[one-shots]: Evening Star, Cloak and Dagger Series, H/D, R
Title: Evening Star
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, flashbacks to past character deaths and torture.
Wordcount: 5600
Summary: The evening star is the star of love and beauty. A moment of both in the lives of Harry and Draco, Socrates Aurors.
Author’s Notes: This is the ninth story in the Cloak and Dagger series, following Invisible Sparks, Hero's Funeral, Rites of the Dead, Sister Healer , Working With Them, This Enchanted Life, Letters From Exile, and Writ on Water. Reading this story without having read the previous others won’t make much sense. It takes place almost immediately after Writ on Water.
Evening Star
“You can’t tell me that you’re not tired.”
“Yes, I can. I’m not tired.” Harry tried to force his legs to bear his weight, tried to stand up and limp towards Draco, who stood with his arms folded and the most irritating expression on his face a few feet away near a small grove of trees.
But his legs nearly folded beneath him, and Harry caught himself on a tree, his head bowed as he gasped. Draco was beside him in a neat instant, scooping him up and leaning Harry against his chest, kissing his ear. At least he didn’t try to force him to sit down. Harry could rest his head on him and feel much more comfortable than he was trying to sit on the conjured chairs or logs or boulders that Draco thought were perfect for him to rest on.
“You’re still recovering,” Draco murmured into his ear, and steered Harry back towards the stone he’d stood up from.
“Weak,” Harry corrected, and then gasped as Draco spun him around and shook him, his eyes focused furiously on Harry’s from a distance of less than a centimeter away.
“Recovering,” he snapped. “And if I have to tell you again that it’s not merely what Nancy did to you, it’s also from the cases that have occupied our last few months, then I shan’t be pleased.”
Harry could have challenged him, and would have made a game out of it if he felt better, but honestly, he thought Draco was probably right. He was shivering, and he couldn’t get his breath back without gasping. The new scar across his throat, where Nancy’s spell had cut him and nearly resulted in his death, ached and itched. He needed Draco’s support to stand.
“All right,” he said. “Recovering. Not weak. And now, your recovering partner would like to have a lie-down.”
Draco smiled at him in a way that made Harry bristle, since he could just hear the words “Good boy,” echoing in Draco’s head. But Draco didn’t say them, and as he pushed Harry gently back towards their tent, Harry was tired enough to account that a victory.
Besides, he was still reveling in the contrast of this visit to the Forest of Dean with his last one. No matter how long he took to recover from his stupidly small wounds and the mental exhaustion that Draco insisted was the biggest part of it and the necessity for this holiday, at least he didn’t have to spend all his time with a cursed locket hiding from Death Eaters.
*
Harry was adapting surprisingly well to being in a tent and not doing anything stressful, Draco had to admit.
Of course, part of that was because Draco was with him every second, and making him. But, well, one couldn’t have everything, and part of what Draco couldn’t have yet was Harry’s acknowledgment that this was good for him.
Draco had chosen the Forest of Dean because it was sufficiently far away from the Ministry’s current investigations that no one could stumble on them by “accident” and pull them into another case. And he had made it clear to Okazes and the other administrators that he and Harry was not to receive any owls or Patronuses while on holiday, either.
Unlike Harry, he had some credit he hadn’t squandered in the Ministry: contacts higher up the ladder, people he hadn’t alienated, people who would still dance to the tune of his name and his blood for no better reason than that they were his name and blood. And the threat of invoking that credit had made Okazes agree that they could have the holiday, although Harry had taken one before the Morningstar case.
Draco hadn’t known about Harry’s memories concerning the forest, or he would have chosen some other place. But they were here now, and Draco had a tent that was full of luxurious wizardspace and as far as possible from the miserable den that Harry had described living in with Weasley and Granger. They were going to sleep in every morning, and have long walks, and eat the meals that Draco had purchased from a restaurant with house-elves before they left, and talk.
Oh, yes.
Draco was looking forward to the talking.
*
Harry flopped back into the bed and closed his eyes. He had to admit it was nice, although not as big as the four-posters that they’d had at Hogwarts. This was a large, wooden frame with headboard and footboard and heavy red blankets that fell around his body at night like a cocoon and kept him practically imprisoned.
And kept him almost from feeling Draco, although he curled up at Harry’s side every night in the same bed. So far, they had slept together without sleeping together. Harry could reach back and feel the fire-heat rising from Draco, and the curve of his shoulder, and the fall of his hair, and then retract his hand again. And Draco hadn’t pushed it.
From the look in Draco’s eyes when he turned around and crossed the plush carpet towards Harry with goblets of something foamy and shining in his hands, that might be about to change. Harry sat up warily and accepted his crystal glass, chased with gold. He sniffed the drink inside it, but found that it had nothing but a faint, cold, tinny scent, like snow.
“This is moonlight wine,” Draco said softly, and took a seat on the bed beside Harry. His face was intense as he leaned towards him. Harry started to scramble away, and then forced himself to stop and take a deep breath. He had known this was coming, after all. He wasn’t a fool. Draco studied him with a thin smile, and then toasted him with the goblet. “It has two amazing properties.” He swallowed a sip of his wine, and spent a moment with his eyes closed as though he was waiting for one of them to take effect.
And then it began. Harry stared as pale light began to glow through Draco’s skin, traveling down his hands and up his arms at the same time. It focused there, but Harry also caught a glimpse of the same shining coming from Draco’s shoulders and neck. Draco opened his eyes and gave Harry a lazy smile, and then reached up and began to unbutton his robes.
Harry froze. He could feel every nuance of Draco’s breathing and scent, and see the single gleaming strands of his hair, in a way that he hadn’t felt before. “What-what are you doing?” he breathed.
Draco blinked. “Surely your frustrated experience with Lionel isn’t the only one you’ve ever had,” he murmured, and let his robes fall open. Harry could see the light beaming through his skin much more easily. Beneath the robes, Draco wore only a thin white shirt. He reached up and began to undo the buttons on that, too, as Harry watched. The buttons were small and black, and might have been fashioned of obsidian. All Draco’s clothes were elegant that way. Harry focused on them and tried to think about them so that he could ignore his own nervous babbling.
“I meant-of course I know what you’re doing, but-I thought we were going to wait?”
Draco turned his head to the side and exhaled hard. Harry could see a thin band of pale radiance around his throat, and wondered for a moment if it was choking. He reached out with one hand before he thought better of it, and then froze and tried to pull back.
Draco turned his head and saw the hand, though, and his eyes locked on Harry in challenge as he reached once more for the edges of his shirt. Harry sat there, staring.
“What you see,” Draco whispered, shrugging and letting the shirt fall off, too, so that Harry could see the pale, bare chest he had only seen before when Draco was wounded, “is what you receive, with moonlight wine. It makes us shine to each other’s sight. And it functions the same as Veritaserum, except that the drinker doesn’t lose control. I can choose what to tell you. But every word I speak will be true.”
Harry recoiled, nearly spilling his own goblet. When he stared at the liquid swirling in the glass and thought how beautiful he’d believed it to be a moment before, he wished he had. “But that-that’s sick.”
“Why?” Draco looked at him with his face beginning to shine, as though the light beneath his skin was reaching tendrils out through the pores. Harry scrambled back from him, but Draco made no move to pursue, although he breathed out as though he was repressing a sigh. “I told you about it before you drank it. I drank it first, to show you that one could survive it, and that the effects were mild.” He shrugged again, and his shirt slithered down to the bed. Then he reached down and began to undo his belt, with fingers that moved gently and neatly and which Harry couldn’t keep his eyes off. “Everything I tell you right now is the truth. I wanted to show you that you could trust me completely.”
“I do,” Harry said roughly, and had to stop precisely because the roughness was catching in his throat. He cleared it. The noise was loud and pompous and didn’t make the impression he wanted, because Draco didn’t stop undressing. “I mean-Draco. Of course I do. I trust you.”
“Do you?” Draco gave him another thin smile and dipped his head so that he could work the belt through the loops. “I wonder.”
“I love you,” Harry said. “I already confessed that. But, Draco-if I drink that wine, you could ask me any question at all, and I’d have to tell the truth. If I chose to answer,” he added, because it was true that the wine didn’t seem to be anything like Veritaserum. Harry had seen plenty of criminals under Veritaserum, and they didn’t react like this.
“I know that,” Draco said, and smiled at him. The smile was warm and hungry and made Harry want to back away and eat something at the same time. “And it’s not that I don’t trust you, Harry. It’s that I want to know everything. And we’ve both been good at making opportunities to avoid talking. Well. Not now.” His belt slid free, and he stood up and began to pull and kick at his trousers. “Now. We are going to have sex, I hope. But we are also going to talk.”
Harry felt his mouth drying out, and reached for the goblet of moonlight wine before he thought about what he was doing. Then, of course, he stopped.
But Draco had seen the movement and was watching him with a jackal-like smile, dropping his pants at the same time. Harry found his eyes locked on Draco’s groin. He couldn’t look away, he couldn’t blink, and he couldn’t meet Draco’s gaze. It really was embarrassing.
“Well?” Draco asked. “Are you going to grant me the same level of trust that I granted you?”
Harry shivered. There was still the yearning to escape, the conviction that everything they shared would come crashing to the ground if they talked about it. He’d spoken about it to Lionel, the way that all his instincts had urged him to do, and that had been a mistake, quite possibly one that had got Lionel killed.
But Draco had survived harder cases than the one that had killed Lionel, and he was waiting.
Harry finally managed to look at Draco’s face, and reached for the goblet of moonlight wine, and drained it.
*
Draco thought himself remarkably patient. He’d waited while Harry froze, and while Harry debated with himself, and while Harry spluttered out questions and accusations. But his patience melted like the wine itself on the tongue the moment Harry finished the goblet.
Draco crossed the area of rug beneath them and kissed Harry, shoving his tongue deep, biting and then licking and then doing something that combined both of them because he couldn’t wait. Harry gulped beneath him and stretched his hands up, cupping Draco’s head, stroking his hair delicately.
They had done something almost like this once before, in the Mind-Healers’ office when Harry had recovered his memories of Draco. But right now, there was no reason not to go further, if they wanted to. The moonlight wine would last for hours, and Draco heard the crash as one of the goblets dropped to the floor and shattered, but that was what Reparo was for. Draco crawled on top of Harry and reached down to his shirt.
Harry had already started unbuttoning it, so their hands tangled together. Draco drew back and stared him in the eye, and Harry snorted in return and fumbled some more. The shirt dropped free, and Draco curved his nails and drew sharp lines down Harry’s skin. Harry blew out his breath and began struggling with his trousers.
In the end, Draco had to help him with those, and his boots and pants too, because Harry was having too much trouble with Draco lying on top of him and Draco refused to get off until they both did. Then he could pull back and look at Harry’s body, scars and patches of sallow skin and all.
Harry was panting muscle, twisting strength, fluid wash of colors where white and red old wounds broke the general tan. Draco kissed him and brought their cocks together, making Harry gasp and toss his head. So good, the warmth of his tongue, the shock of it touching; Draco shoved Harry’s tongue aside with his and pushed deeper into his mouth, looking forward to making him choke if he could.
Harry made a sound of pure, choked impatience, and rocked upwards. Draco rocked down, and they met somewhere in the middle, slick sliding and scraping as their hipbones bumped.
Harry, it seemed, wanted nothing more than a slow, languorous rocking, but Draco had waited long enough, and Harry had, too, only he didn’t know it. They were both shining with the wine by then, and Draco rubbed hard, freely, shuddering with the pleasure and with the fact that it was Harry and with the fact that no one was going to burst into the tent and stop them, the way that Healer Estillo had stopped them last time.
This was free. This was fun. Draco’s mind and body burned and buzzed, and the world danced around him before bearing down to one sharp point.
Then his mind yielded and bucked, and they fell over the edge with choked cries and nips and Harry’s legs spasming open and shut under his, and Draco shuddered and gave everything he had to the last few thrusts, the whispers to Harry about how he was good and ready and Draco wanted to touch him.
Harry gasped when they were done, his head bowed back on the pillow, his eyes shut. Then he sat up and gave Draco a long, slow look of such wonder that Draco flushed automatically as he met his gaze.
“I didn’t know you had that in you,” Harry said. “I never imagined-I mean, I imagined being with Lionel, but it was never as real as that.”
He flushed a moment later, but he was already flushed, and wet, and sticky, and Draco knew that he could have chosen to hold the truth back if he wanted. He smiled and arranged himself so that he was lying across Harry’s lap, but twisted so their heads were close. With his muscles as loose as they were after he’d come, he could have taken up a far more uncomfortable position and endured it. “I’m glad to know that,” Draco said simply. He wouldn’t be able to disguise his competitive streak, and saw no reason to try. “Was that the main reason you tried so hard to avoid bringing things to this point, because of Lionel?”
*
Harry closed his eyes and leaned his head back, wondering if that was one way to escape from the interrogation that he was afraid was about to follow.
But Draco was still there, between his legs and close to him, and Harry’s body said that he should stay there for the rest of his life. Or at least until they could have a rest and then do it again. There was a low, contented humming that seemed to pierce the back of Harry’s skull and travel all through his bones.
There was no withdrawing now.
Out of that simple truth, Harry managed to find the words. At least the moonlight wine would prevent him from speaking a lie, no matter how uncertain he sounded. “Yes. I told the truth to one partner before this, and it turned out horribly. It meant he distrusted me, and that might have contributed to him dying the way he did.”
“Contributed,” Draco said into his ear, and huffed so that Harry’s earlobe tingled, and he wondered when he would have learned that that part of his body was sensitive, without Draco. “So you no longer think that you were the one who killed him? That never made sense in the first place, since you killed the one who killed him, but I know that making sense to me and making sense to you are not the same thing.”
Harry made a helpless little motion with his arm. “Contributed, yes,” he said, unable to open his eyes. He was seeing the way Lionel had looked right before he died, and at the same time also feeling the warmth and pleasure Draco had given him. It was a weird contrast. “If he had waited for me, if he had shared all the information he had with me…but he felt he couldn’t, after he knew that I wanted him.”
“Then he was stupid.”
Harry reared back and opened his eyes, but Draco shook his head and held Harry down with a hand in the center of his chest. “Listen to what I’m saying to you, instead of just reacting in anger,” he snapped.
Harry lay back, but he kept his eyes on Draco, and silently said in his head that this had better be good. He hadn’t told Draco about his aborted relationship with Lionel so that Draco could criticize someone who was dead.
“We can’t be good partners when we don’t trust each other,” Draco said, twisting his head to the side so that his hair rested under Harry’s chin. “That goes for everything we’ve done, every case we’ve solved. When we didn’t tell each other the truth about what we experienced, as with Alto, then we almost died. And when you decided to enact plans on your own without telling me, as you did on the Larkin case, then the same thing happened.”
“But that doesn’t mean Lionel was stupid,” Harry whispered back, harshly.
“He was stupid for not requesting a different partner if he didn’t feel he could trust you,” Draco whispered back, and it was special and contained, just the two of them, and Harry knew that if he opened his eyes he would see Draco shining like the evening star. He kept his eyes shut instead. He wanted to maintain the darkness of that world, even if he couldn’t have the privacy of his own head. “He was stupid for keeping information from you or doubting you, whatever he was doing. Perhaps you were wrong to not ask for a different partner when you realized that you wanted him. But by remaining with you, he should have refused to let it bother him.”
Harry moved restlessly in Draco’s arms. He might have tried to roll away if they weren’t so entwined, and if he hadn’t known that wouldn’t end the conversation. “But-Draco, no one can control their emotions like that. Maybe that’s the ideal, but it’s not something most people can actually do.”
“Then they shouldn’t be Aurors,” Draco said simply, and his hands smoothed into Harry’s hair. “We distrusted each other, but we learned how to work together. And Lionel should have done that, too. He’d worked with you for a year, hadn’t he? That should have been enough time for him to learn that he could trust you, and that you’d never press your suit on someone who didn’t want you back.”
Harry took a deep breath and finally managed to say the thing that had been bothering him most. “But what happens if this is wrong, too?” he whispered, pushing his head into the space between Draco’s neck and his shoulder. “What if we only work well together because it’s been a few months, and the moment we become lovers, it all falls apart?”
There. Now the question was said, and Harry could even relax enough to see the light through the tight squeeze of his eyelids, instead of keeping them shut and staying in darkness. Whatever Draco said, he thought, it had to be better than the uncertainty that rasped up and down Harry’s spine with sharp, climbing claws.
*
Draco was impressed in spite of himself-not at the question, but that Harry had found the courage to speak it.
That meant he had to wait a few minutes before he answered, so that the truth, courtesy of the moonlight wine, wouldn’t come across as harsh or uncaring. He used that time to gather Harry closer, to stroke and rock and cradle him, and show that he didn’t intend to push him away. Harry unwound like a spring relaxing, and Draco touched languid muscles a few more times before he replied.
“We know that’s not the only reason,” he said. “I know that you can figure out things on your own, and I’ve done the same thing. But we work best together when we fight together, and we interview suspects together, and we can bounce questions and ideas off each other. That’s something that some Auror teams never achieve. We have a strong inclination to trust each other outside the bedroom. And most Auror teams don’t have to overcome the degree of distrust that we had for each other at the beginning, either, Harry.”
Harry relaxed even further, which must have meant there was one more source of tension in his muscles that Draco hadn’t realized was there. He sighed sleepily and burrowed in even further, sniffing into Draco’s skin. “That makes sense,” he whispered. “I just-don’t want this to change things.”
Draco laughed in spite of himself, and Harry stiffened and tried to pull away again. Draco let him go, but shook his head when they had pulled back enough that they were eye-to-eye instead of Harry having his face buried.
“Of course things are going to change,” he whispered, reaching up to pull at a lock of Harry’s black hair. The light through his skin didn’t change him that much, making him look less like a glowing specter and more like an incarnation of the hero he pretended he wasn’t, a shining figure. “I know what you taste like now, and how you feel when you come apart in my arms. What made you think it was possible to continue on exactly the same after that?”
Harry flushed, and then leaned in and kissed him again. Draco preferred that to an in-depth discussion at the moment, so he flung his head back on the pillow and murmured happily into Harry’s mouth, until Harry at last pulled away and shook his head in what looked like desperation, black hair tumbling into his eyes and mouth bright and wet in a way that made Draco want to chew it.
“If other people find out?” Harry said.
Draco smiled at him. “Then they find out. You know that Macgeorge and some of the other Socrates Aurors suspect something already. We’ll flaunt it this time. Perhaps that will stop rumors of other lovers,” he added. Though he had not heard them often, rumors of Harry being enamored with another Auror, especially his former partner Lauren Hale, arose from time to time.
“But there are regulations that could make Okazes and the rest of them think they have to separate us.” Harry’s eyes were wide and solemn.
“Ordinary Aurors, yes,” Draco said, and leaned his head alongside Harry’s cheek, humming. “Honestly, Harry, we have our own level of fame-”
“Notoriety,” Harry corrected, but he was smiling, and his fingers had stopped picking at the blanket covering Draco, which was an improvement.
Draco nodded at him and went on. “But we’re us, and we’re Socrates Aurors. There’s not many that they can get to handle those cases in the first place, and we’ve survived everything they’ve thrown at us so far, and Latham’s the only innocent who died on our watch.”
“And Leah,” Harry whispered.
“That was the blue-eyed twisted, and so far we don’t know how to fight him and his possession flaw,” Draco pointed out. “I refuse to feel guilty about that. We’ll survive.” He paused, and then rolled over and faced Harry. “But there’s something I want you to tell me, while we have the moonlight wine in our bodies and you’re inclined to talk about it.”
Harry met his eyes, and said nothing for a long moment before he nodded. Draco smiled back. He trusted that Harry was remembering that Draco had told him the moonlight wine didn’t compel confessions, just made them easier.
“Why do you risk your life so much?” Draco asked, and as he talked, the anger he’d held off for long enough to nearly freeze it rose near the surface again. “Why do you think that I can’t help you? I saw that with Nancy, and with Larkin, and with Alexander, even, though in a milder form. I think it didn’t happen as much with Alto only because I was already her victim in that case. Tell me why you have a death wish.”
Harry stared at him, his face pale, and swallowed. Draco stared back. The languorous mood he’d tried to stir had fled entirely, but he felt much better for talking about something that had been bothering him for so long.
*
Harry thought about denying that he had a death wish, but when he opened his mouth, what came out was a dry little sigh of air instead of the words he had envisioned.
Oh. Right. The moonlight wine doesn’t force you to tell the truth, but it makes a lie impossible.
Harry closed his eyes, and then opened them. And then he told the truth, because Draco deserved it.
“I always think that my life is worth less than other people’s,” he said. “I was almost a sacrifice once, in the Forbidden Forest. I really went in there intending to die. I didn’t know I’d live.”
Draco went still, but Harry didn’t know what he was thinking from the expression on his face. He simply put one hand on Harry’s shoulder in the next second and nodded, which Harry thought was encouragement to go on. Harry took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and did.
“And since then…well, I know I can do that. I don’t think it’s fair to ask of someone who doesn’t know how. All those people want to live more than I do. Sort of,” he added, because he could see Draco’s horror without looking at his expression. “I mean, it’s not that I go around wondering when I can finally die. But death doesn’t frighten me. I had the chance to stay with Dumbledore, who I saw when I was hanging between worlds after Voldemort used the Killing Curse on me. I could have. But that feeling is hard to explain to someone who wasn’t there, and I don’t know if that person would have the same experience with it, anyway, even if they had been in my position. And the only thing better than sparing a total stranger the chance of dying is sparing someone I love.”
Draco was silent. Then he said, “How many people did you tell about almost dying, and making the choice to come back?” His voice was strange.
“Ron, and Hermione,” Harry said. “And I sort of hinted about it to Neville. It’s-Draco, I think it’s right, what you said. The choice. I made the choice to die, and the choice to come back. And so it feels like a choice to die again. Not an impulse. I planned for me to face Nancy and not you, and that was a choice.”
“A bloody stupid one,” Draco said, his voice strained. “If you ever do something like that again, that’s it, Harry. The end of our partnership.”
He can’t lie right now. Harry opened his eyes and nodded hastily. “I promise,” he said. “I promise I won’t do anything like that again. But I can’t promise to stop holding onto my life so lightly, either, Draco. Aurors sort of have to hold onto it lightly, don’t they? Otherwise, we couldn’t go after criminals. We would be paralyzed with fear, the way that people who don’t have our training are.”
Draco was still again, for a few moments, except for his fingers sliding up and down Harry’s shoulder. Then he said, “What my training taught me was that I wanted to live, and I could do it in situations like those because I had better chances than anyone else. I want to see you start thinking that way, too.”
Harry frowned. It’s going to be hard, he thought, but he nodded. “As long as you know that I can’t do it all at once.”
Draco abruptly rolled Harry beneath him, and scowled down into his face. “You chose to come back,” he whispered harshly into his lips. “That has to mean something. It should mean that you can’t reverse the choice as easily.”
“Why not?” Harry struggled for a moment under Draco, and then took a deep breath and reminded himself that Draco wasn’t going to hurt him, and if he didn’t trust him, then he never should have drunk the moonlight wine in the first place. “I made it one time. Twice, if you count deciding to die and then deciding to return. I could make it a third time.”
“You idiot.” Draco placed his lips next to Harry’s ear and sighed into it. “Did it ever occur to you that they’re not the same choice?”
Harry blinked, and lay there. Then he blinked some more.
No, it hadn’t.
He held his life lightly. Not something of no importance, because he knew there were people who disagreed with him, but something that-it was just there, and it could be given, or given up, any time he wanted to. And ultimately, he was the one who got to make the choice, just as he’d already made the decision to save the world.
Apparently, Draco disagreed with him on that, as well.
And for the first time, Harry had to think about that, about how he would feel if Draco was the one who chose to leave him behind. Or Ron. Or Hermione. Or Lionel, during the times when he’d still been sure that Lionel was going to be the love of his life, which meant he would never fall in love again.
He arched up and kissed Draco desperately, pressing and rubbing against him. Draco allowed it, but those darkened eyes fixed on his never moved. Harry swallowed and tried to think of a way that would explain what he felt without alienating Draco.
“Thank you,” he said at last. “I hate the thought of someone else deciding to leave me. And I think that you probably hate the idea of me leaving you the same way.”
Draco gave a long, loud sigh, and relaxed, his chin nestling into the corner of Harry’s neck. “As you say, I can’t expect you to make the choice all at once,” he murmured into Harry’s ear. “But it’s going to make me angry if you don’t make a good-faith effort.”
Hesitantly, Harry lifted his hand and brought it down resting on Draco’s back. Draco pressed closer still, and shut his eyes.
“You can go to sleep,” he murmured. “The effects of the moonlight wine will wear off on their own.”
But it was a long time before Harry fell asleep, although Draco settled into deep, relaxed breathing almost immediately. Harry stared at the roof of their wizardspace tent instead, and stroked Draco’s radiant skin, and thought about it chilling, his eyes blanking, his limbs stilling, all because he had chosen to sacrifice his life in a way that Harry had never asked for.
It was too much. It was the only way, he thought, that Draco would have been able to get through to him.
He turned his head to the side, and pressed his lips against Draco’s ear, and stayed like that for the rest of the night, although he knew that Draco couldn’t hear the promises that he intended to whisper.
The End.
The Library of Hades.
This entry was originally posted at http://lomonaaeren.dreamwidth.org/463661.html. Comment wherever you like.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, flashbacks to past character deaths and torture.
Wordcount: 5600
Summary: The evening star is the star of love and beauty. A moment of both in the lives of Harry and Draco, Socrates Aurors.
Author’s Notes: This is the ninth story in the Cloak and Dagger series, following Invisible Sparks, Hero's Funeral, Rites of the Dead, Sister Healer , Working With Them, This Enchanted Life, Letters From Exile, and Writ on Water. Reading this story without having read the previous others won’t make much sense. It takes place almost immediately after Writ on Water.
Evening Star
“You can’t tell me that you’re not tired.”
“Yes, I can. I’m not tired.” Harry tried to force his legs to bear his weight, tried to stand up and limp towards Draco, who stood with his arms folded and the most irritating expression on his face a few feet away near a small grove of trees.
But his legs nearly folded beneath him, and Harry caught himself on a tree, his head bowed as he gasped. Draco was beside him in a neat instant, scooping him up and leaning Harry against his chest, kissing his ear. At least he didn’t try to force him to sit down. Harry could rest his head on him and feel much more comfortable than he was trying to sit on the conjured chairs or logs or boulders that Draco thought were perfect for him to rest on.
“You’re still recovering,” Draco murmured into his ear, and steered Harry back towards the stone he’d stood up from.
“Weak,” Harry corrected, and then gasped as Draco spun him around and shook him, his eyes focused furiously on Harry’s from a distance of less than a centimeter away.
“Recovering,” he snapped. “And if I have to tell you again that it’s not merely what Nancy did to you, it’s also from the cases that have occupied our last few months, then I shan’t be pleased.”
Harry could have challenged him, and would have made a game out of it if he felt better, but honestly, he thought Draco was probably right. He was shivering, and he couldn’t get his breath back without gasping. The new scar across his throat, where Nancy’s spell had cut him and nearly resulted in his death, ached and itched. He needed Draco’s support to stand.
“All right,” he said. “Recovering. Not weak. And now, your recovering partner would like to have a lie-down.”
Draco smiled at him in a way that made Harry bristle, since he could just hear the words “Good boy,” echoing in Draco’s head. But Draco didn’t say them, and as he pushed Harry gently back towards their tent, Harry was tired enough to account that a victory.
Besides, he was still reveling in the contrast of this visit to the Forest of Dean with his last one. No matter how long he took to recover from his stupidly small wounds and the mental exhaustion that Draco insisted was the biggest part of it and the necessity for this holiday, at least he didn’t have to spend all his time with a cursed locket hiding from Death Eaters.
*
Harry was adapting surprisingly well to being in a tent and not doing anything stressful, Draco had to admit.
Of course, part of that was because Draco was with him every second, and making him. But, well, one couldn’t have everything, and part of what Draco couldn’t have yet was Harry’s acknowledgment that this was good for him.
Draco had chosen the Forest of Dean because it was sufficiently far away from the Ministry’s current investigations that no one could stumble on them by “accident” and pull them into another case. And he had made it clear to Okazes and the other administrators that he and Harry was not to receive any owls or Patronuses while on holiday, either.
Unlike Harry, he had some credit he hadn’t squandered in the Ministry: contacts higher up the ladder, people he hadn’t alienated, people who would still dance to the tune of his name and his blood for no better reason than that they were his name and blood. And the threat of invoking that credit had made Okazes agree that they could have the holiday, although Harry had taken one before the Morningstar case.
Draco hadn’t known about Harry’s memories concerning the forest, or he would have chosen some other place. But they were here now, and Draco had a tent that was full of luxurious wizardspace and as far as possible from the miserable den that Harry had described living in with Weasley and Granger. They were going to sleep in every morning, and have long walks, and eat the meals that Draco had purchased from a restaurant with house-elves before they left, and talk.
Oh, yes.
Draco was looking forward to the talking.
*
Harry flopped back into the bed and closed his eyes. He had to admit it was nice, although not as big as the four-posters that they’d had at Hogwarts. This was a large, wooden frame with headboard and footboard and heavy red blankets that fell around his body at night like a cocoon and kept him practically imprisoned.
And kept him almost from feeling Draco, although he curled up at Harry’s side every night in the same bed. So far, they had slept together without sleeping together. Harry could reach back and feel the fire-heat rising from Draco, and the curve of his shoulder, and the fall of his hair, and then retract his hand again. And Draco hadn’t pushed it.
From the look in Draco’s eyes when he turned around and crossed the plush carpet towards Harry with goblets of something foamy and shining in his hands, that might be about to change. Harry sat up warily and accepted his crystal glass, chased with gold. He sniffed the drink inside it, but found that it had nothing but a faint, cold, tinny scent, like snow.
“This is moonlight wine,” Draco said softly, and took a seat on the bed beside Harry. His face was intense as he leaned towards him. Harry started to scramble away, and then forced himself to stop and take a deep breath. He had known this was coming, after all. He wasn’t a fool. Draco studied him with a thin smile, and then toasted him with the goblet. “It has two amazing properties.” He swallowed a sip of his wine, and spent a moment with his eyes closed as though he was waiting for one of them to take effect.
And then it began. Harry stared as pale light began to glow through Draco’s skin, traveling down his hands and up his arms at the same time. It focused there, but Harry also caught a glimpse of the same shining coming from Draco’s shoulders and neck. Draco opened his eyes and gave Harry a lazy smile, and then reached up and began to unbutton his robes.
Harry froze. He could feel every nuance of Draco’s breathing and scent, and see the single gleaming strands of his hair, in a way that he hadn’t felt before. “What-what are you doing?” he breathed.
Draco blinked. “Surely your frustrated experience with Lionel isn’t the only one you’ve ever had,” he murmured, and let his robes fall open. Harry could see the light beaming through his skin much more easily. Beneath the robes, Draco wore only a thin white shirt. He reached up and began to undo the buttons on that, too, as Harry watched. The buttons were small and black, and might have been fashioned of obsidian. All Draco’s clothes were elegant that way. Harry focused on them and tried to think about them so that he could ignore his own nervous babbling.
“I meant-of course I know what you’re doing, but-I thought we were going to wait?”
Draco turned his head to the side and exhaled hard. Harry could see a thin band of pale radiance around his throat, and wondered for a moment if it was choking. He reached out with one hand before he thought better of it, and then froze and tried to pull back.
Draco turned his head and saw the hand, though, and his eyes locked on Harry in challenge as he reached once more for the edges of his shirt. Harry sat there, staring.
“What you see,” Draco whispered, shrugging and letting the shirt fall off, too, so that Harry could see the pale, bare chest he had only seen before when Draco was wounded, “is what you receive, with moonlight wine. It makes us shine to each other’s sight. And it functions the same as Veritaserum, except that the drinker doesn’t lose control. I can choose what to tell you. But every word I speak will be true.”
Harry recoiled, nearly spilling his own goblet. When he stared at the liquid swirling in the glass and thought how beautiful he’d believed it to be a moment before, he wished he had. “But that-that’s sick.”
“Why?” Draco looked at him with his face beginning to shine, as though the light beneath his skin was reaching tendrils out through the pores. Harry scrambled back from him, but Draco made no move to pursue, although he breathed out as though he was repressing a sigh. “I told you about it before you drank it. I drank it first, to show you that one could survive it, and that the effects were mild.” He shrugged again, and his shirt slithered down to the bed. Then he reached down and began to undo his belt, with fingers that moved gently and neatly and which Harry couldn’t keep his eyes off. “Everything I tell you right now is the truth. I wanted to show you that you could trust me completely.”
“I do,” Harry said roughly, and had to stop precisely because the roughness was catching in his throat. He cleared it. The noise was loud and pompous and didn’t make the impression he wanted, because Draco didn’t stop undressing. “I mean-Draco. Of course I do. I trust you.”
“Do you?” Draco gave him another thin smile and dipped his head so that he could work the belt through the loops. “I wonder.”
“I love you,” Harry said. “I already confessed that. But, Draco-if I drink that wine, you could ask me any question at all, and I’d have to tell the truth. If I chose to answer,” he added, because it was true that the wine didn’t seem to be anything like Veritaserum. Harry had seen plenty of criminals under Veritaserum, and they didn’t react like this.
“I know that,” Draco said, and smiled at him. The smile was warm and hungry and made Harry want to back away and eat something at the same time. “And it’s not that I don’t trust you, Harry. It’s that I want to know everything. And we’ve both been good at making opportunities to avoid talking. Well. Not now.” His belt slid free, and he stood up and began to pull and kick at his trousers. “Now. We are going to have sex, I hope. But we are also going to talk.”
Harry felt his mouth drying out, and reached for the goblet of moonlight wine before he thought about what he was doing. Then, of course, he stopped.
But Draco had seen the movement and was watching him with a jackal-like smile, dropping his pants at the same time. Harry found his eyes locked on Draco’s groin. He couldn’t look away, he couldn’t blink, and he couldn’t meet Draco’s gaze. It really was embarrassing.
“Well?” Draco asked. “Are you going to grant me the same level of trust that I granted you?”
Harry shivered. There was still the yearning to escape, the conviction that everything they shared would come crashing to the ground if they talked about it. He’d spoken about it to Lionel, the way that all his instincts had urged him to do, and that had been a mistake, quite possibly one that had got Lionel killed.
But Draco had survived harder cases than the one that had killed Lionel, and he was waiting.
Harry finally managed to look at Draco’s face, and reached for the goblet of moonlight wine, and drained it.
*
Draco thought himself remarkably patient. He’d waited while Harry froze, and while Harry debated with himself, and while Harry spluttered out questions and accusations. But his patience melted like the wine itself on the tongue the moment Harry finished the goblet.
Draco crossed the area of rug beneath them and kissed Harry, shoving his tongue deep, biting and then licking and then doing something that combined both of them because he couldn’t wait. Harry gulped beneath him and stretched his hands up, cupping Draco’s head, stroking his hair delicately.
They had done something almost like this once before, in the Mind-Healers’ office when Harry had recovered his memories of Draco. But right now, there was no reason not to go further, if they wanted to. The moonlight wine would last for hours, and Draco heard the crash as one of the goblets dropped to the floor and shattered, but that was what Reparo was for. Draco crawled on top of Harry and reached down to his shirt.
Harry had already started unbuttoning it, so their hands tangled together. Draco drew back and stared him in the eye, and Harry snorted in return and fumbled some more. The shirt dropped free, and Draco curved his nails and drew sharp lines down Harry’s skin. Harry blew out his breath and began struggling with his trousers.
In the end, Draco had to help him with those, and his boots and pants too, because Harry was having too much trouble with Draco lying on top of him and Draco refused to get off until they both did. Then he could pull back and look at Harry’s body, scars and patches of sallow skin and all.
Harry was panting muscle, twisting strength, fluid wash of colors where white and red old wounds broke the general tan. Draco kissed him and brought their cocks together, making Harry gasp and toss his head. So good, the warmth of his tongue, the shock of it touching; Draco shoved Harry’s tongue aside with his and pushed deeper into his mouth, looking forward to making him choke if he could.
Harry made a sound of pure, choked impatience, and rocked upwards. Draco rocked down, and they met somewhere in the middle, slick sliding and scraping as their hipbones bumped.
Harry, it seemed, wanted nothing more than a slow, languorous rocking, but Draco had waited long enough, and Harry had, too, only he didn’t know it. They were both shining with the wine by then, and Draco rubbed hard, freely, shuddering with the pleasure and with the fact that it was Harry and with the fact that no one was going to burst into the tent and stop them, the way that Healer Estillo had stopped them last time.
This was free. This was fun. Draco’s mind and body burned and buzzed, and the world danced around him before bearing down to one sharp point.
Then his mind yielded and bucked, and they fell over the edge with choked cries and nips and Harry’s legs spasming open and shut under his, and Draco shuddered and gave everything he had to the last few thrusts, the whispers to Harry about how he was good and ready and Draco wanted to touch him.
Harry gasped when they were done, his head bowed back on the pillow, his eyes shut. Then he sat up and gave Draco a long, slow look of such wonder that Draco flushed automatically as he met his gaze.
“I didn’t know you had that in you,” Harry said. “I never imagined-I mean, I imagined being with Lionel, but it was never as real as that.”
He flushed a moment later, but he was already flushed, and wet, and sticky, and Draco knew that he could have chosen to hold the truth back if he wanted. He smiled and arranged himself so that he was lying across Harry’s lap, but twisted so their heads were close. With his muscles as loose as they were after he’d come, he could have taken up a far more uncomfortable position and endured it. “I’m glad to know that,” Draco said simply. He wouldn’t be able to disguise his competitive streak, and saw no reason to try. “Was that the main reason you tried so hard to avoid bringing things to this point, because of Lionel?”
*
Harry closed his eyes and leaned his head back, wondering if that was one way to escape from the interrogation that he was afraid was about to follow.
But Draco was still there, between his legs and close to him, and Harry’s body said that he should stay there for the rest of his life. Or at least until they could have a rest and then do it again. There was a low, contented humming that seemed to pierce the back of Harry’s skull and travel all through his bones.
There was no withdrawing now.
Out of that simple truth, Harry managed to find the words. At least the moonlight wine would prevent him from speaking a lie, no matter how uncertain he sounded. “Yes. I told the truth to one partner before this, and it turned out horribly. It meant he distrusted me, and that might have contributed to him dying the way he did.”
“Contributed,” Draco said into his ear, and huffed so that Harry’s earlobe tingled, and he wondered when he would have learned that that part of his body was sensitive, without Draco. “So you no longer think that you were the one who killed him? That never made sense in the first place, since you killed the one who killed him, but I know that making sense to me and making sense to you are not the same thing.”
Harry made a helpless little motion with his arm. “Contributed, yes,” he said, unable to open his eyes. He was seeing the way Lionel had looked right before he died, and at the same time also feeling the warmth and pleasure Draco had given him. It was a weird contrast. “If he had waited for me, if he had shared all the information he had with me…but he felt he couldn’t, after he knew that I wanted him.”
“Then he was stupid.”
Harry reared back and opened his eyes, but Draco shook his head and held Harry down with a hand in the center of his chest. “Listen to what I’m saying to you, instead of just reacting in anger,” he snapped.
Harry lay back, but he kept his eyes on Draco, and silently said in his head that this had better be good. He hadn’t told Draco about his aborted relationship with Lionel so that Draco could criticize someone who was dead.
“We can’t be good partners when we don’t trust each other,” Draco said, twisting his head to the side so that his hair rested under Harry’s chin. “That goes for everything we’ve done, every case we’ve solved. When we didn’t tell each other the truth about what we experienced, as with Alto, then we almost died. And when you decided to enact plans on your own without telling me, as you did on the Larkin case, then the same thing happened.”
“But that doesn’t mean Lionel was stupid,” Harry whispered back, harshly.
“He was stupid for not requesting a different partner if he didn’t feel he could trust you,” Draco whispered back, and it was special and contained, just the two of them, and Harry knew that if he opened his eyes he would see Draco shining like the evening star. He kept his eyes shut instead. He wanted to maintain the darkness of that world, even if he couldn’t have the privacy of his own head. “He was stupid for keeping information from you or doubting you, whatever he was doing. Perhaps you were wrong to not ask for a different partner when you realized that you wanted him. But by remaining with you, he should have refused to let it bother him.”
Harry moved restlessly in Draco’s arms. He might have tried to roll away if they weren’t so entwined, and if he hadn’t known that wouldn’t end the conversation. “But-Draco, no one can control their emotions like that. Maybe that’s the ideal, but it’s not something most people can actually do.”
“Then they shouldn’t be Aurors,” Draco said simply, and his hands smoothed into Harry’s hair. “We distrusted each other, but we learned how to work together. And Lionel should have done that, too. He’d worked with you for a year, hadn’t he? That should have been enough time for him to learn that he could trust you, and that you’d never press your suit on someone who didn’t want you back.”
Harry took a deep breath and finally managed to say the thing that had been bothering him most. “But what happens if this is wrong, too?” he whispered, pushing his head into the space between Draco’s neck and his shoulder. “What if we only work well together because it’s been a few months, and the moment we become lovers, it all falls apart?”
There. Now the question was said, and Harry could even relax enough to see the light through the tight squeeze of his eyelids, instead of keeping them shut and staying in darkness. Whatever Draco said, he thought, it had to be better than the uncertainty that rasped up and down Harry’s spine with sharp, climbing claws.
*
Draco was impressed in spite of himself-not at the question, but that Harry had found the courage to speak it.
That meant he had to wait a few minutes before he answered, so that the truth, courtesy of the moonlight wine, wouldn’t come across as harsh or uncaring. He used that time to gather Harry closer, to stroke and rock and cradle him, and show that he didn’t intend to push him away. Harry unwound like a spring relaxing, and Draco touched languid muscles a few more times before he replied.
“We know that’s not the only reason,” he said. “I know that you can figure out things on your own, and I’ve done the same thing. But we work best together when we fight together, and we interview suspects together, and we can bounce questions and ideas off each other. That’s something that some Auror teams never achieve. We have a strong inclination to trust each other outside the bedroom. And most Auror teams don’t have to overcome the degree of distrust that we had for each other at the beginning, either, Harry.”
Harry relaxed even further, which must have meant there was one more source of tension in his muscles that Draco hadn’t realized was there. He sighed sleepily and burrowed in even further, sniffing into Draco’s skin. “That makes sense,” he whispered. “I just-don’t want this to change things.”
Draco laughed in spite of himself, and Harry stiffened and tried to pull away again. Draco let him go, but shook his head when they had pulled back enough that they were eye-to-eye instead of Harry having his face buried.
“Of course things are going to change,” he whispered, reaching up to pull at a lock of Harry’s black hair. The light through his skin didn’t change him that much, making him look less like a glowing specter and more like an incarnation of the hero he pretended he wasn’t, a shining figure. “I know what you taste like now, and how you feel when you come apart in my arms. What made you think it was possible to continue on exactly the same after that?”
Harry flushed, and then leaned in and kissed him again. Draco preferred that to an in-depth discussion at the moment, so he flung his head back on the pillow and murmured happily into Harry’s mouth, until Harry at last pulled away and shook his head in what looked like desperation, black hair tumbling into his eyes and mouth bright and wet in a way that made Draco want to chew it.
“If other people find out?” Harry said.
Draco smiled at him. “Then they find out. You know that Macgeorge and some of the other Socrates Aurors suspect something already. We’ll flaunt it this time. Perhaps that will stop rumors of other lovers,” he added. Though he had not heard them often, rumors of Harry being enamored with another Auror, especially his former partner Lauren Hale, arose from time to time.
“But there are regulations that could make Okazes and the rest of them think they have to separate us.” Harry’s eyes were wide and solemn.
“Ordinary Aurors, yes,” Draco said, and leaned his head alongside Harry’s cheek, humming. “Honestly, Harry, we have our own level of fame-”
“Notoriety,” Harry corrected, but he was smiling, and his fingers had stopped picking at the blanket covering Draco, which was an improvement.
Draco nodded at him and went on. “But we’re us, and we’re Socrates Aurors. There’s not many that they can get to handle those cases in the first place, and we’ve survived everything they’ve thrown at us so far, and Latham’s the only innocent who died on our watch.”
“And Leah,” Harry whispered.
“That was the blue-eyed twisted, and so far we don’t know how to fight him and his possession flaw,” Draco pointed out. “I refuse to feel guilty about that. We’ll survive.” He paused, and then rolled over and faced Harry. “But there’s something I want you to tell me, while we have the moonlight wine in our bodies and you’re inclined to talk about it.”
Harry met his eyes, and said nothing for a long moment before he nodded. Draco smiled back. He trusted that Harry was remembering that Draco had told him the moonlight wine didn’t compel confessions, just made them easier.
“Why do you risk your life so much?” Draco asked, and as he talked, the anger he’d held off for long enough to nearly freeze it rose near the surface again. “Why do you think that I can’t help you? I saw that with Nancy, and with Larkin, and with Alexander, even, though in a milder form. I think it didn’t happen as much with Alto only because I was already her victim in that case. Tell me why you have a death wish.”
Harry stared at him, his face pale, and swallowed. Draco stared back. The languorous mood he’d tried to stir had fled entirely, but he felt much better for talking about something that had been bothering him for so long.
*
Harry thought about denying that he had a death wish, but when he opened his mouth, what came out was a dry little sigh of air instead of the words he had envisioned.
Oh. Right. The moonlight wine doesn’t force you to tell the truth, but it makes a lie impossible.
Harry closed his eyes, and then opened them. And then he told the truth, because Draco deserved it.
“I always think that my life is worth less than other people’s,” he said. “I was almost a sacrifice once, in the Forbidden Forest. I really went in there intending to die. I didn’t know I’d live.”
Draco went still, but Harry didn’t know what he was thinking from the expression on his face. He simply put one hand on Harry’s shoulder in the next second and nodded, which Harry thought was encouragement to go on. Harry took a deep breath, shut his eyes, and did.
“And since then…well, I know I can do that. I don’t think it’s fair to ask of someone who doesn’t know how. All those people want to live more than I do. Sort of,” he added, because he could see Draco’s horror without looking at his expression. “I mean, it’s not that I go around wondering when I can finally die. But death doesn’t frighten me. I had the chance to stay with Dumbledore, who I saw when I was hanging between worlds after Voldemort used the Killing Curse on me. I could have. But that feeling is hard to explain to someone who wasn’t there, and I don’t know if that person would have the same experience with it, anyway, even if they had been in my position. And the only thing better than sparing a total stranger the chance of dying is sparing someone I love.”
Draco was silent. Then he said, “How many people did you tell about almost dying, and making the choice to come back?” His voice was strange.
“Ron, and Hermione,” Harry said. “And I sort of hinted about it to Neville. It’s-Draco, I think it’s right, what you said. The choice. I made the choice to die, and the choice to come back. And so it feels like a choice to die again. Not an impulse. I planned for me to face Nancy and not you, and that was a choice.”
“A bloody stupid one,” Draco said, his voice strained. “If you ever do something like that again, that’s it, Harry. The end of our partnership.”
He can’t lie right now. Harry opened his eyes and nodded hastily. “I promise,” he said. “I promise I won’t do anything like that again. But I can’t promise to stop holding onto my life so lightly, either, Draco. Aurors sort of have to hold onto it lightly, don’t they? Otherwise, we couldn’t go after criminals. We would be paralyzed with fear, the way that people who don’t have our training are.”
Draco was still again, for a few moments, except for his fingers sliding up and down Harry’s shoulder. Then he said, “What my training taught me was that I wanted to live, and I could do it in situations like those because I had better chances than anyone else. I want to see you start thinking that way, too.”
Harry frowned. It’s going to be hard, he thought, but he nodded. “As long as you know that I can’t do it all at once.”
Draco abruptly rolled Harry beneath him, and scowled down into his face. “You chose to come back,” he whispered harshly into his lips. “That has to mean something. It should mean that you can’t reverse the choice as easily.”
“Why not?” Harry struggled for a moment under Draco, and then took a deep breath and reminded himself that Draco wasn’t going to hurt him, and if he didn’t trust him, then he never should have drunk the moonlight wine in the first place. “I made it one time. Twice, if you count deciding to die and then deciding to return. I could make it a third time.”
“You idiot.” Draco placed his lips next to Harry’s ear and sighed into it. “Did it ever occur to you that they’re not the same choice?”
Harry blinked, and lay there. Then he blinked some more.
No, it hadn’t.
He held his life lightly. Not something of no importance, because he knew there were people who disagreed with him, but something that-it was just there, and it could be given, or given up, any time he wanted to. And ultimately, he was the one who got to make the choice, just as he’d already made the decision to save the world.
Apparently, Draco disagreed with him on that, as well.
And for the first time, Harry had to think about that, about how he would feel if Draco was the one who chose to leave him behind. Or Ron. Or Hermione. Or Lionel, during the times when he’d still been sure that Lionel was going to be the love of his life, which meant he would never fall in love again.
He arched up and kissed Draco desperately, pressing and rubbing against him. Draco allowed it, but those darkened eyes fixed on his never moved. Harry swallowed and tried to think of a way that would explain what he felt without alienating Draco.
“Thank you,” he said at last. “I hate the thought of someone else deciding to leave me. And I think that you probably hate the idea of me leaving you the same way.”
Draco gave a long, loud sigh, and relaxed, his chin nestling into the corner of Harry’s neck. “As you say, I can’t expect you to make the choice all at once,” he murmured into Harry’s ear. “But it’s going to make me angry if you don’t make a good-faith effort.”
Hesitantly, Harry lifted his hand and brought it down resting on Draco’s back. Draco pressed closer still, and shut his eyes.
“You can go to sleep,” he murmured. “The effects of the moonlight wine will wear off on their own.”
But it was a long time before Harry fell asleep, although Draco settled into deep, relaxed breathing almost immediately. Harry stared at the roof of their wizardspace tent instead, and stroked Draco’s radiant skin, and thought about it chilling, his eyes blanking, his limbs stilling, all because he had chosen to sacrifice his life in a way that Harry had never asked for.
It was too much. It was the only way, he thought, that Draco would have been able to get through to him.
He turned his head to the side, and pressed his lips against Draco’s ear, and stayed like that for the rest of the night, although he knew that Draco couldn’t hear the promises that he intended to whisper.
The End.
The Library of Hades.
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