Happy H/D Holidays, ennyousai!
Author: florahart
Recipient: ennyousai
Title: Melting the Ice
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco, Blaise/Draco implied
Summary: Draco's pursuing Harry relentlessly, Harry's clueless, and then there's the problem of the 'family curse.'
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): voyeurism, wanking, rentboys
Deathly Hallows compliant? Yes. Epilogue ambiguous.
Word Count: 8000
Author's Notes: This fic was a pinch hit which I got my hands on ages ago, but the cooperation of the characters, it was slim, none, and occasionally minimal. The recipient asked for plot and predestination; I maybe got the latter and less got the former, but I hope this will suffice.
"Did you know there's an ice age every 1500 years?"
Harry looked up from the array of papers on his desk. "Uh. No?"
"Typical. No sense of history." Draco pushed off from where he was leaning against the side of the door and took a step back into the corridor.
He was turning to go when Harry asked, "Wait, what? You came down here to ask me whether I knew that?"
"No. Merely to find out whether you were as hopeless as I'd suspected."
"Oh. Right, then. Hopeless, I'm good at."
Draco frowned. "You won't even defend yourself!"
"Yes, well. I had plenty of involuntary self-defense, thanks. I'm happy to be hopeless, if it also means something more on the anonymous side of 'so bloody famous women--' Never mind."
"Women never mind? Potter, women mind all the time."
"No." Harry rolled his eyes and shuffled his papers. "I meant, never mind, you. Women, yes, they mind. Either way, I'm happy with any shred of anonymity I can get, and if that means being hopeless about ice ages and wearing a desperately ugly hat about town and staying past dark here just so there will be no need whatsoever to go out in the daylight, I can live with that."
"What d'you do on Saturdays?"
"De-gnome Molly's garden, sometimes. Why do you always come down here and bother me?"
"Kinky, and because I want you."
"Right."
"I do!"
Harry signed his name on the top piece of parchment and ignored this. Draco didn't go away.
Thirty-seven various requisitions, a payroll clarification, six expense account audits, and a recall of all kickplates and mouth-filters by Starsplash Ltd later, Harry looked up. Thankfully, Draco had finally gone.
He double-checked the specification on the recall notification paperwork and sent it off to the Quidditch supply shops; it was going to be a pain to get everything dealt with properly, but at least they wouldn’t sell any more of the underwater gear until there was a chance to straighten things out. Oxyurinus Webster had a number of things to answer for.
The duplicate report sailed off in the inter-office to the Aurors so they could round him up, and Harry picked up the stack of parchment and headed down to the filing room. He could have charmed them all self-filing, of course, but doing it by hand prolonged the task, and he had nothing else on his desk at the moment.
--
"Still, you know, it's kind of interesting." Draco fell in next to Harry as he headed out of the building.
Harry glanced over, but tucked his hands deeper in his pockets and ducked his chin as he headed out into the cold. He had no idea to what Draco was referring, but assumed it would eventually come clear; it wasn't as though Draco were noted for just buggering off when ignored; no, he was persistent and quite certain his thoughts were relevant.
"That hat really is dreadful," Draco added. "It matches your bag, only it's not even made of paper. Also, don't you think?"
"Daily," Harry said, hitching up the wrist over which hung the plain handled paper bag he used to haul things to and from the office. They'd had this discussion before, but the bag was easy to replace when it got wet or dirty, and Harry still had no use for anything expensive or fancy, so he didn't bother about that.
"Clearly this was not an absolute question, and if you're going to lie, you might as well be convincing. Do you, or do you not, think it's interesting that there is an ice age every 1500 years?"
"Uh. Sure. Though I'm sure I don't know how we know, since while I suppose we could conceivably have records from even as far back as a couple thousand years, beyond that, human history gets a little less clear."
"Geological record."
Draco sounded pleased with himself and Harry stopped and stared long enough he was forced to blink when a snowflake got stuck in his eyelashes.
"What?" Draco asked. He'd gone another couple of steps before realizing Harry had stopped, and he'd stopped as well and turned around.
"I hadn't known you were fond of studying rocks," Harry said.
"Well. There are all sorts of things in the geological record, and some of them catch my interest."
"Right. Well, good night, then," Harry said. He turned left.
"Aren't you going to ask what year this is?"
Harry sighed and stopped again. "Twenty-oh-two, and I'm not sure why you're following me, but if it'll help, I'll pop into the next stationer's I run across and obtain a calendar."
Draco rolled his eyes. "I know what year it is, Potter." He shook his head. "This is ridiculous."
Harry quite agreed, and went back to walking north toward his flat, leaving Draco to either follow or not.
As he neared home, he carefully looked around. He was unaccompanied, so he stopped off briefly to put away his bag and then continued on to the pub on the corner. Takeaway was easier than cooking, and besides, their chips were pleasantly greasy and patently unhealthy--not the sort of thing Hermione, or, for that matter, Molly Weasley, would approve of in the least, which was at least a third of their charm.
He took the meal home and walked up, flopping on the couch and crossing his feet on the coffee table while he ate. He didn't have a Muggle telly, but the neighbor to the other side did, so he charmed the wall transparent and permeable to sound (to him; it wouldn’t do for the bloke to know Harry could see him through the wall) and watched a ridiculous chat show as he ate.. The chat show wasn't interesting in the least, but it was temporary, he was sure, and it didn't require any part of his brain, which was a relief.
As he expected, the bloke, whom Harry had decided to call Dylan though really, at some point, he should learn his name just for the sake of accuracy, watched to the end of the show, then switched over to a different sort of entertainment altogether. This was the routine, a couple of times a week, though as Harry's schedule was irregular and so far this had only not happened maybe four times in the past several months, he'd concluded watching porn and jerking off was a fundamental part of Dylan's daily schedule. He couldn't say he objected.
The porn was absurd, with improbably-proportioned women of unexpectedly smooth nether regions performing various sex acts with each other and with unsuspecting delivery boys, usually involving a great deal of squealing and bouncing, but that wasn't the show Harry was watching, anyway. As soon as Dylan unbuttoned his jeans, Harry set aside what was left of his chips and followed suit. The scripted porn on the screen was ludicrous. The live porn in the next room was… not.
Harry stared as Dylan, a slender blond with God's gift to everyone hanging between his legs, stroked himself hard and watched the naked birds intently. His hand moved slowly; apparently tonight was one of those nights he intended to be about this for a while. Harry felt saliva gathering in his mouth and swallowed, then licked his palm and tugged at his own cock, his hand moving in time with the one he was watching, totally absorbed. Dylan's cock was enthralling, and Harry thought about what it would be like, some evening, to knock at his door, or even, to just let himself in. He'd drop to his knees and take as much of that beautiful thing into his mouth as he could.
He slid two fingers into his mouth and sucked on them, moaning. There was no way he'd ever act on that, or come anywhere close, but thinking about it got him hot. He sucked harder and imagined the surprise on Dylan's face, imagined it turning to the expression of bliss that came with his orgasm, imagine sucking him dry, imagined coming all over the front of his couch, a dick in his mouth and another in his hand. He moaned again, then leaned back and jerked off faster, eyes half-closed as he watched.
His first inkling of a problem was the slight draft.
It wasn't enough to slow his hand; Dylan was straining now, pushing, telling the girls on his telly he was about to explode all over their tits, and Harry was close, so close. He changed the man's words in his mind, thinking about how he'd like to hear him say it to him, that he was about to shoot all over his balls. It would be warm and sticky and--
"Potter."
Harry gasped, choking out half a question around his fingers as he spurted come over his thumb and onto his belly.
He wasn't, it turned out, unaccompanied after all.
And Draco had been watching him. Watching him wank and suck on his fingers, and watching him watch Dylan, which was definitely against at least six rules, laws, or regulations. Fuck.
His balls finished emptying, hot thick pulses slowing to a sticky dripping splash, and he stilled, not willing to turn around, staring resolutely at the transparent wall.
Dylan kept his eyes on the bouncing tits, still talking, and came all over himself just as the door in Harry's flat closed.
Harry cancelled the transparency charm and sat there, mess cooling and congealing on his belly,
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
It belatedly occurred to him Draco could be next door even now, showing the Muggle the charm, showing him Harry still sitting there, cock limp and spent, looking right at him.
He was a little horrified when his cock twitched at the thought, and used a too-harsh scouring charm to clean himself before buttoning up his jeans, his cheeks burning for too many reasons to name, from the embarrassment of being caught out to the memory of being watched to the guilty flush of perhaps being caught--by Dylan--at his little game.
That it could get him in a lot of trouble didn't seem to be cooling his response, but that he was going to have to face Draco tomorrow was embarrassing.
Maybe he should see about a transfer. To Mongolia. With a Time-Turner.
God. He should just get his own telly and some porn that worked for him. Surely it existed. But it wouldn’t be quite the same.
--
His cock was still raw from the scouring charm when he showered in the morning, and he winced as the warm water sluiced over his body. He'd never been very good at healing charms, and even if he were, he didn't much want to aim anything else at this particular sensitive skin. And he certainly didn't want to take it to a healer and explain. It was just going to have to wait.
He washed quickly, lathering up the soap and being as gentle as he could with the sore area--because the last thing he needed was some horrible infection from it getting dirty--then let himself air dry.
He considered sending in an owl and spending the day doing nothing to add to the irritation, but immediately saw several problems with the concept. First, while his work was hardly exciting, a day's work was tolerable if it took a day. If he called off, there would be two days' worth of work to do tomorrow, and he wasn't sure he could stand the pressured boredom. Second, he was supposed to meet Hermione for lunch, and it was going to be difficult enough to not let her see him wincing. He couldn’t meet her for lunch if he'd not gone to work, and he certainly wasn't about to owl her over a sore cock. If he said he was sick, she'd show up with soup or something.
And third, if he called off, Draco would think it was because he was embarrassed, and while he was, it wouldn’t improve the situation to give Draco cause to gloat. Or come visit him more. Or anything else.
He sighed and transfigured his softest pants into a longer, softer, gentler sort of garment, close-fitting but nonconstricting, and put them on under his robes, forgoing trousers despite that this meant all day he's have to remember he wasn't wearing any and thus couldn’t take off the damn robe. He took a few steps and bent and twisted several times, then decided it would do--and that given the rawness, he wasn't likely to forget.
Regardless of the softest cloth he could muster for whatever the hell he's just created to wear, he was definitely going to have to take the Floo to work.
Damn it. He hated traveling by Floo. He'd never learned to get out without stumbling, and he always ended up with an itchy nose. He went to the fireplace and glared at it for a minute, just to ease his irritation, and considered again whether he could go ahead and fly in. Or walk.
--
To his surprise, or his relief--both might be true, but he wanted to choose one, and couldn't--he saw no trace of Draco all day.
He also didn't see him the next day.
Or the next.
By the time he rolled up his last scroll on Friday evening, he'd added a third feeling: concern. Draco popped in and pestered him several times a week, and while he'd never much thought about the frequency before, he couldn’t recall the last time he'd been left to himself for three entire days. In fact, he'd been so distracted by the unaccustomed absence, it'd nearly kept his cock, which was still a bit tender though no longer raw, off his mind, which was good, since he generally tried to avoid thinking about his cock at work. Still, this wasn't how he really wanted to keep his mind off things.
He tried to set the concern aside, tucking the Pepperman file into his bag and gathering his heavy cloak and hat. The weather had been chilly three days earlier, when Draco had followed him home, but now it was downright frigid out, so he followed the cloak with a thick scarf and shoved his hands into woolen gloves. Satisfied he had everything, he uttered Nox toward the sconces and picked up the bag.
It tore.
Damn it. He'd shoved in Pepperman last, but the Halliwell and Burton files were in there as well, complete with their supporting documentation, and all right, that was probably too much for the one bag, but he'd not brought a spare, and repairing a paper bag tended to work poorly.
Maybe Draco had been right about the bag.
He didn't know why he kept thinking about him; he didn't want to think about what Draco had observed. It was embarrassing, and inappropriate, and while so far nothing had come of it--nothing unusual, no report of his behavior to a supervisor, no whisper of impropriety--it worried him more than he quite understood that he was being left entirely alone.
He repaired the bag, more or less, and replaced the Pepperman and Halliwell files, then found a small box in his desk. Enlarged, it would hold the Burton file, and probably without being weakened so badly it would fail; it would do to get out to the entryway, and from there he could Floo. The fact he didn't like to didn't mean he didn't have the option.
He was nearly to the lift, carrying the box with the bag balanced on top, when a sharp whistle caused him to pause and turn.
"Potter." Draco jogged up next to him, and Harry gaped.
"Uh. Malfoy," he said, deciding that at least for the moment, merely returning the greeting was the prudent choice. He continued on to the lift, trying not to focus on Draco's footsteps just behind him and to the left.
They didn't exchange any further conversation until they reached the lobby.
"Come on," Draco said. He reached up and took the bag and walked straight on past the Floo stations toward the exit that led into Wizarding London directly.
Harry suppressed a groan, and followed. He couldn't very well just leave the file unattended; his work wasn't all that sensitive, but this didn't mean there wouldn't be more trouble than he wanted to deal with if he let it go.
They turned away from Harry's flat, and to Harry's knowledge, Draco's as well, which was a bit odd, but then, he supposed he wanted to know what Draco thought he should go see, and besides, it was at least something different. As they walked along Institution Alley, they passed Habbitchu and turned into Visser, which left them deep in a section of town Harry mostly avoided--and avoided thinking much about, as well, since thinking about it would probably mean developing a need to do something about the myriad problems of the area--drugs, prostitution, and general misery--and, well, he didn't hate the idea in the long term, but at this point, he couldn’t bring himself to take on another great project for the well being of the Wizarding world. He also avoided mentioning the area, or the topic, to Hermione.
Draco still hadn't said anything since his name, and Harry finally hastened a bit and caught up. "Where are we going?"
There was no answer, though Draco did turn and lift a white-gold brow. A moment later, he nodded to the left, and Harry turned automatically, moving through a decrepit gate and up the front steps of a run-down building. Draco brushed past him to open the door, and started immediately up the steps.
On the second floor, just as Harry was going to repeat his question, Draco stopped and spelled a door open, then went in and set the Burton file on the scratched wooden table. He looked back at Harry. "Well?"
Harry stepped in as well, setting down his bag next to the box. "Well, what?"
Draco rolled his eyes and closed the door. "I meant, well, are you coming in, but that seems a moot point now." He shrugged off his cloak and sat down on the couch, avoiding the threadbare area on one side where springs were poking through.
Harry sighed and shifted his weight, but left his cloak and gloves on; it was bloody cold in here, as well, and he could see his own breath --and Draco's--in the frigid air between them. "And I meant, when I asked where we were going, for you to give me some idea what the hell we're doing here. I know you live north of here, so this isn't your flat, and--"
Draco pointed his wand past Harry at the wall, and uttered a charm.
A familiar charm.
Harry turned, in spite of himself, to look at the far wall, which had gone as transparent as the one in his flat when he watched Dylan. His cock pulsed briefly as he considered the topic of Dylan and why he charmed his wall in the first place, but he tamped that down and tried to assess the situation. He came up with nothing that made any sense.
Shit. What the hell was going on? Was he being blackmailed? Was he being made fun of? Was Draco just barking mad? He had no idea, but the adjacent room was empty, but for a sketchily made-up bed and a table with a nearly-full bottle of firewhisky and a couple of dirty glasses.
"I thought you might enjoy this," Draco said, his tone casual.
Harry looked back at him. "Oh?"
"Yes. Have a seat."
Harry thought about it a moment. Draco didn't appear to be laughing, and if it was blackmail, he likely had to stay to find out what it was Draco wanted. And either way, there had been no apparent defensive charms or wards on the way in, so he didn't think his capacity to defend himself was likely to be damaged. He shrugged and pointed his wand at the couch, repaired the cushion enough not to get poked, then sat down. "You thought I might enjoy watching a bed gather dust?"
Draco smirked, and as though this had been carefully timed, the door in the next room opened.
Harry leaned over. "Uh, the transparency is one-way, right?"
Draco rolled his eyes. "Potter. Getting caught watching would be deemed eccentric and odd, in you. In me, it would be cause for imprisonment, most likely. Your foibles are the foibles of the hero, after all. Mine are those of a one-time Death Eater."
"You weren't--"
"Yes, I know. But that's the perception, because people suck. Shut it and watch."
Harry hadn't paid any attention to the occupant of the other room; he'd been too busy arguing with Draco. However, now that he looked, the occupant was a slender blond, not so very different from Dylan, and he was busy hanging a mirror at an angle, above the bed on the far side. Well. That was different. And then, before Harry had time to figure out what his next question was going to be, he stripped off and lay back on the bed, ignoring the mirror entirely as he grabbed his limp cock and started stroking.
"Uh. Draco? Why are we watching a, um… what are we watching?"
"I'm nearly sure you've seen a man wank before, Potter."
"Well, yes. Which you only know because you invaded my home--"
"Not true."
"What? What would you call it?"
"That's not why I know. You're twenty-two years old; I'm going to work under the assumption you've watched your own dick slide back and forth in your hand a few times, so unless you only do it in the dark--and that you don't, I do know from having visited your home recently--you've watched a man wank."
"Hardly the same," Harry said. The blond next door kept teasing at himself, moving slowly; either he liked to take his time, or he was waiting for someone.
"Yes, but I wasn't being specific."
"I see. In any case, my point was, why are we watching a man get himself off?"
"We're not."
Harry resisted the urge to adjust his trousers, which were becoming uncomfortably tight, and tried to stick to the task at hand. "Draco. We're sitting on a couch in a seedy rental unit on the corner of Visser and Imur, staring through a wall at a bloke who's stripped to the skin and rubbing his hand up and down his… rather impressive prick."
"Yes, it likely serves him well."
"What?"
"His prick. Imagine how well his clients--"
"He's a whore?"
Draco blinked. "All right. Potter. Let me see if I understand. You are aware we are in Whore Central, as you just identified the neighborhood. You see the man stroking himself. You see him hanging a mirror first, but not actually using it. And somehow the fact he gets paid to fuck is a shock?"
Harry blushed and looked away, both from Draco and from the blond, who was still taking his sweet time. "Shut up."
"Yes, well, you seemed to enjoy the unwitting show the last time; you should enjoy this." Draco waited for Harry to look back toward him, then looked pointedly at his crotch. "So, go on."
Harry scowled. "No. I don't want to get myself off for your entertainment. Plus, for all I know this is some weird elaborate set-up. So far, all the active participation is yours; however, if I--" He broke off as Draco, with a put-upon sigh, unbuckled his belt. "Oi! Don't you think--"
"You're never going to get to it yourself! Keep watching. Oh, there's a knock."
That last was unnecessary commentary; Harry heard the knock for himself and watched as the blond, his hard dick bobbing with every step, went to the door and opened it, apparently completely unconcerned about who it might be. "Oh! He's a whore that serves men?"
"You didn't seem to like the other sort of porn."
"God. I hate you. Wait, that other bloke looks familiar." Harry gave up on not adjusting his trousers, which were still closed but for the belt and were now impossibly tight. "Is that--"
"It's Blaise. Zabini."
"…Seriously?"
Draco raised his eyebrows. "Surely you knew."
"Knew what? That Zabini liked to fuck whores?"
"No. That Zabini liked to--" Draco pointed at the wall. "--suck cock. Always has."
In the other room, it was true, Zabini was already on his knees in the open doorway, his mouth stretched wide around the blond's cock. Harry stared, helpless. "Uh. Has he ever… never mind."
Draco smirked. "Ever what?"
"Nothing."
"Too bad. Well, I'll try not to compare you two directly." He set his hand flat on Harry's crotch and pressed, then slid the hand up to unfasten the button and drag down the zip. "Do you like what you see?"
Harry pushed Draco's hand away and shoved himself upright, then fastened his button and belt. "Malfoy, I don't know what the fuck you want, but you're not getting it from me." He shoved past Draco's knees, noting, but ignoring, the bulge in his trousers as well, and picked up his box and bag. There was no anti-Apparition ward in place here, and therefore no reason he couldn’t just go.
"Potter, you have no idea how long--" Harry didn't stick around to hear the rest, emerging in his own flat and immediately putting up the protective charms around it and checking the lock on his Floo.
He couldn’t help that when he went to the shower (immediately), the image in his mind's eye as he wanked was one of Draco, flushed and aroused, fucking Zabini's mouth.
He considered autoObliviation, but the risks were too high--he always remembered Lockhart--so he made a cup of tea, splashed in rather a lot of good Muggle scotch, and sat down with the Burton file. If he worked hard through the weekend, he could just avoid thinking about the entire thing.
He could always go back for the MacDonough file if he ran out of things to work on. That one was thick, and he hadn't even cracked it yet, so it'd certainly keep him entertained.
--
"What the hell?" Harry backed up and read the paragraph again.
Then he scratched his eyebrow and turned the page to continue. Then he went back.
He was going to need Hermione to explain this to him, because what it looked like it said ….well, that couldn't really be what it meant. Could it? He scrawled a letter to Hermione, checked the clock (whew; it wasn't so late she'd be in bed. Probably), and added a postscript that it wasn't really an emergency, then tied the thing to the leg of his owl and paced until her head appeared in his Floo.
"Harry?"
"Hermione! Hi. So, it's not… you weren't busy?"
"Only a little. The records regarding the rights of magical creatures are rather a mess--I'm thinking of taking a break in the writing and simply cataloging the entire record in order to create a more accurate timetable and outline. Did you know--"
"Uh. Hermione, I… I'm sure this is all really interesting and everything, but what I want to know is what you think this paragraph is indicating."
"You called me for a reading comprehension exercise? At half-ten on a Sunday night?"
"You were still up! And working!"
"You didn't know that!"
"Anyway. Just… here." Harry cleared his throat and read the paragraph aloud.
"Sounds straightforward enough," she said. "What do you think it means?"
Harry frowned. "I think it's saying something about a history of some sort of cycle between these two families and their, um. Relationships. Between then. With some, er. That it messes up their whole, I don't know, dynasty thing. Which makes the families enemies until… And then the sons of the sixth generation, it happens again, and, uh. It starts over each time. Every, what, hundred and fifty years."
"Exactly."
"No other interpretation comes to mind?"
"No, not really. It's all but explicitly laid out, don't you think?"
"Doesn't that bother you?"
"What?"
"Well! It's, like, they're pre-destined to, um, not to be crude, but… to fuck?"
"It doesn't have to be like that! Well, all right, it does rather read like that, but maybe it doesn't… all right, that is a bit disturbing, if it's pre-destined and they have no choice, but Harry, men have free will."
Harry nodded. "Yeah. Free will. Uh, thanks, Hermione."
She frowned. "Is something wrong?"
"What? No! Nothing at all. All fine. All good, thanks. Good night. Sleep well. After you finish working. Unless you and Ron--never mind. Night, Hermione!"
She gave him The Look, which of course meant she was entirely unfooled, which, bugger, given her recall of details, she was definitely going to remember the names and probably tomorrow she'd look them up, and this was going to be a nightmare. "You're sure?" she asked.
"Absolutely. I'll just, I wasn't thinking clearly. It's fine. It's probably just a game. Or a theory. Or a guess. Or, or fiction." Harry knew he was objecting too much, but his mouth just kept talking, and he was only making things worse. He clamped his lips shut, nodded with as much assurance as he could muster, and gave a little wave.
Hermione shook her head, dislodging ash onto his floor, but she left.
Harry whimpered and sank onto his couch, cradling his head in his hands. This case history had wound up on his desk in the first place because he'd gone looking into his family tree; the paragraph in question wasn't relevant to the business he was working on, but it was clearly, indisputably, relevant to him.
--
"Potter."
Harry looked up from the MacDonough file, which he was forcing himself to read despite the much worse distraction than he'd experienced the previous week, which he was trying, ineffectively, to ignore. "Oh. Malfoy. Hi. Uh, haven't seen you since, er." There was no good way to say since I rejected your obvious and utterly unexpected (and possibly unwelcome if only because you were probably fucking with me) overture three days ago and went home to jerk off over you, so he chose, once again, to just stop talking.
"Since you left my carefully-set-up scenario and fled, leaving me to take care of myself and clean up the mess on my own?"
"What?"
"To which part, Potter?"
"Set up?"
"Of course. It took me days to find an appropriate whore and arrange for Blaise to use him in that little room."
"You …arranged that?"
"It seemed the sort of thing you'd like to watch."
"Yes, I suppose, uh, based on what, well. I can see that, but." Harry frowned. "What, exactly, were you hoping to accomplish?"
"Besides you showing off that sucking skill you previously demonstrated on your fingers, on my cock?"
Harry grimaced and belatedly realized his office door was open. "Uh. If we're going to discuss this, and honestly, it would be entirely all right with me if we didn't, can you come in and shut the bloody door?"
Draco pushed off of where he was once again leaning against the door frame just as he had… Harry screwed up his face slightly considering; had it only been a week ago? Yes. A week ago, and sauntered in, closing the door behind him. "No discussion of why my cock belongs in your mouth? Potter, you wound me."
Harry blushed. "Look. Malfoy. For one thing, I'm nearly sure it would be massively inappropriate for… I mean, it isn't as though I go around finding… also, yes, besides that."
"I'm sure speaking in fractions of sentences, none of which match up to make a complete one, works brilliantly for you in many endeavors, Potter, but could you make an effort here? Besides what?"
"You said, besides me, uh. Showing off my, you know."
"Those were still not sentences, but, ah, yes. Then I was hoping to see what else, besides coming all over yourself, you liked to do with your cock."
Harry shook his head. "So you arranged for your friend to, what, fake an encounter with a whore--"
"No! I wouldn’t do that?"
"You wouldn’t?"
"Not unless it were for a really good reason, though, come to that, I suppose this would have been one. But no, Blaise had a perfectly real encounter with a young man who sells his body for money, had a lovely time, and met up with me after to give me the memory."
"To what?"
"Well! I couldn't very well tell him I planned to watch, and have you watch, in real time, so, I asked him to do it and then let me have the memory."
"…Why?"
"Why what? I believe I've already covered what I asked of him and why, and also why there needed to be a cover story."
"No, I mean, what reason did you give him for you wanting him to do this?"
"Ah, you mean, did I tell him you'd like to see? No, I told him I had loads of memories of what his mouth looked like around my cock--what, you asked!"
"When?"
"The other night. You started to ask, then said never mind, but you can't take back a question, Potter."
"Oh. Anyway, you told him what, then?"
"You're awfully curious about all this, for a bloke who ran off with his boxes of parchment on seeing things up close."
"Shut it. I want to know what you told him."
Draco heaved a put-upon sigh, but went on, "Fine. Loads of memories about his mouth, but I wondered roughly what it looked like from his point of view. He offered to give me a memory directly from back at school, but I told him I wanted something a bit more …complete."
"And he just gave you it."
"Sure. I mean, I paid for his whore, so what, he was going to complain? Besides. I told you. He's been sucking any cock he could get his lips on for years now. Since fourth year, I think. Maybe earlier. I know he blew Diggory after the water thing, so definitely by then."
Harry closed his eyes and shook his head rapidly as if to clear it, though he was forced to conclude this didn't actually help much. "I'm still not entirely clear as to what this charade was meant to end with."
"Your cock up my arse."
Harry flinched, but his cock twitched and started to fill, just enough to be even more desperately distracting than anything in recent memory. He stood and went to the door, opening it once again. "Malfoy, this just… I can't have this conversation here, but we need to talk."
Draco shot him a sidelong look as he went back past him and out of his office. "Supper, then?"
"Fine. Where?"
"My home, of course." Draco stopped just outside the door and looked back. "You do remember where it is?"
"I do, but… your home? Don't your parents still live there? We can't talk about this sort of thing there."
Draco nodded. "True. Therefore, it will have to be your place." He grinned, and Harry got the distinct impression this had been his plan all along. "Seven o'clock. No need to prepare anything special; we won't actually be doing much talking."
Before Harry could formulate a remotely suitable reply (or even decide whether this manipulation of Draco's was pissing him off, or making him slightly overheated), Draco had gone on back up to his cubicle in the licensing office. Harry sat back down, heavily, and set the MacDonough files aside. He'd gone digging in the archives this morning for more on the history of what he'd called Hermione over last night; he might as well read it before attempting to have supper with Draco.
--
Harry was waiting at the door when Draco arrived. He hadn't opened it; that would look seriously desperate. Still, he was standing just inside, staring at it, and had to purposefully wait thirty seconds after the first knock before opening it. "Draco," he said, striving for a neutral tone he felt depressingly sure he'd failed to reach.
"Potter."
"If you've come to have supper and discuss …you know, don't you think you ought to at least call me Harry?"
Draco shrugged as he passed, and waited for Harry to close the door. "All right. Harry. What are we having?"
"You said--"
"Well, yes, but I assumed you'd manage to serve something. This is basic hospitality!"
Harry scratched his nose. "Uh, I could open a tin of soup or something. Or order in, if you don't mind waiting for a Muggle deliverer to bring supper."
Draco shook his head. "Hopeless."
"Haven't we talked about that before?"
"Yes, but I didn't quite believe it. All right, soup it is. I don't want to wait." He followed Harry into the kitchen and watched him set a pan on the stove, then hopped up onto the counter and looked balefully at the over-ripe fruit in the bowl. "No preservation charm?"
"Uh. I never remember."
"Perhaps a complex reminding mechanism. Such as a large note stuck right here on the wall. You could make it blink."
"Right, well. Aside from my incompetence with fruit, was there anything else you wanted to discuss?"
"I was going to use a banana to lewd purpose, but yes, as you ask--"
"Uh. Here. Soup!" Harry heated the soup with a charm and dumped it into two bowls, then handed one to Draco.
Draco didn't bother asking for a spoon; instead he took a drink, and then another, then set the bowl aside on the counter. "Nerves, Potter?"
"We talked about that already, Draco."
"Wh--oh. Right. …Nerves, Harry?"
Harry drank down his own soup and set the bowl in the sink. "A little. Look, I've been doing some reading--"
"I assume someone has already alerted the newspapers?"
"Shut it. Just, there's this thing, from before your family married into the Malfoy name--on your father's side, I mean--and all the way back in the Black line for me as well."
"The curse?"
"What curse?"
"It's a thing where every six generations--"
"You know about that?"
Draco sighed and dropped down off the counter, advancing toward Harry until he was directly before him, pressing him back slightly against the opposite surface. "Look, Potter. Harry. I know you can be a bit thick, but for the love of Merlin, I've been plying you with come-ons about cyclical things for weeks, waiting for you to come round. I'd no idea it would take you so long to grasp the thread of commonality. And yes, I know about it, and it's our turn, if we want. I can't tell, regarding you, since you never complete a bloody sentence, but…" He trailed off suggestively, and Harry frowned.
"So, it doesn't bother you?"
"The notion of your cock up my arse? No. It doesn't bother me."
"Not that. The whole pre-destination thing. That is to say, I've had a destiny before, Draco, and I didn't choose it. Also, I mean, it was necessary and whatnot, but I didn't much like having it. Or following it. Or having anything to do with it. …What do you mean, if we want? We are the sixth sons, but be that as it may, I've no intention of starting, you know, anything I wouldn’t want to, only because there's a, did you say it was a curse? The reading I've done doesn't call it--"
"No, it was, at one time a curse, because of the issue you just raised, but now I only said it for the sake of expediency. There have been mitigating charms woven in over the years, and now, it's merely a… suggestion, perhaps. Also, what I mean is this: Yes, we are the sixth generation, but then, on another branch of the tree, I do believe my second-cousin Henri is as well. And probably there's someone somewhere on yours, though I haven't looked at it in great detail. If we don't do anything about it, for one thing, that'd be stupid as we do want--at least, I do, and there's no good reason why you wouldn’t want me--and for another, there are other cousins who might make another choice."
Harry pursed his lips, considering this. "The thing I saw didn't explain all of that," he said doubtfully. He wasn't best pleased, still, with being pushed into this corner, and while it was clear to him, now that he's given it a little thought, why Dylan was appealing to him, and why he might not so much mind going in this direction, still, it was manipulation, and that was never going to set well."
"Of course. Why would it? It's not sordid at all if it's not a curse."
"Oh, no. Not at all. Harry Potter having sex with boys would totally not be a headline of widespread dismay and horror."
"True," Draco said, pausing to consider. "I hadn't much thought about that side of the deal; however, it's not as though there isn't a fair amount of publicity associated with my name. In any case. Want to see Blaise's memory?"
"What?"
"Of getting fucked by that boy, watching in the mirror, you know."
Harry was surprised to realize he could feel the heat from where Draco was standing, the warm flush rising off him and spreading over Harry. "Uh. No, actually."
"No?"
Harry shrugged. "I think I'm already traumatized by the notion of Blaise and Cedric. That is, was he also sucking Krum? I mean, was I the only unsucked Champion?"
"Could be," Draco said with a shrug. "I never saw him do Krum, but I also know he's adept at pleasing women, too. He just doesn't like it as much."
"How do you know?" Harry asked. He wanted to call the words back as soon as they left his tongue, because really, this was none of his concern, but Draco only laughed.
"Because Pans is a picky bitch who tells me everything, and he brought her to her knees, so to speak. If that Veela bird wasn't so particular as to avoid a fourth-year on principle, well. Then yes, you might be." Draco tilted his head slightly. "Though we could change that, don't you think?" He pressed the back of his hand to Harry's cock, which was hard from the general topic of discussion once again, and gripped gently through his trousers, squeezing and stroking up and down until Harry gasped.
"In any case, I don't want to see it because that's not who I want to watch. I mean, at the time…" Harry broke off, trying to form a complete thought. It wasn't working.
"It was good to watch, but you'd rather have a live show?"
"Malfoy. Draco. Something like that. You're sure it's not a curse? Not like Imperio?"
"Not at all like."
Harry groaned and pushed his hips forward. "Thank God."
"Quite. Now. As I recall, you have a predilection for sucking fingers?" He raised two fingers to Harry's mouth, and Harry opened for them, sucking them in and sliding his tongue along the crease between them and over the gently-callused tips as Draco continued to massage him with his other hand. "Lovely. Don't you want to move on to something else?"
Harry nodded before he could think, and then, in a series of events which he thought he'd try to work out the details of later, he was on his knees, nose buried in the tickling soft hair of Draco's groin.
Draco looked down encouragingly, and Harry gave a tentative lick, and then, with a whimper at the taste of man and sweat and Draco and soap, he pulled away and returned to the jutting tip, taking the head fully into his mouth. "Li' t'is?" he asked.
Draco was watching him anyway, but his gaze turned sharper, and Harry pulled back again.
"What?"
"Like this? This can't be your first time."
"Would it be a problem if it were?"
Draco stared for a moment, then shook his head no. "No. No problem. …Never?"
Harry bit his lip. "Girl bits are a bit alarming, and I haven't, well. The opportunities. I've always until this past year been mostly around Ron and his family--"
Draco smirked. "I'd think there'd have been an opportunity there, but if you say so, well."
"Yes, but I, well. Anyway, and recently, there's been, uh." He pointed at the wall.
"For whom I'm eternally grateful. I'd had no idea how to get you to realize I was trying to pull you, Potter. Because actually, thick isn't really the word. He slid his fingers into Harry's hair and pulled him forward again.
Harry opened his mouth and took Draco's cock into it as deeply as he could. If there was no compulsion, and Draco had been coming onto him on purpose… well. He might not have done this before, but now that he was started, he was nearly sure he planned to do it again. Preferably several hundred times. He choked slightly as Draco thrust forward, and wrapped his fingers around the base of Draco's cock to prevent it happening again, and shoved his other hand down the front of his trousers.
"Don't get yourself off too fast, P--Harry," Draco said. "I have plans for your cock."
Harry grinned, and kept sucking.
--
"So, you've been trying to make this happen for weeks?"
"Months, I think."
"I only remember the ice age one."
"Yes, well, that was last week; I'd hope your capacity to recall would stretch back that far. Also, you still have no sense of history."
"Shut it." Harry stretched his arms up over his head, then dropped them down on his pillow and turned his head.
"It was true, you know. About the ice ages and how they keep happening, along with every other observation I offered. Also, they were all just like us, in one way or another."
"Right. I suppose we should get under the blanket. Speaking of ice and ways in which we are similar to it."
"Not just ice--I mean, there were other things. Also, you don't plan to keep us warm?" Draco mimed an activity that would, at least, be exercise.
Harry snorted. "At some point, I think I might fall asleep if we keep up the, er, exercise frequency."
Draco shook his head. "This is what warming charms are for."
Harry sighed and stood up anyway, to pull the blanket up and get under it. "This is better," he said.
"Better how? No view!"
Harry laughed and waited for Draco to get off the bed, then lifted the covers for him, too. "Yes, but more touching."
"Could touch on top…"
"Yes, but it's not the same." Harry pulled Draco up against him, and demonstrated thorough touching. "See?"
Draco shook his head, but had to agree, it was nice.
"Besides. Warming charm goes out when you go to sleep. I'd like the comparison to glacier-type things to remain more, uh, metaphoric, if you don't mind."
Draco didn't answer, so Harry lifted his head and peered over his shoulder at his face.
"Right. And further discussion can wait until morning." Harry plumped his pillow and closed his eyes, then opened them again. He'd forgotten all about the MacDonough file.
Well, it could wait. He wasn't going to get up and fetch it now, and there was no requisition or report that was going to pull him away from this. As predestined behavior went, sex and a snooze beat saving the world hands down, and he planned to enjoy it enough to make up for the rest.
Recipient: ennyousai
Title: Melting the Ice
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco, Blaise/Draco implied
Summary: Draco's pursuing Harry relentlessly, Harry's clueless, and then there's the problem of the 'family curse.'
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): voyeurism, wanking, rentboys
Deathly Hallows compliant? Yes. Epilogue ambiguous.
Word Count: 8000
Author's Notes: This fic was a pinch hit which I got my hands on ages ago, but the cooperation of the characters, it was slim, none, and occasionally minimal. The recipient asked for plot and predestination; I maybe got the latter and less got the former, but I hope this will suffice.
"Did you know there's an ice age every 1500 years?"
Harry looked up from the array of papers on his desk. "Uh. No?"
"Typical. No sense of history." Draco pushed off from where he was leaning against the side of the door and took a step back into the corridor.
He was turning to go when Harry asked, "Wait, what? You came down here to ask me whether I knew that?"
"No. Merely to find out whether you were as hopeless as I'd suspected."
"Oh. Right, then. Hopeless, I'm good at."
Draco frowned. "You won't even defend yourself!"
"Yes, well. I had plenty of involuntary self-defense, thanks. I'm happy to be hopeless, if it also means something more on the anonymous side of 'so bloody famous women--' Never mind."
"Women never mind? Potter, women mind all the time."
"No." Harry rolled his eyes and shuffled his papers. "I meant, never mind, you. Women, yes, they mind. Either way, I'm happy with any shred of anonymity I can get, and if that means being hopeless about ice ages and wearing a desperately ugly hat about town and staying past dark here just so there will be no need whatsoever to go out in the daylight, I can live with that."
"What d'you do on Saturdays?"
"De-gnome Molly's garden, sometimes. Why do you always come down here and bother me?"
"Kinky, and because I want you."
"Right."
"I do!"
Harry signed his name on the top piece of parchment and ignored this. Draco didn't go away.
Thirty-seven various requisitions, a payroll clarification, six expense account audits, and a recall of all kickplates and mouth-filters by Starsplash Ltd later, Harry looked up. Thankfully, Draco had finally gone.
He double-checked the specification on the recall notification paperwork and sent it off to the Quidditch supply shops; it was going to be a pain to get everything dealt with properly, but at least they wouldn’t sell any more of the underwater gear until there was a chance to straighten things out. Oxyurinus Webster had a number of things to answer for.
The duplicate report sailed off in the inter-office to the Aurors so they could round him up, and Harry picked up the stack of parchment and headed down to the filing room. He could have charmed them all self-filing, of course, but doing it by hand prolonged the task, and he had nothing else on his desk at the moment.
--
"Still, you know, it's kind of interesting." Draco fell in next to Harry as he headed out of the building.
Harry glanced over, but tucked his hands deeper in his pockets and ducked his chin as he headed out into the cold. He had no idea to what Draco was referring, but assumed it would eventually come clear; it wasn't as though Draco were noted for just buggering off when ignored; no, he was persistent and quite certain his thoughts were relevant.
"That hat really is dreadful," Draco added. "It matches your bag, only it's not even made of paper. Also, don't you think?"
"Daily," Harry said, hitching up the wrist over which hung the plain handled paper bag he used to haul things to and from the office. They'd had this discussion before, but the bag was easy to replace when it got wet or dirty, and Harry still had no use for anything expensive or fancy, so he didn't bother about that.
"Clearly this was not an absolute question, and if you're going to lie, you might as well be convincing. Do you, or do you not, think it's interesting that there is an ice age every 1500 years?"
"Uh. Sure. Though I'm sure I don't know how we know, since while I suppose we could conceivably have records from even as far back as a couple thousand years, beyond that, human history gets a little less clear."
"Geological record."
Draco sounded pleased with himself and Harry stopped and stared long enough he was forced to blink when a snowflake got stuck in his eyelashes.
"What?" Draco asked. He'd gone another couple of steps before realizing Harry had stopped, and he'd stopped as well and turned around.
"I hadn't known you were fond of studying rocks," Harry said.
"Well. There are all sorts of things in the geological record, and some of them catch my interest."
"Right. Well, good night, then," Harry said. He turned left.
"Aren't you going to ask what year this is?"
Harry sighed and stopped again. "Twenty-oh-two, and I'm not sure why you're following me, but if it'll help, I'll pop into the next stationer's I run across and obtain a calendar."
Draco rolled his eyes. "I know what year it is, Potter." He shook his head. "This is ridiculous."
Harry quite agreed, and went back to walking north toward his flat, leaving Draco to either follow or not.
As he neared home, he carefully looked around. He was unaccompanied, so he stopped off briefly to put away his bag and then continued on to the pub on the corner. Takeaway was easier than cooking, and besides, their chips were pleasantly greasy and patently unhealthy--not the sort of thing Hermione, or, for that matter, Molly Weasley, would approve of in the least, which was at least a third of their charm.
He took the meal home and walked up, flopping on the couch and crossing his feet on the coffee table while he ate. He didn't have a Muggle telly, but the neighbor to the other side did, so he charmed the wall transparent and permeable to sound (to him; it wouldn’t do for the bloke to know Harry could see him through the wall) and watched a ridiculous chat show as he ate.. The chat show wasn't interesting in the least, but it was temporary, he was sure, and it didn't require any part of his brain, which was a relief.
As he expected, the bloke, whom Harry had decided to call Dylan though really, at some point, he should learn his name just for the sake of accuracy, watched to the end of the show, then switched over to a different sort of entertainment altogether. This was the routine, a couple of times a week, though as Harry's schedule was irregular and so far this had only not happened maybe four times in the past several months, he'd concluded watching porn and jerking off was a fundamental part of Dylan's daily schedule. He couldn't say he objected.
The porn was absurd, with improbably-proportioned women of unexpectedly smooth nether regions performing various sex acts with each other and with unsuspecting delivery boys, usually involving a great deal of squealing and bouncing, but that wasn't the show Harry was watching, anyway. As soon as Dylan unbuttoned his jeans, Harry set aside what was left of his chips and followed suit. The scripted porn on the screen was ludicrous. The live porn in the next room was… not.
Harry stared as Dylan, a slender blond with God's gift to everyone hanging between his legs, stroked himself hard and watched the naked birds intently. His hand moved slowly; apparently tonight was one of those nights he intended to be about this for a while. Harry felt saliva gathering in his mouth and swallowed, then licked his palm and tugged at his own cock, his hand moving in time with the one he was watching, totally absorbed. Dylan's cock was enthralling, and Harry thought about what it would be like, some evening, to knock at his door, or even, to just let himself in. He'd drop to his knees and take as much of that beautiful thing into his mouth as he could.
He slid two fingers into his mouth and sucked on them, moaning. There was no way he'd ever act on that, or come anywhere close, but thinking about it got him hot. He sucked harder and imagined the surprise on Dylan's face, imagined it turning to the expression of bliss that came with his orgasm, imagine sucking him dry, imagined coming all over the front of his couch, a dick in his mouth and another in his hand. He moaned again, then leaned back and jerked off faster, eyes half-closed as he watched.
His first inkling of a problem was the slight draft.
It wasn't enough to slow his hand; Dylan was straining now, pushing, telling the girls on his telly he was about to explode all over their tits, and Harry was close, so close. He changed the man's words in his mind, thinking about how he'd like to hear him say it to him, that he was about to shoot all over his balls. It would be warm and sticky and--
"Potter."
Harry gasped, choking out half a question around his fingers as he spurted come over his thumb and onto his belly.
He wasn't, it turned out, unaccompanied after all.
And Draco had been watching him. Watching him wank and suck on his fingers, and watching him watch Dylan, which was definitely against at least six rules, laws, or regulations. Fuck.
His balls finished emptying, hot thick pulses slowing to a sticky dripping splash, and he stilled, not willing to turn around, staring resolutely at the transparent wall.
Dylan kept his eyes on the bouncing tits, still talking, and came all over himself just as the door in Harry's flat closed.
Harry cancelled the transparency charm and sat there, mess cooling and congealing on his belly,
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
It belatedly occurred to him Draco could be next door even now, showing the Muggle the charm, showing him Harry still sitting there, cock limp and spent, looking right at him.
He was a little horrified when his cock twitched at the thought, and used a too-harsh scouring charm to clean himself before buttoning up his jeans, his cheeks burning for too many reasons to name, from the embarrassment of being caught out to the memory of being watched to the guilty flush of perhaps being caught--by Dylan--at his little game.
That it could get him in a lot of trouble didn't seem to be cooling his response, but that he was going to have to face Draco tomorrow was embarrassing.
Maybe he should see about a transfer. To Mongolia. With a Time-Turner.
God. He should just get his own telly and some porn that worked for him. Surely it existed. But it wouldn’t be quite the same.
--
His cock was still raw from the scouring charm when he showered in the morning, and he winced as the warm water sluiced over his body. He'd never been very good at healing charms, and even if he were, he didn't much want to aim anything else at this particular sensitive skin. And he certainly didn't want to take it to a healer and explain. It was just going to have to wait.
He washed quickly, lathering up the soap and being as gentle as he could with the sore area--because the last thing he needed was some horrible infection from it getting dirty--then let himself air dry.
He considered sending in an owl and spending the day doing nothing to add to the irritation, but immediately saw several problems with the concept. First, while his work was hardly exciting, a day's work was tolerable if it took a day. If he called off, there would be two days' worth of work to do tomorrow, and he wasn't sure he could stand the pressured boredom. Second, he was supposed to meet Hermione for lunch, and it was going to be difficult enough to not let her see him wincing. He couldn’t meet her for lunch if he'd not gone to work, and he certainly wasn't about to owl her over a sore cock. If he said he was sick, she'd show up with soup or something.
And third, if he called off, Draco would think it was because he was embarrassed, and while he was, it wouldn’t improve the situation to give Draco cause to gloat. Or come visit him more. Or anything else.
He sighed and transfigured his softest pants into a longer, softer, gentler sort of garment, close-fitting but nonconstricting, and put them on under his robes, forgoing trousers despite that this meant all day he's have to remember he wasn't wearing any and thus couldn’t take off the damn robe. He took a few steps and bent and twisted several times, then decided it would do--and that given the rawness, he wasn't likely to forget.
Regardless of the softest cloth he could muster for whatever the hell he's just created to wear, he was definitely going to have to take the Floo to work.
Damn it. He hated traveling by Floo. He'd never learned to get out without stumbling, and he always ended up with an itchy nose. He went to the fireplace and glared at it for a minute, just to ease his irritation, and considered again whether he could go ahead and fly in. Or walk.
--
To his surprise, or his relief--both might be true, but he wanted to choose one, and couldn't--he saw no trace of Draco all day.
He also didn't see him the next day.
Or the next.
By the time he rolled up his last scroll on Friday evening, he'd added a third feeling: concern. Draco popped in and pestered him several times a week, and while he'd never much thought about the frequency before, he couldn’t recall the last time he'd been left to himself for three entire days. In fact, he'd been so distracted by the unaccustomed absence, it'd nearly kept his cock, which was still a bit tender though no longer raw, off his mind, which was good, since he generally tried to avoid thinking about his cock at work. Still, this wasn't how he really wanted to keep his mind off things.
He tried to set the concern aside, tucking the Pepperman file into his bag and gathering his heavy cloak and hat. The weather had been chilly three days earlier, when Draco had followed him home, but now it was downright frigid out, so he followed the cloak with a thick scarf and shoved his hands into woolen gloves. Satisfied he had everything, he uttered Nox toward the sconces and picked up the bag.
It tore.
Damn it. He'd shoved in Pepperman last, but the Halliwell and Burton files were in there as well, complete with their supporting documentation, and all right, that was probably too much for the one bag, but he'd not brought a spare, and repairing a paper bag tended to work poorly.
Maybe Draco had been right about the bag.
He didn't know why he kept thinking about him; he didn't want to think about what Draco had observed. It was embarrassing, and inappropriate, and while so far nothing had come of it--nothing unusual, no report of his behavior to a supervisor, no whisper of impropriety--it worried him more than he quite understood that he was being left entirely alone.
He repaired the bag, more or less, and replaced the Pepperman and Halliwell files, then found a small box in his desk. Enlarged, it would hold the Burton file, and probably without being weakened so badly it would fail; it would do to get out to the entryway, and from there he could Floo. The fact he didn't like to didn't mean he didn't have the option.
He was nearly to the lift, carrying the box with the bag balanced on top, when a sharp whistle caused him to pause and turn.
"Potter." Draco jogged up next to him, and Harry gaped.
"Uh. Malfoy," he said, deciding that at least for the moment, merely returning the greeting was the prudent choice. He continued on to the lift, trying not to focus on Draco's footsteps just behind him and to the left.
They didn't exchange any further conversation until they reached the lobby.
"Come on," Draco said. He reached up and took the bag and walked straight on past the Floo stations toward the exit that led into Wizarding London directly.
Harry suppressed a groan, and followed. He couldn't very well just leave the file unattended; his work wasn't all that sensitive, but this didn't mean there wouldn't be more trouble than he wanted to deal with if he let it go.
They turned away from Harry's flat, and to Harry's knowledge, Draco's as well, which was a bit odd, but then, he supposed he wanted to know what Draco thought he should go see, and besides, it was at least something different. As they walked along Institution Alley, they passed Habbitchu and turned into Visser, which left them deep in a section of town Harry mostly avoided--and avoided thinking much about, as well, since thinking about it would probably mean developing a need to do something about the myriad problems of the area--drugs, prostitution, and general misery--and, well, he didn't hate the idea in the long term, but at this point, he couldn’t bring himself to take on another great project for the well being of the Wizarding world. He also avoided mentioning the area, or the topic, to Hermione.
Draco still hadn't said anything since his name, and Harry finally hastened a bit and caught up. "Where are we going?"
There was no answer, though Draco did turn and lift a white-gold brow. A moment later, he nodded to the left, and Harry turned automatically, moving through a decrepit gate and up the front steps of a run-down building. Draco brushed past him to open the door, and started immediately up the steps.
On the second floor, just as Harry was going to repeat his question, Draco stopped and spelled a door open, then went in and set the Burton file on the scratched wooden table. He looked back at Harry. "Well?"
Harry stepped in as well, setting down his bag next to the box. "Well, what?"
Draco rolled his eyes and closed the door. "I meant, well, are you coming in, but that seems a moot point now." He shrugged off his cloak and sat down on the couch, avoiding the threadbare area on one side where springs were poking through.
Harry sighed and shifted his weight, but left his cloak and gloves on; it was bloody cold in here, as well, and he could see his own breath --and Draco's--in the frigid air between them. "And I meant, when I asked where we were going, for you to give me some idea what the hell we're doing here. I know you live north of here, so this isn't your flat, and--"
Draco pointed his wand past Harry at the wall, and uttered a charm.
A familiar charm.
Harry turned, in spite of himself, to look at the far wall, which had gone as transparent as the one in his flat when he watched Dylan. His cock pulsed briefly as he considered the topic of Dylan and why he charmed his wall in the first place, but he tamped that down and tried to assess the situation. He came up with nothing that made any sense.
Shit. What the hell was going on? Was he being blackmailed? Was he being made fun of? Was Draco just barking mad? He had no idea, but the adjacent room was empty, but for a sketchily made-up bed and a table with a nearly-full bottle of firewhisky and a couple of dirty glasses.
"I thought you might enjoy this," Draco said, his tone casual.
Harry looked back at him. "Oh?"
"Yes. Have a seat."
Harry thought about it a moment. Draco didn't appear to be laughing, and if it was blackmail, he likely had to stay to find out what it was Draco wanted. And either way, there had been no apparent defensive charms or wards on the way in, so he didn't think his capacity to defend himself was likely to be damaged. He shrugged and pointed his wand at the couch, repaired the cushion enough not to get poked, then sat down. "You thought I might enjoy watching a bed gather dust?"
Draco smirked, and as though this had been carefully timed, the door in the next room opened.
Harry leaned over. "Uh, the transparency is one-way, right?"
Draco rolled his eyes. "Potter. Getting caught watching would be deemed eccentric and odd, in you. In me, it would be cause for imprisonment, most likely. Your foibles are the foibles of the hero, after all. Mine are those of a one-time Death Eater."
"You weren't--"
"Yes, I know. But that's the perception, because people suck. Shut it and watch."
Harry hadn't paid any attention to the occupant of the other room; he'd been too busy arguing with Draco. However, now that he looked, the occupant was a slender blond, not so very different from Dylan, and he was busy hanging a mirror at an angle, above the bed on the far side. Well. That was different. And then, before Harry had time to figure out what his next question was going to be, he stripped off and lay back on the bed, ignoring the mirror entirely as he grabbed his limp cock and started stroking.
"Uh. Draco? Why are we watching a, um… what are we watching?"
"I'm nearly sure you've seen a man wank before, Potter."
"Well, yes. Which you only know because you invaded my home--"
"Not true."
"What? What would you call it?"
"That's not why I know. You're twenty-two years old; I'm going to work under the assumption you've watched your own dick slide back and forth in your hand a few times, so unless you only do it in the dark--and that you don't, I do know from having visited your home recently--you've watched a man wank."
"Hardly the same," Harry said. The blond next door kept teasing at himself, moving slowly; either he liked to take his time, or he was waiting for someone.
"Yes, but I wasn't being specific."
"I see. In any case, my point was, why are we watching a man get himself off?"
"We're not."
Harry resisted the urge to adjust his trousers, which were becoming uncomfortably tight, and tried to stick to the task at hand. "Draco. We're sitting on a couch in a seedy rental unit on the corner of Visser and Imur, staring through a wall at a bloke who's stripped to the skin and rubbing his hand up and down his… rather impressive prick."
"Yes, it likely serves him well."
"What?"
"His prick. Imagine how well his clients--"
"He's a whore?"
Draco blinked. "All right. Potter. Let me see if I understand. You are aware we are in Whore Central, as you just identified the neighborhood. You see the man stroking himself. You see him hanging a mirror first, but not actually using it. And somehow the fact he gets paid to fuck is a shock?"
Harry blushed and looked away, both from Draco and from the blond, who was still taking his sweet time. "Shut up."
"Yes, well, you seemed to enjoy the unwitting show the last time; you should enjoy this." Draco waited for Harry to look back toward him, then looked pointedly at his crotch. "So, go on."
Harry scowled. "No. I don't want to get myself off for your entertainment. Plus, for all I know this is some weird elaborate set-up. So far, all the active participation is yours; however, if I--" He broke off as Draco, with a put-upon sigh, unbuckled his belt. "Oi! Don't you think--"
"You're never going to get to it yourself! Keep watching. Oh, there's a knock."
That last was unnecessary commentary; Harry heard the knock for himself and watched as the blond, his hard dick bobbing with every step, went to the door and opened it, apparently completely unconcerned about who it might be. "Oh! He's a whore that serves men?"
"You didn't seem to like the other sort of porn."
"God. I hate you. Wait, that other bloke looks familiar." Harry gave up on not adjusting his trousers, which were still closed but for the belt and were now impossibly tight. "Is that--"
"It's Blaise. Zabini."
"…Seriously?"
Draco raised his eyebrows. "Surely you knew."
"Knew what? That Zabini liked to fuck whores?"
"No. That Zabini liked to--" Draco pointed at the wall. "--suck cock. Always has."
In the other room, it was true, Zabini was already on his knees in the open doorway, his mouth stretched wide around the blond's cock. Harry stared, helpless. "Uh. Has he ever… never mind."
Draco smirked. "Ever what?"
"Nothing."
"Too bad. Well, I'll try not to compare you two directly." He set his hand flat on Harry's crotch and pressed, then slid the hand up to unfasten the button and drag down the zip. "Do you like what you see?"
Harry pushed Draco's hand away and shoved himself upright, then fastened his button and belt. "Malfoy, I don't know what the fuck you want, but you're not getting it from me." He shoved past Draco's knees, noting, but ignoring, the bulge in his trousers as well, and picked up his box and bag. There was no anti-Apparition ward in place here, and therefore no reason he couldn’t just go.
"Potter, you have no idea how long--" Harry didn't stick around to hear the rest, emerging in his own flat and immediately putting up the protective charms around it and checking the lock on his Floo.
He couldn’t help that when he went to the shower (immediately), the image in his mind's eye as he wanked was one of Draco, flushed and aroused, fucking Zabini's mouth.
He considered autoObliviation, but the risks were too high--he always remembered Lockhart--so he made a cup of tea, splashed in rather a lot of good Muggle scotch, and sat down with the Burton file. If he worked hard through the weekend, he could just avoid thinking about the entire thing.
He could always go back for the MacDonough file if he ran out of things to work on. That one was thick, and he hadn't even cracked it yet, so it'd certainly keep him entertained.
--
"What the hell?" Harry backed up and read the paragraph again.
Then he scratched his eyebrow and turned the page to continue. Then he went back.
He was going to need Hermione to explain this to him, because what it looked like it said ….well, that couldn't really be what it meant. Could it? He scrawled a letter to Hermione, checked the clock (whew; it wasn't so late she'd be in bed. Probably), and added a postscript that it wasn't really an emergency, then tied the thing to the leg of his owl and paced until her head appeared in his Floo.
"Harry?"
"Hermione! Hi. So, it's not… you weren't busy?"
"Only a little. The records regarding the rights of magical creatures are rather a mess--I'm thinking of taking a break in the writing and simply cataloging the entire record in order to create a more accurate timetable and outline. Did you know--"
"Uh. Hermione, I… I'm sure this is all really interesting and everything, but what I want to know is what you think this paragraph is indicating."
"You called me for a reading comprehension exercise? At half-ten on a Sunday night?"
"You were still up! And working!"
"You didn't know that!"
"Anyway. Just… here." Harry cleared his throat and read the paragraph aloud.
"Sounds straightforward enough," she said. "What do you think it means?"
Harry frowned. "I think it's saying something about a history of some sort of cycle between these two families and their, um. Relationships. Between then. With some, er. That it messes up their whole, I don't know, dynasty thing. Which makes the families enemies until… And then the sons of the sixth generation, it happens again, and, uh. It starts over each time. Every, what, hundred and fifty years."
"Exactly."
"No other interpretation comes to mind?"
"No, not really. It's all but explicitly laid out, don't you think?"
"Doesn't that bother you?"
"What?"
"Well! It's, like, they're pre-destined to, um, not to be crude, but… to fuck?"
"It doesn't have to be like that! Well, all right, it does rather read like that, but maybe it doesn't… all right, that is a bit disturbing, if it's pre-destined and they have no choice, but Harry, men have free will."
Harry nodded. "Yeah. Free will. Uh, thanks, Hermione."
She frowned. "Is something wrong?"
"What? No! Nothing at all. All fine. All good, thanks. Good night. Sleep well. After you finish working. Unless you and Ron--never mind. Night, Hermione!"
She gave him The Look, which of course meant she was entirely unfooled, which, bugger, given her recall of details, she was definitely going to remember the names and probably tomorrow she'd look them up, and this was going to be a nightmare. "You're sure?" she asked.
"Absolutely. I'll just, I wasn't thinking clearly. It's fine. It's probably just a game. Or a theory. Or a guess. Or, or fiction." Harry knew he was objecting too much, but his mouth just kept talking, and he was only making things worse. He clamped his lips shut, nodded with as much assurance as he could muster, and gave a little wave.
Hermione shook her head, dislodging ash onto his floor, but she left.
Harry whimpered and sank onto his couch, cradling his head in his hands. This case history had wound up on his desk in the first place because he'd gone looking into his family tree; the paragraph in question wasn't relevant to the business he was working on, but it was clearly, indisputably, relevant to him.
--
"Potter."
Harry looked up from the MacDonough file, which he was forcing himself to read despite the much worse distraction than he'd experienced the previous week, which he was trying, ineffectively, to ignore. "Oh. Malfoy. Hi. Uh, haven't seen you since, er." There was no good way to say since I rejected your obvious and utterly unexpected (and possibly unwelcome if only because you were probably fucking with me) overture three days ago and went home to jerk off over you, so he chose, once again, to just stop talking.
"Since you left my carefully-set-up scenario and fled, leaving me to take care of myself and clean up the mess on my own?"
"What?"
"To which part, Potter?"
"Set up?"
"Of course. It took me days to find an appropriate whore and arrange for Blaise to use him in that little room."
"You …arranged that?"
"It seemed the sort of thing you'd like to watch."
"Yes, I suppose, uh, based on what, well. I can see that, but." Harry frowned. "What, exactly, were you hoping to accomplish?"
"Besides you showing off that sucking skill you previously demonstrated on your fingers, on my cock?"
Harry grimaced and belatedly realized his office door was open. "Uh. If we're going to discuss this, and honestly, it would be entirely all right with me if we didn't, can you come in and shut the bloody door?"
Draco pushed off of where he was once again leaning against the door frame just as he had… Harry screwed up his face slightly considering; had it only been a week ago? Yes. A week ago, and sauntered in, closing the door behind him. "No discussion of why my cock belongs in your mouth? Potter, you wound me."
Harry blushed. "Look. Malfoy. For one thing, I'm nearly sure it would be massively inappropriate for… I mean, it isn't as though I go around finding… also, yes, besides that."
"I'm sure speaking in fractions of sentences, none of which match up to make a complete one, works brilliantly for you in many endeavors, Potter, but could you make an effort here? Besides what?"
"You said, besides me, uh. Showing off my, you know."
"Those were still not sentences, but, ah, yes. Then I was hoping to see what else, besides coming all over yourself, you liked to do with your cock."
Harry shook his head. "So you arranged for your friend to, what, fake an encounter with a whore--"
"No! I wouldn’t do that?"
"You wouldn’t?"
"Not unless it were for a really good reason, though, come to that, I suppose this would have been one. But no, Blaise had a perfectly real encounter with a young man who sells his body for money, had a lovely time, and met up with me after to give me the memory."
"To what?"
"Well! I couldn't very well tell him I planned to watch, and have you watch, in real time, so, I asked him to do it and then let me have the memory."
"…Why?"
"Why what? I believe I've already covered what I asked of him and why, and also why there needed to be a cover story."
"No, I mean, what reason did you give him for you wanting him to do this?"
"Ah, you mean, did I tell him you'd like to see? No, I told him I had loads of memories of what his mouth looked like around my cock--what, you asked!"
"When?"
"The other night. You started to ask, then said never mind, but you can't take back a question, Potter."
"Oh. Anyway, you told him what, then?"
"You're awfully curious about all this, for a bloke who ran off with his boxes of parchment on seeing things up close."
"Shut it. I want to know what you told him."
Draco heaved a put-upon sigh, but went on, "Fine. Loads of memories about his mouth, but I wondered roughly what it looked like from his point of view. He offered to give me a memory directly from back at school, but I told him I wanted something a bit more …complete."
"And he just gave you it."
"Sure. I mean, I paid for his whore, so what, he was going to complain? Besides. I told you. He's been sucking any cock he could get his lips on for years now. Since fourth year, I think. Maybe earlier. I know he blew Diggory after the water thing, so definitely by then."
Harry closed his eyes and shook his head rapidly as if to clear it, though he was forced to conclude this didn't actually help much. "I'm still not entirely clear as to what this charade was meant to end with."
"Your cock up my arse."
Harry flinched, but his cock twitched and started to fill, just enough to be even more desperately distracting than anything in recent memory. He stood and went to the door, opening it once again. "Malfoy, this just… I can't have this conversation here, but we need to talk."
Draco shot him a sidelong look as he went back past him and out of his office. "Supper, then?"
"Fine. Where?"
"My home, of course." Draco stopped just outside the door and looked back. "You do remember where it is?"
"I do, but… your home? Don't your parents still live there? We can't talk about this sort of thing there."
Draco nodded. "True. Therefore, it will have to be your place." He grinned, and Harry got the distinct impression this had been his plan all along. "Seven o'clock. No need to prepare anything special; we won't actually be doing much talking."
Before Harry could formulate a remotely suitable reply (or even decide whether this manipulation of Draco's was pissing him off, or making him slightly overheated), Draco had gone on back up to his cubicle in the licensing office. Harry sat back down, heavily, and set the MacDonough files aside. He'd gone digging in the archives this morning for more on the history of what he'd called Hermione over last night; he might as well read it before attempting to have supper with Draco.
--
Harry was waiting at the door when Draco arrived. He hadn't opened it; that would look seriously desperate. Still, he was standing just inside, staring at it, and had to purposefully wait thirty seconds after the first knock before opening it. "Draco," he said, striving for a neutral tone he felt depressingly sure he'd failed to reach.
"Potter."
"If you've come to have supper and discuss …you know, don't you think you ought to at least call me Harry?"
Draco shrugged as he passed, and waited for Harry to close the door. "All right. Harry. What are we having?"
"You said--"
"Well, yes, but I assumed you'd manage to serve something. This is basic hospitality!"
Harry scratched his nose. "Uh, I could open a tin of soup or something. Or order in, if you don't mind waiting for a Muggle deliverer to bring supper."
Draco shook his head. "Hopeless."
"Haven't we talked about that before?"
"Yes, but I didn't quite believe it. All right, soup it is. I don't want to wait." He followed Harry into the kitchen and watched him set a pan on the stove, then hopped up onto the counter and looked balefully at the over-ripe fruit in the bowl. "No preservation charm?"
"Uh. I never remember."
"Perhaps a complex reminding mechanism. Such as a large note stuck right here on the wall. You could make it blink."
"Right, well. Aside from my incompetence with fruit, was there anything else you wanted to discuss?"
"I was going to use a banana to lewd purpose, but yes, as you ask--"
"Uh. Here. Soup!" Harry heated the soup with a charm and dumped it into two bowls, then handed one to Draco.
Draco didn't bother asking for a spoon; instead he took a drink, and then another, then set the bowl aside on the counter. "Nerves, Potter?"
"We talked about that already, Draco."
"Wh--oh. Right. …Nerves, Harry?"
Harry drank down his own soup and set the bowl in the sink. "A little. Look, I've been doing some reading--"
"I assume someone has already alerted the newspapers?"
"Shut it. Just, there's this thing, from before your family married into the Malfoy name--on your father's side, I mean--and all the way back in the Black line for me as well."
"The curse?"
"What curse?"
"It's a thing where every six generations--"
"You know about that?"
Draco sighed and dropped down off the counter, advancing toward Harry until he was directly before him, pressing him back slightly against the opposite surface. "Look, Potter. Harry. I know you can be a bit thick, but for the love of Merlin, I've been plying you with come-ons about cyclical things for weeks, waiting for you to come round. I'd no idea it would take you so long to grasp the thread of commonality. And yes, I know about it, and it's our turn, if we want. I can't tell, regarding you, since you never complete a bloody sentence, but…" He trailed off suggestively, and Harry frowned.
"So, it doesn't bother you?"
"The notion of your cock up my arse? No. It doesn't bother me."
"Not that. The whole pre-destination thing. That is to say, I've had a destiny before, Draco, and I didn't choose it. Also, I mean, it was necessary and whatnot, but I didn't much like having it. Or following it. Or having anything to do with it. …What do you mean, if we want? We are the sixth sons, but be that as it may, I've no intention of starting, you know, anything I wouldn’t want to, only because there's a, did you say it was a curse? The reading I've done doesn't call it--"
"No, it was, at one time a curse, because of the issue you just raised, but now I only said it for the sake of expediency. There have been mitigating charms woven in over the years, and now, it's merely a… suggestion, perhaps. Also, what I mean is this: Yes, we are the sixth generation, but then, on another branch of the tree, I do believe my second-cousin Henri is as well. And probably there's someone somewhere on yours, though I haven't looked at it in great detail. If we don't do anything about it, for one thing, that'd be stupid as we do want--at least, I do, and there's no good reason why you wouldn’t want me--and for another, there are other cousins who might make another choice."
Harry pursed his lips, considering this. "The thing I saw didn't explain all of that," he said doubtfully. He wasn't best pleased, still, with being pushed into this corner, and while it was clear to him, now that he's given it a little thought, why Dylan was appealing to him, and why he might not so much mind going in this direction, still, it was manipulation, and that was never going to set well."
"Of course. Why would it? It's not sordid at all if it's not a curse."
"Oh, no. Not at all. Harry Potter having sex with boys would totally not be a headline of widespread dismay and horror."
"True," Draco said, pausing to consider. "I hadn't much thought about that side of the deal; however, it's not as though there isn't a fair amount of publicity associated with my name. In any case. Want to see Blaise's memory?"
"What?"
"Of getting fucked by that boy, watching in the mirror, you know."
Harry was surprised to realize he could feel the heat from where Draco was standing, the warm flush rising off him and spreading over Harry. "Uh. No, actually."
"No?"
Harry shrugged. "I think I'm already traumatized by the notion of Blaise and Cedric. That is, was he also sucking Krum? I mean, was I the only unsucked Champion?"
"Could be," Draco said with a shrug. "I never saw him do Krum, but I also know he's adept at pleasing women, too. He just doesn't like it as much."
"How do you know?" Harry asked. He wanted to call the words back as soon as they left his tongue, because really, this was none of his concern, but Draco only laughed.
"Because Pans is a picky bitch who tells me everything, and he brought her to her knees, so to speak. If that Veela bird wasn't so particular as to avoid a fourth-year on principle, well. Then yes, you might be." Draco tilted his head slightly. "Though we could change that, don't you think?" He pressed the back of his hand to Harry's cock, which was hard from the general topic of discussion once again, and gripped gently through his trousers, squeezing and stroking up and down until Harry gasped.
"In any case, I don't want to see it because that's not who I want to watch. I mean, at the time…" Harry broke off, trying to form a complete thought. It wasn't working.
"It was good to watch, but you'd rather have a live show?"
"Malfoy. Draco. Something like that. You're sure it's not a curse? Not like Imperio?"
"Not at all like."
Harry groaned and pushed his hips forward. "Thank God."
"Quite. Now. As I recall, you have a predilection for sucking fingers?" He raised two fingers to Harry's mouth, and Harry opened for them, sucking them in and sliding his tongue along the crease between them and over the gently-callused tips as Draco continued to massage him with his other hand. "Lovely. Don't you want to move on to something else?"
Harry nodded before he could think, and then, in a series of events which he thought he'd try to work out the details of later, he was on his knees, nose buried in the tickling soft hair of Draco's groin.
Draco looked down encouragingly, and Harry gave a tentative lick, and then, with a whimper at the taste of man and sweat and Draco and soap, he pulled away and returned to the jutting tip, taking the head fully into his mouth. "Li' t'is?" he asked.
Draco was watching him anyway, but his gaze turned sharper, and Harry pulled back again.
"What?"
"Like this? This can't be your first time."
"Would it be a problem if it were?"
Draco stared for a moment, then shook his head no. "No. No problem. …Never?"
Harry bit his lip. "Girl bits are a bit alarming, and I haven't, well. The opportunities. I've always until this past year been mostly around Ron and his family--"
Draco smirked. "I'd think there'd have been an opportunity there, but if you say so, well."
"Yes, but I, well. Anyway, and recently, there's been, uh." He pointed at the wall.
"For whom I'm eternally grateful. I'd had no idea how to get you to realize I was trying to pull you, Potter. Because actually, thick isn't really the word. He slid his fingers into Harry's hair and pulled him forward again.
Harry opened his mouth and took Draco's cock into it as deeply as he could. If there was no compulsion, and Draco had been coming onto him on purpose… well. He might not have done this before, but now that he was started, he was nearly sure he planned to do it again. Preferably several hundred times. He choked slightly as Draco thrust forward, and wrapped his fingers around the base of Draco's cock to prevent it happening again, and shoved his other hand down the front of his trousers.
"Don't get yourself off too fast, P--Harry," Draco said. "I have plans for your cock."
Harry grinned, and kept sucking.
--
"So, you've been trying to make this happen for weeks?"
"Months, I think."
"I only remember the ice age one."
"Yes, well, that was last week; I'd hope your capacity to recall would stretch back that far. Also, you still have no sense of history."
"Shut it." Harry stretched his arms up over his head, then dropped them down on his pillow and turned his head.
"It was true, you know. About the ice ages and how they keep happening, along with every other observation I offered. Also, they were all just like us, in one way or another."
"Right. I suppose we should get under the blanket. Speaking of ice and ways in which we are similar to it."
"Not just ice--I mean, there were other things. Also, you don't plan to keep us warm?" Draco mimed an activity that would, at least, be exercise.
Harry snorted. "At some point, I think I might fall asleep if we keep up the, er, exercise frequency."
Draco shook his head. "This is what warming charms are for."
Harry sighed and stood up anyway, to pull the blanket up and get under it. "This is better," he said.
"Better how? No view!"
Harry laughed and waited for Draco to get off the bed, then lifted the covers for him, too. "Yes, but more touching."
"Could touch on top…"
"Yes, but it's not the same." Harry pulled Draco up against him, and demonstrated thorough touching. "See?"
Draco shook his head, but had to agree, it was nice.
"Besides. Warming charm goes out when you go to sleep. I'd like the comparison to glacier-type things to remain more, uh, metaphoric, if you don't mind."
Draco didn't answer, so Harry lifted his head and peered over his shoulder at his face.
"Right. And further discussion can wait until morning." Harry plumped his pillow and closed his eyes, then opened them again. He'd forgotten all about the MacDonough file.
Well, it could wait. He wasn't going to get up and fetch it now, and there was no requisition or report that was going to pull him away from this. As predestined behavior went, sex and a snooze beat saving the world hands down, and he planned to enjoy it enough to make up for the rest.