we'd grown. She'd never accepted the way the war changed me. I said goodbye to her and the Wizarding world that day.
Goodbye is a funny thing, though. I kept my wand, though I stopped using it. I stayed in London, though I never strayed near Diagon Alley or the Ministry. I changed my Galleons for pounds at a good exchange rate and settled in an old place in Shoreditch that the sales agent called the 'shabby chic' part of London. The city gave me the anonymity I had not known since going to Hogwarts. I could have bought something newer, but I just like old buildings, I guess. I certainly could never live in a place like my aunt and uncle's.
I got a job in a bookstore to keep myself busy during the day. Lord knows it wasn't for the money given what they paid, and don't get any ideas about me sipping coffee and discussing literature on the job. My main job was to unload shipments. Books are heavy and muscling them around for low wages was about as good job as a "strong young man with no formal education documents to speak of" like me could expect.
You don't want to know what I did to keep myself busy during the night.
Or at least, I am sure my co-workers didn't. They eventually decided that I had been some kind of soldier and had never really recovered from something horrible that had happened to me. Funny how perceptive people, even Muggles, can be, isn't it? Somehow the story grew over time that I had been a UN Peacekeeper in Somalia--which was funny since I had to sneak into the reference section to find out what continent Somalia was on. After a few months, the bright bookish young ladies who worked the cash register eventually stopped hitting on me. By the end of the year, the nosy bookish older ladies who supervised them also stopped trying to fix me up, though they never stopped trying to get me to eat more. Other than sometimes being late to work after a particularly rough night out, my work life was purely uneventful. Days slipped into weeks slipped into months. I was content with that.
Contentment is a strange state, though. It's not happiness, necessarily. It's more a state of wanting for nothing. If you can convince yourself you don't need anything else, you're content, right? Though I suppose if I needed nothing else, I wouldn't have been spending my nights as I did. It was not a time for introspection.
Nonetheless, my contentment was shattered one evening at the store, and when he did it, he wasn’t even aware of it.
It was getting near closing time and I was restocking a shelf on the second floor, when I heard voices. Up there the shelves are open, one can see through the books to the next aisle. I was on my knees and saw nothing, but as it was, his voice was unmistakable.
"No, Charles. I said no. Not this time. I'm here to pick out a book for my aun--"
His voiced was muffled suddenly and the hairs rose on the back of my neck. There was a rustling sound, a jostling of the shelf.
The other man's voice then. "Oh, really. Is that why we're in the sexuality section?" Followed by the definite sound of a zip being lowered.
Through the shelf I could see their legs, the bottoms of their overcoats.
And then a flash of blond as he was pushed to his knees. "Charles, I--" And then he was muffled again with a slight choking sound, I could vividly imagine by what.
I slipped away then, not wanting to be caught as a voyeur, not wanting to take the chance that he might see me and recognize me. And suddenly needing to relieve myself.
I locked myself in the bathroom and wanked so hard I left myself sore, every moment of it picturing myself pushing him to his knees, pressing my cock between his lips. Did he and this Charles do it often? It sounded like maybe they did. Did he swallow every drop so as not to leave a mess in a public place? I came imagining that my come went down his throat, that he sucked it hungrily and then licked me clean afterward.
I was content no more. There was something I wanted.
As soon as I could manage, I went back upstairs. The only evidence that they had been there was a few dozen books askew on the shelf. Otherwise, it could have all been a fantasy of mine. I could almost see, though, how the pushed-in books made the impression of his arse, where he had been pressed against them.
I had to find him. But how?
My reverie was interrupted by Mrs. Carmichael. "Harry? I'm locking up now."
"Oh, um, no problem," I answered. "I don't want to leave these out in the aisle. I'll just finish getting them onto the shelf and let myself out when I'm done."
She clucked her tongue. "You're the first one here in the morning to get the early shipments. You don't have to be the last to leave, too, you know."
"It's really all right," I assured her. "I'm not in a rush."
She left then and I did finish putting everything onto the shelf, but I didn't leave right away. Instead I went down to the office and saw that she'd stacked the credit card receipts on Mrs. Brundage's desk. I didn't know what they did with them--filed them away, I supposed.
I picked up the stack. Maybe this Charles bought something with a card and would be in the phone book. It was too much to hope that Draco Malfoy's name would appear. The receipts were in order. I flipped to the back, to the last customers.
The very last slip was signed in an elegant hand. Drayton Tonks.
***
That night I debated with myself. Was I really going to try to find Draco Malfoy, who was clearly living among Muggles like I was, track him down and then... what? Shove my cock down his throat? Something told me the fantasy held more appeal than the reality, but I found myself on the verge of checking the phone book more than once.
I hadn't been planning to go out that night, but it was a short while later that I grabbed my jacket and headed out. I knew places I could go to get the image of Malfoy sucking cock out of my head.
Or perhaps ingrained in it. It wasn't hard to find a skinny blond boy who would fall to his knees at the hint of a firm hand, who would worship at my feet for a few hard words, maybe a slap or two, if they were followed by praise. God, you're beautiful, you love my cock, don't you? Yes, that's it, suck it, you're so good at that... Thankfully the one I found tonight called me "sir" instead of "Daddy." Sir I could do; Daddy was still a little weird to me. Maybe if I'd come of age as a Muggle, or knowing my own father, I'd understand it better.
Anyway, my excursion had the opposite of the intended effect. Malfoy, pushed to his knees in a public place, sucking for all he was worth... the image was only stronger after that. When I got home I surfed the net. Drayton Tonks had a townhouse in Kensington. Had he fled the Wizarding world, too, and been helped by his disowned aunt and uncle, his uncle the Muggleborn? I wrote the address on a Post-It note and went to bed.
In the morning I was once again the first one to the store, but for once I was not the last to leave. It was a Friday evening and easy enough to claim I had social plans. The summer sun was not set yet as I found myself sauntering past a well-kept building in Kensington, which faced a small, nice-looking park. I took a seat on a bench in the park then, wondering just what I planned to do with myself. I certainly wasn't going to just ring the bell. I sat there, thinking about what Malfoy's mouth would feel like as I breached his lips to bury my prick in the hot softness.
His voice startled me. I looked around to see him crossing the park toward me. He was walking fast, his hand to his ear, and his voice was vehement. It took me a moment to realize he was talking into a cell phone. The whole idea of Draco Malfoy with a cell phone just seemed so incongruous that my brain refused to believe it at first.
"Give me a break, Charles!" he was saying. "I said I'm busy tonight and that's the end of it. Yes, I'm on my way home now but... I'm not planning to stay in. I'm just changing my clothes and I'll be gone. And no, it's none of your business where I'm going."
I froze as he flopped down on the bench that was back to back with mine. I hung my head so my hair would hide my scar and my face. But he was too absorbed in his argument to even notice.
"This is not some 'silly game of hard to get.' I'm serious, Charles. Of course I want to see you, but I've just got plans, all right? And no, they're nothing big, but your insistence has aggravated me to the point that I'll never tell you now. Jealousy doesn’t become you, dear, in fact it's downright ugly."
There was a beep--Malfoy hung up and slid the phone into the breast pocket of his shirt, then buried his head in his hands.
We sat there like that, back to back, neither of us moving for what seemed like a very long time, my heart seeming to beat louder and louder the longer we sat.
Finally he stood with a loud, wet sniff. Had he been crying? He walked away, to the townhouse I'd looked at earlier, passing through the gate into a small brick courtyard, then up the steps and inside. I watched as the light came on in the front room, then a minute or so later one upstairs. I imagined it was his bedroom. The faint scent of his cologne hung in the humid, summery air around me, and I pictured him undressing. Laying the phone on a dressing table, next to the bottle of cologne, unbuttoning the fine dress shirt, sitting on the edge of the bed to remove his shoes...
How could I picture anything but a four-poster bed with curtains? I shook my head to clear it. If Draco lived someplace like this, he probably got his furniture at Ikea. I'd seen not a single trapping of the Wizarding world about him. He'd opened his door with a key, not a charm, and the lights looked like electric lights.
My reverie didn't last long, though. A man came quickly up the walk then, and let himself through the gate. Charles? All I'd seen of him yesterday was the edge of his overcoat and his shoes, and it was too warm today for a coat. But it certainly could be him.
He stopped in the courtyard and put his phone to his ear. Calling Draco? I decided I didn't much like this pushy bastard and crept up closer to see if I could hear what he was saying.
He rang off before I could hear anything, though, charging up the steps and then letting himself into the house with a key.
I drew my wand. It had been a long time since I'd used it, but it wasn't as if one forgets how. I'd learned many useful surveillance spells during the years of the war, and cast one that let me hear what was going on inside.
Draco's voice was as unmistakable as it had been the first two times I'd heard it recently. He'd grown a bit taller than when I last saw him, that terrible night on the Tower, but hadn't filled out the way I had. He'd looked willowy, nearly as underfed as he'd been Sixth Year, his hair as platinum as ever, nearly but not quite to his shoulders. I imagined it brushing the fabric of his shirt as he shook it, arguing.
"No, Charles, I said no, and I mean it."
"You don't know how crazy that makes me," came the answer. "It turns me on more than anything, you know. And I know that you do know."
There was a strangled sound of frustration. "So what are you saying? How can I get through to you? I'll.... I'll see you tomorrow, Charles, I promise, but right now..."
"You don't have anywhere to go."
"I do..."
"That was all a lie." Charles' voice was low. Perhaps he thought it sultry. I couldn't hear it as anything but menacing. "Ten days. It's ten days since I last reamed your arse."
"With a wine bottle!" Draco sounded horrified, affronted. "Not my idea of..."
"It'll be my cock this time."
"Charles... please..." What the charm couldn't tell me, of course, was whether that plaintive note in Draco's voice was desire or fear or what. I don't know which turned me on more, the idea of Draco Malfoy begging for a man's cock, or of him struggling, fighting...
Another fantasy that was likely hotter than the reality. It wasn't as if I really hoped to eavesdrop on Malfoy being raped. And this Charles wasn't going to rape him, anyway. It was a lovers' quarrel to be sure, and Malfoy was as slippery and manipulative as ever, I was certain. If he truly wanted to stop this man, he had the power to do it.
Perhaps just listening would no longer be enough. I changed charms, to one that made it seem as though I could look right through the walls. The figures inside appeared like ghosts to me, ethereal and not quite solid.
They were in the bedroom and I had a moment of vertigo when I saw there was, indeed, a four-poster bed in the center of the room. Malfoy was half-dressed, as if what I had imagined him doing had been what had really transpired. The sheer coincidence of it made the hairs on my arms stand up.
They stood up still further as Charles pulled Malfoy into a brutal kiss, bending him backward with one fist in his hair while his other hand dug in Malfoy's briefs.
"Stop it!" came the breathless cry when he released his mouth.
Charles merely pushed him back onto the high bed, legs dangling off the side. "Your cock isn't telling me to stop."
"Oh God..." Malfoy whimpered.
"If you really didn't love this, would you be so hard for me?" Charles went on, this time pulling Malfoy's briefs down to his knees and then pawing at the erection that was revealed.
I am ashamed to say my mouth watered.
And then it was difficult to make out exactly what was going on, but Charles pushed Malfoy's legs up, the briefs still around his knees... Malfoy gave a harsh cry. A minute or so later, the motion of fucking was clear. Charles was still fully clothed, his trousers open just enough to get his prick into Malfoy's arse.
"God, I love it when you're tight and fighting me," he growled as he rutted. "I've never needed anyone the way I need you. God, what a slut you are. I'm going to fuck you like this as long as I please, you know. And then when I'm ready for a change of pace, I'm going to make you come, so I can fuck you when you're all loose and relaxed, too."
"Charles, please..." Malfoy begged. I would be lying if I said I weren't ragingly hard myself just then. Nagging thoughts flitted through my head. In the part where I couldn't really see, had Charles lubed him up? Put on a condom? But surely all Malfoy had to do if he wanted to put a stop to it was Summon his wand. Maybe after Charles left he'd hit himself with a few healing spells. If there was one thing I had learned in my frequent excursions to the back alleys and dungeons of London, it was that love and sex and lust could be extremely complex, and consent could be difficult for an outsider to discern.
I reached a hand into my trousers, just to shuffle the uncomfortable arrangement of my anatomy in my jeans, but was rubbing myself against the heel of my palm before I knew it.
Once upon a time, I thought, I would have just thought this was wrong. Spying on someone? Especially my hated rival? To get my rocks off? But since Voldemort's demise, my life had been one gigantic grey area. In the Muggle world, it mattered less, I supposed, the larger questions of Right and Wrong.
Charles continued to say vile, arousing things. Malfoy continued to protest, the tenor of his cries changing from anger to desperation. Then he began to appeal not to Charles himself but to the universe at large.
"Help me! Somebody, please! Oh God, help!" That final scream was cut off by Charles hand over his mouth and nose, and then it seemed he was suffocating, too.
I had seen plenty of breathplay, so that was nothing new. Plenty of couples whose favorite scenario was "consensual nonconsensuality," too. But I found my hand out of my pants and wrapped around my wand.
And then, quite suddenly, Charles cried out. The spell flickered wildly... no, that was flames flickering. The bed was on fire. Charles stumbled back, covering his eyes and coughing. Malfoy appeared to be... huddled in a ball, oblivious to the flames. Charles tried to reach for him, but the flames held him back, and he ran from the room.
The moment it became obvious that Charles intended to flee the house, rather than attempt to put out the fire, all my questions turned to dust. The grey was suddenly in sharp relief, black and white, and there was no doubt as to what I should do. My wand felt like a blade in my hand, cutting away cobwebs, as I flung one spell after another.
Their names came easily, as if I hadn't just spent a year with my wand in a drawer, never struggled through a Charms lesson trying to wrap my tongue around the words, never doubted...
When time began to move again at its normal speed, the fire was out, I was in the bedroom, and I had Malfoy in my lap as I checked his breathing. His eyes, startlingly grey this close, opened and looked into mine, confused and questioning.
But I spoke first. "Malfoy? Are you all right?"
Those eyes went wide with shock and recognition. "Potter?" He pulled free, my arms feeling oddly cold suddenly, but I was mindful of the way Charles had clutched and grabbed at him so I let him go.
His eyes were wild, but he regained his poise with blinding speed. He sat against the headboard, legs folded primly under him, tucking his briefs back in place, there under the tails of his button-down shirt. "I haven't been called that in a long time," he said, his head at a regal tilt, as if the scorch marks surrounding him were gold leaf and the smoke still drifting through the air incense. "Why are you here?"
A good question. A very good question. "You called for help." Which was true.
He narrowed his eyes at me. "What, and Fate sent you to me?" I had forgotten how he had that way of spitting out words, like any word could be a hex from his lips. But his spine straightened suddenly and he looked away, as if he regretted saying that. He hugged his own elbows and the light of the lamps off his hair in the smoky air made it seem as if he glowed. "Get out and leave me alone, Potter."
"He might come back," I found myself saying.
He hissed through his teeth. "Yes, well. It does rather look like he left me for dead, doesn't it? One way to get rid of the evidence."
I frowned at that. "He was raping you, Draco."
His eyes bore into me at that. "We're on a first name basis now? And are you so sure of that?"
Draco Malfoy always had the ability to make me angry beyond all rational thought. I got to my feet, wand clenched in my fist. "I've seen plenty of complicated lovers' games, Malfoy. But if that's all it was, well, it's as you said. He wouldn't have left you in a house on fire."
His eyes watched me the way a cat watches a mouse. "Just so. And, what? You'll stay here to protect me?"
"Malfoy, listen, I figured if you wanted to stop that guy, you could've..."
He snorted. "Would you say some accidental fire counted as protecting myself?" He licked his lips as he regarded me with sudden suspicion in his eyes. "You've no idea, do you."
"No idea what?"
He shook his head. "I'll ask you one more time why you're here."
"It's just a coincidence," I tried.
"I was told no one from the Wizarding world would ever darken my door again."
Now my mouth hung open. Told? By whom? And I was hardly from the Wizarding world, not any more... "I-- I left the Wizarding world. More than a year ago. I work in a bookstore. You were there yesterday and I just thought maybe..." The incriminating part of that story began much earlier than my peeping on him tonight. I shut my mouth.
"You. Work in a bookstore." There was half a smile, half a sneer on his face.
"Yes. What's so funny about that?" He could ever make me defensive and testy. "I work weekdays on the loading dock receiving shipments. I don't need the money. It's just something to keep me busy. Keep my mind off things."
"Things," he repeated. "Like what?"
"None of your business," I answered, though I was thinking to myself, yeah, what things? I refused to think about the answers. "Look. I just thought, what a coincidence. That's Malfoy, I ought to go and look him up. I didn't know I'd be walking into an arson scene..."
He thought that over. "Well, Potter, I've no way to prove it, but either you've become much more adept at lying or you've retained the disgusting openness and honesty that made you such a prat as a teenager. Thanks ever so much for looking in on me, but..."
"Wait a second," I said, stepping forward, irked but determined if he wanted to get rid of me, I wouldn't go easily. "You've just been raped, your house was on fire, and he might come back."
Malfoy was looking at the charred edges of the bedcover, and for a moment I saw him go off into his own thoughts, his mask slipping just a little.
Just enough.
When he looked back at me he was all business. "And what do you propose to do if he does? Protect my virtue?"
I shook my head. "Look, do you have somewhere else you can go? You're not safe here."
He shook his head slowly, those grey eyes never leaving my face.
"Fine. Come to my place. We'll sort this in the morning with new security charms. Just pack some clothes for tomorrow and..." I realized he was staring at me, one cheek twitching as he tried to hide some emotion or another. "What? What's wrong?"
"Security charms," he repeated quietly, with a hint of venom.
"Yeah, c'mon, Malfoy, you were fine at charms. They only have to keep Charles out, anyway, not the..." I trailed off as I realized he was still staring at me with the same expression. Now, as a teenager in the Wizarding world, lacking the indoctrination of the culture, I was forever finding out long after the fact things that every one around me knew all about. How to use Floo powder. That only the desperate took the Knight Bus. That portraits in the common room would gossip to portraits all over the castle about what you did.
I felt like this was one of those times. The look on Malfoy's face said it would be. I sighed. "Just tell me what I'm missing."
He gathered himself before speaking, just moving subtly but somehow I could picture him settling his robes. "It's not what you're missing, Potter. It's what I'm missing."
"You don't mean..."
But even as I was saying it, my brain was catching up to the horrible conclusion of what he must have meant. And when he said it, it sounded just as petty and ugly and bitter as I imagined the act to be.
"They took my magic."
***
It wasn't until we were halfway back to Shoreditch that I realized he'd hardly spoken after that. He disappeared into the bathroom for a short while, emerged from another room fully dressed and carrying a small bag, and followed me the few blocks to where I'd parked my car. It was as if, having made that admission to me, he now acquiesced to my every suggestion.
Perhaps I stunned him to silence, so surprised was he that I didn't immediately pepper him with questions about who, and why, and how, and what he should have done. I had no doubt it was the Ministry, no doubt that someone felt they had done the right thing by sentencing him to life as a Muggle. Life in Azkaban commuted to the lesser sentence because of mitigating factors. Something like that.
I drove carefully, perhaps a tad slowly, to give myself time to think about what to do when we arrived, and enjoying sharing the close space in the sports car with him. Mad to think on it. He'd just been assaulted after all; how could I even be thinking what I was? But I was.
And what was he thinking? His face remained blank, his thoughts unreadable, for the length of the trip.
I noticed though, that his eyes widened as I drove into the private car park on the ground floor. The building was once a furniture maker's, built in 1890, then was a warehouse for a long time. I lived on the upper floors, and led him to the kitchen first, where I put on the kettle, and then to what was nominally the guest room, one more flight up, given that it was the area that had a bed in it other than mine. On the way up the stairs though, I thought sleeping in the library, which had no real door to speak of, on a pull-out couch, might not feel very safe to him.
So I continued up to the master bedroom, which did have a door which locked, entirely Muggle fashion, as I explained it to him. "Tonight's the first night I've gotten my wand out of my desk drawer in months and months. There's nothing charmed in the house so you should be safe."
I took some things to sleep in out of a drawer. "I'll sleep on the couch downstairs so you can have the bed."
He put his bag down at the foot of the bed and sighed. "I... never had a chance for dinner."
"Come down and have some tea when you're ready and I'll scare up something for us to eat."
"All right." He looked at me curiously, then decided, I guess, to take the opportunity I was giving him to be alone for a bit, and sat on the edge of the bed. He ran a hand over the coverlet, his hair falling over his face like a curtain as he looked down at it.
I went downstairs wondering how it could be that I found that image unbearably erotic. Draco Malfoy, his face hidden by his hair, sitting on my bed and feeling the texture of the bedcovers. Hadn't I just shoved my cock down a boy's throat last night? It twitched at the memory.
I was making eggs and toast when he appeared and took a seat at the table, watching me silently. I bent over him to put his food down on the table in front of him and damn if the scent of smoke that still clung to him didn't remind me of incense, too.
"So the flames were... accidental," I said, when I was partway through eating, as if we'd been discussing the topic all along.
"Yes," he said, adding salt to his eggs and cutting his toast into strips with his knife and then dipping the pieces into the yolk.
"Has that happened to you before?" I asked, wondering if he'd talk about it.
"I don't make being raped a regular habit, no," he sniffed, but without venom.
"I mean the..."
"I know what you mean." He sipped his tea and made me wait for an answer. "Not since I was a child. You know, didn't you ever have something magical happen to you before you went to Hogwarts? When you fell or something?"
I could recall now with some fondness that I'd once made the glass disappear on a snake's cage at the zoo. "Yeah. So is it like that?"
He shrugged. "My accidental magic as a child happened twice. Both times I set something on fire. But, I don't know."
I finally did have to ask the question that had been burning in the back of my mind. "How do they take your magic?" My voice came out more breathless than I'd expected.
He snorted. "They point a wand at you and say some words, Potter. Just like any other spell."
"That's not what I meant and you know..." I realized he was hiding a sly smile. Was he deflecting the subject with humor? Or did it just amuse him to take the piss out of me that way?
"Do you really care to know?" he asked, pushing his empty plate away and looking at me seriously. "Or have you left such matters so far behind that..."
"I am curious," I admitted, interrupting him, but I was anxious all of a sudden.
He shrugged. "I'm afraid there isn't much I can tell you. They wouldn't tell me anything at all. Presumably because they fear I might devise some way of reversing it."
"So..." I cleared the dishes to the sink, thinking aloud as I went. "Your magic isn't gone, exactly, it's still there...?"
"I didn't use a cigarette lighter to set the bed on fire, you know," he drawled.
My fevered brain remembered all too well, though, the way their bodies had rubbed together, and watching his lips say the words 'set the bed on fire' had a predictable effect on me. I turned to the sink to rinse the plates.
"I seem to have kept some intuition, too," he went on. "I can sense certain things."
"Oh, that's interesting," I blathered as I rinsed the silverware.
"Yes. I can tell with a certainty how much someone wants me."
That stopped me cold. I shut off the water but stayed with my back to him. "It isn't... I didn't bring you here... there's a lock on the bedroom door," I sputtered.
Silence. I was afraid to see what expression would be on his face so I didn't turn around. The mad part of my brain--the part that was between my legs, I mean--was telling me how much he needed love and comfort. How much he needed someone with strength of character and virtue.
Then I remembered I'd rather left strength of character behind when I gave up on the Wizarding world. And virtue hadn't been seen for a long time.
After he falls asleep, I told myself, I'll slip out, go back to that place... and not be satisfied with just a whiny twink's blowjob. It would be a rare indulgence for me, but I knew if I truly wanted to I could find a hole to bang, one that wouldn't mind his arse being reddened with slaps and scratches of my nails while I did it. One that would beg for it, if I was lucky.
The silence was growing louder. Then I heard the scrape of his chair, but no footfalls. He was in stocking feet... I turned, suddenly sure he was coming up behind me.
He wasn't. He was standing by his chair, examining me across the distance. "I used to think you were the impulsive, dive-in-without-thinking type."
I used to think you were straight, I thought. "I like to think the war taught me a few things."
"Still the hero-type, though," he said, a hint of a smile softening his face.
I shook my head, more to deny him whatever gambit for playing me he was employing than because I disagreed. If yesterday I could have told you in all honesty that my hero days were over, today, with Draco Malfoy taking refuge in my house, I would have had trouble getting the words out. You see it was either believe that I was really acting on some good-guy instinct by bringing him there, or admit that my ulterior motive was that I wanted so very much to fuck him through the mattress.
"You've had a trying day," I suggested. "You must be tired."
He chewed that thought over. "Yes, well, I suppose I could get in bed."
"Yes," I said, as if answering him made any sense. "I'm going to finish up here."
"All right."
I had planned to leave the dishes for the morning, but turned back to them, the erection in my pants painful against the kitchen counter as I started to wash. Was it my imagination? Or was he really propositioning me? Or merely teasing me? Could he really sense my desire like he said?
When everything was in the drainer, I heard the shower running. Good. I went back up to the bedroom to change clothes quickly and grab a few things. It was Friday night, good for cruising. He was still washing himself when I left the house.
****
I returned home some time later with my cock limp but wholly unsatisfied. I felt dirty and tired. The house was quiet. I spent a long time in the shower, standing there thinking until the hot water ran out. Thinking about Malfoy, living without magic. Thinking about how not long ago, he'd stood here naked in my shower, washing away the smut another man had left on him. Thinking it was mad to even think of him erotically, but doing it anyway.
I slipped on boxers and a T-shirt to sleep in and readied the couch with a pillow and summer blanket.
And then I went upstairs to see if he had locked the door.
He hadn't. It was open about an inch. I didn't dare push it open further--it would creak. Then I realized it didn't have to. I Summoned my wand from where I'd left it downstairs, Silenced the hinges, and pushed it open wide enough to see into the room.
He was asleep on the bed, the covers tousled all around him, on his back, one hand flung out and the other palm down on his breastbone. In the dim light of the streetlamp through the wide windows I could see he wore nothing but shadows to bed.
I ached to touch him, to find out if his skin was as soft as it looked, his hair as silky. I wanted to search him like some arcane tome from the Hogwarts library, with my fingertips and eyes working together to unlock the secret of him.
Was the open door an invitation?
I fled to the couch before I could contemplate that further. I knew how easily I could convince myself that things were how I wanted them to be. But unless he had the capacity to say no, to say stop...
I was annoyingly erect as I got under the blanket, thinking, But he did say no, he did try to stop Charles. At least somewhat. I remembered that at the time I'd first been watching him, I'd assumed he had magic at his disposal. The thought that he was truly defenseless ... how had they met? had their relationship always been that way?
I thought about these things, ignoring my cock until, like a cat that is hungry but bores easily, it eventually quit haranguing me. And then I slept and dreamed of tasting my own sweat on his skin.
***
I woke to the smell of coffee and the sound of rain. It spattered the wide windows that covered the front wall of the building. The rain, that is, not the coffee.
I made my way down to the kitchen to find Draco Malfoy busy there, already dressed in black trousers and a casual shirt. He had apparently roasted raw coffee beans by hand for the coffee, made an egg tortilla with vegetables and potatoes in it, and baked a loaf of bread. All without the help of magic. I was plainly astonished.
He laughed. "You've a wonderful gourmet shop two blocks over. They baked the bread," he insisted, though it was clear he was pleased at my reaction. Then he shrugged. "I've learned to do a lot of things to keep myself busy without charms to do everything."
He pulled the tortilla out of the oven and we sat down to eat together. "You didn't have to..." I began.
"I wanted to," he answered, before I could finish. "Now eat, or I'll be insulted."
I ate, the demons that had argued with each other in my head during the night finally quiet. Now more practical matters sprang to mind. "There are security charms I could do for you, you know, that work for Squibs, too. I mean, that you wouldn't need a wand to operate."
He sipped his coffee, looking glum. "I... think the problem is larger than that."
I sipped my own coffee, waiting for him to say more.
"Charles pays the rent on that townhouse," he said quietly. "I don't imagine he'd appreciate being kept out of it."
I didn't want to be dragged down into another grey morass of questionable morality. "Are you going back to him, or not?"
"I... should like not."
"Then forget the townhouse," I said decisively. "Do you want anything from there? I could go back and get it for you. Otherwise, just don't. Forget it and just walk away."
He looked up at me. "Like you did? From the Wizarding world?"
I nodded. "It's not as hard as you think."
He gave a soft snort and stared eating again. "It isn't that I lack the... fortitude to do it, Potter. But I've no job and nowhere to live at the moment. And I'm sure you're aware how far one gets in this country without an 'education.'"
It hadn't dawned on me before that Draco and Charles were anything but a couple. But now, something about the way he said it... "A 'kept' man, were you?"
He nodded nearly imperceptibly and said no more.
I finished my food and sat back with the mug of coffee in my hands. "I always wondered what happened to you. I never knew you were taken by the Ministry."
He took the plates to the sink.
"You don't have to..."
"I want to." He proceeded to clean the dishes and pans with an efficiency and quickness that made me think he had to be using magic somehow.
"I take it," I said, while he wiped down the counters, "that they couldn't really pin any awful crimes on you, but they knew if you went to trial it would be lose-lose for them and you."
He poured us each fresh coffee and sat back down. "Close enough," he said, looking at me curiously. "You really don't do magic? You really left it behind?"
"Really," I said. "I only got my wand out yesterday for the first time in months."
"Why?" he asked, his gaze sharpening as he leaned forward. "Why yesterday?"
Why indeed. "Because... I was going to see you. I didn't know if I'd need it or not."
A small smile emerged on his face. "Because you thought I might hex you on sight?"
"Not exactly, no, but there might have been some need for it, if you'd lived in a more magical environment," I answered, flummoxed a little. Seriously, why had I brought it? "I still can't believe it. They made you a... Squib."
He looked like he was practiced at hiding his pain.
"What did it feel like?" I asked. "The accidental magic."
That got a reaction, a little flare in his eyes. "It was better than sex."
"Anything would be better than sex with that goon."
He deigned to smile. "I'm still suspicious of the fact that the first time I ever used accidental magic, it was while another wizard was watching."
I put my hands on the table. "You can't think I'm from MLE checking up on you or something."
He just looked at me with those piercingly grey eyes.
I hoped he felt just as pinned in place by mine. "Can you really tell how much someone wants you?"
His eyes narrowed. "Yes."
"Then... then you know I didn't come find you because the Ministry sent me." Nor because I wanted to catch up over coffee reminiscing about old times... I thought to myself.
"Your logic's faulty, Potter," he said, sliding out of his chair and walking over to me. "Working for the Ministry and wanting my arse are not mutually exclusive things."
I slid my hand into one of the front pockets in his trousers, my fingers brushing his genitalia through the cloth. "You don't want to do this, Malfoy."
"Do what, seduce you? Why not?" He ran a hand into my hair and all the hairs on my body, and other parts of me, came to attention. His voice was low and almost vicious. "The mighty Harry Potter has come to my rescue. And now I am lonely and in need of comfort."
I was on my feet, nearly growling as I pulled him close, digging my erection into him. "I don't think you could take what I dish out, Malfoy."
"No?" he breathed into my ear. "Hardcore S-and-M, is it? Bring it on, Potter."
I pushed him away. To hear it put like that, to hear the demons that gnawed me boxed and labeled like a section of a porn store--it galled me. "This is stupid," I said. "You just survived a rape and now is not the time..."
"For you to get all Gryffindor on me," Draco said, fists clenched in rage. "What is it, I'm not good enough for you?"
It was just like being on the Quidditch pitch, anger flaring without thought of consequence or censure. "Yes, yes, that's exactly it you spoiled little bastard. You're a lazy do-me-queen who fucks upper crust closet cases for a living who wouldn't know a decent blow job from a wet paper bag."
His mouth was open in shock and then I saw genuine hurt in his eyes. "You..." He looked away, then, trying to master his emotions before saying whatever it was he was going to say. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes bright. "You didn't have to say that," he finally said in a tone that made me feel like I'd just utterly devalued him as a human being.
Which I guess I had. But while I was still trying to formulate an answer, maybe even an apology, he fled the room.
This time the door was locked.
Part 2
Recipient: son_of_darkness
Title: Burning Day (Part 1/2)
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco
Summary: Changed by the long war and unhappy with his life, Harry starts a new one in Muggle London, but something is still missing. Unfulfilled, Harry looks for it in back alleys and back rooms, but it’s elusive.
Rating:NC-17
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Warning(s):Bondage, spanking, corporal punishment, BDSM of various kinds.
Word Count: 14,900
Author's Notes:Thanks to my beta for late night beta duties. This request stumped me for a while, because I kept trying to leap forward to that point in their relationship where they could be going to SM clubs together. I finally realized I had to back up and write the explanation for myself of how Harry became a badass!top and what put him and Draco together. I also found the corset to be a stumbling block for the longest time. I just could not come up with a reason why Harry would have one, nor how to get Draco into it. I hope you like the solution I came up with. I managed to work in nearly all of the requested kinks (except the water-torture and public scene), but the part of the request that really stuck with me the most was "A Harry who is able to be quite cruel during play, but ultimately loving and with Draco's best interests and safety at heart" and "in-control!Harry, good-guy!Harry." I hope you enjoy it!
No one ever won an argument with me by saying "that's what Dumbledore would have wanted." In fact, it's a guaranteed way to lose my attention, my respect. Dumbledore, apparently, wouldn't have wanted me to turn out to be such a stubborn bastard about everything. I'm sure he didn't want the war to drag on for years as it did. I'm sure he didn't want me to suffer the way I did. What does it matter? When Hermione finally used the argument with me, when I told her I was thinking of leaving the Wizarding world, that was when I realized how far apart we'd grown. She'd never accepted the way the war changed me. I said goodbye to her and the Wizarding world that day.
Goodbye is a funny thing, though. I kept my wand, though I stopped using it. I stayed in London, though I never strayed near Diagon Alley or the Ministry. I changed my Galleons for pounds at a good exchange rate and settled in an old place in Shoreditch that the sales agent called the 'shabby chic' part of London. The city gave me the anonymity I had not known since going to Hogwarts. I could have bought something newer, but I just like old buildings, I guess. I certainly could never live in a place like my aunt and uncle's.
I got a job in a bookstore to keep myself busy during the day. Lord knows it wasn't for the money given what they paid, and don't get any ideas about me sipping coffee and discussing literature on the job. My main job was to unload shipments. Books are heavy and muscling them around for low wages was about as good job as a "strong young man with no formal education documents to speak of" like me could expect.
You don't want to know what I did to keep myself busy during the night.
Or at least, I am sure my co-workers didn't. They eventually decided that I had been some kind of soldier and had never really recovered from something horrible that had happened to me. Funny how perceptive people, even Muggles, can be, isn't it? Somehow the story grew over time that I had been a UN Peacekeeper in Somalia--which was funny since I had to sneak into the reference section to find out what continent Somalia was on. After a few months, the bright bookish young ladies who worked the cash register eventually stopped hitting on me. By the end of the year, the nosy bookish older ladies who supervised them also stopped trying to fix me up, though they never stopped trying to get me to eat more. Other than sometimes being late to work after a particularly rough night out, my work life was purely uneventful. Days slipped into weeks slipped into months. I was content with that.
Contentment is a strange state, though. It's not happiness, necessarily. It's more a state of wanting for nothing. If you can convince yourself you don't need anything else, you're content, right? Though I suppose if I needed nothing else, I wouldn't have been spending my nights as I did. It was not a time for introspection.
Nonetheless, my contentment was shattered one evening at the store, and when he did it, he wasn’t even aware of it.
It was getting near closing time and I was restocking a shelf on the second floor, when I heard voices. Up there the shelves are open, one can see through the books to the next aisle. I was on my knees and saw nothing, but as it was, his voice was unmistakable.
"No, Charles. I said no. Not this time. I'm here to pick out a book for my aun--"
His voiced was muffled suddenly and the hairs rose on the back of my neck. There was a rustling sound, a jostling of the shelf.
The other man's voice then. "Oh, really. Is that why we're in the sexuality section?" Followed by the definite sound of a zip being lowered.
Through the shelf I could see their legs, the bottoms of their overcoats.
And then a flash of blond as he was pushed to his knees. "Charles, I--" And then he was muffled again with a slight choking sound, I could vividly imagine by what.
I slipped away then, not wanting to be caught as a voyeur, not wanting to take the chance that he might see me and recognize me. And suddenly needing to relieve myself.
I locked myself in the bathroom and wanked so hard I left myself sore, every moment of it picturing myself pushing him to his knees, pressing my cock between his lips. Did he and this Charles do it often? It sounded like maybe they did. Did he swallow every drop so as not to leave a mess in a public place? I came imagining that my come went down his throat, that he sucked it hungrily and then licked me clean afterward.
I was content no more. There was something I wanted.
As soon as I could manage, I went back upstairs. The only evidence that they had been there was a few dozen books askew on the shelf. Otherwise, it could have all been a fantasy of mine. I could almost see, though, how the pushed-in books made the impression of his arse, where he had been pressed against them.
I had to find him. But how?
My reverie was interrupted by Mrs. Carmichael. "Harry? I'm locking up now."
"Oh, um, no problem," I answered. "I don't want to leave these out in the aisle. I'll just finish getting them onto the shelf and let myself out when I'm done."
She clucked her tongue. "You're the first one here in the morning to get the early shipments. You don't have to be the last to leave, too, you know."
"It's really all right," I assured her. "I'm not in a rush."
She left then and I did finish putting everything onto the shelf, but I didn't leave right away. Instead I went down to the office and saw that she'd stacked the credit card receipts on Mrs. Brundage's desk. I didn't know what they did with them--filed them away, I supposed.
I picked up the stack. Maybe this Charles bought something with a card and would be in the phone book. It was too much to hope that Draco Malfoy's name would appear. The receipts were in order. I flipped to the back, to the last customers.
The very last slip was signed in an elegant hand. Drayton Tonks.
***
That night I debated with myself. Was I really going to try to find Draco Malfoy, who was clearly living among Muggles like I was, track him down and then... what? Shove my cock down his throat? Something told me the fantasy held more appeal than the reality, but I found myself on the verge of checking the phone book more than once.
I hadn't been planning to go out that night, but it was a short while later that I grabbed my jacket and headed out. I knew places I could go to get the image of Malfoy sucking cock out of my head.
Or perhaps ingrained in it. It wasn't hard to find a skinny blond boy who would fall to his knees at the hint of a firm hand, who would worship at my feet for a few hard words, maybe a slap or two, if they were followed by praise. God, you're beautiful, you love my cock, don't you? Yes, that's it, suck it, you're so good at that... Thankfully the one I found tonight called me "sir" instead of "Daddy." Sir I could do; Daddy was still a little weird to me. Maybe if I'd come of age as a Muggle, or knowing my own father, I'd understand it better.
Anyway, my excursion had the opposite of the intended effect. Malfoy, pushed to his knees in a public place, sucking for all he was worth... the image was only stronger after that. When I got home I surfed the net. Drayton Tonks had a townhouse in Kensington. Had he fled the Wizarding world, too, and been helped by his disowned aunt and uncle, his uncle the Muggleborn? I wrote the address on a Post-It note and went to bed.
In the morning I was once again the first one to the store, but for once I was not the last to leave. It was a Friday evening and easy enough to claim I had social plans. The summer sun was not set yet as I found myself sauntering past a well-kept building in Kensington, which faced a small, nice-looking park. I took a seat on a bench in the park then, wondering just what I planned to do with myself. I certainly wasn't going to just ring the bell. I sat there, thinking about what Malfoy's mouth would feel like as I breached his lips to bury my prick in the hot softness.
His voice startled me. I looked around to see him crossing the park toward me. He was walking fast, his hand to his ear, and his voice was vehement. It took me a moment to realize he was talking into a cell phone. The whole idea of Draco Malfoy with a cell phone just seemed so incongruous that my brain refused to believe it at first.
"Give me a break, Charles!" he was saying. "I said I'm busy tonight and that's the end of it. Yes, I'm on my way home now but... I'm not planning to stay in. I'm just changing my clothes and I'll be gone. And no, it's none of your business where I'm going."
I froze as he flopped down on the bench that was back to back with mine. I hung my head so my hair would hide my scar and my face. But he was too absorbed in his argument to even notice.
"This is not some 'silly game of hard to get.' I'm serious, Charles. Of course I want to see you, but I've just got plans, all right? And no, they're nothing big, but your insistence has aggravated me to the point that I'll never tell you now. Jealousy doesn’t become you, dear, in fact it's downright ugly."
There was a beep--Malfoy hung up and slid the phone into the breast pocket of his shirt, then buried his head in his hands.
We sat there like that, back to back, neither of us moving for what seemed like a very long time, my heart seeming to beat louder and louder the longer we sat.
Finally he stood with a loud, wet sniff. Had he been crying? He walked away, to the townhouse I'd looked at earlier, passing through the gate into a small brick courtyard, then up the steps and inside. I watched as the light came on in the front room, then a minute or so later one upstairs. I imagined it was his bedroom. The faint scent of his cologne hung in the humid, summery air around me, and I pictured him undressing. Laying the phone on a dressing table, next to the bottle of cologne, unbuttoning the fine dress shirt, sitting on the edge of the bed to remove his shoes...
How could I picture anything but a four-poster bed with curtains? I shook my head to clear it. If Draco lived someplace like this, he probably got his furniture at Ikea. I'd seen not a single trapping of the Wizarding world about him. He'd opened his door with a key, not a charm, and the lights looked like electric lights.
My reverie didn't last long, though. A man came quickly up the walk then, and let himself through the gate. Charles? All I'd seen of him yesterday was the edge of his overcoat and his shoes, and it was too warm today for a coat. But it certainly could be him.
He stopped in the courtyard and put his phone to his ear. Calling Draco? I decided I didn't much like this pushy bastard and crept up closer to see if I could hear what he was saying.
He rang off before I could hear anything, though, charging up the steps and then letting himself into the house with a key.
I drew my wand. It had been a long time since I'd used it, but it wasn't as if one forgets how. I'd learned many useful surveillance spells during the years of the war, and cast one that let me hear what was going on inside.
Draco's voice was as unmistakable as it had been the first two times I'd heard it recently. He'd grown a bit taller than when I last saw him, that terrible night on the Tower, but hadn't filled out the way I had. He'd looked willowy, nearly as underfed as he'd been Sixth Year, his hair as platinum as ever, nearly but not quite to his shoulders. I imagined it brushing the fabric of his shirt as he shook it, arguing.
"No, Charles, I said no, and I mean it."
"You don't know how crazy that makes me," came the answer. "It turns me on more than anything, you know. And I know that you do know."
There was a strangled sound of frustration. "So what are you saying? How can I get through to you? I'll.... I'll see you tomorrow, Charles, I promise, but right now..."
"You don't have anywhere to go."
"I do..."
"That was all a lie." Charles' voice was low. Perhaps he thought it sultry. I couldn't hear it as anything but menacing. "Ten days. It's ten days since I last reamed your arse."
"With a wine bottle!" Draco sounded horrified, affronted. "Not my idea of..."
"It'll be my cock this time."
"Charles... please..." What the charm couldn't tell me, of course, was whether that plaintive note in Draco's voice was desire or fear or what. I don't know which turned me on more, the idea of Draco Malfoy begging for a man's cock, or of him struggling, fighting...
Another fantasy that was likely hotter than the reality. It wasn't as if I really hoped to eavesdrop on Malfoy being raped. And this Charles wasn't going to rape him, anyway. It was a lovers' quarrel to be sure, and Malfoy was as slippery and manipulative as ever, I was certain. If he truly wanted to stop this man, he had the power to do it.
Perhaps just listening would no longer be enough. I changed charms, to one that made it seem as though I could look right through the walls. The figures inside appeared like ghosts to me, ethereal and not quite solid.
They were in the bedroom and I had a moment of vertigo when I saw there was, indeed, a four-poster bed in the center of the room. Malfoy was half-dressed, as if what I had imagined him doing had been what had really transpired. The sheer coincidence of it made the hairs on my arms stand up.
They stood up still further as Charles pulled Malfoy into a brutal kiss, bending him backward with one fist in his hair while his other hand dug in Malfoy's briefs.
"Stop it!" came the breathless cry when he released his mouth.
Charles merely pushed him back onto the high bed, legs dangling off the side. "Your cock isn't telling me to stop."
"Oh God..." Malfoy whimpered.
"If you really didn't love this, would you be so hard for me?" Charles went on, this time pulling Malfoy's briefs down to his knees and then pawing at the erection that was revealed.
I am ashamed to say my mouth watered.
And then it was difficult to make out exactly what was going on, but Charles pushed Malfoy's legs up, the briefs still around his knees... Malfoy gave a harsh cry. A minute or so later, the motion of fucking was clear. Charles was still fully clothed, his trousers open just enough to get his prick into Malfoy's arse.
"God, I love it when you're tight and fighting me," he growled as he rutted. "I've never needed anyone the way I need you. God, what a slut you are. I'm going to fuck you like this as long as I please, you know. And then when I'm ready for a change of pace, I'm going to make you come, so I can fuck you when you're all loose and relaxed, too."
"Charles, please..." Malfoy begged. I would be lying if I said I weren't ragingly hard myself just then. Nagging thoughts flitted through my head. In the part where I couldn't really see, had Charles lubed him up? Put on a condom? But surely all Malfoy had to do if he wanted to put a stop to it was Summon his wand. Maybe after Charles left he'd hit himself with a few healing spells. If there was one thing I had learned in my frequent excursions to the back alleys and dungeons of London, it was that love and sex and lust could be extremely complex, and consent could be difficult for an outsider to discern.
I reached a hand into my trousers, just to shuffle the uncomfortable arrangement of my anatomy in my jeans, but was rubbing myself against the heel of my palm before I knew it.
Once upon a time, I thought, I would have just thought this was wrong. Spying on someone? Especially my hated rival? To get my rocks off? But since Voldemort's demise, my life had been one gigantic grey area. In the Muggle world, it mattered less, I supposed, the larger questions of Right and Wrong.
Charles continued to say vile, arousing things. Malfoy continued to protest, the tenor of his cries changing from anger to desperation. Then he began to appeal not to Charles himself but to the universe at large.
"Help me! Somebody, please! Oh God, help!" That final scream was cut off by Charles hand over his mouth and nose, and then it seemed he was suffocating, too.
I had seen plenty of breathplay, so that was nothing new. Plenty of couples whose favorite scenario was "consensual nonconsensuality," too. But I found my hand out of my pants and wrapped around my wand.
And then, quite suddenly, Charles cried out. The spell flickered wildly... no, that was flames flickering. The bed was on fire. Charles stumbled back, covering his eyes and coughing. Malfoy appeared to be... huddled in a ball, oblivious to the flames. Charles tried to reach for him, but the flames held him back, and he ran from the room.
The moment it became obvious that Charles intended to flee the house, rather than attempt to put out the fire, all my questions turned to dust. The grey was suddenly in sharp relief, black and white, and there was no doubt as to what I should do. My wand felt like a blade in my hand, cutting away cobwebs, as I flung one spell after another.
Their names came easily, as if I hadn't just spent a year with my wand in a drawer, never struggled through a Charms lesson trying to wrap my tongue around the words, never doubted...
When time began to move again at its normal speed, the fire was out, I was in the bedroom, and I had Malfoy in my lap as I checked his breathing. His eyes, startlingly grey this close, opened and looked into mine, confused and questioning.
But I spoke first. "Malfoy? Are you all right?"
Those eyes went wide with shock and recognition. "Potter?" He pulled free, my arms feeling oddly cold suddenly, but I was mindful of the way Charles had clutched and grabbed at him so I let him go.
His eyes were wild, but he regained his poise with blinding speed. He sat against the headboard, legs folded primly under him, tucking his briefs back in place, there under the tails of his button-down shirt. "I haven't been called that in a long time," he said, his head at a regal tilt, as if the scorch marks surrounding him were gold leaf and the smoke still drifting through the air incense. "Why are you here?"
A good question. A very good question. "You called for help." Which was true.
He narrowed his eyes at me. "What, and Fate sent you to me?" I had forgotten how he had that way of spitting out words, like any word could be a hex from his lips. But his spine straightened suddenly and he looked away, as if he regretted saying that. He hugged his own elbows and the light of the lamps off his hair in the smoky air made it seem as if he glowed. "Get out and leave me alone, Potter."
"He might come back," I found myself saying.
He hissed through his teeth. "Yes, well. It does rather look like he left me for dead, doesn't it? One way to get rid of the evidence."
I frowned at that. "He was raping you, Draco."
His eyes bore into me at that. "We're on a first name basis now? And are you so sure of that?"
Draco Malfoy always had the ability to make me angry beyond all rational thought. I got to my feet, wand clenched in my fist. "I've seen plenty of complicated lovers' games, Malfoy. But if that's all it was, well, it's as you said. He wouldn't have left you in a house on fire."
His eyes watched me the way a cat watches a mouse. "Just so. And, what? You'll stay here to protect me?"
"Malfoy, listen, I figured if you wanted to stop that guy, you could've..."
He snorted. "Would you say some accidental fire counted as protecting myself?" He licked his lips as he regarded me with sudden suspicion in his eyes. "You've no idea, do you."
"No idea what?"
He shook his head. "I'll ask you one more time why you're here."
"It's just a coincidence," I tried.
"I was told no one from the Wizarding world would ever darken my door again."
Now my mouth hung open. Told? By whom? And I was hardly from the Wizarding world, not any more... "I-- I left the Wizarding world. More than a year ago. I work in a bookstore. You were there yesterday and I just thought maybe..." The incriminating part of that story began much earlier than my peeping on him tonight. I shut my mouth.
"You. Work in a bookstore." There was half a smile, half a sneer on his face.
"Yes. What's so funny about that?" He could ever make me defensive and testy. "I work weekdays on the loading dock receiving shipments. I don't need the money. It's just something to keep me busy. Keep my mind off things."
"Things," he repeated. "Like what?"
"None of your business," I answered, though I was thinking to myself, yeah, what things? I refused to think about the answers. "Look. I just thought, what a coincidence. That's Malfoy, I ought to go and look him up. I didn't know I'd be walking into an arson scene..."
He thought that over. "Well, Potter, I've no way to prove it, but either you've become much more adept at lying or you've retained the disgusting openness and honesty that made you such a prat as a teenager. Thanks ever so much for looking in on me, but..."
"Wait a second," I said, stepping forward, irked but determined if he wanted to get rid of me, I wouldn't go easily. "You've just been raped, your house was on fire, and he might come back."
Malfoy was looking at the charred edges of the bedcover, and for a moment I saw him go off into his own thoughts, his mask slipping just a little.
Just enough.
When he looked back at me he was all business. "And what do you propose to do if he does? Protect my virtue?"
I shook my head. "Look, do you have somewhere else you can go? You're not safe here."
He shook his head slowly, those grey eyes never leaving my face.
"Fine. Come to my place. We'll sort this in the morning with new security charms. Just pack some clothes for tomorrow and..." I realized he was staring at me, one cheek twitching as he tried to hide some emotion or another. "What? What's wrong?"
"Security charms," he repeated quietly, with a hint of venom.
"Yeah, c'mon, Malfoy, you were fine at charms. They only have to keep Charles out, anyway, not the..." I trailed off as I realized he was still staring at me with the same expression. Now, as a teenager in the Wizarding world, lacking the indoctrination of the culture, I was forever finding out long after the fact things that every one around me knew all about. How to use Floo powder. That only the desperate took the Knight Bus. That portraits in the common room would gossip to portraits all over the castle about what you did.
I felt like this was one of those times. The look on Malfoy's face said it would be. I sighed. "Just tell me what I'm missing."
He gathered himself before speaking, just moving subtly but somehow I could picture him settling his robes. "It's not what you're missing, Potter. It's what I'm missing."
"You don't mean..."
But even as I was saying it, my brain was catching up to the horrible conclusion of what he must have meant. And when he said it, it sounded just as petty and ugly and bitter as I imagined the act to be.
"They took my magic."
***
It wasn't until we were halfway back to Shoreditch that I realized he'd hardly spoken after that. He disappeared into the bathroom for a short while, emerged from another room fully dressed and carrying a small bag, and followed me the few blocks to where I'd parked my car. It was as if, having made that admission to me, he now acquiesced to my every suggestion.
Perhaps I stunned him to silence, so surprised was he that I didn't immediately pepper him with questions about who, and why, and how, and what he should have done. I had no doubt it was the Ministry, no doubt that someone felt they had done the right thing by sentencing him to life as a Muggle. Life in Azkaban commuted to the lesser sentence because of mitigating factors. Something like that.
I drove carefully, perhaps a tad slowly, to give myself time to think about what to do when we arrived, and enjoying sharing the close space in the sports car with him. Mad to think on it. He'd just been assaulted after all; how could I even be thinking what I was? But I was.
And what was he thinking? His face remained blank, his thoughts unreadable, for the length of the trip.
I noticed though, that his eyes widened as I drove into the private car park on the ground floor. The building was once a furniture maker's, built in 1890, then was a warehouse for a long time. I lived on the upper floors, and led him to the kitchen first, where I put on the kettle, and then to what was nominally the guest room, one more flight up, given that it was the area that had a bed in it other than mine. On the way up the stairs though, I thought sleeping in the library, which had no real door to speak of, on a pull-out couch, might not feel very safe to him.
So I continued up to the master bedroom, which did have a door which locked, entirely Muggle fashion, as I explained it to him. "Tonight's the first night I've gotten my wand out of my desk drawer in months and months. There's nothing charmed in the house so you should be safe."
I took some things to sleep in out of a drawer. "I'll sleep on the couch downstairs so you can have the bed."
He put his bag down at the foot of the bed and sighed. "I... never had a chance for dinner."
"Come down and have some tea when you're ready and I'll scare up something for us to eat."
"All right." He looked at me curiously, then decided, I guess, to take the opportunity I was giving him to be alone for a bit, and sat on the edge of the bed. He ran a hand over the coverlet, his hair falling over his face like a curtain as he looked down at it.
I went downstairs wondering how it could be that I found that image unbearably erotic. Draco Malfoy, his face hidden by his hair, sitting on my bed and feeling the texture of the bedcovers. Hadn't I just shoved my cock down a boy's throat last night? It twitched at the memory.
I was making eggs and toast when he appeared and took a seat at the table, watching me silently. I bent over him to put his food down on the table in front of him and damn if the scent of smoke that still clung to him didn't remind me of incense, too.
"So the flames were... accidental," I said, when I was partway through eating, as if we'd been discussing the topic all along.
"Yes," he said, adding salt to his eggs and cutting his toast into strips with his knife and then dipping the pieces into the yolk.
"Has that happened to you before?" I asked, wondering if he'd talk about it.
"I don't make being raped a regular habit, no," he sniffed, but without venom.
"I mean the..."
"I know what you mean." He sipped his tea and made me wait for an answer. "Not since I was a child. You know, didn't you ever have something magical happen to you before you went to Hogwarts? When you fell or something?"
I could recall now with some fondness that I'd once made the glass disappear on a snake's cage at the zoo. "Yeah. So is it like that?"
He shrugged. "My accidental magic as a child happened twice. Both times I set something on fire. But, I don't know."
I finally did have to ask the question that had been burning in the back of my mind. "How do they take your magic?" My voice came out more breathless than I'd expected.
He snorted. "They point a wand at you and say some words, Potter. Just like any other spell."
"That's not what I meant and you know..." I realized he was hiding a sly smile. Was he deflecting the subject with humor? Or did it just amuse him to take the piss out of me that way?
"Do you really care to know?" he asked, pushing his empty plate away and looking at me seriously. "Or have you left such matters so far behind that..."
"I am curious," I admitted, interrupting him, but I was anxious all of a sudden.
He shrugged. "I'm afraid there isn't much I can tell you. They wouldn't tell me anything at all. Presumably because they fear I might devise some way of reversing it."
"So..." I cleared the dishes to the sink, thinking aloud as I went. "Your magic isn't gone, exactly, it's still there...?"
"I didn't use a cigarette lighter to set the bed on fire, you know," he drawled.
My fevered brain remembered all too well, though, the way their bodies had rubbed together, and watching his lips say the words 'set the bed on fire' had a predictable effect on me. I turned to the sink to rinse the plates.
"I seem to have kept some intuition, too," he went on. "I can sense certain things."
"Oh, that's interesting," I blathered as I rinsed the silverware.
"Yes. I can tell with a certainty how much someone wants me."
That stopped me cold. I shut off the water but stayed with my back to him. "It isn't... I didn't bring you here... there's a lock on the bedroom door," I sputtered.
Silence. I was afraid to see what expression would be on his face so I didn't turn around. The mad part of my brain--the part that was between my legs, I mean--was telling me how much he needed love and comfort. How much he needed someone with strength of character and virtue.
Then I remembered I'd rather left strength of character behind when I gave up on the Wizarding world. And virtue hadn't been seen for a long time.
After he falls asleep, I told myself, I'll slip out, go back to that place... and not be satisfied with just a whiny twink's blowjob. It would be a rare indulgence for me, but I knew if I truly wanted to I could find a hole to bang, one that wouldn't mind his arse being reddened with slaps and scratches of my nails while I did it. One that would beg for it, if I was lucky.
The silence was growing louder. Then I heard the scrape of his chair, but no footfalls. He was in stocking feet... I turned, suddenly sure he was coming up behind me.
He wasn't. He was standing by his chair, examining me across the distance. "I used to think you were the impulsive, dive-in-without-thinking type."
I used to think you were straight, I thought. "I like to think the war taught me a few things."
"Still the hero-type, though," he said, a hint of a smile softening his face.
I shook my head, more to deny him whatever gambit for playing me he was employing than because I disagreed. If yesterday I could have told you in all honesty that my hero days were over, today, with Draco Malfoy taking refuge in my house, I would have had trouble getting the words out. You see it was either believe that I was really acting on some good-guy instinct by bringing him there, or admit that my ulterior motive was that I wanted so very much to fuck him through the mattress.
"You've had a trying day," I suggested. "You must be tired."
He chewed that thought over. "Yes, well, I suppose I could get in bed."
"Yes," I said, as if answering him made any sense. "I'm going to finish up here."
"All right."
I had planned to leave the dishes for the morning, but turned back to them, the erection in my pants painful against the kitchen counter as I started to wash. Was it my imagination? Or was he really propositioning me? Or merely teasing me? Could he really sense my desire like he said?
When everything was in the drainer, I heard the shower running. Good. I went back up to the bedroom to change clothes quickly and grab a few things. It was Friday night, good for cruising. He was still washing himself when I left the house.
****
I returned home some time later with my cock limp but wholly unsatisfied. I felt dirty and tired. The house was quiet. I spent a long time in the shower, standing there thinking until the hot water ran out. Thinking about Malfoy, living without magic. Thinking about how not long ago, he'd stood here naked in my shower, washing away the smut another man had left on him. Thinking it was mad to even think of him erotically, but doing it anyway.
I slipped on boxers and a T-shirt to sleep in and readied the couch with a pillow and summer blanket.
And then I went upstairs to see if he had locked the door.
He hadn't. It was open about an inch. I didn't dare push it open further--it would creak. Then I realized it didn't have to. I Summoned my wand from where I'd left it downstairs, Silenced the hinges, and pushed it open wide enough to see into the room.
He was asleep on the bed, the covers tousled all around him, on his back, one hand flung out and the other palm down on his breastbone. In the dim light of the streetlamp through the wide windows I could see he wore nothing but shadows to bed.
I ached to touch him, to find out if his skin was as soft as it looked, his hair as silky. I wanted to search him like some arcane tome from the Hogwarts library, with my fingertips and eyes working together to unlock the secret of him.
Was the open door an invitation?
I fled to the couch before I could contemplate that further. I knew how easily I could convince myself that things were how I wanted them to be. But unless he had the capacity to say no, to say stop...
I was annoyingly erect as I got under the blanket, thinking, But he did say no, he did try to stop Charles. At least somewhat. I remembered that at the time I'd first been watching him, I'd assumed he had magic at his disposal. The thought that he was truly defenseless ... how had they met? had their relationship always been that way?
I thought about these things, ignoring my cock until, like a cat that is hungry but bores easily, it eventually quit haranguing me. And then I slept and dreamed of tasting my own sweat on his skin.
***
I woke to the smell of coffee and the sound of rain. It spattered the wide windows that covered the front wall of the building. The rain, that is, not the coffee.
I made my way down to the kitchen to find Draco Malfoy busy there, already dressed in black trousers and a casual shirt. He had apparently roasted raw coffee beans by hand for the coffee, made an egg tortilla with vegetables and potatoes in it, and baked a loaf of bread. All without the help of magic. I was plainly astonished.
He laughed. "You've a wonderful gourmet shop two blocks over. They baked the bread," he insisted, though it was clear he was pleased at my reaction. Then he shrugged. "I've learned to do a lot of things to keep myself busy without charms to do everything."
He pulled the tortilla out of the oven and we sat down to eat together. "You didn't have to..." I began.
"I wanted to," he answered, before I could finish. "Now eat, or I'll be insulted."
I ate, the demons that had argued with each other in my head during the night finally quiet. Now more practical matters sprang to mind. "There are security charms I could do for you, you know, that work for Squibs, too. I mean, that you wouldn't need a wand to operate."
He sipped his coffee, looking glum. "I... think the problem is larger than that."
I sipped my own coffee, waiting for him to say more.
"Charles pays the rent on that townhouse," he said quietly. "I don't imagine he'd appreciate being kept out of it."
I didn't want to be dragged down into another grey morass of questionable morality. "Are you going back to him, or not?"
"I... should like not."
"Then forget the townhouse," I said decisively. "Do you want anything from there? I could go back and get it for you. Otherwise, just don't. Forget it and just walk away."
He looked up at me. "Like you did? From the Wizarding world?"
I nodded. "It's not as hard as you think."
He gave a soft snort and stared eating again. "It isn't that I lack the... fortitude to do it, Potter. But I've no job and nowhere to live at the moment. And I'm sure you're aware how far one gets in this country without an 'education.'"
It hadn't dawned on me before that Draco and Charles were anything but a couple. But now, something about the way he said it... "A 'kept' man, were you?"
He nodded nearly imperceptibly and said no more.
I finished my food and sat back with the mug of coffee in my hands. "I always wondered what happened to you. I never knew you were taken by the Ministry."
He took the plates to the sink.
"You don't have to..."
"I want to." He proceeded to clean the dishes and pans with an efficiency and quickness that made me think he had to be using magic somehow.
"I take it," I said, while he wiped down the counters, "that they couldn't really pin any awful crimes on you, but they knew if you went to trial it would be lose-lose for them and you."
He poured us each fresh coffee and sat back down. "Close enough," he said, looking at me curiously. "You really don't do magic? You really left it behind?"
"Really," I said. "I only got my wand out yesterday for the first time in months."
"Why?" he asked, his gaze sharpening as he leaned forward. "Why yesterday?"
Why indeed. "Because... I was going to see you. I didn't know if I'd need it or not."
A small smile emerged on his face. "Because you thought I might hex you on sight?"
"Not exactly, no, but there might have been some need for it, if you'd lived in a more magical environment," I answered, flummoxed a little. Seriously, why had I brought it? "I still can't believe it. They made you a... Squib."
He looked like he was practiced at hiding his pain.
"What did it feel like?" I asked. "The accidental magic."
That got a reaction, a little flare in his eyes. "It was better than sex."
"Anything would be better than sex with that goon."
He deigned to smile. "I'm still suspicious of the fact that the first time I ever used accidental magic, it was while another wizard was watching."
I put my hands on the table. "You can't think I'm from MLE checking up on you or something."
He just looked at me with those piercingly grey eyes.
I hoped he felt just as pinned in place by mine. "Can you really tell how much someone wants you?"
His eyes narrowed. "Yes."
"Then... then you know I didn't come find you because the Ministry sent me." Nor because I wanted to catch up over coffee reminiscing about old times... I thought to myself.
"Your logic's faulty, Potter," he said, sliding out of his chair and walking over to me. "Working for the Ministry and wanting my arse are not mutually exclusive things."
I slid my hand into one of the front pockets in his trousers, my fingers brushing his genitalia through the cloth. "You don't want to do this, Malfoy."
"Do what, seduce you? Why not?" He ran a hand into my hair and all the hairs on my body, and other parts of me, came to attention. His voice was low and almost vicious. "The mighty Harry Potter has come to my rescue. And now I am lonely and in need of comfort."
I was on my feet, nearly growling as I pulled him close, digging my erection into him. "I don't think you could take what I dish out, Malfoy."
"No?" he breathed into my ear. "Hardcore S-and-M, is it? Bring it on, Potter."
I pushed him away. To hear it put like that, to hear the demons that gnawed me boxed and labeled like a section of a porn store--it galled me. "This is stupid," I said. "You just survived a rape and now is not the time..."
"For you to get all Gryffindor on me," Draco said, fists clenched in rage. "What is it, I'm not good enough for you?"
It was just like being on the Quidditch pitch, anger flaring without thought of consequence or censure. "Yes, yes, that's exactly it you spoiled little bastard. You're a lazy do-me-queen who fucks upper crust closet cases for a living who wouldn't know a decent blow job from a wet paper bag."
His mouth was open in shock and then I saw genuine hurt in his eyes. "You..." He looked away, then, trying to master his emotions before saying whatever it was he was going to say. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes bright. "You didn't have to say that," he finally said in a tone that made me feel like I'd just utterly devalued him as a human being.
Which I guess I had. But while I was still trying to formulate an answer, maybe even an apology, he fled the room.
This time the door was locked.
Part 2