Chapter Forty of 'Starfall'- The Suffocation of Honor
Chapter Thirty-Nine.
Title: Starfall (40/50 or 52)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco, Harry/Ginny, past Draco/Astoria, Ron/Hermione
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, manipulation
Summary: When the truth about a seemingly minor Dark hex Harry has suffered leads to the dissolution of his marriage with Ginny, Harry spins into a downward spiral. His private consolation is creating a fantasy life for himself in his journal as Ethan Starfall, a normal wizard with a big family. When he receives a random owl Draco Malfoy has cast into the void as a plea for help with his son Scorpius, Harry replies-as Ethan. There’s no reason, he thinks, for an epistolary friendship with Draco to go further. But Draco might have different ideas about that.
Author’s Note: This is likely to be a long story, updated fairly regularly. It is, however, very angsty.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Forty-The Suffocation of Honor
“That was hard for me, just so you know,” said Draco, and his hand twitched on the back of Harry’s neck as though he was going to pinch it.
Harry grunted a little and rolled his eyes when Draco did pinch the back of his neck. He had stayed long enough to answer exactly fifteen minutes’ worth of questions, and then he’d told Hermione to take over the rest, in case she thought there were any to answer that were worth something. Hermione had nodded with her eyes shining like metal, and Harry had come back to the Manor with Draco, confident his interests were in good hands.
Harry turned towards Draco and took his wrists, wringing them gently. “Because of the audience’s hostility towards you?” he asked gently. “That was greater than I expected, too. I mean, most of the time I think they were too stunned to question it, but towards the end…” He shuddered. He didn’t care if it was for the sake of a story, there were just way too many people interested in his sex life, and that included Rita Skeeter.
“If I hadn’t thought I could bear that, I would never have agreed to the announcement,” said Draco, and gave him a fixed stare. “Can you really not imagine why it might have been difficult for me?”
Harry blinked at him some more, then said, “Oh. Ginny.”
“Ginny,” Draco agreed, though with a viciousness that made her name sound like a curse, and leaned forwards. “Are you going to let her get away with it?”
“Get away with what?” Harry rolled his eyes back at him. “I hate to break it to you, but our divorce and her pregnancy are pretty much out of my hands by now.”
“But she sat there and blamed you, and you let her.” Draco’s hands were dancing softly, restlessly, along the back of the couch as he stepped away from Harry and began to prowl the room. “You didn’t say anything about her wanting to sleep with someone else, the way she wanted to use you-”
“She couldn’t,” Harry corrected, pivoting around so he could keep an eye on Draco. “That’s the hilarious part.” Draco cast him a glance that said he wasn’t laughing, and Harry sighed. “She couldn’t use me to father her children or be her glamourous husband or whatever, because of what the curse did to me.”
“But she blamed you,” Draco said. “And you were sitting there and letting everyone think that the end of the marriage was your fault. And not hers.” He stared at Harry, and his eyes burned in a way that made Harry think of flaring fireballs falling from the sky onto a battlefield he’d seen during his early Auror training.
“It was both of ours,” Harry corrected him, a little irritated. “It’s no more correct to say that it was only hers than to say that it was only mine.”
Draco kept on staring. “Why?” he repeated, when the silence had gone on so long that he seemed to believe Harry had forgotten his original question.
“Because I want it to end,” Harry said, and he must have conveyed enough passion in that one word that it affected Draco, because Draco straightened up and started to listen. “This-endlessness. I made the announcement about my lack of fertility so that the endless speculation about why I wanted to spend time with children would end, and I didn’t blame Ginny for the divorce because I want to be free of the speculation about that, too. I want the gossip to end.”
“It won’t,” said Draco, and his eyes sparked. “You have to learn to ignore it. That’s what I had to do when it came to the gossip about my role in the war.”
“Maybe that’s true,” Harry said, and rolled a shoulder at Draco, who continued to look at him with disbelief. “But I can avoid starting new gossip, at least. And I can refuse to affect the life of Ginny’s child.”
“She doesn’t think the battle between you is done,” said Draco, after a moment in which he had stood looking thoughtfully at Harry and Harry had dared to hope he understood. “After all, she was the one who came to that meeting and stood up and made her announcement.”
“I can still decide what I do,” Harry said, and sighed a little when he saw the shadow that darkened Draco’s face. This mattered so much to Draco, Harry thought wistfully. He didn’t know why, but he was trying to grasp it. He didn’t know if Draco was trying as hard to understand his side. “I can’t control what she does. Honestly, I wouldn’t want to. I wouldn’t want that amount of control over anyone. But I can control what I do.”
“And what about me?” There was a flush high on Draco’s cheeks, and his hands opened and closed in front of him as though he was trying to resist the temptation to seize something and chuck it at Harry’s head. Harry almost wished he would. At least that would mean they were arguing on a plane where they both were equal.
Instead, Draco was ahead of him, or he was ahead of Draco. Harry thought he understood the ethics of the situation better, but Draco had a unique perspective, and Harry didn’t understand why he couldn’t grasp it himself.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Harry finally had to admit, and Draco crossed the distance between them in three easy strides and clasped his shoulders, shaking him as though he was a blade of grass. Harry raised his hands to touch Draco’s wrists, but otherwise, he didn’t try to stop him. He would just let Draco shake him and get it out of his system, he decided. That was the only way things could possibly make sense between them.
“Do you want to control me, too?” Draco was growling the words as he bent towards him, his breath fierce and warm in Harry’s eyes. Harry thought of the dragon he had faced in the Tri-Wizard Tournament. “Or are you going to prevent me from defending you if she comes after you?”
“If she comes after me, of course I wouldn’t,” Harry said, and touched Draco’s shoulder this time. “But she hasn’t done that yet.”
“What do you call what she did?” Draco’s voice descended to a volume that really did seem to make the furniture around Harry vibrate.
Harry took a deep breath, and reminded himself that he really didn’t understand everything that was going on here. “I don’t call it an attack,” he said. “An attack was the sort of thing she did when we were still married. Her words had a lot of power to hurt me then, and they still could.”
Draco paused and looked at him. “Even though you don’t love her anymore?”
This need for reassurance, at least, Harry thought he grasped. He reached up and took Draco’s hand in his, bringing it to his lips so he could soundly kiss the back. “I don’t love her the way I did,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel neutral about her, or indifferent, but it’s nothing compared to what I feel for you.”
Draco’s fingers closed around his for a second. Then he shook his head. “I understood the rationale that you used when you forbade me from going after Quillona, as little as I liked it. But I don’t understand at all why you’re forbidding me from doing the same bloody thing with Ex-Weasley.”
Harry smiled in spite of himself at Draco’s name for Ginny, but answered. “There’s a child in both cases. Quillona’s granddaughter could have suffered if you did something to her. And Ginny’s child could suffer now.”
“How would a child who isn’t even born yet know-” Draco began, and then paused. Harry stared back at him in silence. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately, he thought. He only hoped that Draco would explain himself eventually, so he could stop.
“You only value children,” Draco said. “Isn’t that true? Not me, and not yourself, and you probably wouldn’t care what I did to Quillona and Ginny if there wasn’t a child in the case.” His voice was soaring now, and he stepped forwards and poked Harry in the chest hard enough to hurt. “You probably care more for Scorpius than me.”
Harry, at least, was no slouch at seeing why that would hurt Draco, and he resolved to attack it as soon as he could. “No,” he said, reaching up and curling his hand around Draco’s, gently forcing it down and away from his breastbone. “I do care about you. I don’t know if I can call it-love yet, but it’s getting there.”
“But you care for Scorpius as well.” Draco’s breath rushed along, his eyes fixed on Harry’s face as though someone had promised him death if he moved them.
“Of course. Not in the same way, and not more.” Harry leaned forwards and looked into Draco’s eyes. “But you’re right that their children are the strongest argument against me doing something. I might like to. Hell, in the case of Quillona I don’t even have lingering tenderness and a relationship with her family holding me back. But I have to remember who else would suffer for my revenge.”
“You’ll let them do whatever they like,” Draco mumbled, glancing away. “You’ll let them get away with whatever they like. They can do anything and you’ll be unarmed and defenseless when it comes to attacks from them.”
“No,” Harry said. “I told you that there are times I might let you do what you like to Quillona.” It was one of the things he and Draco had discussed last night. “An actual, physical attack is one of those circumstances.”
Draco spun around and stared at him. “And an actual, physical attack isn’t what I was talking about.”
Harry bit his lip against the temptation to say something unfortunate, and slowly exhaled and murmured, instead, “All right. Tell me more about what you mean, and I’ll do my best to listen.”
*
Draco paused, but then decided that was the best he was going to get out of Harry right now. At least Harry wasn’t storming around the room screaming about the inviolate rights of children and anyone who had a child, the way Draco had thought he might.
Of course, if he had, then Draco could have pointed out that he had a son and was therefore entitled to do whatever he wanted in turn, but it would have hurt Draco to hear Harry putting himself down like that.
Draco sat on the couch, and after a moment, Harry sat beside him. Draco reached out and carefully brushed hair away from Harry’s neck, and Harry relaxed against him with a sigh. Draco wondered for a second how long it had been since he’d had someone to touch him with tenderness, and boiled with anger at Ex-Weasley all over again.
But he firmly pushed the thought away, because it wouldn’t make what he wanted to do now easier, and murmured instead, “Why should they get away with blackening your name? Spreading rumors that you’re a Dark wizard, or that you wanted to be unfaithful? There’s no reason for them to. You decided to act because you were tired of getting all those stupid letters and Howlers, and you thought telling the truth might calm some people down. Well, I’m tired of watching you get hurt as a result of those two careless people.”
“You didn’t even know Ginny was going to show up at that meeting,” Harry protested, although he didn’t lift his head from Draco’s shoulder. “You can’t say that she’s been going around hurting me for a long time. Or even a few weeks, the way Quillona has.” His voice was clearer and stronger at the end, and Draco thought he might pull back and say something unfortunate in a second.
Draco took his hand and kept him there, while he murmured, “Of course she’s been hurting you for weeks. Longer than that. Months. Years. Since the end of your marriage. Hasn’t it been?”
Harry paused for an instant. Only that, but it was too long for someone who was perfectly fine, and both he and Draco knew it. Harry pulled back then and lifted his head like a wounded gazelle while he said, with perfect seriousness, “It was both our decision to divorce.”
“I know that,” said Draco. He kept his voice to a lazy, soft one, because if he showed too much of his anger, Harry might get really upset and decide it was too dangerous to let Draco anywhere near Ex-Weasley. “But she wanted a child, and she wanted to sleep with someone else to have a child-didn’t she?-and she divorced you for something you couldn’t help. It’s not as though you went out and got hit with that hex to spite her.”
“She wanted a child so much that she couldn’t accept any solutions, and neither could I,” Harry whispered. “Things we came up with-we were both so young, and stupid, and hasty.”
Draco wasn’t interested in hearing things that might excuse Ex-Weasley, because as far as he was concerned, there was nothing that would. He whispered back, “Are you serious about not wanting revenge, or is it just that you think you shouldn’t?”
Harry looked away from him. Draco was right there, though, and more to the point, he had a hand on Harry’s shoulder, and he could feel the long shudder that radiated through him, the way that he winced a second later and then winced again, as if from the pressure of thoughts that Draco couldn’t trace.
“I knew it,” Draco said. “You’re ridiculously good and noble sometimes, but you’re not a saint.”
“I still don’t want them hurt,” said Harry. “Either of them.” He hadn’t looked up, but was tracing out a random pattern with one finger on the arm of the couch. “And I know that you could hurt them, badly. I don’t want that.” He turned to Draco.
“You want some kind of revenge, though,” said Draco, and smiled at him. “My family happens to know some interesting things about Quillona’s family. They wouldn’t hurt her permanently, before you frown at me like that. Only the same way that you were hurt, the scandal she wanted to stir up. How can you object to that? Justice is going to be too young to remember it, anyway.”
“She could still go after you,” Harry mumbled, but Draco knew when his resolve was weakening.
“She could,” Draco agreed. “But I have more money than she does, and my parents have better lawyers.” He delighted in the faint smile that twitched at the edges of Harry’s mouth, and pressed forwards with more confidence. “Well? What do you say?”
Harry traced his finger over that fascinating place on the couch arm again. “And you won’t hurt Ginny?”
Draco sighed. “Not unless she does something other than this,” he conceded. He would get some revenge, and that was enough to abate some of his anger, as was hearing Harry admit that he wanted some of the same things Draco did. “But if she goes to the press and makes some announcement about your infidelity or how badly you treated her or some such bollocks, then I consider her fair game.”
“For scandal,” said Harry. “Nothing else.” He looked up. “And honestly, Draco, I meant what I said about being tired of having my name dragged through the mud. It’s hard to think of a way to implicate her in scandal that wouldn’t also implicate me.”
Draco kissed the back of his hand in turn. “You have no idea where my talents in that direction lie,” he breathed. “I promise, I’ll give her something as nasty and eventually redeemable as the boils that you can get if you let your potion explode on you, the way Longbottom did that first day of class. Remember that?”
Harry’s face lightened when he laughed. It wasn’t Draco’s fault that he had to lean forwards and kiss him when he did that, honestly, Draco thought. It was the fault of Harry’s bright eyes and smiling lips.
Harry reached up a hand that moved slowly, as though uncertain of its welcome, and ran his fingers through Draco’s hair. Draco shivered and gasped, and Harry’s fingers dug in with more confidence, dragging Draco towards him, while his tongue dipped into Draco’s mouth in the same moment.
Draco went with it, his heart banging and heat running through him in a thrill that he more usually associated with cold. But if there was anyone who could make him feel upside-down and remarkable sensations, then it was Harry.
He moved, and Harry moved, and soon Harry was lying completely flat on the couch while Draco leaned over him, and they kissed and kissed hard enough to make Draco’s mouth numb. Well, as numb as he could be while everything about him was flamingly alive, he thought, and his fingers spread wide of their own accord, digging his nails into the tender flesh along Harry’s ribs.
Harry hissed, his eyes lighting up and his lips parting, and Draco grinned and scratched again. Harry flipped them over, so far that Draco thought they were going to fall off the couch for a second, and then kissed him again, demandingly. Draco spread his legs and let Harry settle down into a place he might not even know he wanted to go, with his lack of experience with men.
Not that Draco had all that much. But he knew what he wanted now, and that was Harry. Harry gasping, panting, squirming, writhing, doing anything that would make him feel good, and bring pleasure to Draco at the same time.
Harry made a quiet noise and bit Draco on the hand. Draco laughed and bucked up against him, and this time Harry finally got the idea and began rubbing and bucking up and down on top of him in turn. Harry gasped, the way Draco had wanted, and reached down and thrust his hips in short jabs against Draco’s.
The smack of their bones hurt, it almost hurt to hear, but Draco wasn’t about to give this up. He spread his legs even more, and that somewhat cradled Harry’s hips on skin instead of bone, and thrust back. The sheer sensation tumbling through his cock was almost enough to make him come.
But even better was the look in Harry’s eyes as he stared down at him. If he had refused revenge, if he had sometimes made Draco feel that he wanted him mostly for his son, it was all swept away and redeemed now. No one could look as good as Harry at this moment, the way he looked on the brink of orgasm.
There was no one Draco wanted more, and that thought made him spiral, arch up, and come with a final thrust and shudder, echoed by one from above him.
Harry reared up his body, tensed, shook, and then came with a soft cry that sounded stunned at its own existence. Draco arched up and kissed him fiercely, and Harry kissed him back just as hard, his fingers scrabbling for a moment as though he had forgotten where he’d put his hands.
But he remembered before Draco would have had to do something drastic to remind him, and he held the back of Draco’s head as though it was a precious thing, beaming at Draco with stupid soft eyes. Draco flung an arm around his back and rejoiced in the way they lay there, calm and confident, collapsed together and warm.
This was better than he had envisioned. But he hadn’t known what it would be like then. He had only wanted.
This is better, he thought, as his eyes closed.
*
Harry decided that he really liked this.
It was better than discussions of revenge and things he didn’t understand and Draco wanted him to understand any day, he thought. It wasn’t possible to misunderstand the warmth between them as they lay together, and the way his hand rested on Draco’s shoulder, and the loose way that Draco seemed to have wrapped all of his limbs around Harry.
And if he had worried about being attracted to a man, or having sex with a man, he decided in that moment that he didn’t need to worry anymore. He would do just fine. If it was with Draco, and it would be, there was no question.
He leaned over to kiss Draco, who opened his eyes and peered blurrily at Harry, as if he couldn’t understand why Harry was still awake. But then he groaned and gasped and returned to the kiss as though he was understanding why, and Harry smiled into it.
“Well, isn’t this an interesting sight.”
Harry would have jumped and shrieked and tried to preserve his virtue, but he already knew that he didn’t have much left. He only turned his head and conjured a blanket he could tuck around both of them. Draco had gone rigid beneath them, but he seemed to have accepted that he couldn’t go anywhere until Harry did, so he relaxed and turned to look.
Blaise Zabini stood in the doorway of the drawing room, his eyebrows poised as if they were going to grow wings and fly off his forehead. It had been years since Harry had seen him, but he had no trouble recognizing him. It was the wide grin, as if the sight of them together was inherently hilarious, that really gave it away, Harry thought. At least for someone who had listened as thoroughly to Draco’s tales of the man as Harry had.
“Blaise.” From the sound of his voice, Draco had recovered some dignity. “When did you get back? Where’s Scorpius?”
“Three minutes ago, and Scorpius is upstairs playing with the toys I bought him.” Harry snorted despite himself, and Zabini grinned at him. “Well, his dad is already playing with his toys. It’s fair.”
Draco pulled the blanket a little higher up around them. “You’re to go away and forget this.”
Harry expected Zabini to talk about how much he couldn’t wait to use the Memory Charm. It was what Ron would have done. But instead, Zabini simply gave them both a lingering smile, said, “I am going to trade on this for months,” and walked out the door.
Harry groaned and dropped his forehead down to rest on Draco’s shoulder. “He won’t blackmail you into doing things, would he?” he muttered.
“Of course not,” Draco said. “We’re better friends than that. He’s much more likely to blackmail you.”
Harry sighed.
But when he looked down into Draco’s shining smile, he had to admit even blackmail would be worth it.
Chapter Forty-One.
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