Archive of Our Own ^beta

Cold. He’s so cold, he’s almost… warm.

Harry blinks his eyes open, and if he’d thought he was as cold as he could get, that assumption is foiled when his vision is assaulted by the blinding white of snowfall above him, its flakes hitting his face like needles. He brushes them off his glasses, his fingertips somehow both numb and burning. How long has he been here?

Where is here?

Body wracked with tremors, he makes himself sit up. Every movement hurts, his muscles spasming and so sluggish he’s tempted lie back down — and might, perhaps, if not for… What? There’s something he’s forgetting, something important. He looks around. At first glance, all he can see is snow, covering the land, the trees. But then, in the white-grey distance, he spots a cabin, its windows lit up from within.

Pushing to his feet is a struggle with nothing to prop himself against but Harry manages it, a vague sense of urgency swirling around him, bitter as the wind. On his feet, he sways for a moment and takes stock of himself. Though his feet are cold, they don’t feel as icy as the rest of him, insulated by his heavy boots. But his robes are soaked through, and that’s telling: standard-issue Auror robes are charmed to resist the elements.

Oh, god. He’s wearing Auror robes. Everything comes rushing back, so fast and stark it takes his breath away: the door flying off its hinges, the spill of masked bodies, the hexes flying. Draco’s face as his Protego faltered under an onslaught of offensive magic.

Harry fumbles for his wand, anxiety surging through him when no telltale warmth flares to life in his grip. Magic scalds its way through his veins, sizzling through to his frozen fingertips, but his wand is just a bloody stick — here, when he most needs it.

Shoving it back into his holster, he searches the ground until he picks out the slight swell of powdery snow covering something, hints of red underneath. Draco’s face isn’t covered, but he’s so pale he blends in with the environment, his lips alarmingly blue. Harry forces his legs forward, the pain a distant third to his horror, his panic. He bends over Draco, hands so clumsy he immediately gives up trying to get the snow off Draco in favour of shoving his hands beneath his torso and hauling him up. Draco gives a low, weak moan and slumps against him, knees buckling. With the surge of energy his relief gives him, Harry snarls and put his back into it.

“Come on, you stubborn fuck!” It’s a matter of getting the right grip on him, something that seems impossible with his hands barely responding to his brain’s commands, but Harry clutches at the back of Draco’s robes, at the muscles beneath them, each time Draco sags as if he’s going to drop back down, in an attempt at keeping him upright. When Draco does nothing but twitch and shiver against him, Harry finally hooks his forearm under Draco’s arse and closes his eyes, calling on every reserve of energy he has, then hefts Draco over his shoulder. Harry’s vision swims, darkness threatening to blot out the bleak brightness of winter before everything snaps back into focus. He draws a breath.

Draco is dead weight, shockingly heavy for someone so slender, and the cabin seems like it’s so far off, but that must be — or at least could be — an illusion. As it’s really the only option he has, he trudges forward, one foot in front of the other. Every few metres, Draco slides into a more precarious position, and Harry has to pause to sling him up back into his shoulder, but he manages to slog his way through the drifts, more than ankle deep, until the cabin looms before him. Smoke curls dark from a chimney and its windows glow with the promise of heat. Harry’s mind goes blank, survival instincts driving him closer, closer. Up the stairs. Through the door. The wind slams it shut behind them, and Harry leans his free side against it, panting.

There’s a fire lit, cosy and crackling, along one wall of the sparsely-decorated room, a nest of heavy quilts spread out before it. He takes a step toward it, consumed by the thought of putting Draco down, but stops at the last second and staggers deeper into the cabin. Just off a hallway there’s a bathroom with, mercifully, a tub large enough to accomodate two.

Harry heaves Draco into it, propping him upright and cupping the back of his head as he slides bonelessly against the porcelain. Harry twists both hot and cold taps on full blast in hopes he won’t accidentally scald them — even the warmth of the cabin is sending new, agonising sensation through him — and crawls in over Draco as the water starts rising.

“Draco. Draco.” Harry grits his teeth against the waves of pain each lap of water brings and pats Draco’s cheeks with stinging hands. Draco’s still breathing, that’s good. He scoops up some water in his palm and splashes Draco’s face. “Draco, wake up. Can you hear me? Draco!”

“Mmph.”

“Draco!” Harry raises his voice and splashes more water over him, panting with effort. He knows most of Draco’s sounds; that was definitely one of complaint, and if Draco can complain, he isn’t too far gone. Harry cups more water in his hands and brings it to Draco’s mouth. “Drink,” he orders when Draco twists his face away.

“H-h-h-hurts,” Draco breathes. Harry almost sobs with relief. He tips his hands to Draco’s mouth again.

“I know. I know,” he murmurs, his own teeth starting to chatter. “Do it anyway. It'll make you warm, it’s warm.” He thinks so, at least. Draco turns his head back and parts his lips. Harry lets the water slide into Draco’s mouth, laughing senselessly when Draco coughs out a spray of it against his face, over his glasses. But Draco’s throat is working too — swallow by swallow, he’s drinking. “Good,” Harry says when his hands are empty. “Good.”

There’s a light steam rising now, and his nerves are waking up even more as the water level slowly covers his back. He reaches his leg back and twists the taps off as best he can with his boot, lowering the gush of water to a trickle. Draco opens his eyes, just a slit.

“Harry.”

“Yeah.” Harry settles more fully in his straddle over Draco’s thighs and presses his face to Draco’s neck as Draco’s body erupts in another round of violent tremors. Harry drops his arms into the water and lets himself relax, tired down to his bones. “How are you feeling?”

“Ugh.”

“Right.” The rise and fall of Draco’s chest beneath his is as big a relief as the pain slowly ebbing from his extremities. Harry wants to sleep for a week; to forestall that, he swishes his hands in the water, the last portion of his body afflicted with those awful stabbing sensations. Eventually, those fade too. Harry closes his eyes.

Flashing streaks of pink and yellow light over cornsilk hair are what catch Harry’s attention. Draco moves on the crowded dance floor, body loose, one arm slung behind him ‘round the neck of a man with dark hair. He’s got jeans on, and his t-shirt is glued to every lanky muscle he has, attire Harry’s never seen him in before.

He didn’t expect this when Draco dropped the flier on his desk.

At first glance, the only thing obvious about it was that it was Muggle, for its lack of movement. It was splattered with rainbowed graffiti paint, most predominantly purple. On the reverse, in tiny lettering at the bottom, was an address in Soho.

“You’re inviting me to a gay club?” Harry’d asked, astonished. “Are— Are you asking—?” It was so unthinkable, he couldn’t finish; he shouldn’t even have been able to think it, really.

Without looking up, Draco set his quill down and folded up both of his sleeves to the crease of his elbow. He cleared his throat, a small smirk on his face, and picked his quill back up. “If I was offering you sex, Harry, I’d offer you sex. Get your ego out of my arse. It’s just a club. If you’d like to avoid me entirely, don’t go on Friday nights. If I see you there, I’ll buy you a drink,” he said, the edge of his hand rasping over parchment, his faded Dark Mark on full display in a way it never was.

Only, Friday is Harry’s first night off in over a week and Draco never invites him anywhere. He’s a good partner, just as driven as Harry is, and calculating in a way that Harry appreciates when he finds himself wanting to bash down walls to finish things. Harry finds himself slipping into informalities more often than not these days, spurred on by comfortable length of their partnership and the thoughtlessness of Draco using his first name. The competitive nature of first-naming each other that began over four years ago now feels less like a challenge of who can be more civil than it does like a joke they’re both in on. A good-natured tease, the sort you do with a mate — which they are, much to Harry’s disbelief whenever he thinks on it. So seeing Draco at a club shouldn’t feel like taking a Stunner to a chest.

But it does.

From the edge of the dance floor, Harry watches Draco move. He’s not the only one, and he understands why: He knows Draco’s fit, but he’s never realised before how… beautiful he is, how striking. Or maybe he’s just never let himself, for this precise reason. It’s the first time he’s had to confront the comparison of how tightly reined-in Draco is at work to anything else, the first time he’s seen how much leashed energy lives under Draco’s shifting skin. Draco’s got glitter on his cheeks, on his throat. Like fairydust. Runny mascara turns his eyes smoky-dark. With a surge of something that feels like pain, Harry wants to be the man he’s dancing with.

He takes a step back, panic fighting down the bloom of revelation in his chest. If someone had asked before tonight, he would have said that he and Draco are friends, but now... Now he’s got to get out of here before he’s spotted. And then Draco looks up.

Meets his eyes.

Harry can’t move for a moment, the slow curl of Draco’s pleased smile burying itself like an arrow next to the turmoil Harry feels. Draco nods at him, then turns in the arms of the man he’s dancing with, as he drags up his t-shirt to wipe his face. It leaves his back exposed, shows off the indentation of his spine, deep for someone so slender. His jeans are tight but set low on his hips, and Harry’s gaze drops; his jaw does too. He looks back up to see Draco put his mouth against his dance partner’s ear — and Harry turns on his foot and flees.

A sound wakes him from the dream, a faint gurgle. Harry sighs, resenting it, and lifts a hand to adjust his glasses. It takes him a moment to understand why they’re covered with steam, and then he jerks upright, sending a wave of water over the lip of the tub. He looks at Draco, exhaling in relief. Draco’s eyes have closed again, but colour has returned to his lips, a faint pink to his cheeks, and there’s a light sheen of sweat at his temples. He looks better, despite the slight frown between his eyes. The gurgle must have been the overflow drain; the bath is almost full.

“We have to get out,” Harry says.

“‘m tired,” Draco says, frown deepening. Harry sighs again.

“I know, me too. C’mon. It’s not safe here.” Harry pushes himself up, water sloshing over the lip of the tub. “It’ll get cold soon, anyway.”

That seems to be the convincing argument. Harry sluggishly climbs out of the tub and Draco grips his wrist to let himself be hauled up. He requires Harry’s help, one arm clinging to Harry’s shoulders, to step over the rim. He feels wobbly under Harry’s hands, water cascading off them, but he quickly steadies — enough that Harry isn’t too worried — once his feet are on the floor.

Harry grabs a couple towels from a fluffy stack on a nearby shelf and passes one over. No longer surrounded by the hypnotic heat of the water, the chill comes back, and he’s halfway out of his shirt, dripping robes discarded on the floor, before he realises that Draco isn’t moving.

“What are you doing?” Immediately, Harry knows the answer. Draco is notoriously modest, for all the air of bored sophistication he puts on at work and after hours. He can curse a blue streak when he’s in a foul mood and has never been shy about discussing his sex life, but he always retires to home to shower after a training session or patrol shift — even the times he’s been covered with dragon slime or other disgusting (and potentially dangerous) substances, on a case. But this isn’t the time to be reticent, and frustration rises sharply in Harry over it. He pins Draco with a look and takes off his shirt, slopping it to the ground defiantly, then kicks off his boots and begins unbuckling his belt.

“I don’t care,” he clips out. “Whether it’s bashfulness or hideously disfiguring scars, the clothes have to come off. If it’s the latter, I expect we’ll have to have a longer conversation,” he adds, propping himself against the wall to peel off his wet socks, “but that can wait until we’re warming by the fire, got it?”

Draco holds the towel to his chest for another beat, face immobile. Then: “Yeah.”

Harry nods, satisfied. Neither of his suppositions is the real reason, of course, but whatever gets the job done. He shoots a sharp glance to Draco as Draco sets the towel aside and begins flicking open the buttons of his Auror robes. Harry returns to his trousers and pants, the materials of which are clinging unpleasantly to his skin. He clumsily manages to get them down to his knees before having to prop himself again to get them the rest of the way off, all-too-aware that Draco is disrobing beside him. Harry opens the towel and rubs himself down briskly, then wraps it around his waist and looks up in time to see Draco tugging the steel-grey tie around his neck loose.

“We’ll probably have to have quite a bit to talk about, anyway,” Draco murmurs, hands straying to the buttons of his dove-grey shirt. “Why don’t you go find us something hot to drink.”

“I don’t know if there’s anything here,” Harry says. His feet feel rooted to the floor. Draco’s chest is free of scars, decorated only by a soft smattering of hair that narrows to a thin, ash-blond ribbon below his navel, his skin as fine and pale as marble. Draco reaches for his flies and arches an expectant brow that somehow pairs well with the weariness on his face. Harry clears his throat. “We’re in—”

“I remember,” Draco says. He sounds as tired as Harry feels, but slants him a wry smile. “You took us inside the seasonal globe.” He nods at Harry’s expression and jerks his chin at the door. “There will be supplies. I won’t be a minute. Go.”

Harry does.

The seasonal globe, Draco explained, had been a gift from his mother. It was a custom, in the Black family, to bequeath each child with an item tailored to the specific desires of their heart, on their seventeenth birthday. Draco hadn’t received the globe until his eighteenth, “for obvious reasons.”

Harry studied the globe in his hands, his interest caught. It was heavy, the round glass fixed to a carved, obsidian stand. He’d only picked it up for something to talk about other than his curiosity about why Draco had suddenly begun inviting him over like it was nothing, after years of safeguarding his privacy. Draco’s open robes and elegant, half-reclined pose on the sofa alluded to something different in Harry’s mind than the ‘after work drink’ Draco had mentioned, and Harry was unnerved. He felt the way he had a few months prior, seeing Draco dance for the first time, that same awareness between them.

But Harry couldn’t say so, couldn’t bring himself to press, so he asked about the the globe, instead. Upon really looking at it, though, he discovered it was quite mesmerising. It had a small, rustic cabin in the centre, and the landscape was dotted with English oak trees, the dreamy, golden pollen from their catkins drifting around as if caught by a light breeze. Draco scooted closer on the sofa.

“It’s a series of atmospheric charms,” Draco said, stroking along the curve of the glass with one finger. His face was soft as he looked at it, his gaze distant and fond. Harry was uncomfortably reminded of the night he'd seen Draco dance, as though he was privy to something no one else got to see.

“It’s beautiful.”

“My mother spoils me,” Draco said matter-of-factly. Harry sighed, looking into the globe, and Draco paused. When Harry looked up, he was frowning. “I’m sorry, Harry, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine.” Harry waved it off, trying to smile. “It’s good that she does; I don’t begrudge you a mother’s gifts,” he said, laughing a little. He felt a little bad — fully grown, he knew it shouldn’t be a tender subject for him, and there was no point in being sad that other people got to have things that had been lost to him before he could remember. And he couldn’t deny wanting good things for Draco, not anymore. He touched the globe again. “It’s really lovely.”

Draco looked regretful, like he wanted to say more, but he simply nodded and took a breath. “It goes through a year’s worth of seasons in a few weeks,” Draco tapped the glass, drawing Harry’s gaze to it, “and it’s never the same. The witch who made it incorporated real weather patterns.”

“And it’s tailored to the desires of your heart?” Harry asked. His eyes strayed to Draco’s mouth and Draco’s smile widened while he was looking. “How did it escape me that you’re a weather swot? Or do you just collect snowglobes?”

“Seasonal globe,” Draco corrected. He took it from Harry’s hand and placed it on the low table in front of his sofa. “And no, I’m not and I don’t.” He huffed a laugh, gaze seeking Harry’s once more. “Though a lot of things do seem to escape your attention.”

“I always notice them after a while,” Harry said. Blotches of charming pink grew on Draco’s cheeks.

“I suppose you do,” Draco said, and looked away. A little resentfully, he muttered, “You could work on noticing them quicker.” His mouth twitched when Harry snorted, and the beat of time in which Harry could have responded was gone. Draco settled back into the sofa. Harry regrouped.

“So what’s special about it, then?” he asked. “For you, I mean.”

Draco smirked. “It’s my favourite holiday destination.”

“Right.”

“Actually, it is,” Draco said. He blinked as if startled to offer that much, then shrugged and looked at Harry. “The cabin is equipped to suit my needs, in any weather. It’s a little escape. Mother thought I might need one, sometime — you remember how things were, back then.”

“Yes.” ‘Back then’ was a rather polite way to say it, the papers hounding Draco near as much as they had Ron and Hermione. It made good copy, Harry’d supposed at the time. Draco was the only Death Eater available for the wizarding world to point their collective fingers at, and the Prophet raked in gold with speculation about his intentions when he joined the Ministry, even having to issue four reprints the day it was released that he and Harry would be working together.

Harry picked his drink back up and took a sip, relishing the heat scoring a path down to his stomach as it settled the discordant flutters of excitement and concern there. “So you…” he frowned, “go into it?”

“It’s completely attuned to my magic; it’s simple enough to get into,” Draco said. He licked an amber droplet from his upper lip. “It’s peaceful in there. I don’t have to hide anything, worry about anything.”

“I could use something like that,” Harry said. He quirked Draco a smile. “Maybe I can visit.”

“And what do you want to hide from, Potter?” Draco cocked his head at a curious tilt and gazed at him through lowered lashes, so inviting a picture, a burst of adrenaline hit Harry, like the ones he got when he was cornered in a wand fight.

“Right now? Nothing at all.” Harry drained his drink. “You?” He looked at Draco, something hot and expectant simmering the air between them. Draco’s gaze dropped and Harry sat back; he hadn’t realised he’d leaned closer.

Draco Summoned the bottle of whiskey from his cabinet. He tipped a bit more into Harry’s glass. But he didn’t pry and he didn’t answer, pivoting the subject neatly to Teddy’s upcoming birthday, his posture slowly straightening. By the time Harry went home, he’d relegated the conversation to the back of his mind as best he could, where it stayed for months—

—until assassins poured into Draco’s flat, wands already ablaze.

“Hey.”

Harry turns, tucking the blanket he'd nicked from in front of the fire a little tighter around him. “Hey. Feeling better?”

Draco nods. He’s got on a thick green, terry dressing gown, knotted securely at the waist. “A bit,” he says. He eases onto one of the stools at the small island in the middle of the kitchen, taking the coffee Harry slides across it in both hands, then hesitates before taking a sip. “How many were there?”

“Seven.” Harry grimaces. “At the last count.”

The whole thing had begun so small, people on the lower rungs of the DMLE disappearing or sending in their resignations with no notice. But they were the people who dealt with the filing, the scheduling, the mundane aspects that kept the Aurors running smoothly; by the time anyone had realised there was something bigger going on, the department was in a state of organisational semi-chaos. The first two Aurors had been taken out with ease, their Owls regarding taking holiday time not even checked for forgery until it was too late.

The third had lost one of his kidneys and a week of his memory.

After that, the force had cracked down, pulling paper-runners from around the Ministry to train new-hires and fill in for the missing ones. And still it was rough going, experienced people having to slog their way through the department’s policies, Aurors pitching in and pulling double shifts. Even then, things weren’t falling into place, and it had been a wild shot in the dark when Harry decided to look into the missing, the dead, the injured.

“I only saw the first two,” Draco says as if they’re talking about where to get takeaway from. He rubs distractedly at his forehead. “My wand was…?”

“I don’t know,” Harry says. He puts his hands on the island, gripping the edge of it. “I led them to you.”

Draco looks at him over the rim of his mug as he takes a long, calm drink of his coffee. “How?”

“They followed me, I think,” Harry says. “I found a link in the case; that was the reason I came over.”

“Then you could have covered your tracks better,” Draco says after another sip, an edge of irritation in his voice when he adds, “or at least included me in whatever side investigation you had going.” He searches Harry’s face.

“It didn’t occur to me that I’d need to,” Harry says. “I was mostly looking for other reasons the first victims may have been targeted in the order they were. It was a whim.”

“You should really stop listening to those.”

“I'm better at it than you think.”

Draco holds his eyes for a long moment before his gaze drops back to his coffee. “What did you find?”

“It was Sheffield,” Harry says. “The one whose memories had been ‘wiped.’” He loosens his hold on the counter and rounds it. “Someone must have seen that I found the gold transfer he received three months ago, from a person who doesn’t exist — except on parchment, as one of the many owners of the corporation that was funding last year’s pureblood extremist group.”

“Of course,” Draco says, irritation restored. He drinks the rest of his coffee and sets the mug down jarringly on the scarred wood of the island. “Good Merlin, will we never learn?”

“You did,” Harry points out. Draco swivels on his stool to face him, his narrowed gaze lifting to Harry. After a moment, the scowl perched on his brow fades, and Harry clears his throat. “They set up anti-Apparition wards around your house. After you went down, I managed to get you into the parlour and I couldn’t think what else to do. I’m sorry, I know this is your private space.”

“It’s fine.” Draco waves a hand. “I mean— Well, it’s not, really, but not because of that. I don’t care that you’re here.”

“How flattering.”

“You get plenty of opportunities for ‘flattering,’” Draco says with another, more half-hearted, scowl. “If you wanted that—”

“No, I don’t want that,” Harry says. It comes out a blurt: inelegant; unintended. But Draco’s breath stutters and something shifts in his eyes, one eyebrow losing its arch. Harry looks away. “I thought you might have died,” he admits. “That I could have lost— my partner.”

“Harry.” Draco touches his arm, curling his fingers around Harry’s wrist to draw him a little closer, and Harry makes himself turn back, makes himself look at Draco’s face again; all of the aggravation in his face is gone. “I’m here. I’m fine,” Draco says, the gentleness in his tone almost too much to take. “You didn’t lose me.”

Harry laughs awkwardly, feeling foolish. “That would imply you’re—”

“Yours to lose?”

It is too much, too perceptive, too close to the nightmares Harry never lets himself think about, and he means to step back, he’s sure of it. Instead, he helplessly cups Draco’s jaw. It’s an unspoken agreement that they don’t touch unless necessary, though Harry can’t find in himself any of the reasons he’s used over the years.

Draco inhales sharply through his nose, their locked gaze lingering. In the span of a few seconds that feel like years, he looks so vulnerable that Harry almost lets go. But then Draco leans forward without a word, and only when Harry’s mouth is met in the middle does Harry realise he’d been leaning in too. He kisses Draco, Draco’s hands coming up to grip Harry’s wrists like he’s going to push Harry away, but he simply slants his head, pliant, to better accept Harry’s kiss. For his effort, Harry kisses him harder, sealing his lips against Draco’s. It’s not the care he usually shows when kissing, but Draco responds, parting his lips a touch when Harry flicks his tongue against them. He coaxes Draco’s mouth open and kisses him more thoroughly, and the full extent of his fear when he’d thought Draco might die finally makes itself known, trembling through him down to his toes. He strokes down the sides of Draco’s neck, thumb resting over the reassuring thump of his pulse for a moment. And then he slides his hands into the gape of Draco’s dressing gown; it parts for him, the sash still tied. Harry pulls away, breathing too hard. He opens his mouth.

“Later,” Draco says, gazing at him with heavy-lidded eyes. Later.

“I—” Harry stops, unsure if a confession or objection is on the tip of his tongue. He can’t say the first, but the latter would be a lie, one he can’t even convince himself of with his cock so hard, let alone Draco. He falls silent, kissing Draco once more, deeper. Draco unties his sash and Harry pushes Draco’s dressing gown from his shoulders, knocking Draco’s knees wider to step between them. Draco’s naked underneath, so pale Harry might believe Draco’s still icy if he didn’t have his hands on him. But his cock is already hard, a beautiful, heated pink, plumping and lengthening further as Harry looks at it. Draco sucks in a breath.

“What do you need?” he asks quietly.

“This,” Harry says, and kisses him again, unable to think in such concrete terms and, for once, not wanting to. He shrugs the blanket off his shoulders, lets Draco loosen the towel still around his waist. It falls to the floor, and then Draco’s hands are on Harry too, a groan pealing from Draco’s throat as Harry steps even closer. The stool sits him at the perfect height; their cocks brush against each other, and Harry settles his hands on Draco’s hips.

“Mmm,” Draco says, voice going low, his knuckles rubbing down the trail of hair on Harry’s stomach. He grips both their pricks together in one elegant, long-fingered fist. His eyes are dark. “Like that?”

“Yes,” Harry says through gritted teeth, tightening his hold on Draco’s hips to keep himself up. Draco’s fingers move, adjusting Harry’s cock so it rests flat on top of his own, the tip of Draco’s erection nudging Harry’s balls. He works his hand over both of them, from the base of his cock to the base of Harry’s, their foreskins sliding together against his palm, and it’s so good a shuddery breath breaks out of Harry’s throat.

“How do you like it, Harry?” Draco asks, that sly hand still moving with just the right amount of tease. On each slide, his fingers graze the slit of Harry’s prick; on each slide, his fist tightens around the base.

“Anyway you want to do it,” Harry says. He can see hypnotic hints of Draco’s cock, paler and more slender and slightly longer than his own, whenever Draco twists his hand, and he forces himself to loosen his hold on Draco’s shoulder so he wouldn’t bruise him. Draco leans in and obscures his vision by nipping at Harry’s collarbone, tongue dancing light and wet over the bite of his teeth as he pulls away.

“Tell me,” Draco says. There’s a new edge to his voice, some mix of how he sounds after those charged silences that happen sometimes between them, and how he’d sounded in the bathroom before sending Harry away. Harry flicks a glance to his face — Draco’s cheeks are flushed, his kiss-bitten lips shining and parted. His gaze is hot and fixed on Harry’s cock in his hand. Draco licks his lips. “Tell me what you want.”

“I, ah—” Draco is so warm against him now, when so short a time ago, he’d been freezing; it scrambles Harry’s thoughts. “I thought about doing this to you,” he says. He moves his hand to Draco’s jaw, thumb splaying out to touch his swollen mouth. Draco opens it wider and takes the tip between his teeth, sucking lightly on it. Harry gasps, “Yeah. Yes. I thought about watching you blow me. Thought about how deep you could suck my cock when you— when you said—”

I like a good throat-fucking as much as the next bloke, Draco’d said, voice hoarse after a weeklong holiday in Paris six months back. Harry, trapped behind his desk and furious, could only stiffen his jaw and fumble blindly in his desk for a lozenge. Draco had sucked it into his mouth, the rasp of his words fading, teeth gleaming with a shark-like grin in Harry’s direction before he’d gathered the files that had accumulated on his desk in a neat stack and strolled out to get signatures on them.

“Been stewing on that, have you?” Draco says, releasing Harry’s thumb. He doesn’t look up from where he’s driving Harry to madness with his hand, but a tiny, smug smile ticks up at one corner of his mouth. “Good. I could make you feel so good, if you like. I’ve wanted to for a while.” His hand speeds up, voice dropping and softening. “For so long.”

“How long?” Harry asks. Draco says nothing. His hand is making sounds now, a soft, wet slapping over them, and his cock feels so hard under Harry’s it makes him shake, Draco’s slit streaking damp against Harry’s sac.

“Would you like me to do it now?” Draco asks, finally as breathless as Harry feels, as rough and uneven. “Do you want to put your cock down my throat? Want to feel me swallow around it when you come?”

“Oh Jesus, yes,” Harry says shakily, gaze darting from their cocks to Draco’s face. Draco’s hand loosens for a fraction of a second and Harry presses his fingers to his jaw until Draco glances up. “No,” Harry gets out, panting, “like this. I want to come all over you.”

“Uhh, yes,” Draco says. “I like hearing you say it.” His head falls forward and he holds their cocks even tighter with swift, gripping pulls between them, back and forth, and when he mutters, “No reason we can’t do both, though,” Harry comes with a low cry, toes curling into the wooden floor. His cock jumps and pulses in Draco’s hand, shooting spunk over the neat curls around Draco’s groin, and after a few more fast jerks, Draco exhales explosively, his cock throbbing too, wetting Harry’s balls slick with stripe after stripe of his climax.

Harry finally catches his breath, eyes on the rippling of Draco’s shoulders and the paleness of his nape, before Draco lifts his head from where it’s bowed between them. Unwinding his fingers, he flicks Harry an oddly apprehensive look and scoots back to pick up the dish towel that’s suddenly on the island. He rubs it carelessly over his cock, his pubic hair, then folds it and attends to Harry in the same manner, as though Harry’s a puppy who can’t quite clean himself. He discards the towel and pushes Harry back a step, rising to pick up his dressing gown and Harry’s blanket. “We should rest a bit, I suppose.”

“I made soup,” Harry says after a beat. Draco looks so calm. Unaffected, the way he does whenever he’s truly frightened. Harry takes the blanket Draco hands him and draws it back around his shoulders. “It won’t be very long.”

Draco studies him as he re-ties the sash around his waist. “Alright,” he says. Harry can practically feel the vibrations from the churning in Draco’s chest — or perhaps they’re an echo from his own — but there’s no point, now, in avoidance, and at least Draco seems to know it. He meets Harry’s gaze. “I’ll wait in front of the fire.”

It’s both a temporary retreat and a kindness. Harry nods to acknowledge it and Draco looks at him a moment longer.

“I’ll see you there in a minute,” Draco says.

Harry nods back, then turns to the where the tinned soup is beginning to bubble on the hob.

The main room looks empty when Harry comes in, but the fire is leaping higher, crackling as though it’s been recently tended to, and he realises that Draco’s lying on his side, hidden under a mound of blankets, only his arm and face visible as he watches the fire. His eyes flick warily in Harry’s direction, then back. Harry sets down the tray with their meal in the middle of the fluffy spread of blankets and pillows without comment, and then heads to the kitchen once more to fetch another coffee for each of them. He loads them with plenty of cream and sugar despite the way they both prefer their coffee black; it’ll help for any lingering symptoms of shock. When he returns, Draco’s sitting before the fire with a pillow on the blanket covering his lap, one bowl of soup resting atop that.

“This is good.”

“It’s from a tin that said ‘soup,’” Harry says, lowering himself down. He sets their coffees on the floor and situates himself on his side like Draco was so he can stretch out. He props his head in one hand and tugs the tray with the bowl and bread a little closer.

“It’s still good,” Draco says, taking another spoonful. He makes a slightly lewd sound of appreciation and licks his lips.

“Thank whatever magic your mum put in this place,” Harry says. “It’s just what I found in the pantry.”

“The magic from this place comes from its inhabitants,” Draco says, breaking of a crust of thick bread to dunk in his soup. He chews it slowly, eyes closing for a moment, before swallowing and saying, “My mother just commissioned the seasonal globe. Outside, we’ve got no control over what’s going on. Inside, the cabin acts like…” He tilts his head and licks the shine of soup from his lower lip. “Like Grimmauld Place, a bit. It’s not sentient the way wizarding homes are, but it’s been charmed with a low-level sort of Legilimency; it can provide for our needs as long as it has our magic to tap into.”

“And how long might that be?” Harry asks, taking a spoonful of soup. It really is good, hot and rich, with thick-cut vegetables and small, tender chunks of beef — it’s subtly flavoured, like the kind someone might order in a restaurant rather than the sorts of tinned soup Harry gets at Tesco for when he’s short on time. “I managed to send Ron and Robards Patronuses before taking us in here, telling him who was behind everything and what was happening, but even with cleanup, I have a feeling we should have been recovered long before you got to the point of hypothermia.”

Draco slants him a sharp look, nodding slowly.

“Actually, I’m not sure how you managed to take us in here at all,” he says with a small purse of his lips. “The globe is charmed to respond only to me.”

Harry shrugs, chasing his soup with another hit of coffee. “What was I supposed to do, let them kill you?”

Draco rubs a hand over his face and scrapes back the fringe of hair that flops over his forehead. “Yes, well done, you acted very much the hero.” He rolls his eyes at Harry’s snort and says, “Time moves differently here. A full year’s worth of seasons in roughly a month, remember? We’ve been in here for, what, over an hour?”

“More than two, I’m guessing,” Harry says. He checks his watch. The second hand ticks quadruple-time around the face and he frowns. “If you count the time we were outside.”

“Well, if we suppose it takes Weasley and the other Aurors ten minutes to show up and another fifteen for the department to take down anyone still in my flat…” Draco trails off significantly, and then the quality of his voice changes. He clears his throat. “And a day or two for for them to track someone down who might know how to get us out… We may be here awhile.”

Harry’s heart skips a beat. He looks at Draco steadily. “Days?”

“Perhaps. If we’re lucky,” Draco says. His chin goes up. “The magic for the globe is... simple, not common. And as I said, it’s only supposed to respond to me.”

“They’ll have to locate someone who knows about bottling magic this way,” Harry says, watching him closely. His mouth his dry. “Even perhaps the witch who made it.”

There’s a long pause. Draco chews on his lip. “If I had my wand— I could get us out in a bare second.”

“So, then.” Harry exhales, nodding. “Days. Or longer.”

“That’s not a problem for you?” Draco asks, looking confused and slightly disturbed. His gaze flicks over Harry’s face.

“No,” Harry says slowly. “We’ll figure it out eventually, and until then I think it’s about time we had time to talk about… things.”

A hint of pink climbs Draco’s throat; his Adam’s apple bobs. Harry looks down at his meal, munching on a slice of bread and hoping the heat in his own face is coming from the fire, the blankets. When he glances back up, Draco’s cheeks are red and he’s holding the back of his hand to one of them as though trying to cool it.

“You think I’ve been the one avoiding things?”

Harry shrugs. It’s a fair point. “I’ve always said people give me too much credit for being brave,” he murmurs, mind still caught on the fierceness of Draco’s blush. He pushes the tray away and sits upright. “Which you know is true.”

“Which I know is true,” Draco agrees dumbly. He blinks, a quick flutter of pale lashes. “And now things have changed. All it took was five minutes.”

“I’ve been better than five minutes since I was eighteen,” Harry says, huffing a laugh.

The back of Draco’s hand finds his cheek again. With a vague air of bewilderment, he says, “Not with me.”

“Had to be at least twenty, by my watch.”

“Potter—”

“No,” Harry says, more sharply than he intends. He softens it. “Not here.”

Draco swallows. “Harry… The kitchen—”

“Was brilliant,” Harry says, shoring up his courage to meet Draco’s eyes. It had been. The least he can do is admit that much, even if he‘s not yet got to the point where he can explain how much it means to him that Draco had— had known just what he needed. That he’d been willing to offer it, despite whatever doubts he obviously still has. “I liked it.”

Draco spreads his hands. “Of course you did,” he says with a spluttering sort of half-laugh. “I’m incredibly generous.”

“We’ve been partners for years, Draco; you don’t have to lie to me.”

“Shut up,” Draco says. But his shoulders come down under his dressing gown, and he flashes Harry a small smile before looking into the fire.

“No. I think I’ve already done too much of that,” Harry says, watching the firelight play over the angles of Draco’s face as Draco turns back to face him. Orange shadows skitter over the blade of his cheekbone and narrow jaw, on the side of the straight bridge of his nose. His eyes are dark, and he’s quiet, letting Harry watch him, but that energy is still there, in every twitch of his expression and flicker of his gaze. He looks soft and open, like he does when he talks about his mother or when he speaks to Teddy, and even more beautiful than he’s ever been. Harry is struck immobile, a painful tumble of longing caught in his throat. “What you did… That was generous,” he says, stifled. “I needed it. And it was… fantastic.”

“If you’re waiting for me to agree with the sentiment,” Draco says, an amused tilt to his mouth, “you’ll be waiting a long time.”

He’s so beautiful. And such a liar.

“Seems we’ve got plenty of that,” Harry says. Draco snorts and sets his bowl aside, drawing his legs up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. He rests his chin on one knee, examining the fire as though it might give him the answer to something. His face takes on the same abandoned sort of concentration as it had when Harry saw him dance.

“I promised you a drink that night,” Draco says at last. “When you showed up at the club.”

Harry blinks, startled. “How did you know what I was—?”

“It was the first time you looked at me the way you are now.” Draco twists his head, cheek pressed to his knee, and offers Harry a smile. “Not the last.”

“I wanted you,” Harry says. “I didn’t know I wanted you before then.”

“I know.” Draco clicks his tongue reprovingly. “What a reason to leave.”

“I left because I couldn’t stand to watch you dance with someone else any longer,” Harry says, and closes is mouth before the rest comes out. He wants to preserve the moment for as long as he can, wrapped as they are by the sounds of the fire, the cosiness of the room. The rest of the world feels so far away, but Draco is right here, and that’s all Harry needs, really.

“The usual response to that would be to dance with the object of your desire, instead,” Draco says. He sucks his lips between his teeth, a crease at the edge of his mouth.

“Draco,” Harry says, exasperated. Draco raises his eyebrows.

“Which you could have asked me to do,” he says pointedly. And, alright, that’s fair. To a point. Harry loads up the tray with their bowls and leftover coffee to gather his thoughts, but before they’re in enough order to respond, Draco clears his throat. “Although that’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?” Harry asks. Draco gives him a sidelong glance.

“I’m not the only one who avoids things,” he says. He lets go of his knees and stretches his legs out, his dressing gown parting to reveal them, long and lean, the hair on them glinting gold, legs Harry has wanted to kiss his way up for months.

Harry pinches the bridge of his nose, almost wishing for a headache. At least it’d give him some excuse for the way he can’t seem to make himself think. He exhales. “I did ask you to dance.”

Draco’s invasive gaze falters. Then he tilts his head archly, strands of his hair falling like silk against his forehead again. “Maybe we’ve taken this far enough.”

“I don’t think it’s gone nearly far enough,” Harry says.

“When will it have, Harry?” Draco asks, so mildly Harry can tell his nerves are wound tight. “If I let you fuck me on the kitchen island, would that be enough?”

“Not even that,” Harry says, frustration as insidious as a Devil’s Snare crawling through him. Draco barks a wry laugh and Harry pauses. “Are you saying you didn’t want me to? That you don’t?”

“Oh, I wanted it.” Draco leans his head back to contemplate the ceiling, a mulish set to his jaw. There’s a small, purplish blemish on his neck right above the collar of his dressing gown; Harry can’t even remember putting it there, but it sets another ripple of craving through him. Draco continues, adopting a conversational tone, “You look at me that way more than you think. It’s more…” he seems to struggle, “...tempting to me than you could understand.”

“Then why?” There’s something pulsing between them now that could be about their proximity and the firelight, even the sex, but is about none of those things — it’s some new tension that calls to mind the Sunday morning following that night at the club.

“Potter.” Draco says it so tenderly, Potter, nothing like the way he used to spit it at Harry, nothing like the way he says it when he’s trying to create a distance between them, so Harry doesn’t protest this time. The syllables of his surname tremble just enough that it sounds like an endearment. Maybe a plea. “We’ve had each other now. It might be wise to… stop.”

Harry’s stomach cramps. He takes a long breath and waits for Draco to look at him, then shakes his head. “You know that’s not true.”

“It’s not,” Draco hesitates, “not true.”

“It’s not enough.”

Draco sighs, looking put-out. “Maybe you can forgive me for trying to maintain our cease-fire for as long as I can. You’re forgetting that I know you, Harry, probably far too much about you, and if we—”

“No,” Harry says again, aiming for and hitting the same tone that quieted Draco before. Draco’s mouth flattens but he subsides, that churlish flippancy vanishing from his face as though it was never there. Harry nods. “You think I don’t know you as well?”

“I never said that,” Draco mutters.

“Then maybe we can tell some truths about each other,” Harry says. “For once.”

Draco’s jaw tightens. “You expect me to listen to—”

“Not like that.” Harry looks at him intently. “I’ll tell the truth if you will.” He doesn’t get an immediate response, but that’s quite alright; he wasn’t expecting one. Draco’s the sort who comes to his conclusions about things slowly. Harry gathers up the tray and stands, looking down into Draco’s widened eyes. “Think about it.”

Harry thought of little else in the day that followed seeing Draco at the club, other than the invitation of Draco’s smile, blunted by the rejection in how he’d turned away. There was so much heat Harry hadn’t seen in him, or— or recognised, at least. The bleak spaces between them were too expansive, fraught with territory Harry didn’t know how to navigate: generations of learned adolescent hatred on one side, poisonous curses and blood-splashed tiles on the other. Being able to settle into a friendly partnership was unlikely enough with their history, and so fortunate it had never occurred to Harry that there could be any more.

He’d never known to look.

After the club, Harry didn’t know how to stop. The world narrowed to every invective they’d thrown at each other once upon a time, and the matches they’d flown, when beating one another had been as worthy a goal as simply winning, and as big a reason to. He thought of the way Draco’d hurled himself into the fight on the Quidditch pitch when they were young, fists flying even as he was besieged by livid Gryffindors, a snarl tearing from his throat and only Harry’s name on his lips. He thought of the sharp, malicious gleam in Draco’s eyes when he’d stomped on Harry’s face, Draco’s triumph and satisfaction.

He remembered the way it all faded to quiet in sixth year. Draco had worn his terror like an ill-fitting cloak, then, wilting under the task he’d been given rather than rising to the occasion with the utter glee at the challenge that Harry associated with him. As far as Harry was concerned they’d long got past those events — enough to work together, at least — but now he… wondered.

“Why the fuck are you putting your things on my desk?” Draco said, trudging in on Sunday. His morning mood tended toward surly, and he was predictable enough in that manner; the later he’d stayed up the night before, the worse his temper was until he got some coffee in him. Though Harry might have been surprised only three days prior to understand so much about him, he looked at the quickly-Glamoured blemishes under Draco’s eyes and guessed that Draco hadn’t gone to bed before two. He tested the theory.

“Late night?”

“Some of us aren’t horrified at the thought of having a life,” Draco snapped, scowling. It was both a confirmation and a rebuke. He dropped into his chair and waved a hand. “Get this before I throw it at you.”

“It’s yours,” Harry said, leaning back in his chair. He noted the flare of surprise in Draco’s eyes, the telltale flick of them in Harry’s direction. “It’s strong.”

“You bought me coffee,” Draco said flatly. He nudged the tall cup further away from him with one knuckle. “Slip something in it, did you? What is it, a cheering potion? Something to make me more amenable to whatever asinine plan you’ve got in place for today’s patrol?”

“It’s just black coffee,” Harry said. He paused. “I like my partners to be amenable on their own.”

Draco’s frame stilled for one tense, quivering moment. He stared at the drink. “Well,” he said. “Well.”

“Coffee seems to have that effect on you,” Harry said. He fiddled with his quill, pushing the fluttering brush of nerves down far enough that he could ignore it. “And I thought to apologise for not staying on Friday.”

“Staying?” Draco asked after another little beat between them. He glanced up at Harry and the tightness leached from his face. He huffed an unconcerned laugh. “Oh, the club. I forgot you even showed up.”

“Mm.” Harry rolled his shoulders. “Anyway, you get coffee for it.”

“Well,” Draco said again. Then, grudgingly, “Thank you.” He twisted off the lid and sniffed it, darting Harry another curious look, then took a long sip. He sighed, eyes closing briefly. “Fuck,” he muttered, somehow making the curse sound friendlier than anything else he’d said since coming in, “I need this.”

Harry nodded. He waited until Draco had gulped back a bit more, and said, “We’re both off next Friday. Maybe you’ll spare me a dance if I come back. You looked like you were having fun.”

“I was,” Draco said slowly. His face had gone expressionless and Harry thought of the way Draco’s invitation had landed on his desk, and what he’d said after. Had it been offhand, or merely… guarded? If I was offering you sex, Harry, I’d offer you sex. Harry swallowed. Wondered if that had been true.

“You’re a good dancer,” Harry said.

“Yes.” This time, his laugh sounded strained, his smile obviously forced. “You’re probably a ridiculous one.”

“Probably.” Harry shrugged. “I don’t do it a lot. But I bet you could show me; I’ll try not to injure your toes too badly.”

Draco gave a noncommittal sort of snort and bowed his head over his desk, running his fingers through his hair. He took another sip of his coffee and opened a file. “There’s been another complaint about the tenants above that new bistro on Diagon — flashing lights and the smell of brimstone. Do you want to check in before we start patrol?”

“Sure,” Harry said. Draco’s shoulders, flexed high near his ears, came down. He looked at Harry and exhaled, slow and quiet.

“Let me finish this report I left from Thursday,” he said. “Then we’ll go.”

He was leaving it up to chance, Harry thought. Assuming Harry wouldn’t return to the club, or that he wasn’t serious about the invitation for a dance. Harry was suddenly keen to disabuse him of either of those notions, but he didn’t get the chance; on Friday, Draco didn’t show up.

He’d taken a week of holiday time, Harry found out at work on Sunday. Draco had gone to Paris.

The fire is lower when Harry comes back, but the blankets and pillows have tripled, perhaps in compensation. Harry lowers onto a soft fur pelt and hands Draco a drink. “All-service hideaway you have here.”

Draco nods and knocks back the finger of whiskey in his glass so quickly, Harry should perhaps feel surprised. He doesn’t. He drinks his own so they’ll be on equal footing, and puts their glasses to the side.

“So,” Draco says. “How do we begin?”

“Tell me something about myself,” Harry says. Draco readily opens his mouth and Harry holds up a hand. He smirks. “Not whatever I know you’ve got on the tip of your tongue. Something else.” He pauses, snorts. “We’ll count that as my turn, I guess.”

“You don’t have any clue what I was about to say,” Draco says, lips turning down in a sulky little bow.

“I know enough for a general idea of its content.”

Draco’s frown lingers between his eyebrows, but he finally shrugs, eyes travelling thoughtfully over Harry’s face. “You—” He stops and thinks another moment. “You don’t want children of your own,” he says unexpectedly. Harry barely manages to hide his startle; he’d rather expected it to begin on a less serious note. But maybe this is better.

“No, I don’t,” he says. Carefully, he says, “You don’t, either.”

“That doesn’t count as a turn,” Draco says, pursing his lips. He reclines a bit into the mountain of pillows behind his back, flicking one brow up. “If you’re so determined to play this game. Whatever it is.”

It’s not a game, but Harry doesn’t argue. At least Draco is talking. Still, he’s never told anyone that — the papers frequently speculate on when he might have children and what they’ll be like — so he can’t resist asking, “How did you know?”

“The way you are with Edward—”

“He hates when you call him that.”

“—and Weasley and Granger’s kids,” Draco says, talking over him. “You feel about them like they’re your own, and it troubles you enough when they worry about your safety. But you like being an Auror too much to stop; ergo, having children who could potentially be even more devastated than they would, in case of your death, is unacceptable. And I don’t call him that to his face anymore.”

Harry regards him, astonished. He’s not sure even he’s thought deeply enough on the matter to come to that understanding of his motives, but it’s so accurate, the pinch he gets in his jaw at the subject of offspring disappears. He nods. “Yes.”

“Well then.” Draco’s lips curl up to the side. Grey eyes calm, he hikes up his shoulder again.

“The more anxious you get, the more unaffected you seem,” Harry says, picking something at random. Might as well, it’s evidenced right in front of him. He jerks his chin at Draco’s pose. “It’s different when you’re just frustrated or annoyed; you let that build. But now? Legs outstretched and crossed, hands folded loosely over your stomach, body leaned back. Even that smile. This must be killing you.”

Draco stills. Then, simply, nods. “I—”

“Hate showing anyone that you care what they think, or even that you feel things very deeply,” Harry finishes for him when Draco cuts himself off. “I know. You hate giving them that power.” He hesitates. “Not everyone would use it the way people have before.”

“My—” Parents, Harry thinks he’s going to say, but Draco just shakes his head, a wryly genuine smile replacing the blasé one on his face. It ticks up after a moment, a little sharper. “You date men who look like me.”

“You like that,” Harry counters. “And I’m not the only one who does it.”

“Mm,” It’s probably as close to a concession as Harry’s likely to get. Draco plucks at the edges of his dressing gown, lifting his gaze heavenward. “You’re waiting for me to say something in particular.”

“Yes.”

“Care telling me what that is?”

Harry laughs, a dry, unamused sound. He rubs the back of his neck. “You know what it is.”

Colour promptly floods Draco’s cheeks, even as he shakes his head and makes a discomfited sound. “All this to fuck me, Harry?” Draco’s tongue darts out over his lips, his eyes falling to meet Harry’s. “If you wanted it that badly…”

Harry gestures impatiently. “Stop it, we’re supposed to be telling the truth about each other, here.”

“But why?” Draco asks, a slight edge creeping into the question.

“Because apparently we have trouble doing it for ourselves,” Harry admits, voice thick. He swallows hard and looks away, then adjusts his position, curling his blanket more tightly around him and copying Draco’s pose for something to do in the silence. He relaxes back into his pillows and stretches his legs out across from Draco, the side of one foot brushing Draco’s knee. Draco twitches.

“You… trust me,” Draco says at length, casting him an uncertain look.

“Is that a question or a truth?”

Draco sighs and repeats it more firmly. “You trust me.”

“I do.” Harry nudges his knee again, just because he likes touching him. “You don’t.”

“I—” Draco frowns. He clears his throat. “I trust you with my life.”

“Parts of it, anyway.” Harry hears the resentment in his own voice and does what he can to minimise it. “Which is good. I’d rather have—” Here, he falters. This is the part where acknowledging things gets difficult, where his throat always runs dry.

The window rattles with a howling blast of wind, and he and Draco both look over at the same time. Snow has accumulated on the sill, and around the edges of each sashed frame. Draco’s leg slides a little closer to Harry’s, his toes pressing low against Harry’s thigh. When Harry looks at him, he swallows but doesn’t move away.

“It can never be just fucking for you,” Draco says, low. It’s not the whole truth, but it’s relief enough that Harry really feels his own exhale for the first time since they were in the kitchen.

“Not with you,” he says.

“There’s been too much between us for anyth—”

“My truths, not yours,” Harry reminds him. “But no, there hasn’t been. I think—” He searches for the best way to phrase it. “I think the only insurmountable thing would have been if we’d…” He doesn’t say ‘died,’ though that’s closer to the truth than anything; his gut tells him they’d have found their way to each other, no matter what. But that’s arguable, and too sentimental. “If neither of us had changed,” he says, working out another truth as he goes, “enough to know each other.”

Draco releases a shivery breath. He’s flushed, a splash of red across his cheeks, and his eyes are bright. He closes them.

It’s still Harry’s turn, so he thinks to give Draco a minute to collect himself. It’s too soon, maybe, but the whole conversation is overwhelming anyhow, so he says, “You want me. I thought— I thought since the club, or perhaps since we got paired, but I was wrong about that, wasn’t I? Since...” He reaches forward and curls his hand around Draco’s foot. “Since Hogwarts.”

“Yes,” Draco says with a jerky little nod. He presses the tips of his fingers hard over his eyes, then opens them. “So?”

“So nothing, it’s just part of the story,” Harry says softly.

“The one where you’re—” But to Harry’s relief and disappointment, Draco cuts himself off again. He inhales through his nose for a measure. “There’s a part of you that isn’t happy about being attracted to me.”

“It’s not… Yes.” There’s a reason this sort of honesty is uncomfortable. Draco always does whatever he can to deconstruct a situation before committing to a plan of action. It’s a hard-won form of self-protection, and Harry’s afraid of hurting him. Afraid of the consequences. “It’s a complication I sometimes don’t know how to deal with. That we’re… us. And I think of working in the field with you and… It’s like having children.”

“Probably won’t work out well for you if you compare me to a child, Potter,” Draco warns, but that tiny groove appears at the corner of his mouth again. Harry smiles.

“I could barely compare you to a child when you were one, Malfoy,” he says, hooking up one brow when Draco snorts. “You know exactly what I’m saying. Dick.”

“I always know what you’re saying.” Draco sniffs. “Once I got past my idiocy about you, I started paying better attention. Of course I always know what you’re saying.”

“Lucky you.” Even Harry doesn’t know what he’s saying half the time. What he’s doing. It’s usually just guesswork and high hopes for the best. “One of us should.”

“Not really. It makes me…” Draco clicks his tongue, gaze dropping to where Harry’s hand is.

“Run?”

Draco scoffs. “Wary.” He nibbles on his lower lip. “Knowing what someone is saying isn’t quite the same thing as understanding why.”

Except that he does. He’s always matched Harry step for step, though for a long time it was a bit like watching a darkly mirrored reflection of Harry’s own choices. But sometime in the last five years the glass has disappeared between them, and their synchronicity has begun to look more like a dance that can only end when they’re finally in each other’s arms.

“My turn, I think?” Harry asks. Draco nods and Harry takes a deep breath. “I hurt you once, when you didn’t realise I had the capacity for it,” he makes himself say. “And—”

“Harry, no; you’ve already—” Draco says, eyes widening. “And I—”

“Did things too, yeah,” Harry says. “But you’ve—” Harry looks at the fire, feeling scoured raw by what he has to say. “You’ve never hurt me. You might have tried, but… God, Draco. Back then, you were basically a gnat hovering around me while a beast was trying to eat me alive. And whether you wanted to admit it or not, you thought of me the way… The way Dumbledore wanted everyone to think of me, I guess. A hero. Not someone who— who’d—”

He breaks off, some part of him hoping Draco will bitch at him for the gnat comment, but Draco remains silent. Harry can feel Draco’s gaze on the side of his face like a brand.

“I put my actions in the bathroom to rest a long time ago,” he admits, risking a glance at Draco to see if he’s upset by that. Draco merely nods, face inscrutable, and Harry says, “But you knowing that I have that— inside me. It scares you. That I might hurt you when you’re not expecting it.”

“You’d die for me, Harry,” Draco says. “I’ve never thought there would be a repeat of sixth year.”

“There’s more than one way to leave someone bleeding out, though.” Harry swallows. “Isn’t there?”

“If I’m scared of you doing that to me,” Draco murmurs, watching him, “it’s only because you are, too.”

It seems so simple, phrased that way. So bloody simple. Because Draco is right, has been the whole time. Harry’s been running too, as far and as fast as he could. He simply hasn’t been ready to trust himself, his own feelings. May never have been, until he saw Draco covered in a blanket of snow. Draco’s lowered his defences so more than once, given Harry chance after chance to close the space between them. It can hardly be all his fault that Harry’s skittishness only disappeared after Draco’s wards would go back up.

“It’s different,” Harry says. He meets Draco’s eyes. “You might not believe me, but it’s different now. I won’t hurt you. I know I won’t.”

Draco breathes quietly for a while, searching Harry’s face. At length, sounding eerily distant, he says, “I need a minute.”

Harry nods, throat tight. Draco removes his foot and unfolds himself from his comfortable position on the floor, leaving Harry feeling oddly bereft. Draco smooths out his dressing gown and heads toward the hallway without looking at him. If he feels the need to retreat — again, now; after everything — Harry refuses to stop him. But the question still comes, unbidden, to his lips.

“You were going to ask me to dance that night, weren’t you? That’s why you asked me there.”

Draco pauses. “Yes.” He glances over his shoulder and smiles, a bit wistfully. “But you knew that, then. That’s why you left.”

He looks at Harry a moment longer, as if waiting for him to protest. But Harry can’t, and they both know it — after all, he’d promised to tell the truth.

Harry sits and looks at the fire so long, he starts to wonder whether Draco’s fallen asleep in a bedroom the cabin’s got tucked away just for him. It’s not the worse idea. Harry’s tired too, the violent events of the day and ruthless honesty of the evening, and even the echo of fear still hiding in him, all blending together into a potion that makes his eyelids heavy. He closes them against the glare of the fire and leans back.

“Pity,” comes Draco’s slow drawl, “I never took you for someone who would fall asleep after the first round.”

Harry opens his eyes, biting back a smile when Draco sits and stretches out like before. He even kicks Harry’s hand, lightly, until Harry cups his foot.

“Well, we’ve engaged in rounds of a few different things,” Harry says, heart knocking hard with gladness. “Which one are you referring to?”

Draco’s calf tenses against Harry’s leg. “The game, of course.”

“I thought you might have gone to bed.”

“It’s my turn,” Draco says. There’s something subtly different about his posture that Harry can’t quite put his finger on, but Draco’s face is completely at ease — the genuine sort he rarely displays — so Harry's not going to question his luck. Draco pushes his foot against Harry a little harder and says, “You think I’d end it while you have the advantage?”

Harry huffs; there’s no way Draco can really think that. Harry’s been playing at a decided disadvantage for as long as he can remember, and he wouldn’t exactly call displaying his heart for Draco and then watching him walk away a reversal of fortune. But Draco’s gaze idles expectantly on him, and Harry’s the one who started things, so...

“Go ahead, then.”

“You would have said yes,” Draco says. “If I asked you to dance.”

“I wouldn’t have been able to say no,” Harry says. It’s as honest a statement as he’s ever made. He can still recall the pull he felt, as clearly as if it’s happening now. Which it sort of is, in its way. It’s never stopped, really.

“You would have come home with me. Or taken me to yours,” Draco continues.

“You’ve had your turn,” Harry says, only because the images that fill his mind are too distracting.

“I wasn’t finished,” Draco says. “It’s all part of the same one.”

“Fine, then: Yes.”

“And then…” Draco draws out the word suggestively. He swipes his tongue over his bottom lip. “You would have fucked me.”

“Jesus.”

“And then?”

“I would have fucked you again,” Harry says, tightening his hold on Draco’s foot in retribution. “And again, when we woke up. And…”

“And things would have been different,” Draco says, narrowing his eyes.

“Yeah.”

“But not necessarily better.”

Harry hesitates. “I don’t— I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe. No.”

“Because despite how much you wanted me, and how much I may — or may not,” Draco adds with a pointed glance, because he can’t help but be an arsehole, “have wanted you back, wanting someone doesnt make you ready to-- for all that entails. And you weren’t.”

“And neither were you.”

“We’ll count that as your turn,” Draco says, so smoothly Harry quirks him another smile without thinking.

“By all means.” Harry spreads his hands, yielding the floor. Draco gives him a smug look.

“But you haven’t been able to stop thinking about having me since.”

“That’s sort of an obvious one, isn’t it?” Harry asks. Then, before Draco can go on, says, “Are you sure about this?”

Draco, lips parted to speak, blows out a breath instead. It can never be just fucking for you, he’d said, and he’d been right. This has the potential to be dangerous territory, depending on what Draco’s decided — if he’s decided anything, other than to avoid more emotional topics.

“What makes someone sure?” Draco asks, a grin flickering around his mouth, so cheeky Harry almost expects him to wink. But there’s an uncertainty in his voice too. Harry draws in a long breath and nods.

Draco shrugs, moving on. “Obvious or not, it counts. I could have been reciting your shoe size and how you take your tea each turn if I’d wanted.” Then, in what’s clearly nothing more than a guess, he hazards, “You wank… twice a day, thinking about it.”

“I rarely think about my tea when I wank,” Harry says.

Draco kicks him impatiently and rolls his eyes. “Are you going to play?”

“Fine. When I think about you…” Harry gives it some thought. “Sometimes more, sometimes less. But that’s about right.” He settles back against the pillows again, smiling wider, and keeps his hand curled around the high arch on the top of Draco’s foot, relaxing a little. He hums under his breath, considering whether he should say it, then figures there’s no reason not to. “You wear knickers. Frequently. Every day, I think.”

“Harry!” Draco chokes it out, trying to smother a laugh. Harry grins, pleased. Draco’s cheeks are colouring but he doesn’t look upset. “Are you that bothered by not having control of the game?” He pauses. “How did you know?”

“I saw them,” Harry says, “that night at the club. You pulled up your shirt to wipe your face, and I caught a flash of a turquoise… thong, I think.”

Draco snorts. “And that was why you suddenly decided you wanted me?”

“No, it was just a perk,” Harry says. He strokes his hand up to Draco’s toes. Draco’s got long feet, elegant like the rest of him, and his toes curl a little when Harry ghosts his palm over their tips. He slides his index finger into the notch between Draco’s big toe and second, and rests it there. Draco cocks his head, an amused twitch to his mouth, and Harry says, “I liked the way you moved. Your… energy.”

“Most people like my hair, my mouth,” Draco says, still gleaming that smirk at him. “Or my arse.”

“All of those, too.”

“You want to see,” Draco says abruptly, voice lowering once more. “Don’t you, Harry?”

“Your arse, or the knickers?” Harry asks. The answer is the same either way, but the question is intriguing. Draco’s eyes are steady on him, and he nods. Harry shifts, pressing his thighs a little closer as his prick comes to the conclusion it might be useful to the conversation. “Do you have any here?”

He’s got to; he’d waited for Harry to leave the bathroom before undressing, still recovering from the shock of such a chill though he was. Harry’d known it, too, but the idea that they might be dry enough to put back on brings with it a brief wave of dizziness as most of the blood leaves his brain in favour of travelling to his fattening erection.

“I have a lot of things here,” Draco says, and Harry realises. He swallows.

“That’s what you were doing,” he says. He gestures abstractly at the hall, unable to tear his gaze from Draco’s face. “That’s why you took so long.”

“Please,” Draco says, derision tweaking one eyebrow up. “I can get into the complicated stuff in under two minutes. I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“Then—”

“I needed some time,” Draco says simply. “To think about whether I should put them on.”

“But not because you’re…” Harry tries to work it out, tries to keep to the parameters they’ve set in place so he can make a statement of fact, but the answer eludes him. He gives up and says, “Wearing knickers doesn't seem like something that you’d feel the need to hide.”

“Well done.” Draco tips his chin. “I know discretion is a foreign concept to Gryffindors, but you don’t have to be hiding something to keep it private.”

“No,” Harry says slowly, trying to bore a hole through Draco’s dressing gown with his eyes. Is he wearing satin? Cotton? A teddy of some sort? Draco’s gown is wrapped tight around him, all the way to the hollow of his throat. He could have anything under there.

Draco leans forward and snaps his fingers in Harry’s line of vision and when Harry blinks and glances up, he’s got a wry slant to his upturned lips.

“But you talk about everything else,” Harry says belatedly. He doesn’t see any reason not to let Draco know how much it gets under his skin now, either, so he adds, “Sometimes I fantasise about spanking you for it.”

Momentarily stricken mute, much to Harry’s satisfaction, Draco swallows several times in succession. “That’s… interesting.”

“I wondered if you’d think so.”

Draco gives a tiny shake of his head, eyes clearing. “The knickers are... something I like to keep for myself,” he says, his voice going low again. Contemplative. He sits back. “And for people who might appreciate seeing them.”

It can never be just fucking for you, he’d said. I needed some time to think about whether I should put them on, he’d said.

Harry’s breath leaves him. He meets Draco’s eyes. “Show me.”

Draco’s smile slips, gaze heating. He toys with the belt of his dressing gown. “We’re still playing.”

“You’re going to show me,” Harry tries.

“Eventually,” Draco says. He cocks his head. “But was that a real attempt? If so, it was pathetic.”

“Only about as pathetic as when you pointed out I wank over you,” Harry says, a growl rising in his throat, equal parts frustration and joy. Funny, he hadn’t known joy could sound so aggressive. Then again, he’s not sure it’s ever met Draco before. “You…” He concentrates, because suddenly this thing between them is a game, or at least a challenge of sorts, and he’s never backed down from one of those before. “You like to tease,” he says eventually.

Draco pulls one tail of the sash, unknotting the bow but leaving the two sides still looped together. “I do,” he says. There’s a new light in his eyes, a flutter of anticipation. Harry can feel it all around him, that look, like a tongue on his skin. Draco smirks. “You want to fuck my mouth— Or, wait,” he murmurs.

Harry moves his finger between Draco’s toes, a slow insinuation, even as he works to school his face. What happens if either of them gets something wrong; does the game end, then?

“You do,” Draco says, “and you can see it, even now: me, on my knees as you hold my hair and work my mouth over your cock until you’re coming down my throat. Can’t you? But…” He chuckles, one hand gripping his thigh through his dressing gown. “That’s not what you like best. You like being...catered to, don’t you, Potter? You like a long blowjob, one that’s not done until your whole cock is wet with saliva.” His flush deepens, and so does his smirk, and Harry can’t even breathe for wanting him. “Do want to instruct me on exactly what you like best? Tell me how well I’ve done?”

“Fuck,” Harry grinds out, swallowing hard. Draco’s toes tighten around his finger and Harry realises he’s been stroking between them harder, faster. He pulls away, balling up his hands. “Yes.”

“So it’s… control for you, but,” Draco exhales, a little unevenly, “but...a genteel sort. You want me to feel the satisfaction of having done a— a good job for you. That gets you off.”

“Knowing that it gets someone else off to please me?” Harry asks, going for sardonic but landing closer to dismantled. “Who wouldn’t like that?” Draco only responds with a small nudge of his foot against Harry’s leg, pink crowding his cheeks. Harry regroups. “You like it… on top,” he says, feeling his way. He’s heard so many details through the years, Draco rambling blandly about his sex life, that it should be easy to get his guesses right, but Draco just looks at him enigmatically, still a puzzle for Harry to figure out. “That’s how you want it from me when I finally fuck you,” he says. An almost imperceptible tic develops on Draco’s cheek, just under his eye, and Harry’s confidence grows. “You want to ride my cock. I bet you’ve thought about it more times than you can count. Holding the base of it, yeah? Making me sit just so as you lower yourself down over it. Slow, probably. Pulling away every so often until I want to push you onto your back and shove it up into you — but even then, you won’t let me.”

“Sometimes I will,” Draco bursts out, low and breathless, gaze darting away. He gulps, the back of his hand coming up to rest against his cheek again, a fine tremor in his fingertips. Draco chews on his lower lip and drops his hand. He unwinds the two tails of his sash, leaving them spread on either side of his dressing gown, then links his fingers together over his stomach. “Sometimes I won’t. I’ll want you to not move. To take it.”

“I can,” Harry says steadily, even though his cock is already so fucking wet, just at the thought. “Can you?”

Draco gives him a stilted nod. “I like… taking it. I’m good at it.”

“I’ve often thought you would be.”

Clearing his throat, Draco sits up a little straighter. Harry’s gaze dips to his groin, where he can just make out the swell of Draco’s cock and its lean toward his hip through the thick material of his gown.

“You’d like to come all over my face,” Draco says. Harry’s eyes come up to find Draco’s chest is rising and falling rapidly. “Not this time, not now,” Draco qualifies hastily, “but sometime. Like to see me streaked with it… dirty with it, a proper little slag for you,” he says, the tempo of his voice slowing. “Maybe after one of those long blowjobs you favour, hm? Or maybe just… Some morning, you’ll wake me up by straddling my chest. Wank yourself over me, not even letting me lick you — even though I’ll want to. But you’ll know that, Harry, so of course you won’t let me. You’ll just tug and tug at your cock until you come, then make sure it gets everywhere, all over my mouth and cheeks and in my hair—”

“Stop,” Harry says. His cock pulses lightly and he grips it through his blanket to keep from coming. “Yeah, we’ll do that—” He breaks off, Draco’s use of future-tense suddenly blaring in his ears. He tightens his hold on his cock and swallows the flood of saliva in his mouth. “I need to get in you,” he says.

Draco shudders; he doesn’t even bother hiding it. His pupils are shot, wide and black. But he says, “Not yet.”

“Soon.”

“Soon,” he agrees.

Harry slowly peels his hand away from his cock as the need to come subsides, before his grip can turn into a massage. He’s already too worked up. “You like dirty talk.”

Draco tips him a small smile, his face smoothing out. “Now who’s being obvious?”

Harry’s laugh sounds pained and half-mad to his own ears. He shakes his head. “We won’t get to half of… that,” he says, fighting with the instinct to let his mind wander back into the picture they’ve painted for each other. He realises how cryptic that sounds and starts to clarify, but Draco’s already nodding.

“We’ll get to it eventually,” he says. He skims his fingers down his dressing gown, parting it just enough to show a long, pale stripe of skin from his collarbone to his groin, where Harry sees—

“Oh, god.” It’s lace. Draco’s wearing lace knickers, white and delicate, his ashy-blond pubic hair visible through them. Harry can’t see his cock — it’s angled to the side, still hidden by terrycloth — but… “Let me see,” he whispers.

“Harry.”

“You want it slow to start, this time,” Harry says roughly, gaze travelling up to Draco’s fluttering navel, up his heaving chest, then back down to all the hints he can see, as if he might be able to strip Draco nude if he just looks at him hard enough. He uncurls the blanket from around him, tossing it off onto the pillows at his back, and seeks relief with one hand, watching as Draco’s chest hitches. Harry strokes his cock — carefully. “And then you want it so hard.”

“I’ll take what I want,” Draco says. But his truth from Harry must be enough, or he just can’t wait any longer either, because he peels the sides of his dressing gown away and wiggles his arms from the sleeves.

“Yes.” Harry tightens his hand, taking in the sight of Draco’s cock, swollen and covered in white lace. Draco’s cockhead is flushed, dripping, and popping out of the low waistband, which narrows to a tiny strip of material hooked over the jut of his hips. The rest of his cock is confined, his balls a tightly-pressed bulge under the solid panel of material covering the crotch, the intricate webbing of the lace beautifully obscene over the length of Draco’s shaft. Draco covers it with his hand, and Harry opens his mouth to object, but Draco merely palms himself, fingers splayed so Harry can see. “More.”

Draco’s breath comes out soft, measured. He spreads his index and middle fingers wider, and moves them up and down, on either side of his cock. “Tell me,” he breathes, “what we’re going to do.”

“I’m going to suck your cock through all that lace,” Harry says roughly. He opens his thighs and leaves off his prick to cup his balls. The way Draco’s throat bobs, seeing it, gives him as deep a zing of pleasure as the way his hand feels, rolling his balls and tugging at his sac. “I hope you don’t mind if it gets sticky, because those aren’t coming off when I fuck you, either.”

“They don’t need to,” Draco says, a catch in his voice. He draws his legs up and spreads his knees, letting them fall to the sides. Harry groans. Draco’s knickers are split just behind the crotch panel, sections of lace swathing over each taut buttock up to his hips but leaving his cleft bare. His legs are so wide, Harry can see between his cheeks, the shadow of paler skin hidden there, and a darker, puckered pink that’s already greased. The contrast of white lace, such a delicate, virginal sort of thing, against Draco’s wanton position and the shine of oil over his arshole, plays hell on Harry’s nerves.

“You already got yourself slick.”

“There might have been another reason I took a while,” Draco murmurs, still sliding his fingers around his cock. That looks wet, too, Draco’s foreskin hugging the swollen head. Harry gulps in a breath, loosening his hand around his balls before he accidentally hurts himself.

“Did you finger yourself, too?” Harry asks. Draco shifts.

“Just enough to make the way nice and slippery,” he says. “Why, did you want to do it?”

“Another time.” Harry darts a glance to Draco’s face. He’s flushed again, that gorgeous pink covering him from his hairline to his chest, where his tawny nipples are tightly beaded, and Harry licks his lips. “Show me how you did it.”

A low, hard gasp falls from Draco’s throat. He slides his free hand over his thigh and between his legs, massaging over the bulge of his balls for a moment before moving it lower, lower, just to where Harry’s ordered. He curls in slightly to allow for better reach, stomach muscles flexing, and then he taps his hole a few times with his middle finger.

“Push it in,” Harry says. He doesn’t even recognise his voice anymore, can’t focus on anything other than the painful anticipation of waiting for Draco to do as he’s told. Draco pauses, long enough that Harry opens his mouth to repeat himself, but then he rubs over his hole and presses his finger in, smooth and easy, his rim stretching around it to the knuckle. He shifts again, a long, shivering sigh escaping him, and pumps his finger.

“I got myself very, very wet for you,” Draco says unsteadily. Indeed, Harry can hear it, the squelch of excessive lube as Draco works his finger in and out of himself. He looks undone by the admission, or perhaps his finger feels just that good. “I thought you’d—”

“Yes, I like it,” Harry says, feeling more than a little wrecked himself. “You did so good. That’s just how I want you.”

“Harry,” Draco says, a quiet whine to his voice. His eyes close, and his head falls back. Harry inhales and releases his balls to give his dripping cock a warning squeeze around the base. He doesn’t think he’s ever been so hard in his entire life, not even in the kitchen with Draco’s hand around both of them. He holds himself tighter for a few seconds that feel like forever, his eagerness almost breaching his self-control, then pushes from his position to crawl to Draco.

Kneeling between Draco’s spread legs, Harry studies the tension on his face before pressing a soft kiss to Draco’s clavicle. Draco starts, tenses. His head comes up, his eyes nearly black. Harry hears Draco’s finger sliding from his body, soft and wet, and Draco’s hand comes up, sliding damp around his nape to bring Harry to him. They kiss recklessly, open-mouthed and hot, and Harry reaches up to snag his fingers through Draco’s white-blond locks, to yank his head to the side. He presses his tongue in when Draco groans, a low, deep sound that rattles through Harry to his cock. Draco kisses him back, tongue rubbing against Harry’s, fingers gripping the back of his neck, and lifts a leg and wraps it around Harry’s thighs to pull him closer. Harry allows it for a moment just because it feels splendid, Draco’s long, leanly muscled calf pressing against the back of Harry’s thighs, but finally lifts Draco’s leg from around him, setting it down with a small shudder at the whimper Draco makes. He nips Draco’s bottom lip and draws away.

“Whose turn is it?” he asks, stroking up and down Draco’s thigh. Draco’s lips are wet and swollen. He licks them, eyes locking with Harry’s in something of a staring contest before dropping them to look at Harry’s stiff, bobbing cock.

“You’re about to suck my cock,” Draco says, and looks back up.

Harry nods. He rewards Draco with another hard, biting kiss, then lowers his head, grazing his teeth down the cords of Draco’s neck before pausing to suck at the bend of his shoulder. Draco squirms, panting brokenly, the motions of his hand between them increasing from a slow shift into fast, jerky movements. Harry shakes his head, catching Draco’s wrist and glancing down, breath leaving him in a rush. Draco’s hand is dipped below the waistband of his knickers, stretching out the fabric, his fingers wrapped tight around his cock. Harry pries them off, replacing them with his own for just a moment to feel the weight of Draco’s erection, to thumb over the soaked head. It jerks, drooling out a little more precome against the pad of his thumb.

“So responsive,” he murmurs, staring. He looks up at the sound of a low growl.

“Harry,” Draco says, jaw hard, eyes glittering with warning. But he undulates into Harry’s fist as if by instinct, and his cock is so pretty poking out of the circle of Harry’s hand, he can barely bring himself to pull away. He finally does, drawing his hand out and tucking the lace back over Draco's cock, petting over the fabric lightly before returning to his task.

“If I can’t, you can’t,” he says between kisses down Draco’s chest. Draco gives a sharp, strained laugh and inhales as Harry laps over one nipple.

“You were taking too long,” he complains breathlessly. “I was expecting your mouth on my prick. And it’s your fucking turn, uhh, fuck!” He arches into Harry as Harry wraps his lips around Draco’s nipple and sucks it between his teeth. He flicks over it with his tongue, fast, teasing licks, and Draco slides a hand into his hair. He fists it and yanks Harry’s head back. “I’ll come.”

Harry narrows his eyes, taking in the sweat at Draco’s temples, the wild look on his face. Draco’s nipple has darkened to a deep rosy-brown, wet with saliva. “Noted,” he says with interest. Then, because it’s his turn — he thinks — says, “Someday you’re going to come just from my mouth on your nipples.”

Draco grinds his teeth audibly, so frustrated Harry can’t stop himself from grinning — which, of course seems to piss of Draco even more. “Yes,” he barks, and imperiously shoves Harry’s head lower. “But, ah,” he says, breathless again when Harry laughs and drags his tongue over the skin just above his waistband, “not now, dammit.”

“No, not now,” Harry says, still smiling. His own cock aches, and he thinks maybe he could come just like this too, just from the delight of teasing Draco and learning his body. He bites down on the elastic of Draco’s waistband and pulls it away from his skin, then releases it, glancing up when Draco groans, hips twitching, the elastic snapping against the leaking head of his cock to trap it back into place. Draco stares down at him, the blend of lust and affection on his face so erotic that Harry has to grip Draco’s hips for something to do other than mount him right away.

“Do it,” Draco says. He swallows. “Please.”

“Don’t come,” Harry says hoarsely, and lowers his head once more to seal his mouth over the lace covering Draco’s cock. Draco bucks against him and Harry mouths along the length of his shaft, wetting the material and the silky skin his tongue can reach through it. Draco issues soft, broken moans above him, hand clenching and unclenching in Harry’s hair, and Harry trails his tongue up, following the swell of him to his exposed cockhead. He noses at it, inhaling, then licks over it, around it. Presses the tip of his tongue into Draco’s slit.

“Oh, god,” Draco says. He’s shaking, and he falls back into his pillows and arches his hips. “Harry— suck it. Just for— I won’t come. Just—”

His voice breaks off as Harry angles his head to pull the tip of Draco’s cock between his lips. He sucks lightly, swirling his tongue around Draco’s foreskin, sipping the earthy, astringent flavour of Draco’s precome into his mouth and groaning. He tastes delicious, so perfect Harry’s tempted to just peel the knickers down and finish him off like this. But each halting breath Draco takes, each stutter from his hips into Harry’s hands, is a promise for how much sweeter it’ll be if Harry lives up to his word, so he pulls off with regret. He slides his tongue over the damp lace covering Draco’s cock and looks up through crooked glasses.

Draco exhales shakily and releases his hair, hand falling away to press flat against the floor. His heart is pounding so hard, Harry can see the telltale flicker of his pulse in his neck, and Draco takes a moment, swallowing, before drawing in one leg to press his heel against Harry’s shoulder. He exerts pressure, pushing Harry away and licking his lips. Harry sits back as Draco crawls closer on his hands and knees, and lets Draco rearrange him until he’s prone on the blankets and furs, his legs stretched out and his head resting on two plump pillows that keep him slightly elevated. Then Draco prowls over him in a straddle that keeps their bodies from connecting, and runs his fingers through Harry’s hair, his teeth grazing the shell of Harry’s ear.

“You’re going to want to cry,” he murmurs, breath hot and damp, and nips roughly at Harry’s earlobe. He doesn’t waste time making Harry ponder his meaning, simply rests the flat of his hand on Harry’s chest and skims it downward, then slides after it, his eyes on Harry’s the whole time. He avoids touching Harry’s cock but for a brief rub of his knuckles over the underside of the shaft, and crouches with his mouth hovering over where Harry’s erection juts toward his belly button. He gives Harry a waiting smile so slow and carnal, Harry doesn’t doubt his prediction. He shifts his hips.

“Lick my foreskin back,” Harry says hoarsely, lifting a hand to brush his fingers against Draco’s cheekbone. Draco’s smile widens, unfolding like a flower, and dips his head obediently. He pulls Harry’s cock between his parted lips, just around the head the way Harry’d done to him, and applies himself to the tight hood of Harry’s foreskin in a meticulous tease. He licks under it, nudging it back with his tongue and releasing Harry’s cockhead once more from it, then moves his tongue in slow circles around and around, blunt fingernails scraping up and down the tops of Harry’s thighs until Harry is spreading them and writhing under him.

“All the way, Draco,” Harry groans. “I want to see your pretty mouth spread around my cock, oh, Jesus.” It’s so maddening, he grips Draco’s shoulder to keep from living out the picture Draco suggested of simply manhandling his mouth over his prick. Draco’s eyes slide up, glinting, like he knows exactly what Harry’s thinking, then opens his mouth and lowers his head in a long, wet slide, tongue dragging over the sensitive underside of Harry’s cock. Harry’s vision goes white around the edges, his cock jumping and pulsing out a burst of precome as it’s encased in heat. Draco pauses again then, exhaling warm through his nose against Harry’s pubic hair, and makes an inquisitive sound that vibrates around Harry’s cockhead.

“Slow,” Harry says. The corners of Draco’s mouth are gleaming with saliva. “Don’t suck. Just move your mouth over my cock like that,” he says, and Draco does, sliding his mouth up and down Harry’s prick with lazy bobs of his head. He relaxes his throat with each dip, just enough that Harry’s cock can slide into it for a single second or less, then rises to drag his stretched lips over the tip, his tongue around the flare, making small, sweet sounds of enjoyment. Harry shudders, his cock glistening from base to head and suffused with pleasure that has as much to do with those sounds as it does the feel of Draco’s mouth engulfing him. He feathers trembling fingers through Draco’s hair, careful not to curl them into it. “That’s it,” he breathes, so pleased even his words are trembling, “that’s perfect. You’re perfect. So good, Draco, you feel so good, sucking me just how I like—”

Draco moans around his cock, cutting the sound off with a sharp whine, the slide of his mouth increasing slightly in speed. His hips, arched high behind him, start a tiny, needy rock, and that’s pleasing too. Harry has to close his eyes against the sudden, blurred sting in them. While there’s still time, he says, “Enough,” the word broken in a strained laugh. Draco draws off his prick, wrapping his fingers around the base to squeeze it tight — thank fuck — and lifts his head, breathing hard. His gaze narrows, one eyebrow hooking up when Harry shoves his glasses to his forehead to rub the moisture from his eyes.

“I did warn you,” he says, with a smirk so fond it can hardly be qualified as one. Harry chokes on another laugh and sets his glasses back.

“Come here.”

Draco covers him again, his chest and torso sliding over Harry’s cock, until finally it’s the rasp of lace, and the slick, hard length of Draco’s cock pressing against his. Draco lies against him, propped on his forearms, their mouths a breath apart, and spreads his legs, knees coming down on either side of Harry.

“I thought you’d at least let me get your bollocks wet before you broke,” he says. He rolls his hips, cock rubbing over Harry’s, and Harry stifles a gasp. He grips Draco’s hips to still him.

“You wanted to fuck yourself on my cock too badly,” Harry says. “And now you’re going to.”

Draco’s eyes flare, and he gives a small nod, then sits up over Harry. “Yes. Merlin, yes.” He lifts up on his knees and grips Harry’s cock to angle it. Harry closes his eyes, the sight of his cock being guided between Draco’s cheeks almost too much for his overloaded system, and helps by sliding his hands back from Draco’s hips to his buttocks, fingers biting into the muscle so he can spread them. Draco wriggles, and Harry feels the tip of his cock slide over smooth skin, feels it brush and press against Draco’s slippery hole. Harry opens his eyes.

“Wait.”

Draco pauses, lower lip caught between his teeth and thighs quivering, Harry’s cock pressing right up to his rim. It clenches, flutters, and Harry takes in an unsteady pull of air.

“Tell me the truth,” Harry says. Even the hours leading toward this moment have been built on a foundation of this one thing, the thing Draco can’t bring himself to believe and Harry can’t bring himself to say. But it’s come too far, and Harry’s chest hurts with the knowledge that’s gone unvoiced between them. He looks up into Draco’s eyes and tightens his hands on his buttocks. “Please.”

The lines of tension around Draco’s mouth soften and his narrow chin comes down. He exhales and lowers himself steadily over Harry’s cock, the grip of his sphincter flexing and loosening until he’s seated firmly over Harry’s hips.

“You’re in love with me,” Draco says. Harry swallows. Nods. His throat is tight.

“Yes.”

Draco's jaw bunches, his eyes going bright. Harry pushes away the ever-present haunt of ghosts and lets his mind go, lets himself feel Draco surrounding him. He doesn’t need anything more. He jostles Draco’s hips and Draco closes his eyes. He starts to move, riding Harry’s cock with exquisite skill that has Harry’s chest heaving, pleasure racing up and down his spine with every pump. He clenches his arse, fucking up into Draco slow and steady, the way Draco wants, and at some point the ache between them bleeds away into something sharper, more focused.

“You like my arse?” Draco asks, pressing his palms to Harry’s stomach. Harry groans, gaze dropping from Draco’s face to the space between them as it appears and vanishes, to white lace over a darkly pink prick smearing precome against Draco’s skin. “Do I feel good? Am I your—?”

“Fuck. Yes,” Harry grits out, and it’s true. “You look so pretty taking my cock.” He pulls down the elastic of Draco’s waistband to halfway down his shaft, rubbing his thumb over Draco’s glans. Draco turns his head and presses his chin to his shoulder, arse clamping tight around Harry’s prick. The smooth shimmy of his hips turns into a bounce, up and down, and his hands move from Harry’s belly to Harry’s thighs; he leans back, gripping them for balance. He’s so hot inside, like his mouth but tighter, and the friction is nearly unbearable. Harry arches into him, Draco’s arse squeezing him tighter each time Hary teases him. “I want to be in you so often you forget what it’s like when I’m not.”

“They have,” Draco smiles against his shoulder, “enchanted buttplugs for that sort of thing, Harry.”

“We’ll buy them if I get tired,” Harry says. He doesn’t think it’s very likely — everything feels so good, he can’t imagine remembering this moment and not getting an immediate erection. He plucks Draco’s knickers a little lower. “Harder, take me harder.”

Draco hisses through his teeth, his cock finally popping fully free from the lace. Harry combs his fingers through Draco’s pubic hair, tugs it. Draco makes a bleating sound, the silky inner walls surrounding Harry spasming briefly. He grabs Harry’s hand and presses it over his cock, hips working swiftly now, face tight with strain.

“Oh fuck,” he mutters as Harry curls his fingers around Draco’s cock and starts jerking. “Oh, fuck, I can feel all of you, I knew— I knew it’d feel— Harry—” He shudders, his fingernails biting into Harry’s thighs. “Please, I’m so fucking close.”

Harry wanks him faster, harder, pressing up from the floor to push his cock deeper. Each ripple of Draco’s arse around him, each jump of Draco’s cock into into his palm indicates Draco’s rising climax.

“I love you.” Harry twists his wrist, his fingers and thumb catching the wet head of Draco’s cock. “I love you,” he says again, the words coming easy for the first time in his whole life, and Draco cries out, spine bowing back. He spills, streaking Harry’s hand and stomach with long, pearly ropes of spunk, arse clenching in a rhythmic massage of Harry’s prick, and Draco says, “Yes, yes, you do,” fiercely, as though it’s the only thing he knows.

Harry doesn’t hear his own cry, but he feels it, a ringing in his bones. He grips Draco’s hip and jerks him down, planting his heels against the floor and raising his knees to get leverage even as Draco’s muscle tension starts to wilt. He pumps into Draco’s shivering hole with hard, frantic strokes as he breaks too, arse arched off the floor to grind his cock as deep as it can possibly go, his orgasm like sheer voltage, like snow, blotting out everything else.

They’re quiet together after, Harry holding Draco’s long, skinny frame tight to his chest. Eventually, their sweat cools; eventually they disengage. Draco tugs up some thick pelts around them and curls his body close to Harry’s side. They breathe together, listening to the blizzard outside and the occasional pop of the fire in the hearth. They sleep.

Harry wakes up to Draco’s slow kiss sometime before the sun’s risen, the sky pitch black beyond the snow on the windows. Draco straddles his face at Harry’s murmured request, wanking lazily as Harry eats him, fingers him, and comes all over Harry’s chest before rolling onto his stomach and letting Harry push his cock in deep. Harry rocks into him with tiny nudges of his hips, whispering endearments he’s never used before into Draco’s ear and sucking over his neck until Draco’s hard again. Then Harry pushes his hands under Draco’s chest and plucks at his nipples, smiling at every whimper and curse Draco issues when he comes apart, when they come apart together. They fall asleep again, Draco’s palm warm and possessive on the side of Harry’s neck.

Muted strains of grey light are seeping in through the window when Harry wakes up in the morning. The bluster of the storm outside has gone silent, and he rolls over to find Draco only to encounter empty space, the blankets next to him still warm with body heat. Harry reaches for his glasses and puts them on, kicking his covers off.

“No, don’t get up.” Draco pads back into the room, a steaming mug of coffee in each hand. He’s got on a different dressing gown, made of a watery material in a soft sky blue. It barely reaches his knees, and when he lowers himself into his spot, Harry gets a glimpse of matching knickers underneath, a plain cut this time. He takes a sip of his coffee and hands Harry a mug.

“Thanks.” He looks at Draco as he tastes it, his heartbeat returning to normal levels. “I thought—”

“I needed coffee; you kept me up late,” Draco says, gesturing with his cup.“And I thought it wouldn’t hurt to clean up a little.” He tilts his head. “Where else could I have gone?”

There’s an answer to that, but Harry decides to ignore it for now. “I can make us breakfast in a bit.”

“Good. I’m useless in the kitchen.”

“Telling our own truths now?” Harry asks.

Draco snorts and gets comfortable on his side, draping one elbow over a pile of pillows. “Well, you can’t be expected to know everything about me,” he says, sounding irritated.

Harry chuckles; if they had a lifetime together, he doubts that’d be possible. He drags the blankets back up, covering them both to the hip.

“So you won’t catch a chill,” he says at Draco’s lifted brow, then hesitates. There’s a new comfort between them that does nothing to quench the desire he’s been living with or the happiness pervading him, but a new awkwardness, too. He’s not sure how to ask some of the things he wants to know. He tweaks the lapel of Draco’s dressing gown. “This is nice.”

Draco looks down, a slight smile playing around his mouth. “I have others,” he says, a twinkle to his eye when he glances back up, “but I rather thought you should eat and rehydrate before I showed them to you.”

“I resent that implication,” Harry says loftily. “Have I ever mentioned how irritating your tactical cunning can be?” The hint of Draco’s smile becomes a grin, and Harry drinks more of his coffee, still rubbing the silky fabric of Draco’s dressing gown between his fingers and thumb. “When did you start wearing… these?”

“Mm.” Draco looks out the window, squinting thoughtfully. “I was young,” he says. “Mother always bought them for me, anything I wanted really. They made me feel a certain way, and Father turned a blind eye because—”

“He loved you.”

Draco gives him a cautious look. Harry nods at him to go on and he sighs.

“Yes. And then fifth year happened,” he says. “Sixth and seventh. Mother taught me Occlumency, and got rid of everything I had when— When he moved in. Father gave me a talk about propriety when he got out of Azkaban, nothing that could be used against us if it was overheard, but enough that I understood.” His lips quirk. “After we were released, I went through my mother’s things — so much of her wardrobe never gets worn — and spent two solid days in lingerie and hosiery and heels. I sat in my room, flipping through Quidditch magazines and reading novels, finally feeling like I could breathe again.” He looks back to the window, voice growing distant. “I’ve never felt less like myself than for those two years, when I couldn’t be who I was.”

“And who’s that?” Harry asks softly. Apart from the few months it took him to figure out that he was attracted to men, his identity has always felt like his own, despite the numerous titles the public has bestowed on him. He runs his hand up Draco’s neck, lingering over the mottled bruises he’s left there, and cups his jaw. Draco smiles again and takes another swallow of his coffee, leaning into Harry’s touch.

“Are you asking me how I identify?” he asks dryly. “As a man. Who enjoys feeling… feminine sometimes, in that way. Soft. Do you need more than that?”

“No.” Harry finishes off his coffee and sets the mug aside. He draws Draco closer and kisses his cheek, his mouth. He tastes like spiced coffee, and his tongue slides against Harry’s, warm and unrushed, until Harry pulls away. “I like you in everything you wear.”

“And you?” Draco asks, settling back a little.

Harry blinks. “Well, I’m—”

Draco laughs quietly, shaking his head. “When did you fall in love with me?”

“Oh. It’s my turn to say things now,” he says. Draco rolls his eyes and Harry thinks for a moment. “I’m not sure,” he admits. “Sometime before that— before the night at the club.”

“I thought that was when you realised you wanted me,” Draco says, surprised.

“No. I mean, yes. But…” There’s no real way to explain, how it hit him all at once, love and desire like a bomb detonating in his mind, confusion and shame and fear the immediate fallout. Harry waves a hand and says, a little helplessly, “Everything. I didn’t let myself see it as it was happening, and when I did, it had already… happened.”

“Sounds like a rather appropriate summary of your whole life, actually,” Draco says, snorting. Harry shoves his shoulder, wishing his life was such that he could get offended, but it’s, well, accurate. Draco rocks back with a laugh and meets his eyes. “I’m glad,” he says. “That you know.”

“When did you?”

Draco shrugs. The shoulder of his dressing gown slides a little to reveal what looks to be the strap of a bra. Unlike the unembellished knickers Harry saw when he sat down, the strap is decorated with tiny silver threading. Draco says, “I— suspected there was something deeper going on when you didn’t talk to me for a week after I got back from Paris. I didn’t… I wasn’t— I couldn’t be sure that it was… that, until we got here.” He swallows and attempts a smile. “I knew you’d like to shag me the second you started showing up in the papers with that Unspeakable.”

It takes Harry a second to remember, but when he does, he smiles. Bernard had been lanky and blond, with a fairly angular face; Harry’d dated him close to four years ago, when he and Draco had barely settled into their first year as partners. Harry chuckles and scratches his nose. “It’s only been in the last six months that I’ve started to wonder if my propensity for… a particular type might have had something to do with you.”

“It’s fine,” Draco says, too grudgingly for that to really be the case. “The invitation to the club worked out as it was supposed to. A bit late,” he says pointedly, “but I was just trying to…”

“Help?” Harry suggests, amused, and Draco flicks Harry’s earlobe, a small scowl knitting his brow.

“Shut it.”

“Draco.” Harry catches his hand and laces their finger together. He looks down at them, Draco’s long, tapered fingers with their impeccably trimmed nails, entwined with his own, skin tanned and nails bitten to the quick. He likes the contrast, and doesn’t look up. “When did you know?”

There’s a long pause. Harry’s heartbeat kicks up; he fiddles with Draco’s fingers for something to focus on. It’s a risk, asking, when Draco hasn’t just come out and told him. There’s a chance — a small one, Harry hopes — that he’s got it wrong. He can wait, if he has. But Draco took time to think his decisions over before coming to him last night, and did so knowing how Harry felt. That has to mean something.

“Longer,” Draco finally says. “After Hogwarts, but I’ve known… longer than you.”

Harry exhales and closes his eyes. “That you’re in love with me, too.”

“Yes,” Draco says. Harry looks up and sees the apprehension on Draco’s face. The longing. He clears his throat, pulling his hand away. “Though I’m not precisely sure what happens next.”

“I’m in it as long as you are,” Harry says. Rather than the relief he expected, he feels a click of certainty, something disjointed slotting into place. “We’ve got time.”

Draco searches Harry’s eyes, his guarded expression slipping away. “At least a few more days,” he says, smiling a bit.

Harry raises his eyebrows. “Aren’t we supposed to be telling the truth?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Draco asks stiffly. He crosses his arms over his chest. “They won’t…” He flushes, so suddenly and fully that Harry has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. It's obvious, from belligerent angle of Draco's chin, that he’s about to double-down. Git. Draco huffs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure.”

“I don’t,” Draco insists. His eyes shift up to the ceiling. “We’ve got at least three days, by the standard of time here, before anyone manages to retrieve us.”

“Now that part’s true,” Harry says, snickering. Draco gives him an offended glare and Harry’s control breaks; he laughs in Draco’s face and shakes his head. “I’m willing to admit to being a little oblivious but I’m not stupid. I know you can get us out of here whenever you like.”

Draco’s mouth opens. Closes. Again. “I— I don’t have my wand.”

“And that’s true, too,” Harry says, wiping his eyes. “Are you saying that matters?” He’s able to staunch his frankly embarrassing bout of giggles after a few more rounds and when he looks back at Draco, he’s gnawing on his lip.

“If we’d gone back right away, they could have still been in my flat,” he mutters.

“You were helping again,” Harry says, feeling cheerful. Draco narrows his eyes.

“I was protecting us,” he says through his teeth.

“Tell yourself that,” Harry says. He stands and offers his hand. Draco sneers up at him, not budging. Harry flicks his fingers impatiently. “And I’ll back you up,” he murmurs. “In a few days. When they figure out how to get us out of here.”

Draco looks at him suspiciously. After a few moments, the tension leaves his shoulders, his forearms. He takes Harry’s hand and allows himself to be pulled to his feet. “Why are we getting up?” he grouses, apparently not over his offence. “It’s warm by the fire.”

Harry gives him a swift kiss. “I thought I’d make us breakfast,” he says, and releases Draco to head to the kitchen. Over his shoulder, he adds, “And then I thought to fuck you over the island. We should do something productive; we are missing work, after all.”

He hears Draco make a tiny, breathless sound behind him as he starts to follow. Harry grins. Ron and the other Aurors will have things well in hand with the information Harry sent, and he figures it’s as good a time as any to take a small holiday, alone with the man he loves. He couldn’t have asked for a better one than a few days cuddling by a fire while they watch the snow, and making inventive use of every surface in the cabin. He’s never once skived off work before, but no one other he and Draco will know the truth.

And anyway… It’s only a little white lie.