I was like, "Bet I can write a story in under 5k words."
...and my word count was like, "Dream on, douche."
Title: Of the Heart's Fullness and Of the Coming Emptiness
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: H/D
Rating: Adult
Warnings: EWE, brief infidelity?
Word Count: 9000 :(
Summary: Harry Potter is nineteen, and he's already peaked.
Notes: Title from W.B. Yeats' "Meditations in Time of Civil War."
Harry almost regrets his decision to come back to Hogwarts. It's laughable, really, for nineteen- and twenty-year-olds to be going to school with eleven-year-olds, but the reconstruction of Hogwarts took a full year, even with massive volunteer efforts. So they've all grown up.
A good portion of Harry's class has decided not to return. Many are in the same position as him, having taken a two-year break from school altogether, while others have been gone for one year after a year of what could hardly be called education - in fact, they aren't calling it that, which is why the entire school has been afforded a do-over.
The Great Hall looks ludicrous. It has been rebuilt in the most accurate manner achievable, true to the old Hogwarts charm. There's something singularly pathetic about fabricated charm, but people need this, to feel like the victory was absolute, like Voldemort destroyed, in effect, nothing.
One sweep around the room reveals that for the falsehood it is. Snape, recipient of much posthumous praise, leaves a yawning gap in the united front of the professors. They have not bothered to replace him; Slughorn will teach Potions and the others will each pitch in for Defense lessons. Several students are gone; and Dumbledore, of course; McGonagall sits in the central chair, Headmistress now. High turnover rate these days.
It's not just Snape who's perished, but his entire House. Few of its students have returned, and even less of the doubly-large first year class is apparently suitable there. The Sorting Hat is unflinchingly careless of the politic and puts an unusable number of children in Slytherin. After a hushed talk at the high table, those children are taken aside and quietly redistributed, as are their older peers, who go about it less quietly and more indignantly. They total a dozen altogether. Harry watches with a twisting almost-sympathy as Draco Malfoy is shuffled into Ravenclaw House with a discreet word in his ear from Flitwick.
No one knows why Malfoy is present at the reopening. He of all Slytherins has nothing left here for him. He is obviously unwelcome, glares from all sides make that perfectly evident. Few of the students with even ambivalent loyalty are here, and in Snape's absence, he is the only person in the castle to bear the Dark Mark. Yet here he is, pointy chin held high, disdain evident in his every movement.
Harry is here precisely because he doesn't need to be. The Auror department didn't mince words; he knows the NEWT requirements would be waived for him if he so chose.
The Aurors aren't the only ones treating him differently. Harry's well used to being famous by now, but things have shifted since the battle of Hogwarts. He's a bit of a living legend, and it's completely unnerving. His presence commands a respect he's not sure he deserves. Gone is the gossip and giggling; now people simply gawk and move out of his way in the corridors. He's hardly ever asked for an autograph, but it's fairly common for people to come up to him, eyes wide and earnest, and say, "I just wanted to thank you for everything you've done." Sometimes they walk away without waiting for a reply.
Harry has never wanted to be better than everyone else. He doesn't particularly think he is, anyway, but everyone else seems to. The result is not dissimilar to the months he's spent in the past with everyone angry with him or wary of what he'll do next; they might now stay away because they think themselves unworthy, but he's still lonely.
Well, he's still got his old friends. Ron and Hermione are there for him like they've always been, and Neville and Luna.
And then there's Ginny, of course. Things are great between them.
Ginny loves him. Loves him. It's insane and fantastic and empowering and humbling all at once. He's never had someone love him before, not like this, not worshipfully. They lose their virginity together and it's amazing. Harry holds her in his arms and feels bowled over that someone should want him so much.
Comfort fits strangely and itches at times, but he thinks that's because he isn't used to it. She's a lovely girl and he likes her a lot. She's witty and independent and daring and carelessly beautiful, and she cares deeply about him.
The school year gets off to much the same start as always, but Harry can't deny that he's outgrown it a little. The desks feel physically too small; he has less patience than ever for sitting down to write a homework essay. Which isn't to say that he needs to: he makes the mistake of vocalizing a complaint early on and is informed that plenty of people in the school would be willing to do his work for him. He's done so much for them, after all. When he politely declines, they take on a knowing look - of course he's got too much integrity for that.
Muggle Studies is compulsory now, a kind of sensitivity training for a culture that came very close to genocidal. The tone of the class is perplexing; it's weird to pick apart a foreign culture with the detached compare-and-contrast nature that the professor is using when it's the culture Harry grew up in.
The class, of course, is terribly easy for anyone Muggleborn. It's taught with the slightest air of condescension: much focus is placed on how Muggles "make do without magic" and the professor never fails to get an appreciative laugh when explaining Muggle myths and stories about magical phenomena.
Hermione, in her academic way, thinks it's interesting. Harry thinks it's a little offensive.
Most offensive is the empty seat in the front row: Malfoy doesn't attend the class, though he's required like everyone else. He hasn't shown up once. It takes two weeks for the professor to stop calling his name when he takes attendance.
*
The thing about Malfoy is that he probably deserves it. He's such a bully. He's always been rich and entitled and mean, and was universally despised outside of his insular little crowd of like-minded Slytherins. They're all gone now, and everyone else is prepared to make certain Malfoy gets what's coming to him.
Harry feels a little uneasy watching it happen, but he doesn't do anything. Malfoy gets into a fight at least once a week, and it's never one-on-one. The worst is that the professors display a real hesitance to do anything. There are stories a couple of weeks into the year of how he gets jumped all the time in the dormitory, but Flitwick looks the other way. Malfoy's got too much pride to complain. Harry thinks with grim satisfaction that maybe he knows he deserves it.
It's not like Malfoy makes an effort to put himself in anyone's good graces. He wears his green and gray tie to class every day. He's snide and annoying as always. Even while everyone tries to act like he isn't good enough for them, he plays the same game, acting as if no one is good enough for him. And he's much more practiced at being snobbish than anyone else. Sometimes it almost seems as though his pariah status is self-imposed - until the next time he gets a swastika hexed onto his forehead in boils.
Harry tries to rationalize it, but the thing that smarts is that Malfoy's already being punished. He hasn't got away scot-free. He's going to trial in July with an obscene number of charges against him: domestic terrorism, conspiracy to commit murder, Unforgivable curses, and that's just the big ones. The whole family's living on borrowed time. There's practically no question that Lucius will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Narcissa's a different story; there wasn't much of a place for women in Voldemort's inner circle - besides, of course, her sister Bellatrix - so she isn't Marked. She was still an accessory to every crime her cohorts committed; she let them live in her house, after all. After her actions in the forest, Harry's agreed to testify on her behalf.
Their son has his sob story. Harry knows the extent of it better than almost anyone else. But it won't do him any good if no one will corroborate. Who watched him be forced in over his head? Snape? Dead. Dumbledore? Dead. His parents? Who will believe them? Malfoy's only viable defense is that he was Marked underage. It seems likely that when the year is over, Malfoy's free life might be as well.
After a few weeks of getting into scuffles and losing his things if he looks away from them for a moment, Malfoy comes to Transfiguration with a black eye. He gets them all the time, but he usually glamors them away. He sits in the front of the class and stares McGonagall down, daring her to let this continue in her new peaceful school.
Malfoy gets his own room in Ravenclaw after that.
*
Harry hears a suspicious ruffling noise around the corner. "Death Eater scum," someone sneers. There's a dull thump. It's pretty clear what's going on.
Harry turns the corner. Malfoy's on the floor and his nose is bleeding. He's surrounded by a small crowd; fifth years, looks like. Malfoy's such an easy target these days that younger students get together and pick on him sometimes. It must be humiliating.
"Hey," Harry says sharply. They start, and look at him. Malfoy looks even more miserable that he's shown up.
"Leave him alone," Harry says. They stand there, frozen. "Get out of here!" They scurry.
Harry knows better than to offer Malfoy a hand off the floor. Malfoy stands up quickly, as if he thinks Harry's going to and doesn't want to give him the chance. He looks so small on the floor holding his gut that Harry's momentarily startled when he stands up at his full height, decently taller than Harry.
"All right?" he asks, unsure how friendly he ought to be.
"Fuck you," Malfoy says, wiping his nose. His vitriol feels like a shock of cold water. No one speaks to him like that anymore.
"Likewise," Harry grumbles, feeling let down by the entire exchange.
"Don't ever do that again," Malfoy snarls, and walks away.
"I won't," Harry says to the empty corridor. Malfoy really is vile. Harry's tempted to think he really does deserve it. Malfoy makes himself so difficult to sympathize with.
*
The sigh of relief breathed by the wizarding world is so profound that it can still be sensed among the students of Hogwarts a year later. Especially for those who had to endure a school year under the Death Eaters, Hogwarts has become a place of celebration and not a little frivolity.
Frankly, the school has gotten a little bit rambunctious. There is a party to be found every weekend somewhere in the castle, ranging from small get-togethers to open-invitation shindigs that can attract as much as half the school if people are in the mood and supplies are sufficient.
Harry hasn't had much experience with partying, obviously. He finds it sort of strange and maybe a little desperate, the tendency to race each other to drunkenness and see what stupid things one can get away with, but not altogether unenjoyable.
He finds the biggest parties intimidating at first, but that perception is quelled when he finally goes to one: he's among the oldest in the school, after all, so there is no one there to intimidate him. Anyway, he's Harry Potter, and everyone wants to have a drink with him. Which means, among other things, that he often has a lot of drinks.
One particularly ill-advised night he's persuaded to go drink for drink with Ron, forgetting that Ron is practically twice his size and has had the guidance of five older brothers in learning how to hold his liquor. Harry ends up getting brownout drunk before midnight. He remembers almost nothing of it the morning after except talking with a lot of people who were all very friendly, including, surprisingly enough, Malfoy, who listened to him monologuing on God knows what with the dumb earnestness, rapid nodding, and pinpoint pupils of someone on pixie dust.
Ron and Hermione practically had to carry him back to Gryffindor, he remembers. He's not so good at drinking. He thinks he might be done with it for a little while.
*
One of the most persistent falsehoods is that he's very smart and very powerful. He doesn't know where Ginny got the idea that he can be of assistance on her charm work when she's clearly got a gift for it that he hasn't.
Voldemort was very smart. Tom Riddle was fucking clever. Dumbledore had intense raw magical power and a ruthless, strategic mind. Harry's trademark spell is in the second year curriculum. He's tempted to ask, isn't that the goddamn point?
Which is why he comes, in a contrary way, to enjoy Potions. He's just so plainly mediocre at it. Slughorn's indulgent attitude doesn't change the fact that he doesn't grasp the concepts that well and certainly finds no interest in them.
One day he sees Malfoy sitting alone in the back and thinks why not. He sits down next to him. "We're partners."
Malfoy doesn't even glance up at him. "No."
"You need a partner for this potion."
"No I don't."
"Slughorn said."
Malfoy looks up then, sizes him up. "I'm better off working alone than having to drag your inept arse along with me."
Harry swallows his instinct to give up right then and there. "Shut up. We're partners and that's all."
"Oh, right, I forgot you're in charge of the universe now."
Harry really hates him at that moment because it isn't sarcasm. He decides this can't be worth it. He's not a saint. He picks up his things. "See if I try to reach out again, you pathetic git."
Malfoy catches his sleeve as he turns to find a new partner. "Look," he says condescendingly. "I know nothing gets you off quite like tragic heroism. But don't expect me to live up to your wank fantasies, all right?"
"What?" Harry asks, confused and vaguely disgusted.
"I'm not tragic," Malfoy states clearly, looking him in the eye. "And I don't need your help."
*
Maybe it's because it's hard to recall the full extent of his anger after it's faded away, but for some reason, Harry wants to keep trying. Luckily, Slughorn has no shortage of partner potions and Harry has no shortage of best friends who'd rather work with each other.
Harry sits down next to Malfoy again, taking care to get a huge armful of ingredients first so as to make his getaway harder, should he find himself tempted.
"Hey Malfoy," he says amiably.
"No means no," Malfoy says.
"Come on," Harry says. "You'd really rather work by yourself? Don't be contrary for no reason."
"Absolute, bone-deep loathing is a fine reason."
Harry eyes the ingredients he's brought to keep himself from an easy escape. Why'd he done that again? Five seconds with Malfoy makes him want to punch everything.
If he leaves, though, Malfoy will win, and that anchors him to his chair. He begins the potion, grabbing asphodel root and beginning to chop.
Malfoy makes a noise of genuine discomfort and grabs the knife out of his hands. He slides the asphodel over and starts doing an undeniably better job.
Pretty soon Malfoy's hogging all the work and Harry's left mostly watching. He's doing a fine job, though, Harry can't deny that. Maybe Malfoy wasn't just being rude when he said he was better off working alone.
"I don't know what to do with my hands," Harry grumbles.
"I can think of a few things," Malfoy says, a dirty grin creeping onto his face.
Harry blinks. He doesn't think he gets Malfoy's sense of humor.
Malfoy makes quick work of the preparations and dumps the ingredients into their cauldron in some precise order Harry hasn't bothered to learn.
"I hate Potions," Harry sighs, watching the mixture simmer.
"So why are you still taking it?"
"It's required by the Auror department," Harry says automatically.
"Ah," Malfoy says, with a judgmental undercurrent only he could give a single syllable. "Couldn't you try and sell them your field experience as a replacement for the NEWTs?"
Harry sighs. "They actually said that would be fine. I don't want special treatment, though, you know?"
"Boy, you're hard to please," Malfoy comments.
"I just want things to be fair."
Malfoy smirks. "No, you just want to do things the hard way so you can complain about it."
Harry's temper rises despite himself. "Says the guy who came back to Hogwarts out of an apparent love for getting beat up."
Malfoy's knife skids across what he's trying to dice. "Shut your mouth, Potter."
Apparently there's a limit to civil words that can go between them, and they've reached it. They're silent for the rest of the lesson.
*
The weird part is that it never gets easier. Over the next few weeks Harry keeps sitting down next to Malfoy, Malfoy keeps saying no, and they keep ending up in infuriated silence. But somehow that isn't enough to deter him. Malfoy seems undeterred too, although it's always Harry who initiates.
Slowly but surely it leaks out of the Potions classroom and into the rest of his life.
Harry can't deny that there's something going on beyond mutual toleration of each other's presence when he finds himself spending an inordinate amount of time alone with Malfoy. He even seeks him out, sometimes.
So it shouldn't come as much of a surprise when he ends up walking next to Malfoy in a slow trudge up to Ravenclaw Tower. They don't have an assignment to work on; there's no plan for the evening. They're just hanging out. Like friends. It doesn't flow, but he grits his teeth through the self-consciousness of it.
Harry's pretty sure he's not imagining the sour look the eagle knocker acquires as they approach. He knows he isn't imagining the mirror image on Malfoy's face.
"To you, rude would I never be, though I flag my tongue for all to see," the knocker says sullenly.
"Fuck, I don't know," Malfoy says. He doesn't take even a moment to consider the riddle. They can't be that difficult - sure, Ravenclaws are clever, but even the first years need to sort them out in order to get a night's sleep. "I hate this stupid House," he grumbles. "Clearly, sorting ought to be left to the Sorting Hat."
Michael Corner walks up next to them then, and the knocker repeats its riddle. "You're a dog," he says after less than five seconds. He looks to Malfoy. "Moron."
"Yeah, see if we'd have you in our House either," Malfoy sneers, stepping in front of Corner into the common room.
"Sorry," Harry apologizes, and follows him in.
Malfoy's room isn't what Harry would expect at all. He's always thought of Malfoy as very neat, maybe because he's rich. The room looks something like Fred and George's old room at the Burrow, though, littered with half-finished tinkerings and experiments. It's more interesting than Harry ever thought Malfoy was.
Malfoy isn't much of a host, and sits down at his desk, pulling a strange-smelling concoction out of a drawer and examining it.
It's surprisingly academic, really, which is what leads Harry to ask, "Why don't you go to Muggle Studies?"
"Do you really want me to answer that question, or do you just want to skip to the fist fight?"
Harry supposes that's a good point. "Won't your parents be angry if you fail?"
Malfoy's head sags in total exasperation and he puts down his tools, making a show of giving up on trying to concentrate through Harry's pestering. "One, my parents have been begging me to quit school all year. Two, I'm not going to fail, I'll pass the NEWT at the end of the year and get automatic credit for the course."
Harry blinks. "Your parents want you to quit school?"
Malfoy smiles darkly. "Yes, they're worried I'll be bullied."
He has been bullied, Harry wants to point out, but Malfoy's pride is so delicate and inflated and he doesn't want to be kicked out of the room just yet.
"Why don't they stop paying your tuition?"
"They're feeling very guilty lately about ruining my life and everything, so I can pretty much do anything I want." Malfoy shrugs, and picks up his tools again.
Spoiled, as always. It's nice to see that no matter how fucked up a family gets, they keep some values close to the heart. Harry's sorely tempted to try and get him to talk about how they've ruined his life; it's pretty well true, but he didn't think Malfoy was acknowledging it. In fact, Malfoy's role has basically been to make Harry feel better about his lack of direction; he's not given much thought to what Malfoy must be going through in the post-Voldemort era.
He's not a very good friend.
We aren't friends, he imagines Malfoy saying coldly.
He's glad Malfoy's got his head down, working on his potion, so he doesn't see Harry smiling at him.
*
The terrible truth is that Harry can't think of a conversation about Malfoy that isn't upsetting or insulting.
"What are your plans after school?" Harry asks one day, cringing at the utter banality of it.
Malfoy makes no pretense of thinking hard about it. "Probably I'll go to Greece. Spend money."
"That's it?"
"Hmm."
"Why bother earning NEWTs then?" Harry asks. He's genuinely curious but the question comes out a little derisive anyway.
"Proving a point, aren't I?"
They're silent for a few minutes after that.
"So what about when you run out of money?" Harry asks suddenly.
"Hmm?"
"In Greece."
"I'll rob a bank."
For someone who grew up in high society, Malfoy seems to have very little conversational skill. Or maybe he can turn on his manners for society people; Harry thinks that's likely.
"That sounds nice," Harry says, floundering. Malfoy's paying minimal attention. He's not noticed it's his turn to ask a question.
"You?" Malfoy says after a while.
"Uh. I don't know." It occurs to Harry that he's not a very good conversationalist either.
"Thought you were gonna be an Auror," Malfoy prompts him.
"Well, maybe," Harry says. "I'm not sure what Aurors do without Voldemort, though," he admits. "I guess there's always plenty of Dark wizards to be dealt with."
"You've put yourself out of business, you think?"
"Dunno." Malfoy doesn't ask another question, and Harry stews for a while. "It's just-" he struggles. "I can't tell the difference sometimes between my duty and my interests."
"Maybe they're the same thing. You noble hero types are like that."
If that were the case, Harry's pretty sure he wouldn't be thinking about this so much.
*
It's only afterwards that he realizes the conversation paused for about one second on Malfoy before turning back to him. Has Harry always been this self-centered? Is this coming from everyone else's willingness to indulge him all the time?
Malfoy indulges him too, he thinks. Malfoy wants them to talk about Harry. Malfoy doesn't want to talk about himself. Harry's going to make him.
"Do you regret it?" he asks abruptly one afternoon. He nods to Malfoy's Dark Mark. Malfoy tends to wear short sleeves in the privacy of his room, perhaps because he never, ever does elsewhere. No one would tolerate the sight of his bare arm in public. It instantly occurs to Harry that maybe it's not his place to call attention to it here, in the one place Malfoy feels he needn't hide it.
"Regret is a useless sentiment," Malfoy bites out. Harry thinks he's definitely angry at him for asking.
Harry also thinks the answer is yes, and not just because he wants it to be. Harry sees regret in the stiffness to the set of his shoulders, to the way he's yanked his arm close to his chest and is rubbing the Mark harshly with his thumb, as one would a persistent, stinging pain.
*
"They're thinking of giving me a Chocolate Frog card," Harry says one day.
"So I read," Malfoy replies with little interest. It was in the Daily Prophet.
"I wish they'd wait until after I'm dead," Harry says glumly.
"After you're dead you'll probably get a big bronze statue in the middle of Diagon Alley."
Harry wonders morosely whether the statue will depict him at age seventeen, skinny and willful, after he's died a grown man. "Do you know what it feels like to have discovered and executed your purpose in life before you've turned twenty? Unnerving, to say the least."
Malfoy rolls his eyes unsympathetically. "It's really sweet that you're angling for a pity fuck, Potter, honestly it is. But you must know that there is no circumstance within the realm of possibility that would convince me to feel sorry for you."
Harry sighs. "Why is it that you're always trying to convince me I want to fuck you?" he says, hoping to turn it around, to make Malfoy blush for once.
"Because you do," Malfoy says frankly. "I can tell when someone wants to fuck me, Potter. I'm not blind."
"I'm not gay," Harry counters.
"Neither was the last guy who fucked me," Malfoy says derisively. "It's a very popular stance to take."
Harry can only blink at that. Malfoy fucks guys? Harry tries hard not to put his taunts in a new light. Malfoy is Malfoy, being a prick as usual. There's no way he wants…
"Anyway, I think you are gay," Malfoy says with a shrug, and then changes tactics. "You know your girlfriend looks just like your mum, right?"
Harry's momentarily startled that Malfoy of all people should know what his mum looked like, but then he remembers that pretty much everyone knows what his mum looked like. One of the perks of being a dead hero.
"So?" Harry asks. He's tempted to snarl 'Don't you dare bring Ginny into this' and turn it into a row, but he knows Malfoy won't take the bait. He would have, years ago, but now he knows new ways to make sure nothing's easy for him.
"Just saying, it's a bit creepy."
"S'not," Harry says, feeling put-out. He's never even thought of such a thing. "And I'm not shallow, y'know, it doesn't matter what she looks like. I really like her." Love, he thinks, I should have said love.
Malfoy scoffs openly. "Do you like that look of vapid adoration she throws your way when you hold a door open for her?" Harry flinches just a little; he can't help it. Malfoy's too observant for his own good. "She's a hero worshipper. She was in love with you before she even met you, just like everyone else. But that's what you want in a girlfriend, I guess. Just like it's what you want in a friend."
You're wrong about me, Harry wants to say, but Malfoy cuts him off.
"That's not what you need, though."
Something alien has appeared in Malfoy's eyes, something strangely serious. It makes Harry feel nervous.
"What do I need, then?" he asks, as challengingly as he can.
"Someone to keep your head from getting so big it pops," Malfoy smirks. At least he's smiling now, but that something in his eyes isn't gone. "Someone who isn't starstruck by that stupid scar on your head. Someone who's interested in who you want to be instead of who Dumbledore made you."
Malfoy's leaned in closer to him now. Harry can see a smattering of light freckles on the bridge of his nose, a holdover from summer. His breathing is shallow.
"Someone," Malfoy says, getting even closer, "like me."
Malfoy brings their mouths together quietly and gently. Harry's eyes fall shut as he sighs into it, confusion so overwhelming that he just lets it go, to pick up when he's done. Because at this moment, all he wants to do is keep kissing Malfoy.
It's slow and peaceful, like no kiss he's ever had, except for the rapid thumping of his heart which he's sure is ruining the mood. They're not touching at any other point. It's lovely; it's spectacular. It's Malfoy.
He'd have thought kissing Malfoy would be fierce and urgent, maybe a little violent, smacking of a colorful past. He thinks there might be room for that as well. Suddenly he's got his arms wrapped around Malfoy's body and it's going in a whole new direction, Malfoy's hands carding through his hair, Harry coaxing his mouth open with his tongue, thinking that he wants more than anything to touch more of Malfoy's skin.
He skims a hand along the hem of Malfoy's shirt and rubs his thumb against the warm skin of his belly. Malfoy gasps against his mouth, perhaps shocked at his sudden enthusiasm; he smiles, wanting to say without saying, We Gryffindors never do anything by half. He thinks Malfoy understands.
Malfoy curls his fingers into the hair at the nape of Harry's neck, caressing the upturned stretch of his throat. Harry's never kissed someone taller than him before, and he thinks he likes it.
Suddenly the room is starting to reel and he realizes Malfoy's pushing him onto his back. Shit, he likes it. Malfoy's on his hands and knees over him and they're really snogging now, and this is going incredibly quickly but Harry just doesn't care.
He's feeling a little reckless. "I want-" he says uselessly.
"Yeah," Malfoy agrees, equally uselessly, and then gets off of him, which is exactly what he doesn't want, uncooperative bastard.
Malfoy sits up and reaches behind his collar to tug his shirt off and that's when it hits Harry that this is very different from what he has done previously. Malfoy's chest is flat and there's definition to the muscles in his arms; his body is graceful in a linear way, and, of course, elegant in the manner of someone who has always had a lot of money.
His skin is so pale that the Dark Mark on his left arm seems almost an insult, ugly and marring, and Harry doesn't mean to stare at it but he can't not.
Malfoy notices. "I'm not here for your viewing pleasure," he sneers.
"Git," Harry says without bite, and starts to undress.
Harry finds himself nervously overfocusing on the minutiae of his own clothing removal, and when he's finally naked he has nothing left to do but finally look up at Malfoy, who's equally naked. Malfoy is not vulnerable without his clothes; he's just the same as always, barbed and subtly mocking. Harry can tell he's proud of his body. He's right to be - it's very nice.
It's Harry who pushes Malfoy onto the bed underneath him this time, in an effort to quell his nerves by jumping in. It quickly becomes a matter of necessity that he get closer and closer to him. Malfoy's panting in his ear while he sucks kisses into his throat. Every mark is vivid. Malfoy colors very nicely.
Malfoy forces his hips down with a leg around him and then they're grinding together and the hot slide of Malfoy's cock against his own is indescribable. Harry thrusts against him more purposefully in order to get a better hold on the feeling, but he still can't, so his only recourse is to do it over and over and over again.
"Aah, yeah," Malfoy says, and it's the first exchange of words since they've crossed this undeniable line. The reality of it catches up then - they're having sex. This is a bad idea.
Harry's no-we-can't-this-is-so-wrong is just picking up speed in his head when Malfoy throws his other leg around him and Harry thinks - would Malfoy let him…?
"Fuck me, Potter," Malfoy gasps out. Apparently the answer is yes.
After a brief moment of impatience with Harry's fumbling with the tube of lubricant that Malfoy literally throws at him, Malfoy grabs it back and starts putting fingers up his arse. Harry can only watch, completely transfixed, as they disappear into his tiny hole. He's being none too gentle with himself, either, but he's biting his lip like he enjoys it.
Malfoy reaches for his wand, momentarily startling Harry, and casts a protection spell before slicking him up with more of the lube and lying back, putting his legs over Harry's shoulders. Harry feels distinctly like he's being hurried along. "Go," Malfoy urges.
"Are you late for an appointment, Malfoy?" Harry says, lining himself up. It takes more force than he's used to but he gets in, eyes flicking between the incredible sight of himself disappearing into Malfoy and Malfoy's face, to make sure it isn't too much for him and hopefully ascertain that he likes it.
It feels fucking magnificent. It's a familiar sense of overwhelming gratitude and connection, the interplaying power and vulnerability of being inside someone. He loves it.
And it's Malfoy. The sheer shock value of it is tantalizing, but his flushed, hard body lain out beneath Harry holds an appeal all its own.
A crease forms between Malfoy's eyebrows as Harry drives all the way home and Harry worries that he's taken it too fast.
"Is it-are you-"
Malfoy wants none of it. "Shut up and do it."
They don't speak for the rest of it, only harshly breathing into each other, although Harry can't stop a little noise from escaping along with his exhale as he comes. "Jerk me off," Malfoy says then, a terse command which breaks into the one second of afterglow Harry thought he might be able to enjoy, and Harry obeys without further thought. He decides he likes the warm weight of Malfoy's cock in his palm, and he likes even more the shameless way Malfoy arches and thrashes his head from side to side.
It doesn't take Malfoy long then, and as he comes he jerks and spasms and can't keep himself completely quiet either. His face is wonderful, the flush so out of place on his pale skin that he looks half-mad with animal glee. His expression is caught in a rictus of unbearable pleasure, and Harry thinks what he likes most of all is how, just for a moment, he's able to rob Malfoy of his vanity and leave him achingly guileless and beautifully sincere.
It's only when Malfoy's legs relax around him and his breathing slows that he focuses on the splash of sticky wetness covering his knuckles. Malfoy's cock is softening in his hand and he suddenly regrets not looking away from his face for even a moment of Malfoy's climax.
He will just have to look next time.
*
Harry is not the type of guy who cheats on his girlfriend. It doesn't matter that he hasn't ever had a chance before now to discover that; he knows it by the thick swell of shame that seizes him the next time he looks at Ginny.
So he's got to choose: will he avoid Malfoy from here on out and pretend it didn't happen, or will he break up with Ginny and risk that perhaps Malfoy, in his manipulative way, is just having a bit of fun?
He doesn't know what Malfoy wants from him, and moreover he doesn't know what he wants from Malfoy. The idea of them being a proper couple is pretty laughable, not least because they usually can't be in the same room for more than five minutes without starting a shouting match.
Still, he realizes, the bottom line is that Ginny does not deserve this. He doesn't care about Ginny the way he ought to, and the least he can do is give her the chance to find someone who does.
"I just…don't think this is working," he tells her apologetically.
Her brow creases in hurt and confusion. "Harry," she says, "I love you. I've loved you my whole life."
He tries not to cringe. "Don't you think that's a little weird?" he says, delicately.
He can see her heart breaking in her eyes. "No, I…I think it's destiny."
He wants to bolt. He's had enough destiny for a lifetime, how can she claim to love him and not realize that?
"Gin," he says sadly.
Her face turns angry. He realizes with a sick feeling that he's not stopped being fond of her fire, even now, and that just because he's the one ending this doesn't mean that the loss of it won't hurt him for a long time. "Are you telling me you're dumping me because I love you?"
He swallows, torn between being honest and being gentle. "It's more…the reasons," he says lamely.
Her eyes pop. "That's monstrous," she gasps out.
"I'm sorry," he says, and he really, truly is.
"I waited so long for you," she spits bitterly. "I waited the whole war."
He's got nothing to say to that, so she smacks him and walks away. He doesn't really begrudge her. She does love him; not understanding it doesn't give him the right to trod all over it.
When she turns a corner and disappears, he feels very sad. He's ended a good thing and he knows it. But Malfoy's right, even if he's a bastard: it's not what he needs.
*
"I broke up with Ginny," Harry says glumly as Malfoy pops the button on his trousers.
Malfoy gives a surprised laugh and his eyes flick up from his task to meet Harry's. "You know she's in love with you," he says as if Harry's obviously made a huge mistake, as if he wasn't telling him only days before that his relationship was a sham.
"Yeah," Harry says.
"That was foolish, Potter. It's not every day a beautiful woman falls desperately in love with you."
Harry grits his teeth. He knows Malfoy just wants to hurt him, but awareness doesn't stop him succeeding.
"Then again," Malfoy muses, "I suppose in your case it is every day."
Harry's throat goes so thick it feels solid, and Malfoy's cackling follows him out of the room and down the corridor.
*
Ron and Hermione are furious. It's rare that they should agree on something so totally, but in this they're completely united: Harry has fucked up.
"I thought you loved her!" Ron yells, face red.
"Of course I love her," Harry says, scrubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. "But it didn't feel right."
Hermione has her arms crossed over her chest. "Harry," she admonishes quietly. "You've not been fair to her."
"You've been leading her on for years!" Ron adds.
Harry loses his temper. "I have not! I'm allowed to break up with someone! I don't recall getting married to her, so I don't understand why you expect me to stay with her forever!"
Hermione tries to say something, but he cuts her off. "Would you not agree that I'm within my rights to end a relationship I'm not happy in?"
"You didn't even give her a reason!" Ron says. "Not a real one, anyway," he adds, giving Harry a disappointed look that lets him know Ginny reenacted the entire conversation for them.
They want a reason? For one hysterical second, Harry considers giving them one - he thinks he might be gay. It would appeal to Hermione, he thinks, but probably only convince Ron further that he's led her on, if he implies that he was never attracted to her in the first place. Anyway, he doesn't really think it's true, he's just replaced her with someone male. And he's not exactly about to tell them he's already jumped back on the horse.
"I thought we'd all be, like, a family," Ron says in that roundabout tone he uses to address anything emotional.
Harry's anger suffocates him. Yet more people who expect something of him. It figures that he's committed a grave crime by breaking up with Ginny when him-and-Ginny are part of some perfect future of theirs. At least with them he can be honest about it. "Well, I'm sorry to have spoiled things for you, Ron," he says overly meanly.
They know him too well to tolerate his theatrics. "Harry," Hermione says impatiently. "Don't take it out on us that things haven't worked out. You've put us in an uncomfortable position. It's not easy to deal with when two of your best friends break up."
It's not easy to deal with when two of your best friends get together, either, he wants to shoot back, but he knows that's more hurtful than it is true.
*
He didn't think Malfoy would be a shoulder to cry on, but Malfoy is almost violently unsympathetic. At least verbally; Harry supposes he could be construed to be offering physical comfort since they fuck constantly. It's so easy with Malfoy's private room. Everyone thinks Harry is tremendously big-hearted for spending time with someone who would have seen him dead during the war. Would that they knew the details of the arrangement.
"Why are you doing this?" he asks, after. "With me."
Malfoy looks at the ceiling, possibly thinking of an answer, and then looks at Harry. "Has it occurred to you that everyone who ever hated you is dead?"
Harry almost gasps, it's such a terrible thing to say. Not totally true, either, but Malfoy doesn't know about the Dursleys.
Malfoy looks back to the ceiling. "Let it never be said that I don't know how to survive."
*
"Don't you want to know why I'm doing this? With you?" Harry asks, after.
"I know why you're doing it."
Harry feels a little tick of resentment. Malfoy's such an armchair psychologist these days. "Why's that, then?"
"Because you're afraid that if everyone keeps acting like you're a god you'll start to believe it. I'm here to remind you that you aren't."
Harry frowns. He's got to stop assuming that Malfoy is capable of saying nice things to him.
*
Malfoy's got his arms folded behind his head. He's wearing a big, shit-eating grin and nothing else. Harry's having a staredown with his dick.
He tries not to gulp. He's seen it before. He's touched it before. This is no big deal, clearly.
"Man up," Malfoy says. He's probably glad to find something he's undeniably better at.
"I'm working on it," Harry says, wrapping a hand around the base. It's familiar. This is just a little step further than what he's gotten pretty comfortable with, he tells himself. No problem.
"Scared, Potter?" Malfoy mocks.
"You wish," Harry responds automatically.
"Uh, no, I wish you would get over your homo-panic and suck it already."
Harry gives him a look, heaves a sigh, and bites the bullet.
Well, no. He certainly doesn't bite anything. He just opens up and puts an inch of it in his mouth. It's incredibly weird. He explores the feel of it with his tongue and is immediately inundated with a pretty unappetizing taste.
"That face of shocked repulsion you're making is pretty sexy," Malfoy laughs.
Harry shoots him the best quelling look he can from this angle and tries to slide further down. Bad idea. He gags, coughs, and wipes his mouth. "No. Nope," he says frankly. "I'm done."
"Come on," Malfoy says, cocky and annoying from his recumbent position. "Fair's fair."
Harry looks back to his cock, shining obscenely now with Harry's saliva. Malfoy quirks his hips up and it almost hits him in the chin.
"Prick," Harry says, and tries again. He won't give Malfoy any more fodder to make fun of him if he can help it, so he concentrates this time. He thinks he might be doing a little better because Malfoy's blessedly quiet now instead of rattling off easy taunts and jibes.
Harry's a little tempted to look up and see if he's liking it, but he's got his eyes closed for focus' sake and if he opens them he'll just have a great view of Malfoy's pubic hair, he's pretty sure. And yeah, the carpet matches the drapes.
"You look ridiculous," Malfoy blurts after a few minutes.
"Mmhmm," Harry says.
Malfoy gasps and his voice goes a little desperate. "Harry Potter sucking my cock. Never thought I'd see the day. God, look how it fills up your mouth." He traces his fingers over the bulge in Harry's cheek. "Fuck, Potter…" He sounds like he's begging for mercy.
Harry can't resist any longer and he looks up. Malfoy's eyebrows are knit together like he's enduring something really trying. His chest is flushed and his nipples look peaked and tight. Harry reaches up and fans his fingers across one; it's hard and Malfoy makes a strangled little sound. "Potter, shit, what the hell?"
Harry gives a little hum that he hopes conveys how he's got the upper hand, and pinches Malfoy's nipple. "Fuck-you-" Malfoy gasps out. "Potter you fucker, I'm gonna come in that pretty mouth of yours." Harry gives an interested hmm. "I'll come all - all over you, all over your pretty face, bet you'd like that, huh?"
It sounds a little weird and gross, actually, but Harry's tempted to let him do it from how crazy he's starting to sound. He's not really looking forward to getting it all in his mouth, either, but that sounds a lot less messy. He sucks harder, scraping his thumbnail across Malfoy's much-abused nipple.
"Shit shit shit oh Merlin Potter I hate you!" Malfoy rambles, and then he comes. Just because Harry's expecting it doesn't mean he knows what to do, so he just carries on while Malfoy loses it under him. Eventually he's just lying there twitching and Harry's got a full mouth.
"Stop," Malfoy says, probably over-sensitive now, and he raises into a position where Harry can extract him without spewing his mouthful. He goes to the bathroom to spit, allowing himself an accomplished grin in the mirror as he rinses it down the sink. When he comes back Malfoy's standing up, buttoning a pair of trousers.
Harry feels the smallest bit out of sorts, unsure exactly what to do with himself. He catches Malfoy's eye as he nears him and smiles and leans over to maybe kiss him. Malfoy rears back. "Piss off, dick-breath."
"Charming," Harry deadpans, and pinches his sore nipple with a harsh twist.
Malfoy jerks away from him. "Arsehole," he groans. "That'll bruise, you bastard."
"Oh, I'm sorry, forgot how delicate you are," Harry says. The out-of-sorts feeling is gone, and he smiles confidently.
*
The first time they fall asleep together, it's an accident. Just one of those relaxed post-coital silences that stretches too long until Harry's eyes snap open and it's the next morning.
He's on his back, staring into a projected morning sky on the ceiling. He turns his face to Malfoy, who's on his stomach, his face turned towards Harry. Harry allows himself a moment of quiet observation, studying the lack of tension in Malfoy's face, the absence of brittle anxiety and his usual disdain for everyone.
Harry wishes his eyes were open. He wishes he could see Malfoy properly awake with an expression like this, so he finds himself staring at him, almost afraid to blink, waiting for the exact moment he wakes up.
Malfoy foils him, of course, and the first thing he does when he stirs is press his face into the pillow for a long moment as he stretches his legs. He's back to himself when he emerges, and sits up to fish Harry's invisibility cloak from the foot of the bed.
"Get out of here," he says groggily.
*
Months go by and no one finds out. Harry wonders why they keep it a secret. Perhaps it's a little scandalous, but both of them are well-accustomed to scandal. Harry is strangely eager to see what people will think, if they'll recoil in horror and try to talk him out of it. He wants them to notice that he can do weird things for selfish reasons, that he doesn't resist temptation. He wants them to know that their making him into an example of perfection doesn't stop him from being imperfect when he feels like it.
The rebelliousness of it feels strikingly immature. Harry feels a little ashamed of himself, but not nearly enough to stop imagining it.
*
One day between classes Harry grabs Malfoy's sleeve and makes for an empty classroom, for the purposes of a quick impromptu fumble. He thinks it's the sort of thing Malfoy might like.
Malfoy doesn't like it. "Get out of my face, Potter," he says loud enough for people to hear, shoves him away and walks off.
Five minutes later he's in a fight for mouthing off to Harry Potter, and two hours after that Harry finally catches up with him.
It turns out Malfoy doesn't want anyone to know and doesn't want to take any chances. Harry's testimony at his mother's trial is too important, and he doesn't want the revelation of an improper relationship to cast doubt on it.
Harry's heart stutters in his chest. "That's why you're doing this," he says dully. "To make sure I testify for your mother."
"That's not why, shithead," Malfoy says meanly. "I think you know why I'm doing it." He's off then, around a corner before Harry can make heads or tails of that.
*
Two years gone. Harry doesn't feel so different. Better rested, maybe. Less stressed out, definitely.
McGonagall's asked him to say something for the anniversary. There will be a feast to remember the dead and celebrate the living. Harry hates to think he's the guest of honor but it's undeniable.
"Skip it," is Malfoy's advice. "That's what I'm doing."
"You lost the war," Harry points out.
"Oh, and you're such a fucking winner these days," Malfoy says.
*
"Why are you doing this?" he asks for the millionth time.
They're out by the lake, throwing stones. It's warm now, the year is creeping to a close, and maybe that's why Malfoy doesn't make a snide joke. "You asked me to."
"I asked you to have sex with me?" Harry echoes, incredulous.
"You told me you needed help figuring things out. At that party?"
It's the vaguest image of a former memory, now, Malfoy, fucked up on pixie dust, paying rapt attention to his drunken ramblings. That was a long time ago.
"And you just…obliged?"
Malfoy holds out his hands, palms up, in a false gesture of generosity. "I'm your guardian angel."
Harry rolls his eyes. "I'm pretty sure you don't sleep with your guardian angel."
Malfoy smirks, says nothing.
"What did I tell you I needed help with?" Harry asks after a while. He's not entirely sure he wants to know. He told him about Ginny, probably. How he was unsure he really loved her. Malfoy's a clever guy; it was probably easy to infer from there what he really might have wanted.
Malfoy doesn't bring that up, though. For a long time he doesn't say anything at all. They watch the lake for a few minutes. Malfoy chews on the inside of his cheek.
Finally he turns to Harry.
"Potter, here's the thing. You have to decide who you're living for. Because let's face it, you probably won't ever top yourself. Even if you slay another Dark Lord it won't be as impressive because you won't be a starry-eyed teen hero with a heart of gold any longer. But you didn't enjoy it, did you? It's not like you'll look back on walking into a forest expecting to die and say, 'Wow, most fulfilling day of my life.' So yeah, maybe you've peaked for everyone else. But have you peaked for you? Have you done everything you've wanted to? Have you experienced such rapturous joy that the prospect of continuing to live only depresses you in comparison?"
Malfoy stops then, and seems to realize how long he's just spent giving Harry earnest, unsolicited advice about his life's path. "Something to think about," he finishes lamely, shrugging and getting up, walking swiftly off.
Harry wonders when Draco Malfoy got so fucking smart.
*
And you know what? He's absolutely right.
*
The train station is teary as always. Every time Harry's here he can't help but remember being dead. He's done now, done with Hogwarts, ready for something new, though he has no idea what. All he has planned is an interview for a little flat in London.
He surveys the place and sees that Malfoy's parents have sent a car for him.
"Off to Greece, then?" Harry asks with an unintentional grin.
"Just as soon as I can manage," Malfoy replies carelessly from behind dark sunglasses. In reality, Malfoy has a future of about three weeks at this point; then his trial commences, and it's all taken out of his hands.
Harry feels an absurd warmth in his chest, and sticks out his hand. Malfoy looks at it for a moment and gives a little smirking laugh. They both recognize the gesture: the handshake that never was, so long ago.
Malfoy takes his hand and they shake manfully with strong grips. Harry's tempted to imbue it with all sorts of meaning, but he knows Malfoy would make fun.
They drop hands, and after a long look, Malfoy hikes his bag over his shoulder. "So long, Potter," he says.
"Look me up when you get back," Harry says sincerely.
"I won't," Malfoy says, smiling, but Harry thinks he might.
*
...and now back to brainstorming Merlin fic. My rampant nerdiness has actually caused me to reread The Once and Future King. NEW LOW.
Title: Of the Heart's Fullness and Of the Coming Emptiness
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: H/D
Rating: Adult
Warnings: EWE, brief infidelity?
Word Count: 9000 :(
Summary: Harry Potter is nineteen, and he's already peaked.
Notes: Title from W.B. Yeats' "Meditations in Time of Civil War."
Harry almost regrets his decision to come back to Hogwarts. It's laughable, really, for nineteen- and twenty-year-olds to be going to school with eleven-year-olds, but the reconstruction of Hogwarts took a full year, even with massive volunteer efforts. So they've all grown up.
A good portion of Harry's class has decided not to return. Many are in the same position as him, having taken a two-year break from school altogether, while others have been gone for one year after a year of what could hardly be called education - in fact, they aren't calling it that, which is why the entire school has been afforded a do-over.
The Great Hall looks ludicrous. It has been rebuilt in the most accurate manner achievable, true to the old Hogwarts charm. There's something singularly pathetic about fabricated charm, but people need this, to feel like the victory was absolute, like Voldemort destroyed, in effect, nothing.
One sweep around the room reveals that for the falsehood it is. Snape, recipient of much posthumous praise, leaves a yawning gap in the united front of the professors. They have not bothered to replace him; Slughorn will teach Potions and the others will each pitch in for Defense lessons. Several students are gone; and Dumbledore, of course; McGonagall sits in the central chair, Headmistress now. High turnover rate these days.
It's not just Snape who's perished, but his entire House. Few of its students have returned, and even less of the doubly-large first year class is apparently suitable there. The Sorting Hat is unflinchingly careless of the politic and puts an unusable number of children in Slytherin. After a hushed talk at the high table, those children are taken aside and quietly redistributed, as are their older peers, who go about it less quietly and more indignantly. They total a dozen altogether. Harry watches with a twisting almost-sympathy as Draco Malfoy is shuffled into Ravenclaw House with a discreet word in his ear from Flitwick.
No one knows why Malfoy is present at the reopening. He of all Slytherins has nothing left here for him. He is obviously unwelcome, glares from all sides make that perfectly evident. Few of the students with even ambivalent loyalty are here, and in Snape's absence, he is the only person in the castle to bear the Dark Mark. Yet here he is, pointy chin held high, disdain evident in his every movement.
Harry is here precisely because he doesn't need to be. The Auror department didn't mince words; he knows the NEWT requirements would be waived for him if he so chose.
The Aurors aren't the only ones treating him differently. Harry's well used to being famous by now, but things have shifted since the battle of Hogwarts. He's a bit of a living legend, and it's completely unnerving. His presence commands a respect he's not sure he deserves. Gone is the gossip and giggling; now people simply gawk and move out of his way in the corridors. He's hardly ever asked for an autograph, but it's fairly common for people to come up to him, eyes wide and earnest, and say, "I just wanted to thank you for everything you've done." Sometimes they walk away without waiting for a reply.
Harry has never wanted to be better than everyone else. He doesn't particularly think he is, anyway, but everyone else seems to. The result is not dissimilar to the months he's spent in the past with everyone angry with him or wary of what he'll do next; they might now stay away because they think themselves unworthy, but he's still lonely.
Well, he's still got his old friends. Ron and Hermione are there for him like they've always been, and Neville and Luna.
And then there's Ginny, of course. Things are great between them.
Ginny loves him. Loves him. It's insane and fantastic and empowering and humbling all at once. He's never had someone love him before, not like this, not worshipfully. They lose their virginity together and it's amazing. Harry holds her in his arms and feels bowled over that someone should want him so much.
Comfort fits strangely and itches at times, but he thinks that's because he isn't used to it. She's a lovely girl and he likes her a lot. She's witty and independent and daring and carelessly beautiful, and she cares deeply about him.
The school year gets off to much the same start as always, but Harry can't deny that he's outgrown it a little. The desks feel physically too small; he has less patience than ever for sitting down to write a homework essay. Which isn't to say that he needs to: he makes the mistake of vocalizing a complaint early on and is informed that plenty of people in the school would be willing to do his work for him. He's done so much for them, after all. When he politely declines, they take on a knowing look - of course he's got too much integrity for that.
Muggle Studies is compulsory now, a kind of sensitivity training for a culture that came very close to genocidal. The tone of the class is perplexing; it's weird to pick apart a foreign culture with the detached compare-and-contrast nature that the professor is using when it's the culture Harry grew up in.
The class, of course, is terribly easy for anyone Muggleborn. It's taught with the slightest air of condescension: much focus is placed on how Muggles "make do without magic" and the professor never fails to get an appreciative laugh when explaining Muggle myths and stories about magical phenomena.
Hermione, in her academic way, thinks it's interesting. Harry thinks it's a little offensive.
Most offensive is the empty seat in the front row: Malfoy doesn't attend the class, though he's required like everyone else. He hasn't shown up once. It takes two weeks for the professor to stop calling his name when he takes attendance.
*
The thing about Malfoy is that he probably deserves it. He's such a bully. He's always been rich and entitled and mean, and was universally despised outside of his insular little crowd of like-minded Slytherins. They're all gone now, and everyone else is prepared to make certain Malfoy gets what's coming to him.
Harry feels a little uneasy watching it happen, but he doesn't do anything. Malfoy gets into a fight at least once a week, and it's never one-on-one. The worst is that the professors display a real hesitance to do anything. There are stories a couple of weeks into the year of how he gets jumped all the time in the dormitory, but Flitwick looks the other way. Malfoy's got too much pride to complain. Harry thinks with grim satisfaction that maybe he knows he deserves it.
It's not like Malfoy makes an effort to put himself in anyone's good graces. He wears his green and gray tie to class every day. He's snide and annoying as always. Even while everyone tries to act like he isn't good enough for them, he plays the same game, acting as if no one is good enough for him. And he's much more practiced at being snobbish than anyone else. Sometimes it almost seems as though his pariah status is self-imposed - until the next time he gets a swastika hexed onto his forehead in boils.
Harry tries to rationalize it, but the thing that smarts is that Malfoy's already being punished. He hasn't got away scot-free. He's going to trial in July with an obscene number of charges against him: domestic terrorism, conspiracy to commit murder, Unforgivable curses, and that's just the big ones. The whole family's living on borrowed time. There's practically no question that Lucius will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Narcissa's a different story; there wasn't much of a place for women in Voldemort's inner circle - besides, of course, her sister Bellatrix - so she isn't Marked. She was still an accessory to every crime her cohorts committed; she let them live in her house, after all. After her actions in the forest, Harry's agreed to testify on her behalf.
Their son has his sob story. Harry knows the extent of it better than almost anyone else. But it won't do him any good if no one will corroborate. Who watched him be forced in over his head? Snape? Dead. Dumbledore? Dead. His parents? Who will believe them? Malfoy's only viable defense is that he was Marked underage. It seems likely that when the year is over, Malfoy's free life might be as well.
After a few weeks of getting into scuffles and losing his things if he looks away from them for a moment, Malfoy comes to Transfiguration with a black eye. He gets them all the time, but he usually glamors them away. He sits in the front of the class and stares McGonagall down, daring her to let this continue in her new peaceful school.
Malfoy gets his own room in Ravenclaw after that.
*
Harry hears a suspicious ruffling noise around the corner. "Death Eater scum," someone sneers. There's a dull thump. It's pretty clear what's going on.
Harry turns the corner. Malfoy's on the floor and his nose is bleeding. He's surrounded by a small crowd; fifth years, looks like. Malfoy's such an easy target these days that younger students get together and pick on him sometimes. It must be humiliating.
"Hey," Harry says sharply. They start, and look at him. Malfoy looks even more miserable that he's shown up.
"Leave him alone," Harry says. They stand there, frozen. "Get out of here!" They scurry.
Harry knows better than to offer Malfoy a hand off the floor. Malfoy stands up quickly, as if he thinks Harry's going to and doesn't want to give him the chance. He looks so small on the floor holding his gut that Harry's momentarily startled when he stands up at his full height, decently taller than Harry.
"All right?" he asks, unsure how friendly he ought to be.
"Fuck you," Malfoy says, wiping his nose. His vitriol feels like a shock of cold water. No one speaks to him like that anymore.
"Likewise," Harry grumbles, feeling let down by the entire exchange.
"Don't ever do that again," Malfoy snarls, and walks away.
"I won't," Harry says to the empty corridor. Malfoy really is vile. Harry's tempted to think he really does deserve it. Malfoy makes himself so difficult to sympathize with.
*
The sigh of relief breathed by the wizarding world is so profound that it can still be sensed among the students of Hogwarts a year later. Especially for those who had to endure a school year under the Death Eaters, Hogwarts has become a place of celebration and not a little frivolity.
Frankly, the school has gotten a little bit rambunctious. There is a party to be found every weekend somewhere in the castle, ranging from small get-togethers to open-invitation shindigs that can attract as much as half the school if people are in the mood and supplies are sufficient.
Harry hasn't had much experience with partying, obviously. He finds it sort of strange and maybe a little desperate, the tendency to race each other to drunkenness and see what stupid things one can get away with, but not altogether unenjoyable.
He finds the biggest parties intimidating at first, but that perception is quelled when he finally goes to one: he's among the oldest in the school, after all, so there is no one there to intimidate him. Anyway, he's Harry Potter, and everyone wants to have a drink with him. Which means, among other things, that he often has a lot of drinks.
One particularly ill-advised night he's persuaded to go drink for drink with Ron, forgetting that Ron is practically twice his size and has had the guidance of five older brothers in learning how to hold his liquor. Harry ends up getting brownout drunk before midnight. He remembers almost nothing of it the morning after except talking with a lot of people who were all very friendly, including, surprisingly enough, Malfoy, who listened to him monologuing on God knows what with the dumb earnestness, rapid nodding, and pinpoint pupils of someone on pixie dust.
Ron and Hermione practically had to carry him back to Gryffindor, he remembers. He's not so good at drinking. He thinks he might be done with it for a little while.
*
One of the most persistent falsehoods is that he's very smart and very powerful. He doesn't know where Ginny got the idea that he can be of assistance on her charm work when she's clearly got a gift for it that he hasn't.
Voldemort was very smart. Tom Riddle was fucking clever. Dumbledore had intense raw magical power and a ruthless, strategic mind. Harry's trademark spell is in the second year curriculum. He's tempted to ask, isn't that the goddamn point?
Which is why he comes, in a contrary way, to enjoy Potions. He's just so plainly mediocre at it. Slughorn's indulgent attitude doesn't change the fact that he doesn't grasp the concepts that well and certainly finds no interest in them.
One day he sees Malfoy sitting alone in the back and thinks why not. He sits down next to him. "We're partners."
Malfoy doesn't even glance up at him. "No."
"You need a partner for this potion."
"No I don't."
"Slughorn said."
Malfoy looks up then, sizes him up. "I'm better off working alone than having to drag your inept arse along with me."
Harry swallows his instinct to give up right then and there. "Shut up. We're partners and that's all."
"Oh, right, I forgot you're in charge of the universe now."
Harry really hates him at that moment because it isn't sarcasm. He decides this can't be worth it. He's not a saint. He picks up his things. "See if I try to reach out again, you pathetic git."
Malfoy catches his sleeve as he turns to find a new partner. "Look," he says condescendingly. "I know nothing gets you off quite like tragic heroism. But don't expect me to live up to your wank fantasies, all right?"
"What?" Harry asks, confused and vaguely disgusted.
"I'm not tragic," Malfoy states clearly, looking him in the eye. "And I don't need your help."
*
Maybe it's because it's hard to recall the full extent of his anger after it's faded away, but for some reason, Harry wants to keep trying. Luckily, Slughorn has no shortage of partner potions and Harry has no shortage of best friends who'd rather work with each other.
Harry sits down next to Malfoy again, taking care to get a huge armful of ingredients first so as to make his getaway harder, should he find himself tempted.
"Hey Malfoy," he says amiably.
"No means no," Malfoy says.
"Come on," Harry says. "You'd really rather work by yourself? Don't be contrary for no reason."
"Absolute, bone-deep loathing is a fine reason."
Harry eyes the ingredients he's brought to keep himself from an easy escape. Why'd he done that again? Five seconds with Malfoy makes him want to punch everything.
If he leaves, though, Malfoy will win, and that anchors him to his chair. He begins the potion, grabbing asphodel root and beginning to chop.
Malfoy makes a noise of genuine discomfort and grabs the knife out of his hands. He slides the asphodel over and starts doing an undeniably better job.
Pretty soon Malfoy's hogging all the work and Harry's left mostly watching. He's doing a fine job, though, Harry can't deny that. Maybe Malfoy wasn't just being rude when he said he was better off working alone.
"I don't know what to do with my hands," Harry grumbles.
"I can think of a few things," Malfoy says, a dirty grin creeping onto his face.
Harry blinks. He doesn't think he gets Malfoy's sense of humor.
Malfoy makes quick work of the preparations and dumps the ingredients into their cauldron in some precise order Harry hasn't bothered to learn.
"I hate Potions," Harry sighs, watching the mixture simmer.
"So why are you still taking it?"
"It's required by the Auror department," Harry says automatically.
"Ah," Malfoy says, with a judgmental undercurrent only he could give a single syllable. "Couldn't you try and sell them your field experience as a replacement for the NEWTs?"
Harry sighs. "They actually said that would be fine. I don't want special treatment, though, you know?"
"Boy, you're hard to please," Malfoy comments.
"I just want things to be fair."
Malfoy smirks. "No, you just want to do things the hard way so you can complain about it."
Harry's temper rises despite himself. "Says the guy who came back to Hogwarts out of an apparent love for getting beat up."
Malfoy's knife skids across what he's trying to dice. "Shut your mouth, Potter."
Apparently there's a limit to civil words that can go between them, and they've reached it. They're silent for the rest of the lesson.
*
The weird part is that it never gets easier. Over the next few weeks Harry keeps sitting down next to Malfoy, Malfoy keeps saying no, and they keep ending up in infuriated silence. But somehow that isn't enough to deter him. Malfoy seems undeterred too, although it's always Harry who initiates.
Slowly but surely it leaks out of the Potions classroom and into the rest of his life.
Harry can't deny that there's something going on beyond mutual toleration of each other's presence when he finds himself spending an inordinate amount of time alone with Malfoy. He even seeks him out, sometimes.
So it shouldn't come as much of a surprise when he ends up walking next to Malfoy in a slow trudge up to Ravenclaw Tower. They don't have an assignment to work on; there's no plan for the evening. They're just hanging out. Like friends. It doesn't flow, but he grits his teeth through the self-consciousness of it.
Harry's pretty sure he's not imagining the sour look the eagle knocker acquires as they approach. He knows he isn't imagining the mirror image on Malfoy's face.
"To you, rude would I never be, though I flag my tongue for all to see," the knocker says sullenly.
"Fuck, I don't know," Malfoy says. He doesn't take even a moment to consider the riddle. They can't be that difficult - sure, Ravenclaws are clever, but even the first years need to sort them out in order to get a night's sleep. "I hate this stupid House," he grumbles. "Clearly, sorting ought to be left to the Sorting Hat."
Michael Corner walks up next to them then, and the knocker repeats its riddle. "You're a dog," he says after less than five seconds. He looks to Malfoy. "Moron."
"Yeah, see if we'd have you in our House either," Malfoy sneers, stepping in front of Corner into the common room.
"Sorry," Harry apologizes, and follows him in.
Malfoy's room isn't what Harry would expect at all. He's always thought of Malfoy as very neat, maybe because he's rich. The room looks something like Fred and George's old room at the Burrow, though, littered with half-finished tinkerings and experiments. It's more interesting than Harry ever thought Malfoy was.
Malfoy isn't much of a host, and sits down at his desk, pulling a strange-smelling concoction out of a drawer and examining it.
It's surprisingly academic, really, which is what leads Harry to ask, "Why don't you go to Muggle Studies?"
"Do you really want me to answer that question, or do you just want to skip to the fist fight?"
Harry supposes that's a good point. "Won't your parents be angry if you fail?"
Malfoy's head sags in total exasperation and he puts down his tools, making a show of giving up on trying to concentrate through Harry's pestering. "One, my parents have been begging me to quit school all year. Two, I'm not going to fail, I'll pass the NEWT at the end of the year and get automatic credit for the course."
Harry blinks. "Your parents want you to quit school?"
Malfoy smiles darkly. "Yes, they're worried I'll be bullied."
He has been bullied, Harry wants to point out, but Malfoy's pride is so delicate and inflated and he doesn't want to be kicked out of the room just yet.
"Why don't they stop paying your tuition?"
"They're feeling very guilty lately about ruining my life and everything, so I can pretty much do anything I want." Malfoy shrugs, and picks up his tools again.
Spoiled, as always. It's nice to see that no matter how fucked up a family gets, they keep some values close to the heart. Harry's sorely tempted to try and get him to talk about how they've ruined his life; it's pretty well true, but he didn't think Malfoy was acknowledging it. In fact, Malfoy's role has basically been to make Harry feel better about his lack of direction; he's not given much thought to what Malfoy must be going through in the post-Voldemort era.
He's not a very good friend.
We aren't friends, he imagines Malfoy saying coldly.
He's glad Malfoy's got his head down, working on his potion, so he doesn't see Harry smiling at him.
*
The terrible truth is that Harry can't think of a conversation about Malfoy that isn't upsetting or insulting.
"What are your plans after school?" Harry asks one day, cringing at the utter banality of it.
Malfoy makes no pretense of thinking hard about it. "Probably I'll go to Greece. Spend money."
"That's it?"
"Hmm."
"Why bother earning NEWTs then?" Harry asks. He's genuinely curious but the question comes out a little derisive anyway.
"Proving a point, aren't I?"
They're silent for a few minutes after that.
"So what about when you run out of money?" Harry asks suddenly.
"Hmm?"
"In Greece."
"I'll rob a bank."
For someone who grew up in high society, Malfoy seems to have very little conversational skill. Or maybe he can turn on his manners for society people; Harry thinks that's likely.
"That sounds nice," Harry says, floundering. Malfoy's paying minimal attention. He's not noticed it's his turn to ask a question.
"You?" Malfoy says after a while.
"Uh. I don't know." It occurs to Harry that he's not a very good conversationalist either.
"Thought you were gonna be an Auror," Malfoy prompts him.
"Well, maybe," Harry says. "I'm not sure what Aurors do without Voldemort, though," he admits. "I guess there's always plenty of Dark wizards to be dealt with."
"You've put yourself out of business, you think?"
"Dunno." Malfoy doesn't ask another question, and Harry stews for a while. "It's just-" he struggles. "I can't tell the difference sometimes between my duty and my interests."
"Maybe they're the same thing. You noble hero types are like that."
If that were the case, Harry's pretty sure he wouldn't be thinking about this so much.
*
It's only afterwards that he realizes the conversation paused for about one second on Malfoy before turning back to him. Has Harry always been this self-centered? Is this coming from everyone else's willingness to indulge him all the time?
Malfoy indulges him too, he thinks. Malfoy wants them to talk about Harry. Malfoy doesn't want to talk about himself. Harry's going to make him.
"Do you regret it?" he asks abruptly one afternoon. He nods to Malfoy's Dark Mark. Malfoy tends to wear short sleeves in the privacy of his room, perhaps because he never, ever does elsewhere. No one would tolerate the sight of his bare arm in public. It instantly occurs to Harry that maybe it's not his place to call attention to it here, in the one place Malfoy feels he needn't hide it.
"Regret is a useless sentiment," Malfoy bites out. Harry thinks he's definitely angry at him for asking.
Harry also thinks the answer is yes, and not just because he wants it to be. Harry sees regret in the stiffness to the set of his shoulders, to the way he's yanked his arm close to his chest and is rubbing the Mark harshly with his thumb, as one would a persistent, stinging pain.
*
"They're thinking of giving me a Chocolate Frog card," Harry says one day.
"So I read," Malfoy replies with little interest. It was in the Daily Prophet.
"I wish they'd wait until after I'm dead," Harry says glumly.
"After you're dead you'll probably get a big bronze statue in the middle of Diagon Alley."
Harry wonders morosely whether the statue will depict him at age seventeen, skinny and willful, after he's died a grown man. "Do you know what it feels like to have discovered and executed your purpose in life before you've turned twenty? Unnerving, to say the least."
Malfoy rolls his eyes unsympathetically. "It's really sweet that you're angling for a pity fuck, Potter, honestly it is. But you must know that there is no circumstance within the realm of possibility that would convince me to feel sorry for you."
Harry sighs. "Why is it that you're always trying to convince me I want to fuck you?" he says, hoping to turn it around, to make Malfoy blush for once.
"Because you do," Malfoy says frankly. "I can tell when someone wants to fuck me, Potter. I'm not blind."
"I'm not gay," Harry counters.
"Neither was the last guy who fucked me," Malfoy says derisively. "It's a very popular stance to take."
Harry can only blink at that. Malfoy fucks guys? Harry tries hard not to put his taunts in a new light. Malfoy is Malfoy, being a prick as usual. There's no way he wants…
"Anyway, I think you are gay," Malfoy says with a shrug, and then changes tactics. "You know your girlfriend looks just like your mum, right?"
Harry's momentarily startled that Malfoy of all people should know what his mum looked like, but then he remembers that pretty much everyone knows what his mum looked like. One of the perks of being a dead hero.
"So?" Harry asks. He's tempted to snarl 'Don't you dare bring Ginny into this' and turn it into a row, but he knows Malfoy won't take the bait. He would have, years ago, but now he knows new ways to make sure nothing's easy for him.
"Just saying, it's a bit creepy."
"S'not," Harry says, feeling put-out. He's never even thought of such a thing. "And I'm not shallow, y'know, it doesn't matter what she looks like. I really like her." Love, he thinks, I should have said love.
Malfoy scoffs openly. "Do you like that look of vapid adoration she throws your way when you hold a door open for her?" Harry flinches just a little; he can't help it. Malfoy's too observant for his own good. "She's a hero worshipper. She was in love with you before she even met you, just like everyone else. But that's what you want in a girlfriend, I guess. Just like it's what you want in a friend."
You're wrong about me, Harry wants to say, but Malfoy cuts him off.
"That's not what you need, though."
Something alien has appeared in Malfoy's eyes, something strangely serious. It makes Harry feel nervous.
"What do I need, then?" he asks, as challengingly as he can.
"Someone to keep your head from getting so big it pops," Malfoy smirks. At least he's smiling now, but that something in his eyes isn't gone. "Someone who isn't starstruck by that stupid scar on your head. Someone who's interested in who you want to be instead of who Dumbledore made you."
Malfoy's leaned in closer to him now. Harry can see a smattering of light freckles on the bridge of his nose, a holdover from summer. His breathing is shallow.
"Someone," Malfoy says, getting even closer, "like me."
Malfoy brings their mouths together quietly and gently. Harry's eyes fall shut as he sighs into it, confusion so overwhelming that he just lets it go, to pick up when he's done. Because at this moment, all he wants to do is keep kissing Malfoy.
It's slow and peaceful, like no kiss he's ever had, except for the rapid thumping of his heart which he's sure is ruining the mood. They're not touching at any other point. It's lovely; it's spectacular. It's Malfoy.
He'd have thought kissing Malfoy would be fierce and urgent, maybe a little violent, smacking of a colorful past. He thinks there might be room for that as well. Suddenly he's got his arms wrapped around Malfoy's body and it's going in a whole new direction, Malfoy's hands carding through his hair, Harry coaxing his mouth open with his tongue, thinking that he wants more than anything to touch more of Malfoy's skin.
He skims a hand along the hem of Malfoy's shirt and rubs his thumb against the warm skin of his belly. Malfoy gasps against his mouth, perhaps shocked at his sudden enthusiasm; he smiles, wanting to say without saying, We Gryffindors never do anything by half. He thinks Malfoy understands.
Malfoy curls his fingers into the hair at the nape of Harry's neck, caressing the upturned stretch of his throat. Harry's never kissed someone taller than him before, and he thinks he likes it.
Suddenly the room is starting to reel and he realizes Malfoy's pushing him onto his back. Shit, he likes it. Malfoy's on his hands and knees over him and they're really snogging now, and this is going incredibly quickly but Harry just doesn't care.
He's feeling a little reckless. "I want-" he says uselessly.
"Yeah," Malfoy agrees, equally uselessly, and then gets off of him, which is exactly what he doesn't want, uncooperative bastard.
Malfoy sits up and reaches behind his collar to tug his shirt off and that's when it hits Harry that this is very different from what he has done previously. Malfoy's chest is flat and there's definition to the muscles in his arms; his body is graceful in a linear way, and, of course, elegant in the manner of someone who has always had a lot of money.
His skin is so pale that the Dark Mark on his left arm seems almost an insult, ugly and marring, and Harry doesn't mean to stare at it but he can't not.
Malfoy notices. "I'm not here for your viewing pleasure," he sneers.
"Git," Harry says without bite, and starts to undress.
Harry finds himself nervously overfocusing on the minutiae of his own clothing removal, and when he's finally naked he has nothing left to do but finally look up at Malfoy, who's equally naked. Malfoy is not vulnerable without his clothes; he's just the same as always, barbed and subtly mocking. Harry can tell he's proud of his body. He's right to be - it's very nice.
It's Harry who pushes Malfoy onto the bed underneath him this time, in an effort to quell his nerves by jumping in. It quickly becomes a matter of necessity that he get closer and closer to him. Malfoy's panting in his ear while he sucks kisses into his throat. Every mark is vivid. Malfoy colors very nicely.
Malfoy forces his hips down with a leg around him and then they're grinding together and the hot slide of Malfoy's cock against his own is indescribable. Harry thrusts against him more purposefully in order to get a better hold on the feeling, but he still can't, so his only recourse is to do it over and over and over again.
"Aah, yeah," Malfoy says, and it's the first exchange of words since they've crossed this undeniable line. The reality of it catches up then - they're having sex. This is a bad idea.
Harry's no-we-can't-this-is-so-wrong is just picking up speed in his head when Malfoy throws his other leg around him and Harry thinks - would Malfoy let him…?
"Fuck me, Potter," Malfoy gasps out. Apparently the answer is yes.
After a brief moment of impatience with Harry's fumbling with the tube of lubricant that Malfoy literally throws at him, Malfoy grabs it back and starts putting fingers up his arse. Harry can only watch, completely transfixed, as they disappear into his tiny hole. He's being none too gentle with himself, either, but he's biting his lip like he enjoys it.
Malfoy reaches for his wand, momentarily startling Harry, and casts a protection spell before slicking him up with more of the lube and lying back, putting his legs over Harry's shoulders. Harry feels distinctly like he's being hurried along. "Go," Malfoy urges.
"Are you late for an appointment, Malfoy?" Harry says, lining himself up. It takes more force than he's used to but he gets in, eyes flicking between the incredible sight of himself disappearing into Malfoy and Malfoy's face, to make sure it isn't too much for him and hopefully ascertain that he likes it.
It feels fucking magnificent. It's a familiar sense of overwhelming gratitude and connection, the interplaying power and vulnerability of being inside someone. He loves it.
And it's Malfoy. The sheer shock value of it is tantalizing, but his flushed, hard body lain out beneath Harry holds an appeal all its own.
A crease forms between Malfoy's eyebrows as Harry drives all the way home and Harry worries that he's taken it too fast.
"Is it-are you-"
Malfoy wants none of it. "Shut up and do it."
They don't speak for the rest of it, only harshly breathing into each other, although Harry can't stop a little noise from escaping along with his exhale as he comes. "Jerk me off," Malfoy says then, a terse command which breaks into the one second of afterglow Harry thought he might be able to enjoy, and Harry obeys without further thought. He decides he likes the warm weight of Malfoy's cock in his palm, and he likes even more the shameless way Malfoy arches and thrashes his head from side to side.
It doesn't take Malfoy long then, and as he comes he jerks and spasms and can't keep himself completely quiet either. His face is wonderful, the flush so out of place on his pale skin that he looks half-mad with animal glee. His expression is caught in a rictus of unbearable pleasure, and Harry thinks what he likes most of all is how, just for a moment, he's able to rob Malfoy of his vanity and leave him achingly guileless and beautifully sincere.
It's only when Malfoy's legs relax around him and his breathing slows that he focuses on the splash of sticky wetness covering his knuckles. Malfoy's cock is softening in his hand and he suddenly regrets not looking away from his face for even a moment of Malfoy's climax.
He will just have to look next time.
*
Harry is not the type of guy who cheats on his girlfriend. It doesn't matter that he hasn't ever had a chance before now to discover that; he knows it by the thick swell of shame that seizes him the next time he looks at Ginny.
So he's got to choose: will he avoid Malfoy from here on out and pretend it didn't happen, or will he break up with Ginny and risk that perhaps Malfoy, in his manipulative way, is just having a bit of fun?
He doesn't know what Malfoy wants from him, and moreover he doesn't know what he wants from Malfoy. The idea of them being a proper couple is pretty laughable, not least because they usually can't be in the same room for more than five minutes without starting a shouting match.
Still, he realizes, the bottom line is that Ginny does not deserve this. He doesn't care about Ginny the way he ought to, and the least he can do is give her the chance to find someone who does.
"I just…don't think this is working," he tells her apologetically.
Her brow creases in hurt and confusion. "Harry," she says, "I love you. I've loved you my whole life."
He tries not to cringe. "Don't you think that's a little weird?" he says, delicately.
He can see her heart breaking in her eyes. "No, I…I think it's destiny."
He wants to bolt. He's had enough destiny for a lifetime, how can she claim to love him and not realize that?
"Gin," he says sadly.
Her face turns angry. He realizes with a sick feeling that he's not stopped being fond of her fire, even now, and that just because he's the one ending this doesn't mean that the loss of it won't hurt him for a long time. "Are you telling me you're dumping me because I love you?"
He swallows, torn between being honest and being gentle. "It's more…the reasons," he says lamely.
Her eyes pop. "That's monstrous," she gasps out.
"I'm sorry," he says, and he really, truly is.
"I waited so long for you," she spits bitterly. "I waited the whole war."
He's got nothing to say to that, so she smacks him and walks away. He doesn't really begrudge her. She does love him; not understanding it doesn't give him the right to trod all over it.
When she turns a corner and disappears, he feels very sad. He's ended a good thing and he knows it. But Malfoy's right, even if he's a bastard: it's not what he needs.
*
"I broke up with Ginny," Harry says glumly as Malfoy pops the button on his trousers.
Malfoy gives a surprised laugh and his eyes flick up from his task to meet Harry's. "You know she's in love with you," he says as if Harry's obviously made a huge mistake, as if he wasn't telling him only days before that his relationship was a sham.
"Yeah," Harry says.
"That was foolish, Potter. It's not every day a beautiful woman falls desperately in love with you."
Harry grits his teeth. He knows Malfoy just wants to hurt him, but awareness doesn't stop him succeeding.
"Then again," Malfoy muses, "I suppose in your case it is every day."
Harry's throat goes so thick it feels solid, and Malfoy's cackling follows him out of the room and down the corridor.
*
Ron and Hermione are furious. It's rare that they should agree on something so totally, but in this they're completely united: Harry has fucked up.
"I thought you loved her!" Ron yells, face red.
"Of course I love her," Harry says, scrubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. "But it didn't feel right."
Hermione has her arms crossed over her chest. "Harry," she admonishes quietly. "You've not been fair to her."
"You've been leading her on for years!" Ron adds.
Harry loses his temper. "I have not! I'm allowed to break up with someone! I don't recall getting married to her, so I don't understand why you expect me to stay with her forever!"
Hermione tries to say something, but he cuts her off. "Would you not agree that I'm within my rights to end a relationship I'm not happy in?"
"You didn't even give her a reason!" Ron says. "Not a real one, anyway," he adds, giving Harry a disappointed look that lets him know Ginny reenacted the entire conversation for them.
They want a reason? For one hysterical second, Harry considers giving them one - he thinks he might be gay. It would appeal to Hermione, he thinks, but probably only convince Ron further that he's led her on, if he implies that he was never attracted to her in the first place. Anyway, he doesn't really think it's true, he's just replaced her with someone male. And he's not exactly about to tell them he's already jumped back on the horse.
"I thought we'd all be, like, a family," Ron says in that roundabout tone he uses to address anything emotional.
Harry's anger suffocates him. Yet more people who expect something of him. It figures that he's committed a grave crime by breaking up with Ginny when him-and-Ginny are part of some perfect future of theirs. At least with them he can be honest about it. "Well, I'm sorry to have spoiled things for you, Ron," he says overly meanly.
They know him too well to tolerate his theatrics. "Harry," Hermione says impatiently. "Don't take it out on us that things haven't worked out. You've put us in an uncomfortable position. It's not easy to deal with when two of your best friends break up."
It's not easy to deal with when two of your best friends get together, either, he wants to shoot back, but he knows that's more hurtful than it is true.
*
He didn't think Malfoy would be a shoulder to cry on, but Malfoy is almost violently unsympathetic. At least verbally; Harry supposes he could be construed to be offering physical comfort since they fuck constantly. It's so easy with Malfoy's private room. Everyone thinks Harry is tremendously big-hearted for spending time with someone who would have seen him dead during the war. Would that they knew the details of the arrangement.
"Why are you doing this?" he asks, after. "With me."
Malfoy looks at the ceiling, possibly thinking of an answer, and then looks at Harry. "Has it occurred to you that everyone who ever hated you is dead?"
Harry almost gasps, it's such a terrible thing to say. Not totally true, either, but Malfoy doesn't know about the Dursleys.
Malfoy looks back to the ceiling. "Let it never be said that I don't know how to survive."
*
"Don't you want to know why I'm doing this? With you?" Harry asks, after.
"I know why you're doing it."
Harry feels a little tick of resentment. Malfoy's such an armchair psychologist these days. "Why's that, then?"
"Because you're afraid that if everyone keeps acting like you're a god you'll start to believe it. I'm here to remind you that you aren't."
Harry frowns. He's got to stop assuming that Malfoy is capable of saying nice things to him.
*
Malfoy's got his arms folded behind his head. He's wearing a big, shit-eating grin and nothing else. Harry's having a staredown with his dick.
He tries not to gulp. He's seen it before. He's touched it before. This is no big deal, clearly.
"Man up," Malfoy says. He's probably glad to find something he's undeniably better at.
"I'm working on it," Harry says, wrapping a hand around the base. It's familiar. This is just a little step further than what he's gotten pretty comfortable with, he tells himself. No problem.
"Scared, Potter?" Malfoy mocks.
"You wish," Harry responds automatically.
"Uh, no, I wish you would get over your homo-panic and suck it already."
Harry gives him a look, heaves a sigh, and bites the bullet.
Well, no. He certainly doesn't bite anything. He just opens up and puts an inch of it in his mouth. It's incredibly weird. He explores the feel of it with his tongue and is immediately inundated with a pretty unappetizing taste.
"That face of shocked repulsion you're making is pretty sexy," Malfoy laughs.
Harry shoots him the best quelling look he can from this angle and tries to slide further down. Bad idea. He gags, coughs, and wipes his mouth. "No. Nope," he says frankly. "I'm done."
"Come on," Malfoy says, cocky and annoying from his recumbent position. "Fair's fair."
Harry looks back to his cock, shining obscenely now with Harry's saliva. Malfoy quirks his hips up and it almost hits him in the chin.
"Prick," Harry says, and tries again. He won't give Malfoy any more fodder to make fun of him if he can help it, so he concentrates this time. He thinks he might be doing a little better because Malfoy's blessedly quiet now instead of rattling off easy taunts and jibes.
Harry's a little tempted to look up and see if he's liking it, but he's got his eyes closed for focus' sake and if he opens them he'll just have a great view of Malfoy's pubic hair, he's pretty sure. And yeah, the carpet matches the drapes.
"You look ridiculous," Malfoy blurts after a few minutes.
"Mmhmm," Harry says.
Malfoy gasps and his voice goes a little desperate. "Harry Potter sucking my cock. Never thought I'd see the day. God, look how it fills up your mouth." He traces his fingers over the bulge in Harry's cheek. "Fuck, Potter…" He sounds like he's begging for mercy.
Harry can't resist any longer and he looks up. Malfoy's eyebrows are knit together like he's enduring something really trying. His chest is flushed and his nipples look peaked and tight. Harry reaches up and fans his fingers across one; it's hard and Malfoy makes a strangled little sound. "Potter, shit, what the hell?"
Harry gives a little hum that he hopes conveys how he's got the upper hand, and pinches Malfoy's nipple. "Fuck-you-" Malfoy gasps out. "Potter you fucker, I'm gonna come in that pretty mouth of yours." Harry gives an interested hmm. "I'll come all - all over you, all over your pretty face, bet you'd like that, huh?"
It sounds a little weird and gross, actually, but Harry's tempted to let him do it from how crazy he's starting to sound. He's not really looking forward to getting it all in his mouth, either, but that sounds a lot less messy. He sucks harder, scraping his thumbnail across Malfoy's much-abused nipple.
"Shit shit shit oh Merlin Potter I hate you!" Malfoy rambles, and then he comes. Just because Harry's expecting it doesn't mean he knows what to do, so he just carries on while Malfoy loses it under him. Eventually he's just lying there twitching and Harry's got a full mouth.
"Stop," Malfoy says, probably over-sensitive now, and he raises into a position where Harry can extract him without spewing his mouthful. He goes to the bathroom to spit, allowing himself an accomplished grin in the mirror as he rinses it down the sink. When he comes back Malfoy's standing up, buttoning a pair of trousers.
Harry feels the smallest bit out of sorts, unsure exactly what to do with himself. He catches Malfoy's eye as he nears him and smiles and leans over to maybe kiss him. Malfoy rears back. "Piss off, dick-breath."
"Charming," Harry deadpans, and pinches his sore nipple with a harsh twist.
Malfoy jerks away from him. "Arsehole," he groans. "That'll bruise, you bastard."
"Oh, I'm sorry, forgot how delicate you are," Harry says. The out-of-sorts feeling is gone, and he smiles confidently.
*
The first time they fall asleep together, it's an accident. Just one of those relaxed post-coital silences that stretches too long until Harry's eyes snap open and it's the next morning.
He's on his back, staring into a projected morning sky on the ceiling. He turns his face to Malfoy, who's on his stomach, his face turned towards Harry. Harry allows himself a moment of quiet observation, studying the lack of tension in Malfoy's face, the absence of brittle anxiety and his usual disdain for everyone.
Harry wishes his eyes were open. He wishes he could see Malfoy properly awake with an expression like this, so he finds himself staring at him, almost afraid to blink, waiting for the exact moment he wakes up.
Malfoy foils him, of course, and the first thing he does when he stirs is press his face into the pillow for a long moment as he stretches his legs. He's back to himself when he emerges, and sits up to fish Harry's invisibility cloak from the foot of the bed.
"Get out of here," he says groggily.
*
Months go by and no one finds out. Harry wonders why they keep it a secret. Perhaps it's a little scandalous, but both of them are well-accustomed to scandal. Harry is strangely eager to see what people will think, if they'll recoil in horror and try to talk him out of it. He wants them to notice that he can do weird things for selfish reasons, that he doesn't resist temptation. He wants them to know that their making him into an example of perfection doesn't stop him from being imperfect when he feels like it.
The rebelliousness of it feels strikingly immature. Harry feels a little ashamed of himself, but not nearly enough to stop imagining it.
*
One day between classes Harry grabs Malfoy's sleeve and makes for an empty classroom, for the purposes of a quick impromptu fumble. He thinks it's the sort of thing Malfoy might like.
Malfoy doesn't like it. "Get out of my face, Potter," he says loud enough for people to hear, shoves him away and walks off.
Five minutes later he's in a fight for mouthing off to Harry Potter, and two hours after that Harry finally catches up with him.
It turns out Malfoy doesn't want anyone to know and doesn't want to take any chances. Harry's testimony at his mother's trial is too important, and he doesn't want the revelation of an improper relationship to cast doubt on it.
Harry's heart stutters in his chest. "That's why you're doing this," he says dully. "To make sure I testify for your mother."
"That's not why, shithead," Malfoy says meanly. "I think you know why I'm doing it." He's off then, around a corner before Harry can make heads or tails of that.
*
Two years gone. Harry doesn't feel so different. Better rested, maybe. Less stressed out, definitely.
McGonagall's asked him to say something for the anniversary. There will be a feast to remember the dead and celebrate the living. Harry hates to think he's the guest of honor but it's undeniable.
"Skip it," is Malfoy's advice. "That's what I'm doing."
"You lost the war," Harry points out.
"Oh, and you're such a fucking winner these days," Malfoy says.
*
"Why are you doing this?" he asks for the millionth time.
They're out by the lake, throwing stones. It's warm now, the year is creeping to a close, and maybe that's why Malfoy doesn't make a snide joke. "You asked me to."
"I asked you to have sex with me?" Harry echoes, incredulous.
"You told me you needed help figuring things out. At that party?"
It's the vaguest image of a former memory, now, Malfoy, fucked up on pixie dust, paying rapt attention to his drunken ramblings. That was a long time ago.
"And you just…obliged?"
Malfoy holds out his hands, palms up, in a false gesture of generosity. "I'm your guardian angel."
Harry rolls his eyes. "I'm pretty sure you don't sleep with your guardian angel."
Malfoy smirks, says nothing.
"What did I tell you I needed help with?" Harry asks after a while. He's not entirely sure he wants to know. He told him about Ginny, probably. How he was unsure he really loved her. Malfoy's a clever guy; it was probably easy to infer from there what he really might have wanted.
Malfoy doesn't bring that up, though. For a long time he doesn't say anything at all. They watch the lake for a few minutes. Malfoy chews on the inside of his cheek.
Finally he turns to Harry.
"Potter, here's the thing. You have to decide who you're living for. Because let's face it, you probably won't ever top yourself. Even if you slay another Dark Lord it won't be as impressive because you won't be a starry-eyed teen hero with a heart of gold any longer. But you didn't enjoy it, did you? It's not like you'll look back on walking into a forest expecting to die and say, 'Wow, most fulfilling day of my life.' So yeah, maybe you've peaked for everyone else. But have you peaked for you? Have you done everything you've wanted to? Have you experienced such rapturous joy that the prospect of continuing to live only depresses you in comparison?"
Malfoy stops then, and seems to realize how long he's just spent giving Harry earnest, unsolicited advice about his life's path. "Something to think about," he finishes lamely, shrugging and getting up, walking swiftly off.
Harry wonders when Draco Malfoy got so fucking smart.
*
And you know what? He's absolutely right.
*
The train station is teary as always. Every time Harry's here he can't help but remember being dead. He's done now, done with Hogwarts, ready for something new, though he has no idea what. All he has planned is an interview for a little flat in London.
He surveys the place and sees that Malfoy's parents have sent a car for him.
"Off to Greece, then?" Harry asks with an unintentional grin.
"Just as soon as I can manage," Malfoy replies carelessly from behind dark sunglasses. In reality, Malfoy has a future of about three weeks at this point; then his trial commences, and it's all taken out of his hands.
Harry feels an absurd warmth in his chest, and sticks out his hand. Malfoy looks at it for a moment and gives a little smirking laugh. They both recognize the gesture: the handshake that never was, so long ago.
Malfoy takes his hand and they shake manfully with strong grips. Harry's tempted to imbue it with all sorts of meaning, but he knows Malfoy would make fun.
They drop hands, and after a long look, Malfoy hikes his bag over his shoulder. "So long, Potter," he says.
"Look me up when you get back," Harry says sincerely.
"I won't," Malfoy says, smiling, but Harry thinks he might.
*
...and now back to brainstorming Merlin fic. My rampant nerdiness has actually caused me to reread The Once and Future King. NEW LOW.