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forfanfic · 3 years ago

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Inter-House Fuc...Unity

Ron loves breakfast.

Hogwarts has a particularly delicious fry-up—thick marmalades, perfectly browned toast, fluffy eggs, crispy bacon—and a year on the run has led to an even greater appreciation for hot and satisfying meals.

This love for all things breakfast means he’s one of the first in the Great Hall every morning, which has led to the most traumatising discovery of his life.

Harry and Draco are shagging.

Of course, they think they’re being stealthy, that no one can tell they’ve been in each other’s pants.

Well, Ronald Bilius Weasley can.

Honestly, it’s so bloody obvious that he’s not even proud of himself for figuring it out.

Ron doesn’t say anything. He’s a loyal friend, and he’d rather not think about Harry and Draco doing…whatever it is they’re doing, but most importantly, he’s much too busy enjoying his beans on toast to deal with them.

“Morning,” Harry calls, clapping him hard on the back.

“Weasley,” Draco says with a nod, his serious tone undermined somewhat by his dishevelled hair and the very dark (and very conspicuous) love bite he’s got on his neck. “Good morning.”

“Surprised to see you lot up so early…”

“Oh—er, yeah. We wanted to get a start on McGonagall’s inter-house unity thing and um…get to the library early.”

Ron wasn’t going to say anything—Harry is his best mate and he did die very recently—but Harry’s the worst liar in the world and he’s suddenly spotted the bruise on Draco’s neck and is trying to have a silent conversation with him without Ron noticing.

It’s not going well.

Draco’s far too busy pouring his tea to realise Harry’s practically strangling himself in an attempt to get Draco’s attention. Harry’s hands are tight around his own neck while Draco’s stirring way too much sugar into his cup, Ron’s perfectly fluffy eggs are going cold and his bacon is becoming less crispy by the second, and, well, he’s had quite enough.

“So, how long have you and Malfoy been fucking?”

Harry actually does start choking—eyes nearly popping out of his head—Draco has gone even paler (a feat Ron didn’t know was possible), and if Ron wasn’t so annoyed about his favourite meal of the day being ruined, he would laugh.

Draco regains his composure first. “We are not fucking. I don’t even like Potter!”

“Hey—” Harry starts and Draco shoots him a look that reminds Ron so forcefully of fifth year, that he has to stop himself from looking around for Umbridge.

“Shut up,” Draco hisses.

“We can’t keep sneaking around forever—” Ron snorts at Harry’s belief that anything they’ve done is even close to sneaky “—and I want to…well, I want to tell people that you’re my boyfriend.”

They’re staring and staring and staring, so clearly in love that Ron feels like gagging—just a little.

He’s saved by Headmistress McGonagall sweeping up to their table.

“Morning boys,” she says, nodding to them all in turn.

Ron has to answer for the group, given that Harry and Draco can’t take their eyes off each other.

“Morning Headmistress.”

“Mr Potter, could you explain to me why you and Mr Malfoy are wearing each other’s ties?”

Both of them flush bright red, spluttering incoherently as McGonagall frowns in confusion.

Ron affects a grave expression. “I think kids these days are calling it inter-house unity.”

For the @drarrymicrofic prompt: teamwork. Hugs to @academicdisaster24 for looking this over and being a shining light in my life.

Previous microfics.

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forfanfic · 4 years ago

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Have An Evil Day

No prompt this time, just a sequel to ‘Welcome To Evil-Mart’

Working at Evil-Mart is usually… well, it’s retail. It’s physically exhausting, you have to deal with a lot of idiots without being overtly rude, and your feet hurt. Even though the hours and pay are very good, the benefits are great, and our bosses treat us well compared to most retail employees, it’s still not what I’d call a fun job.

But it’s not what I’d call dull, either. Especially not on days like today.

I was promoted to supervisor after the Food Poisoning Incident, so I have a little more authority and a little less obligation to be pleasant and I got issued a weighted cosh because sometimes Evil-Mart customers get… feisty. I’d never had to use it, though, because those who hadn’t seen what I did to Majority Rules, either in person or on one of the cell-phone videos that circulated afterwards, had at least heard about it. They didn’t give me any trouble.

I was halfway through my shift, and the worst things that’d happened had been running out of croissants and a machine oil spill in Aisle Seven, when our greeter pressed the alarm button, which sent an alert to my handset. As front-end supervisor, that meant me, so I went over. Sam, who is unusual in the henching community for having actually aged out rather than ‘being retired’ jerked his chin in the direction of a tall, swaggering figure. “He just came in,” he whispered.

I did a full double-take before I took it in. Superdyne. Fucking Superdyne.

We’d all heard about his dramatic heel-turn a couple of months ago. The whole world had heard about it. Superdyne, who’d skated closer and closer to the line for years, had decided to cross it in a blaze of bloodshed. He was a villain now, he said. There’d been a whole speech about how ingratitude had driven him to it blah blah blah.

I work at Evil-Mart. I’m from a hench family. If someone becomes a supervillain because they hate Mondays or want to turn us all into dinosaurs or whatever, I don’t judge. I will sell depth-charges and laser guns to anyone who can prove they’re over eighteen without hesitation. But even we get kind of grossed out by the ‘I am forced to turn evil because I haven’t been given enough love’ thing. People who are actually so fucked up by emotional abuse or neglect or some superhero killing their family, we’re fine with them. But they don’t say that’s why they do it, and most of them need a lot of therapy to even realize it. People who actually say that’s why are entitled dickwads.

And now the dickwad had walked into Evil-Mart like he was entitled. Like he thought he was one of us.

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forfanfic · 4 years ago

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inhaler

292 words | warnings: smoking

should i be jobhunting? yes. did i find this microfic i wrote back in june and decide to work on this instead? also yes. thank you to @moonstruckwytch for the amazing beta! inspo: this incredible piece by @avendell and the song "inhaler" by foals (definitely listen to it while you're reading this - it's a very on-brand song for Angry Draco). written for the @drarrymicrofic june prompt "suburbia".

****

Draco takes a drag of his cigarette and exhales, watching as the smoke casts a film over the quiet street.

Harry’s definitely here: his tell-tale scent lingers under the smell of sickly-sweet flowers wilting in the heatwave, the sharp steel of Muggle cars under the blazing August sun. A wildness that could only be his magic clings to the low garden wall, disturbing the neat borders that are pruned into submission.

It’s an odd place to keep him captive. A stupid one, too, if they thought Draco wouldn’t look here first.

He leans against a lampost and savours the last inhale, the smoke curling into his lungs for ten, twenty, thirty seconds. What would choke someone else only fuels him - an ember on gasoline. He dusts any stray ash from his leather jacket before popping the blackened stub into his mouth.

Draco closes his eyes, feeling a warmth that’s becoming rapidly familiar build in the back of his throat, and then...nothing. Only the residual tang of ash and rising anger.

He licks his lips. His nail beds itch, his shoulders ache, and that scent.

He scratches at the back of his neck - the first scale had surfaced there a fortnight ago, a horribly predictable iridescent green. Harry had liked it though, stroking it reverently in the fluorescent lights of the hotel bathroom. Draco had let him, despite the pain that lanced through him at the contact; a Midas touch from the Golden Boy - his golden boy, his Harry - was something too precious to pass up.

Draco slings his jacket over his shoulder and sets off down the street, giving a passerby a tight smile as the pavement warms beneath his feet.

Dragons despise their treasure being stolen.

****

thank you for reading! 💛✨

my microfics | drarry microfic

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forfanfic · 4 years ago

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bare wires and a current between

cw: a teeny bit of M-ish sexual content

Electric. That's what it was like between me and Potter in Courtroom Ten that summer after the war. Pansy thought I was delusional. "You can't keep living in your head like this," she said, slapping me across the arm. The Auror on duty yelled at her to cut it out, but I didn't mind; she smacked a pack of cigarettes right up my sleeve.

I spent maybe two or three hours in Courtroom Ten every day, sometimes for myself, sometimes for my mum or dad. It was all supremely dull. Nothing killed a good murder like legalese. Not that I supported war crimes—my solicitor built a woefully convincing case that I couldn't kill a Flitterby—but couldn't a bloke contain a multitude of feels? Why couldn't I despair with the same bloody breath I used to yawn?

I don't know why I tried. Boredom, maybe. The better question is why Potter let me. There he was, every day for hours on end, sitting through trial after bloody trial with his back straight and his eyes as dead as a marionette's. I followed the jagged scar down his brow and wondered, like I'd done for years, what went on in that perfect potty brain of his. Until one day, I simply—slipped in.

McGonagall smelled faintly of cat litter.

Glorious, isn't it? My first thought in Potter's head, and it was about crap. She does, Potter insisted, his chuckle a soft rumble in the back of my mind.

I sat forward, peeking around McGonagall's crimson cap down to where they chained my body to the chair in the centre. Circe's tits. I looked awful, and I said so as loudly as I could in Potter’s mind.

No response.

I spread Potter's fingers. I cracked his knuckles. I locked eyes with old Mrs Longbottom from across the courtroom and gave her the stinkiest stink eye I could manage with Potter's thick brows. Still no reaction. When the Chief Warlock banged his gavel and ended the day's session, I got onto Potter's feet and followed everyone to the Floos.

"Number 12 Grimmauld Place," Potter said when I stepped us into the fireplace, and off we went, spinning through the tubes until we stumbled onto his hearth, a whole two people in one.

Was this Imperius? Whatever it was, it beat sleeping in a cell.

I woke up in Courtroom Ten the next day and thought I dreamt up the whole thing until I caught sight of my body again, bound in that chair, my hair greasy and dirt under my closed lids.

Good thing I paid someone to speak on my behalf, I tried joking, but Potter had hidden himself away again, giving me full reign of his limbs. I wriggled his toes; they cramped at the tip.

You need bigger shoes, I thought. Idiot.

No response.

"We're not going to the trials anymore," I announced out loud the next morning. A rooster crowed. Or maybe I imagined it; it was bloody dark still. "We're going to jerk off instead," I said and waited for his chuckle of assent before slipping a hand down our pants.

Harry Potter's dick felt about as good as anyone's, saintly or otherwise. The perfect girth for his own fist. Who'd have known that hand jobs would be the great equalizer. I sighed into the sheets, stomach tightening as the tension built, little zip-zaps fizzing down our spine and shocking us into completion.

"Jesus Christ," I murmured, wondering who Jesus Christ was.

I gave a lazy stroke of Potter's dick. As if Potter could be just anyone to me. Years spent fantasising, and now—

Years?

Bloody hell. Can't a bloke get some privacy?

So it was like this, day in and day out. Mornings jerking off, a late breakfast with Kreacher. Walks out in the neighborhood. The occasional dinner at the Burrow, where there was always enough said to say nothing at all. "You don't owe them anything. Not even the people you love," I said when we were back in bed again. Then we jerked off, little zap-zips so good, they left us shivering. Time passed like a dream. I'd have missed my own verdict if it wasn't for a chance glimpse of the headlines from a newsstand on a croissant run.

"Draco Malfoy didn't know what he was doing," Harry Potter's mouth said at my trial. "He was young and immature and fell in with the wrong people. He's very sorry."

Amelia Bones raised a brow. "He told you this?"

"Yes," I said in Potter's voice. "Yes. Every word."

They sentenced me to a year's worth of community service. The chains came off my hands as I flooded back into my own body. I wanted to cry. I yawned instead.

It took maybe a few more years than I thought, but it was all the same when Potter and I crossed paths again. Electric. Puddlemere beat the Arrows by a margin of ten for the Cup, and the crowd was going ballistic. Potter stood from his seat a couple rows down and looked me straight in the eye. I fell right into him, his mind a pillowy soft thing now, buzzing with thoughts. Nothing like the cold void that summer after the war. It was enough of a shock that I bounced right back out.

"Draco Malfoy didn't know what he was doing," Potter said later that night when he showed up at my door.

"He didn't," I said. I tried but couldn't make sense of his face; it wasn't like I looked at him when I lived in his head.

"Did you mean it? What you said that summer."

That summer, his cock in our fist, sparks in my heart when we bought him trainers that didn't squeeze his toes. He kept surprising me, little reminders here and there that I existed outside of my own mind. Or his mind. Whatever. It was nothing I wanted, and that was what made it good.

My mouth went dry. “Every word,” I said.

He leaned in and brushed his lips against mine. I pulled him in by the neck, opening up, my entire chest stinging with anticipation. Like waiting for thunder.

for @drarrymicrofic prompt: thought. inspired by @lou-isfake's amazing microfic for thought as well! thanks to @moonstruckwytch for the read-over 🤍

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forfanfic · 4 years ago

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For "the way I said I love you", no. 14 please :) thanks!

I - this ran away from me. All I know is I was watching Tangled and this happened and it ran away from me. Thank you for the prompt! ❤️

The way you said “I love you”, 14: A whisper in the ear.

The first time Draco saw the thief, he thought perhaps he’d imagined it. It was the middle of the day, the middle of town, and he looked out the window of his big big house and saw a thief slipping out the window of the house across the street.

No respectable thief would dare steal at noon, he thought, and definitely not from the home of one of the wealthiest men in town, it was simply too odd. He convinced himself that he’d imagined it. It wouldn’t be the first time, what with it being the twelfth consecutive year he spent locked in his house with no company other than Bernoulli, his cat, the weekly visit of the man who brought him groceries and the biweekly visit of his adoptive father. He wasn’t the sanest person in the world, he knew.

Having decided that, he put the incident out of his mind.

The second time he saw the thief, it was a much more reasonable hour for thieving activities - the small hand on the clock just about grazed six, the sun barely peeking over the horizon - and as Draco looked out the window he saw him again, knew it was the same man because of his messy black hair. The thief went into another of his neighbor’s houses. Draco rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t making it up. The thief came back out with a bag full of things and left swiftly, silently, unseen by everyone but him.

The third time he saw the thief, looking out the same window, he found him walking on top of the roof of the house across the street as if it was nothing. It was the middle of the night and Draco couldn’t sleep, so he was looking out the window and he saw the thief, caught him with a bag in each hand and one foot in front of the other, keeping his balance. Draco must have made a sound, because the thief froze and looked right at him. Their eyes met.

Not knowing what to do, not even seeing him properly because of the meters separating them, Draco raised a hand and waved. The thief stared for a moment, two, then left.

That encounter set the tone for the next handful of months of Draco’s life. Any sane person would have tried to alert someone - anyone, really - to the continuous presence of a thief, but given that Draco was both locked up and not the sanest person around, he didn’t do anything. He would sit in his tiny balcony right outside the window and wait and wait until he saw the thief, and when he did, he waved.

And the thief waved back. Startled, at first, a hesitant jerk of a hand before scurrying away. That was the first few times, but after a few weeks, the thief would wave with more vigor, give Draco a big, toothy smile that made his stomach twist.

One day, Draco looked at his window and found the thief standing on his balcony, leaning casually against the glass. With his heart pounding, he opened and let him in.

Introductions happened. His name was Harry, Draco discovered, his eyes were green, his skin brown, his voice rough, low, and when asked why he had decided to dedicate his life to crime, he threw his head back and laughed heartily and uninhibited.

It was a Sunday night. Earlier, Draco had baked chicken pie, and he offered the thief two slices.

“Why are you locked up?” The thief, Harry, asked, shoveling his pie into his mouth as if he hadn’t eaten in days.

“My father says it’s to keep me safe,” Draco replied. “It’s dangerous outside. I don’t know what he means, but I trust him.” Harry hummed. Then he asked, very politely for a thief, Draco noticed, if he could please have some more pie.

After that, Harry would visit him often. Twice a week, at the very least. Some weeks Draco saw him everyday, would wait for him with dinner served on the small table of his room, and Harry would come and they would sit there for hours, eating and chatting about what Harry had done that day.

If his adoptive father, Mr Riddle, noticed anything different in the two hours he visited Draco every two weeks, he didn’t say, and so Draco didn’t see fit to tell him. He didn’t think he’d like it.

So he and Harry talked. It quickly became apparent that Draco hungered for details, wanted to know exactly what the bakers’ street smelled like that morning, the color of the sunrise, because the sun rose behind his home and he could never see it.

Harry would indulge him, he’d say, “I’m pretty sure it was chocolate cookies, this morning,” and he would say, “the sun was a big red ball behind the clouds, and the sky looked half pink, half orange.”

“What kind of orange?” Draco would urge.

“Like — pff , I don’t know, Draco. Like peaches.”

“Peaches…”

And then when Harry left, he’d smile over his shoulder and say, “see you tomorrow, blondie,” and Draco’s heart would pound inside his chest and he felt it didn’t stop until the next evening rolled around and he saw him again.

He wasn’t blind. Harry was very attractive - almost too attractive, an assault on the eyes - with his broad shoulders and slim waist, the crooked nose, those thick eyebrows and lashes and his green eyes that made Draco lose his mind when he was alone at night in bed.

He was 20 years old, had been locked in since he was 8 and hence had never been kissed, never been touched in any way other than a fatherly pat on the head. But he was 20, and he knew the things that happened in bedrooms, had read about them and couldn’t stop himself from thinking them when he saw Harry in his tight white shirt.

Not being the sanest person around, but certainly one of the cleverest, Draco knew Harry looked at him too, thought those things about him too, and every time he caught Harry staring at him silently, chest rising with shallow breaths, goosebumps broke all over his skin. This went on for months, a tension tight like a string tying them together.

A year after the visits started, it became unbearable. Draco felt half out of his mind with it, his palms sweating when Harry leaned close, when he whispered and brushed Draco’s hair back.

One of those nights, right before slipping out of Draco’s window, Harry hesitated.

“I’m leaving town. I won’t see you in a couple weeks.”

It wouldn’t be the first time it happened, so Draco nodded. He started to say he would find a way to entertain himself, but found he couldn’t, because Harry was kissing him.

Startled, Draco couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, and it lasted all of two seconds before Harry pulled back with a smile warmer, shyer than the usual.

“Think of me, blondie.” And he disappeared into the night.

Draco almost passed out, and think of him he did.

When Harry came back, two weeks later, Draco gave him his virginity. Three times in one night.

It was glory.

Things didn’t change much after that. Harry visited, they ate Draco’s food, talked about what Harry had done, but now there were kisses in between, touching, more than touching. Now, sometimes, they didn’t go straight for the food, they stumbled into bed, slow, rushed, young and ancient. Their sex was the most honest thing Draco had ever known, sometimes they’d laugh in the middle of their kisses, sometimes they’d be silent the whole time, clutching the sheets, clutching at each other, overcome.

Draco was over the moon. He’d never known what it felt like to be someone else’s favorite human, have someone bring him sweet, warm bread and flowers because they’d reminded them of him, had never gone days with butterflies inside his chest whenever he so much as thought about someone.

“You stole my heart,” he’d tell Harry, smiling into his lips.

“You already knew I’m a thief.”

And it was true, but in Harry’s hands, Draco knew he was safe. He told him as much once, when they were lying together naked and breathless, still a bit sticky. He leaned close to him, kissed the corner of his mouth and whispered it, right into his ear, he said, “I love you.”

“Do you?”

“I do.”

“Then I’m one lucky, lucky thief.”

Harry said it too, in different moments. Like when he walked in and found Draco had made his favorite tart, hugged him tight, lifted him up and said it, “God, I love you.” Right before leaving, with a kiss to Draco’s forehead, “Love you. Sleep well.” With a smile, whenever Draco blushed. “Damn, I love you.”

He was liberal and open with his love, demanded the same back with a hunger. Would say, “hmm, you love me” whenever Draco rolled his eyes at him, would ask “how much?” after Draco said he did.

“How much?” Draco would repeat, trailing his fingers over Harry’s naked chest. “Green eyes, I’d run away with you. That’s how much.”

It was true. He’d never considered it before, Riddle said Draco was safe inside, and he had never wanted to go out into the world that had destroyed his parents, but for Harry, he knew he would try.

One day, Harry came in nervous and twitchy, refused to sit, refused to eat.

Draco sighed. “Okay, out with it.”

Harry looked right at him, swallowed and said, “Do you want to go somewhere with me?”

Draco froze.

But the answer was always going to be yes. With Harry, always yes.

“Yes.”

He sneaked out. For the first time in twelve years, he slipped out his window and set foot on the street and ran.

Harry took him to the woods, and they ran along the trees and over the grass, Draco almost crying with how much he was laughing. They had a picnic under the shade of an oak, orange and cheese that gave flavor to their kisses after. Almost like magic.

When Harry took him home that night, Draco said what had been on his mind all day. He said, “Let’s do it.”

Harry didn’t even need to ask what he meant, only asked, “are you sure?”

Draco nodded.

The following week, the day after Riddle’s biweekly visit, Harry showed up with two bags, one full and one empty, and Draco knew it was time. He packed clothes, food, all the money he had into the empty bag Harry gave him, took his cat and its food and they did it.

They ran. They walked and ran and were out of town in three hours, had crossed another one in five. They had two weeks until Riddle found out, but Draco wanted to put as much distance as he could between them, as soon as possible.

So, for a week they walked. It could have been awful, and Draco’s feet were certainly killing him, but it was also the happiest week of his life. They would wake up with the sun, eat fresh fruit and start walking, fingers laced between them. At night, they would find an inn and cuddle up in a tiny cot, have uncomfortable sex that made them laugh, made them cover each other’s mouths with frantic “shhh”s, because the inns were full that time of the year and they didn’t want to get caught.

By the time the second week rolled around, there were seventeen towns between them and Riddle, and Draco woke up feeling light. Harry stirred next to him, threw an arm around him and pressed a kiss to his shoulder.

“Mornin’”

Draco turned his face, angled for a kiss. “Morning, thief.”

Harry smiled. The previous night, the owner of the inn had offered them both a position in the kitchen in exchange for the room and food, they were even offered a few coins a month, and they had said yes. They had made calculations and, if they worked hard, they might be able to move into a small place of their own in a little under a year. Their present, that possible future, it was everything.

There was so much they didn’t know. They didn’t know, for example, that the following week there would be a town fair celebrating the lost prince’s birthday. They didn’t know that they would feel like dancing, they didn’t know that, in the middle of their dance, a palace guard would see them and recognize his queen’s features in Draco’s face. They didn’t know that they’d be called in to the palace. They didn’t know that what Riddle had told Draco when he’d kidnapped him all those years ago was a lie, that his parents were alive. They didn’t know Draco had a family. They didn’t know they were rich, that they would stay together for years, and live a happy, happy life.

But they knew they had each other, had their present and a future full of hope. And it was enough. It was enough.

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forfanfic · 4 years ago

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hey! are you still accepting prompts? i have a suggestion if u like: something with draco being like an alternate alex turner (specially in tranquility base album era): sexy, shoulder length hair, knows how to play piano AND electric guitar and has a similar singing voice. and wears those amazing black suits and is very sexy playing at a concert. i can’t stop listening to arctic monkeys’ songs and thinking abt draco writing similar songs to harry and writing poetry. also that amazing swymsuyt art of draco playing electric guitar!! that art lives in my head rent free. that’s it xx

OK I HEARD "ALTERNATE ALEX TURNER" AND "THAT AMAZING SWYMSUYT ART" AND THIS HAPPENED AND I AM NOT ASHAMED @swymsuyt, your art is a gift, thank you for letting me write a thing for it! It's an honor 🥺

Very slightly nsfw? wc: 1890

Harry flooed into Draco’s flat without even asking, which was rude, he knew, and definitely a step farther than their relationship was currently teetering at, but Harry’d had a shit day and all he wanted to do was snog Draco until he forgot about it all.

He felt the tingle of Draco’s cool magic whip around the room in the second and a half it took him to stand upright and dust the soot from his uniform.

“What was that for?” he asked, frowning, then looked up at the man on the couch.

Draco’s eyes were wide with shock, his cheeks deliciously pink. He was shirtless, all pale skin and paler scars, a sharp contrast to the tight, black jeans, unbuttoned at the hips. His wand was raised in his right hand, and on his left hand was a singular, ivory satin glove, extending up to his elbow, missing a couple fingers. Harry’s mouth went dry.

Draco didn’t deign to answer his first question, so Harry tried another.

“What’s with the glove?”

Draco looked down at it, blinking in surprise, as if it wasn’t his own glove on his own hand. Harry had seen glimpses of it, peeking out of a drawer in Draco’s bureau, but he’d never actually seen him wear the thing.

Draco recovered quickly, sending Harry a devilish grin. He beckoned with one finger of his gloved hand.

“Come here and find out.”

Harry did, gladly, and it turned out it didn’t really matter why or how the glove was there. The glove was awesome.

Harry did pull it off, eventually, because the glove wasn’t as fun to suck on.

They lay on the posh sitting room floor, afterwards, the usual debauched mess they ended up as: Draco’s tight jeans around his knees because Harry didn’t have the patience to pull them all the way off (“honestly, you’re cutting off circulation, Draco”), Draco’s coffee table shoved out of the way, Harry’s hair released from its top knot and spilling over both of them (“it’s amazing the government still stands, Potter, with this utter chaos keeping it afloat”), Harry’s head pillowed on Draco’s scarred, sweaty chest. He had Draco’s fingers in his hand, examining them curiously, while Draco combed idly through Harry’s tumultuous hair.

“When are you going to show me your guitar?” Harry asked, and Draco froze.

“What?”

His body went tense beneath Harry, but he was still beneath Harry, so Harry decided to continue.

“You have calluses,” Harry said, rubbing his thumb over one of them on Draco’s index finger. “On your left hand. I tried playing guitar a few years ago—didn’t have the patience for it, but I remember this part.”

He chanced a look up at Draco’s face, and found it just as shocked as when Harry had first entered uninvited. He felt uninvited once again. Interrupting.

But Draco’s face softened, a careful consideration and an intense fondness that seemed to surprise them both, a little. He cupped Harry’s cheek, running his thumb over Harry’s lip, and Harry felt like he’d accidentally asked a much bigger question than he had. But he wasn’t going to take it back. He hardly knew anything about what Draco did with his time, except that he went to a lot of shows he didn’t invite Harry to, which Harry had no problem with at all, of course he didn’t, no, sir.

But it had been six months of this, of Harry’s messy feelings and Draco’s careful distance, and Harry just couldn’t handle the curiosity anymore, knowing the massive amount of trust they placed in each other. He was surprised he’d made it this far.

“Alright,” Draco said, after a long, thoughtful hesitation.

“Alright?”

“Alright.” Draco tapped him to get him to roll off, and stood, somehow gracefully pulling his jeans back up and tucking himself away. Harry sat up and leaned back on his hands, trying to inject confidence where nervousness had snuck in.

Draco walked to his bedroom, and came out a moment later holding an electric guitar—a black Fender Stratocaster, gleaming and gorgeous and okay, so maybe guitars like that were the reason Harry had wanted to learn in the first place.

The sight of a topless, just-shagged Draco Malfoy holding one was doing unholy things to his heart. His brain kept getting distracted, for some reason—the curtain kept fluttering, he thought he smelled bacon—but this was too good to look away from. This was better than the world’s largest plate of bacon.

“Wow,” Harry said. Draco walked to the sofa and sat down, hesitating a moment before handing the guitar over to Harry.

Harry took it gingerly. It felt weird to be holding a guitar this cool while he was sitting on the floor, naked. He didn’t want to defile it or anything, but he enjoyed the subtle glitter in the black paint, he ran his fingers over the strings, he looked for where the fretboard had worn down, just a little, from so much use. He handed it back to Draco, who was biting his lip, with a sheepish, slightly worried expression.

“Play me something?” Harry asked tentatively. He didn’t want to push his luck. Draco’s quietude was already worrying, and that look on his face made him look like a scared puppy, but, “Please?”

Draco released his lip, piercing Harry with an intense gaze. “We keep each other’s secrets,” he said, a firm reminder.

Harry smiled at him; that had been Harry’s first and only condition on starting this relationship. Now, it was something they said when they wanted to share something private, in the safe, enclosed space between their bodies, in their own little world.

We keep each other’s secrets, when Draco admitted he preferred purple Fanta over almost any beverage, and when he brought Harry to Narcissa’s hidden grave; we keep each other’s secrets, when Harry admitted feeling like he wasn’t as close with his friends as he should be; we keep each other’s secrets, when Draco found him crying in the Forbidden Forest, after disappearing for two days.

“We keep each other’s secrets,” Harry affirmed with a gentle nod, knocking Draco’s ankle with his foot. It felt like he was saying something other than those words.

Draco’s lips twitched, and he brought the guitar to his lap, quickly tuning the strings. Harry had forgotten what an unplugged electric guitar sounded like: quiet, unassuming and intimate.

Draco glanced at him once more, then started fingering a quick melody, a little familiar. And then, to Harry’s complete and total surprise, he began to sing.

“Well, now then, mardy bum I've seen your frown and it's like looking down The barrel of a gun, and it goes off And out come all these words…”

Harry’s lips parted, he held his breath. He felt his face heating dangerously, he loved this song—there was that smell of bacon again, fuck, where was that coming from—a lock of Draco’s hair fell into his face, cute, but he ignored it, immersed in his—had Harry left the oven on? He shook himself, blinked, Draco’s fingers danced over the frets—

“Well, can't we just laugh and joke around? Remember cuddles in the kitchen, yeah To get things off the ground And it was up, up, and away…”

Fucking hell, Harry was arse over tit for this man, he’d never seen anything hotter—the curtain was fluttering again, was a window open?—Draco even looked like—Harry needed to visit Teddy soon, he really did—and Draco’s voice—he’d definitely forgotten to file those reports before leaving work, Robards was going to murder him—

Draco’s song ended, and he watched Harry carefully, while Harry held his fingers to his temples to try to temper the headache.

“That was… amazing…” Harry managed, then winced, because that was definitely not good enough for what he was feeling. When he could focus on what he was feeling.

But so much else kept popping up. Harry’s brain had never been this busy. Why now, of all times?

Draco hummed shortly. “Still going, is it?”

“Er… what?” Harry mumbled, then looked around. “Should I make tea? Wait, you don’t even like tea…”

Draco chuckled nervously. “Hang on.” He pulled out his wand, aimed it at Harry, and gave it a tiny, complicated wave.

Harry blinked, the headache receding, and looked up at—

“Holy shit.”

That was definitely Draco, sitting before him, still looking nervous and so ridiculously handsome, and that was also—

“You’re…? Seriously?”

Draco bit his lip again, nodding. “You can thank the nineteen-year-old Hermione Granger for the impressive anti-recognition spellwork,” he muttered.

Harry didn’t need to ask why anyone wouldn’t want to be famous. But he was still reeling from this revelation.

“Why…?”

“I didn’t think it would get anywhere, honestly,” Draco said quickly. “I was messing around, I was trying on new personalities and accents every other day, I was trying to be anyone but me, but some muggles wanted to form a band so I did, and then I got recognized at a show by a group of vigilantes…”

Harry remembered hearing about that. He glanced at the only scar on Draco’s chest he hadn’t caused. He hadn't realized Draco was recognized on stage.

“…but Hermione was at that show with Pansy, and she found me and practically castrated the lot of them, then Obliviated them and healed me herself, and told me she’d created an anti-recognition charm that she hadn’t needed to use yet, and it would prevent anyone who knows Draco Malfoy from recognizing the man on stage, with the guitar.”

Harry just gaped at him, completely thunderstruck, while Draco uncharacteristically squirmed in his seat.

“So we did it,” Draco continued. “I got to recreate myself, without worrying about when the Wizarding world would come and tear it all down.”

Distantly, he remembered Hermione mentioning such a charm, off-hand—she’d been curious if Harry would want to use it. Unfortunately, he needed to be recognized, sometimes, in his work. Instill fear in the hearts of criminals, and whatnot.

“But it’s off me, now?” Harry said. Draco nodded. “So I can actually see you perform?” He paused. “If you’ll let me?”

Draco looked bewildered. “You actually want to?”

“Of course I want to. I’ve wanted to go wherever you go for months,” Harry retorted, then blushed furiously, because that did not come out how he’d planned, but it was out. “And now that I’ve just learned that my boyfriend is one of my favourite rockstars of all time—”

“Oh, come off it,” Draco scoffed.

“You’ve been to my house, Draco. You know I have all your albums.”

“Yes, well…” he flapped his hand. “Alright. Yes, you can come. You’ll have to share the box with Hermione and Pansy, though.”

Harry laughed. “They’ll have to share with me, actually, seeing as I’m the one shagging the star—”

“Oh, shut up,” Draco tossed the guitar on the couch, “shut up,” pushed Harry back and crawled over him, “shut up, Potter!” but it did nothing to suppress Harry’s gleeful giggles, until he leaned down and kissed him breathless.

Harry locked his arms around him, relishing in the freedom of this closeness and the warmth of Draco’s trust, of we keep each other’s secrets and “remember when you used to be a rascal?” and “I’d probably still adore you with your hands around my neck.”

Of course, Harry would.

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forfanfic · 4 years ago

Text

Bulletproof

It doesn't come as a surprise to Draco when he graduates Auror Academy. He scores well enough on the written exams that the practicals can't flunk him out entirely. Still, he's left speechless when Potter approaches him after their graduation ceremony and shakes his hand, saying, "Sorry about Officer Boyle; he was mean. See you around."

As if Draco needs another excuse to gawk after Potter.

In the years since, Draco sees Potter plenty, though always from a distance. Meritocracy pushes Draco only so far, so he ends up with a desk position within the Aurors, signing off this and that, and playing the bad guy for the puppetmasters upstairs when the answer is no. Potter is infuriatingly polite, his voice measurably calm and his dismissal always impersonal. The others follow his lead, their words and actions a shallow replica of their Saviour, and with that example set, Draco leads a middling, tolerable existence.

It isn't until Draco's five-year mark that he's finally let on the field. Even then, he's only allowed because they're severely short-staffed, and Draco, despite it all, is tenured. Potter's surrounded when they swarm the Muggle warehouse, twelve guns emptying into his chest as he holds out his wand mid-slash. There's an acrid smell of burning skin, and Draco's vision bursts in blues and reds, loud bangs, his own hoarse voice shouting something in between a Protego and a Stupefy.

The firefight ends quickly. Guns click empty, but magic keeps on until finally, a gentle hand stops Draco's wrist, and Draco collapses, green eyes the last he sees before his vision swims black.

Potter hands in the report at Draco's desk the next day. His shirt is neatly buttoned-up, robes sloppy over his shoulders, the broad expanse of his chest held proud as though it weren't riddled with bullets not more than twelve hours before.

"Wasn't expecting you in today," Draco quips before he can stop himself.

"And why's that?"

Draco takes out the stamp pad from his drawer, unsure how to say that he half-expected a notice of Potter's demise dropped off with his coffee this morning. He scans over the parchment before stamping it firmly and handing it back.

Draco's eyes flit to meet cool steel. He looks away, heart quickening. "No reason," he swallows.

Potter takes the report and continues to his desk. Padma stops him, and Draco watches them laugh over something Potter says before Padma moves on, smiling. Ron sits on Potter's desk an hour later, loudly joking about the birthday party he has planned for his daughter. The alarms blare sometime in the afternoon — illegal potions, two dead and counting — and Potter sets down his coffee, reaching for his wand with the same coolness as he would for a pen or a biscuit.

There is something very wrong with Harry Potter.

Maybe it's because Draco's not used to Potter on the field, or perhaps it's because he's always been hung up on Potter's every move, but no one else seems to notice how Potter never takes a day off, never so much as scrapes a knuckle during missions. Draco's heard of such sorcery before, but it's Dark Magic, locked away behind heavy wards and shrouded in cautionary tales of damnation and destruction for all who seek its powers.

Draco is not a powerful Auror, but he's known the scent of darkness since childhood and learned better than to chase it up Manor bannisters. But.

But he's never been able to stay out of trouble when it comes to Potter.

Sneaking into Potter's home is not hard. Grimmauld Place recognises Draco as family, and he pays his tribute in blood, palm slashed and dripping over every door. He finds what he's searching for under the basement trap door, suspended over a pedestal of black haze in a room with mirrored walls. Draco walks toward it until he sees clearly the deep crimson of the Resurrection Stone, and within it, the swirling image of Potter's face, mid-scream.

for @drarrymicrofic prompt: bullet.

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forfanfic · 4 years ago

Note

Draco asking Harry to move in together for the sentence prompt if it inspires you 🥰

"These? Harry, what about these?"

Draco lifted the stack of plates, tightly wrapped in cellophane, and watched the disinterested green gaze.

"Uh. Yeah. Sure."

"You don't like them." Draco stated it instead of asking.

Harry shrugged. "I dunno. They look...expensive."

"Well, what's wrong with that?"

"There's nothing wrong," Harry said, laughing a little at Draco's scowl. "You know me. I have that one set of plastic stuff that I got when I moved into my place. That's it. I don't know much about all this."

"First of all, the dishware you have in your place is melamine, not plastic. I think it's time you...moved," said Draco, holding his breath.

But Harry just shrugged and poked a finger at the elegant set of red plates Draco was holding. "So what else did you want to get?"

Draco sighed, shoulders drooping. "Just...things for the house. You really won't help me choose?"

Harry looked over at him and hurriedly put down the set of dessert spoons he was inspecting. Draco must have looked very pathetic because he said, "All right, let's get you some plates. Put those down, love, you aren't fooling anyone by picking red. We all know you hate red."

Draco smirked but put away the red plates. After some discussion, during which Harry lamely kept randomly pointing out various sets, they decided that the cream plates with the gold edges were very posh and suited posh Draco's posh flat.

"Okay. Now bedding!" said Draco at last, leading the way.

Harry looked stumped when Draco started pointing out sets of bedsheets and pillow cases.

"Er," he said intelligently when Draco asked him about preferred thread count. "I...dunno?" And then when Draco glared, "Get how many ever threads you think will be necessary!"

"I want you to pick!"

"Why?! It's stuff for your bed!"

"Can't you ever take a fucking hint? I've been asking you for your opinion all day!"

"Why?"

Draco felt himself swelling up indignantly. "I was going to ask you to-- I mean, if you were open to it-- It would be your choice, of course, but--" Suddenly, Draco deflated, because Harry was just standing there looking so bored, hands in his pockets, shoulders slouched.

"What," he said, when Draco just stood there sadly.

"I was going to ask you if you'd like to move in with me," said Draco, barely audible over the music playing overhead in the plush store. When Harry just stood there, face empty, "It's okay. You don't have to. We don't even have to talk about this right now. Let's just go."

Draco shoved the set of bedding with the floral print on it back onto its shelf and turned away.

"That's purple right?"

Draco turned. Harry was carefully pawing at a set of soft bedding in a pretty lilac.

"I suppose," said Draco carefully. "Why are you--?"

"I like these," said Harry. "Let's get 'em."

"What?"

"It'll look great on your giant bed." Harry finally looked at him...and grinned. "Our bed, I mean."

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forfanfic · 4 years ago

Note

Omg omg I have a prompt ! Draco got Harry's number but (because he's shy, because he's afraid of rejection) he doesn't tell him he's him, and after a while Harry is going insane because Derek sounds amazing (although he's somehow never available to go out on a date) but Draco is so fucking hot

(Is a long one sentence prompt an acceptable loophole? 😅 can't wait to see what you can come up with (if you choose to write it))

Have a good day !

(lol what a loophole 😂)

Hey. U up?

Yes, good morning :)

How did dinner with ur folks go?

Oh, it was a nightmare, as expected. How was your Sunday evening?

Lonely without u

Don't make a man blush this early in the day.

Do u blush easily?

I guess so. I'm very pale.

I bet u look pretty when u blush

I bet you say that to all the boys.

Harry surveyed the canteen another time, sighing when the bright head he was looking for remained absent. He looked back at his phone, cursor blinking as he tried to decide what to reply with.

I wish I could see u blush

Oh no, don't start.

Wat?? I just want to meet for coffee or something

Oh, Harry. I'd be such a disappointment.

I doubt that

Harry waited but Derek didn't text back immediately. He looked around the canteen, ignoring his half eaten omelette and sipping his coffee instead. Then, his heart cartwheeling wildly, he saw Malfoy walk in, cloak over one arm, briefcase in one hand, his hair blinding in its pale brightness.

He was always so polished and beautiful, Malfoy. His clothes were perfectly tailored and ironed, tie knotted with military precision, shoes highly polished. Harry felt like everything Aunt Marge ever labelled him in comparison to Malfoy. Stupid posh git.

Stupid posh git who was just so fucking hot.

Harry ducked his head, sliding low in his chair, when Malfoy picked up a plate, joined the short queue at the breakfast buffet and looked around as he waited. Harry stayed slouched out of sight until Malfoy had served himself some sliced fruit and toast before finding a table on the other side of the pillar Harry was half hidden behind.

As Harry straightened up, his phone buzzed.

You're worth someone...perfect. Because that's what you are.

Harry's fingers fumbled as he punched out a reply with his thumbs, his belly fluttering.

U cant stay stuf like that ubless ur gona meet me so I can show u how much u mean to me

I know, I shouldn't lead you on. I'm sorry. I just like you too much and I wish I was brave enough to take this to the next level.

I promise u wont regret it

I know I won't but you will.

I wont!

Harry... You won't like me.

I doubt that

I mean it. I'm not what you're looking for.

I don't know wat I'm looking for

You don't have a type?

Harry looked at the pillar as if he could see Malfoy through it and bit his lip. If only he had the balls to walk up to him and just ask him out like he'd been dying to for almost two years, he could stop begging Derek to meet him like some sort of desperate freak.

Harry looked at his phone, sighing. He recalled the drawled conversation he had overhead Malfoy having with a coworker in the tea room and the way Harry had hurried out so he wouldn't be caught laughing madly.

I like...gits who challenge me. And make me laugh. U do that

What else?

Fuck. I like them pale and mouthy with an arse I could kill for but he is so fucking beyond my league, Harry wanted to bellow.

I don't know. I just wish we could meet

I know. Me too.

Harry sighed again and pushed away from the table, picking up his tray and turning to go dump it into the slot on the other side of the room. Belatedly remembering that Malfoy sat on the other side of the pillar (looking fancy and unattainable) Harry detoured by walking into the balcony that ran along the back of the room, connecting to the canteen through several open doorways.

Harry walked all the way to the other end of the room, deposited his tray and then doubled backed through the balcony again, pausing to peer into the canteen through the window that was directly behind Malfoy...

...who was bent over a Muggle cell phone he held under the table.

Harry's mouth dropped open. Even Hermione hadn't agreed to get a cell phone but Malfoy had one?!

Unable to resist, Harry slipped inside and crept up to Malfoy, turning over cleverly phrased greetings in his mind.

Malfoy's knee was bouncing restlessly and he was holding the phone so tightly that his knuckles bulged. Harry stopped and fidgeted for a second, glancing at the screen once more.

And then almost had a heart attack.

Across the top of the screen was the name of the person Malfoy was texting, clear as day, the font large and square:

"Harry <3"

and beneath that, the long exchange of familiar looking text messages.

Harry's breath suddenly whooshed out of him so loudly that Malfoy heard it and turned, frowning in bewilderment.

Harry and he blinked at each other for a moment. Then,

"Derek?"

(Send me a one-sentence prompt for drarry and I'll do my best!)

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forfanfic · 4 years ago

Text

@drarrymicrofic prompt: king. I had a weird spontaneous urge for this one that I will certainly regret tomorrow because it has kept me up way, way past my bedtime. Oh, well. wc: 1402

Dear Potter,

Bloody buggering shitting hell, I am so tired of seeing your fucking photograph in the paper. How many times will they insist on capturing your pained, brutish expression before it actually starts to deteriorate the paper it’s printed on?

Forgive me, I’ve had a bit to drink. A bit of a few of a couple bottles. One of those nights, as I’m sure you know. And yes, tonight’s strop is entirely brought to you by your ugly fucking mug.

The thing is, Potter, what number was this? The third? fourth? date you’ve been on in the past two months that the Prophet has somehow found their way into. The third? fourth? date that has been memorialized in print, and I do say memorialized, because it’s bloody tragic is what it is. They look like funerals, Potter. They’ve got your vaguely disgusted and depressed expression blown up front page for all the world to see. You’re trying so hard, aren’t you? And something about these girls just isn’t quite right, it never is.

Potter, you’re not that interested in women. I feel like Weasel should be the one telling you this, if Granger hasn’t already, so pretend there’s a brotherly clap on your shoulder when you read this: mate, you’re into blokes. Barmy, innit? Now pretend that never happened.

I know you’ve barely got two brain cells to rub together and they must be working very hard right now, especially since I’ve just used the phrase “rub together,” but do try to keep up:

You’ve been watching boys your whole bloody life, Potter. I know, because I was watching you.

You watched burly Oliver Wood, suave Cedric Diggory, every single Weasley brother (and I do mean every one. We can include the singular Weasley sister.). You watched Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott and Justin Finch-Fletchley. You watched Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan. Potter, you watched me, more than anybody.

Ignore that weird stain on the parchment. This bottle’s jumpy. Firewhiskey, you know how it is.

Anyway, I’m drunk, so it doesn’t matter that we haven’t spoken since 1998, or maybe really ever. It doesn’t matter that you haven’t seen me in seven years and that I have no business commenting on your love life to myself, because I’ve had to see you almost every day, grimacing at me from the newspaper on my breakfast table. And I’m so bloody sick of it.

What’s worse, is that it’s not even their gender that’s the real problem. I wager you’ll still be disappointed when you finally start broadening your palette, because you keep going after the same type of person: the one that’s not afraid to push you, but still wants to be taken care of. They’ll bite for the thrill of it, but at the end of the day, they still want the Saviour to sweep them off their feet.

Well, in my highly intoxicated and unprofessional opinion, built over years of careful observation, you’re tired of being the provider. You never wanted to be the rescuer or the knight in shining armour. But it’s what you became, and now you’re stuck, and you need someone who knows that about you. Who knows you better than you do.

You just need someone who’ll take care of you, instead, and give you what you never had. You need someone who’ll take you on spontaneous holidays to force you to take time off work, because they know you’ll find ways to avoid it if you have to plan ahead. You need someone who’ll draw you a bath and make you get in it, just so they can sit and distract you while they wash your hair. You need someone to switch out your shampoo with luxurious home-brewed ones that smell like your favourite things, like broom polish and treacle tart and cinnamon. You need someone who’ll remember to keep your glasses next to your wand on the nightstand, because you need both equally to survive, and you don't feel safe unless you know exactly where they are.

You need someone to hold you when the nightmares shake you, to not flinch from your trauma or your anger, and to give you everything they have to offer, because the world has been taking from you for so fucking long. You need someone strong enough to hold you together, so you don’t have to all the time. Even kings need ways to let go, to let someone else take the reins for a bit.

And this is stupid, isn’t it? Your former bully, your enemy in a war, still branded with the weight of his inescapable mistakes, giving you unsolicited dating advice. But even I have limits, Potter, and it’s bloody painful, watching you try to play the hero over and over, because you don’t know anything else. You don’t know how good it can be. I doubt anyone has ever sat with you in a tub and washed your hair, or taken you on a relaxing holiday alone, or laid with you in bed all day on a weekend just because. I bet you’ve still got the musty, hundred-year-old sheets of Grimmauld Place on your bed, because you’ve never known good sleep, and I bet you eat beans on white toast in the morning, like a plebe, because no one is there to insist on eggs and bacon and fresh fruit.

You go to work and save the day, over and over, and you go home and expect to do the same, in different clothes. Because no one has ever welcomed you home with a kiss and a cup of perfectly-made tea, and hung your burdens with your cloak by the door, and told you it was okay to just be.

Do us all a favour and find someone like that, soon, before you soil every newspaper in Britain.

Sincerely yours,

D M

***

Harry stared at the stained, rumpled parchment in his hands, paralyzed with shock. The owl sat on the back of his armchair, watching him expectantly, as if waiting for Harry’s reply.

But what could he possibly say to that? To Malfoy?

He jumped at the sound of a fist pounding on his front door, a familiar voice yelling his name loud enough to wake the neighbours. He hurried to the foyer on bare feet, still clutching the letter, and threw open the door.

He leapt back as Malfoy’s fist flew forward, unhindered by the door, the momentum carrying him stumbling into the house with a strangled shout.

“Potter! Potter—” Malfoy straightened up in Harry’s foyer, eyes darting around wildly until they landed on an incredulous Harry, then slid to the parchment in his hand.

“Shit,” Malfoy breathed. Harry shut the door, watching him warily.

He looked a fucking mess, his hair tousled and uneven, as if he’d been pulling at it in distress. One half of his posh shirt was untucked. His shoes didn’t match, his cheeks were flushed bright red, and he smelled strongly of firewhiskey.

Harry swallowed, thrown completely off balance, because Malfoy still looked good. Touchable. Rather debauched, honestly.

Fucking hell, Malfoy was right. Harry was very much into blokes.

“Potter,” Malfoy repeated, raising his hands slowly towards the parchment. Harry subconsciously pulled it closer to him. “Potter, ignore everything in that letter. It’s not real. I was so drunk. Am so drunk. And Pansy says I’m a maudlin drunk on firewhiskey and she’s probably right and she saw me escape to go be tragic and found me writing this nonsense, and she told me I had to use the loo because she’s a bitch and I’m very suggestible when intoxicated, and she stole this and addressed it and gave it to my owl because she is a very, very bad friend—”

Because no one has ever welcomed you home with a kiss and a cup of perfectly-made tea…

“—and you can be sure she will get what’s coming to her but I completely understand if you’re going to hex me into next week anyway, because of course, I had to go make it worse and break down your door in the middle of the fucking night, Merlin alive, not just anyone breaking down your door, is it? It just had to be me—”

…and hung your burdens with your cloak by the door, and told you it was okay to just be.

“Tea?” Harry asked, halting his spiral.

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forfanfic · 4 years ago

Text

Desvelo (or: The Case of Subject A1534: Harry James Potter)

Draco turned on the recorder as soon as he walked into the lab. Two of his colleagues stood by the main table, fastening the unconscious subject’s limbs, and a third one handed him his notes, which he took without looking up as he unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and rolled up his sleeves.

There was a hum of magic around the body, keeping it safe, keeping it still. He forced himself not to think too hard about who it belonged to.

“What’s the status?” he asked the room at large, approaching the table.

“Alive, under a magically induced coma to prevent strain to the core. We haven’t identified the curse,” replied Zeller, holding her hands over the subject’s head to hold the charm. Draco nodded at her, turned his face towards the recorder and spoke clearly.

“This is Draco Malfoy, code DM17008512, head of the Dark Arts BioStudies division, reporting from Level 9, on the 25th of June, 2008.” He walked around the exam table, lowered Zeller’s charms and replaced them with his own, finding the subject’s vitals with his magical awareness. “Subject A1534, Harry James Potter, is alive, kept under a magical coma. Slight bradycardia, as expected, blood pressure of 110/60, core unstable at 250 joules and climbing by the second.”

The manic energy of Harry’s magic zinged his forearms, crazed, looking for an outlet. Draco felt it around his fingers, underneath his nails. He clenched his teeth.

“This is Rose Zeller,” she picked up as he fell silent, “code RZ19003276, member of the Dark Arts BioStudies division, reporting from Level 9 on the 25th of June, 2008. Subject Harry James Potter arrived unconscious in the emergency department of St Mungo’s Hospital in the early hours of the 24th of June, 2008, and was referred to the Dark Arts Biostudies division that very morning, after the medics failed to identify the curse responsible for his condition.”

Draco knew all that, and yet it made his hackles rise once again to remember what the medics had said, the call he’d received the previous day, informing him of his new subject. He looked at Harry’s prone form now, the easy rise and fall of his chest as the coma imitated sleep, the peaceful drop of his eyelids, and had to will himself not to think as he ran his hands down the tan neck, the long clavicles. This was just a subject, he told himself. Nothing was different. He cleared his throat, “Curse entry identified over second rib, at midclavicular line on the right side. Trifocal, seeming to suggest a curse of the Imperial family. No exit mark apparent upon inspection.”

He took his hands off the body, clasping them together so he could pretend they weren’t shaking, and retracted his magic, pulling it free of the magnet of Harry’s. It was quiet, only the static hum of the spells keeping Harry unconscious broke the silence of the insular room. His soft breaths. The occasional brush of Zeller’s pen against paper. Draco tried not to stare, and couldn’t. There was so much brown naked skin on display, so much history, that no matter how hard he attempted to root himself to the present, he found himself falling into memories of that body, of those hands, of years of watching. Years of wanting.

“No exit mark apparent upon inspection,” he repeated. Made up his mind. “Impossible to reach further conclusions until the subject is woken up. Zeller, Nott, rennervate him. I shall stabilize his core.”

It was a testament to how far he’d come that neither of them thought to argue. They moved, one of them standing at each of Harry’s sides, and Draco stayed near his head, reaching towards his core with his magic, coaxing it into stillness, easing it from the entropy the curse had unleashed.

“Rennervate,” Zeller and Nott whispered in unison.

Harry’s core cells shook against Draco’s hold, fought the intrusion for a moment, but he held on, and soon enough Harry’s eyes popped open, frantic, his body immediately battling the restraints, thrashing, attempting to free his arms and legs, to flee. But still Draco held on, and at last, when Harry looked up and their eyes met, he stopped struggling, as sudden as a bucket of water dousing a fire.

“Potter,” Draco muttered through clenched teeth, as he reined in Harry’s core cells. “You need to tell us what they hit you with.”

He felt Zeller’s magic join his own, take some of the brunt of Harry’s magic, lift a bit of weight off his shoulders. His breaths came more easily.

“W-what?” Harry asked, still confused, still looking at Draco, only at Draco.

“You’re in the Department of Mysteries,” Draco said, “you were attacked. Do you remember what they hit you with?”

“I don’t— what? Department of— Do I know you?”

“Boss, his core is nearing 300 joules,” Nott said. “We need to put him down again.”

But Draco barely heard him. “You don’t remember me?”

Harry blinked, confused, tried to stand up, shook his wrists against his restraints when he found he couldn’t. “No. I was hit?”

“Yes, with a curse. Did you have the chance to hear what it was?” Zeller asked when Draco, stunned into silence, didn’t continue the interrogation.

“A curse? I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Harry said. “Did you kidnap me? I — what’s happening?”

“Boss, core at 325”

“You’re the boss?” Harry asked Draco, looking right into his eyes once again. “I thought… you feel familiar but I don’t really—?”

“Boss, 350.”

“Mr Potter,” Rose said, “We really need you to...”

“Potter?” Harry asked.

Draco felt faint.

“360”

“Am I—?” Harry didn’t look away from Draco, his eyes pleading.

“380”

“Put him down,” Draco said.

Nott did.

The silence that followed ringed in Draco’s ears. They were all quiet, stunned into it. Harry lay unconscious on the table once again. Draco could still hear his pained confusion.

“Subject appears to suffer from severe amnesia,” he said at last. “Recording over.”

They’d kissed once.

It could almost have been passed off as an accident, brief and light as it was.

To Draco, it counted.

It had been four years before, the night Harry graduated from the Auror Academy. Him and the other 24 graduates had piled up into a bar and made a big deal of it, gotten drunk out of their minds. Draco’s presence had been a mere coincidence, his getting drunk a very conscious decision once he’d seen the boisterous, red-coated lot.

His memories were confusing, the images blurring into each other as the night progressed in increasingly drunker increments, but he remembered stumbling into the bathroom and finding Harry there, broad shoulders free of his coat, with Ron weeping into his arm and saying, “I just love you so much, you’re my best friend I love you sooo—“ and Harry patting his shoulder and saying, “I know, I know, I love you too.” He remembered, somehow, ending up at their table. Doing shots with them. A confusing few minutes on the dance floor. He remembered standing outside the bar in the rain and then, right there, the kiss. He couldn’t remember what had led up to it, but the fact of it had sobered him up immediately, and he remembered it, crystal clear, himself leaning against the wall, wet from the rain, and Harry, a long line of heat along his side, their lips pressed together. He remembered pushing for more, and then Harry pulling back. Harry saying, “Oh god.”

Then, the night dissolved in his mind and the next thing he remembered was waking up the following morning, hungover.

He’d not seen Harry for weeks after that, and when they’d finally met again at an interdepartmental meeting, Harry had given him a mere nod, eyes sliding right past him. As if nothing had happened. Perhaps, to him, it hadn’t. But to Draco, it counted.

“What’s the plan now, boss?” Nott asked him, droplets of sweat high on his brow from maintaining the charm keeping Harry down.

Draco took a deep breath. “We got some information. Find all references to amnesia linked to a curse of the Imperial class on the records.”

“On it.” Zeller said.

Harry lay unconscious once again, incongruous in the calmness of his induced sleep. A tamed lion. Draco reached forward, removed his glasses, folded the temples carefully. Then, he ran his knuckles along the dark, freckled cheekbones.

“I’m going to talk to The Professor,” he said. His colleagues hummed their assent.

The Professor’s office stood right at the end of Level 9, a door you might not see if it didn’t feel like being seen, in a corridor that, at times, didn’t exist at all. Fitting for the head of the department of mysteries.

The door opened for him before he knocked, which told him he was expected. When he walked inside, Hermione Granger stood beside her desk, two books in her hands.

“Professor,” Draco said. “You heard the recording.”

“Yes,” she replied, fingers quick on the pages of one of the books she held. “I want nothing more than to go see him myself, but I have to meet the minister right now. I did find these, I hope they help,” she handed Draco the books, one of them open to a specific page. Her level, browned eyed gaze was harsh on him. “The only reason I’m not storming your lab is that I know you’re capable. Take care of him.”

“I will.”

She nodded. “Do whatever it takes to bring him back.” He would.

Back in his lab, Draco sat on top of his desk and paged through the books Hermione had given him. The first one, the one she had handed him open, was on mind magic.

The dissolution of memories following an attack with dark magic, the title read at the top of the page.

A clear marker of mind magic is its lightness. Schuester and Neels classify the magical particles that travel through neurons as a follow-up to their natural action potential into two large groups: permalight and everblue. The permalight particles possess an immutable quality that ensures their stability, whereas everblue particles, in charge of the pathways pertaining to memory, when disturbed by specific dark curses (especially those dealing with the proceedings of the magical center in the medulla oblongata) become overactive, releasing an increased amount of energy that forces the magical core into a state of overcompensation. Cases with magical cores that reach up to 500 joules have been documented, and the main consequence is a loss of the overactive everblue particles and the resultant dissolution of memories.

“Found it,” Draco said, marking the page down and putting the book aside before reaching for the second one. “Nott, give me a rundown of the state of his everblue particles.”

“Got it,” Nott replied. After a couple seconds, he added, surprised, “the everblue particles are… going haywire, just frantic, it’s hard to say. They’re definitely more active than they should be.”

“Attempt to stabilize, give me a second,” Draco opened the second book. It was a Mind Potions manual. He paged through it, looking, looking, until he found what he was looking for. “McKinney, get me a silver cauldron.”

“There’s an antidote?” Zeller asked.

Draco nodded. “It will take a few hours to brew, but if I’m right, he should be out of here by tomorrow morning.”

“Baseline?” McKinney asked.

“Memory potion. Get me one as well, I’ll modify as needed.”

In a second, they were all working again. Draco went to the supply closet and picked out the ingredients carefully, one finger over the page that held the instructions. If he did it right, Harry would be back the next day. That was all that mattered. That was all he cared about.

“You need help?” McKinney asked him when he took the cauldron from her. He didn’t, not really, but one look at Harry lying on the exam table and at the clock on the wall had him nodding.

He would bring him back, and he would do it as soon as possible.

“Yes. Chop the staghorn.” He got the fire going, crushed the neem leaves, squeezed the valerian root. Together, he and McKinney completed the ingredient list, and Draco added them to the cauldron one by one, paying attention to the scent of the fumes, the color of the smoke. Once he had a royal blue potion, he turned the fire down.

“It needs to simmer for two hours. After that, I’ll need your help to wake him up and make him drink it.”

Mckinney cringed. Draco nodded, sympathetic. He wasn’t keen on forcing Harry, either.

“Will he have his memories back, boss?”

“The important ones, right away. He should remember the rest in the next few days.”

“Everything he remembered before?”

Draco nodded. “If I did it right, yes.” He was looking at the clock, at the slow tick of the thin hand marking the seconds. “You should all go grab lunch, I will need you sharp. I can guard the subject.”

They all recognized it as the order it was and, after taking off their aprons and offering to bring him coffee once they returned, they left him alone. The room was eerily silent in their wake. Draco brought a stool next to the exam table and sat there, right beside Harry. His hand, wide and open, lay next to his body. Draco swallowed, brought his hand up and ran the tips of his fingers down Harry’s palm.

Would he remember, Draco wondered.

He supposed it didn’t really matter.

When he’d mentioned the graduation party, over a year after it happened, Harry had simply stared at him blankly.

“You were there?” And then, sheepish, “Oh, man, I was so drunk I don’t remember a single thing. I’m sorry, did I do something embarrassing? Do you have embarrassing stories about me?”

Draco laughed it off, relayed the story of a weepy Ron in the bathroom of the bar, and Harry laughed along.

They’d become friends by then, were already past the tentative first drinks, well into the stage of inside jokes, of shared meals. And now Draco knew that Harry didn’t remember.

For a while, he willed himself to forget. Once he realized it was impossible, he resigned himself to living with his one-sided crush. Harry’s friendship was already so much more than he could’ve ever hoped for, his hyper-distilled attention heady enough as it was. It was enough.

“Ready?” Draco asked, holding the vial between his fingers. Zeller, Nott and McKinney stood at Harry’s sides. He waited for their nod before giving the order, “Now.”

“Rennervate.”

Once again, Harry woke up fighting, struggling with his binds before even becoming fully conscious. This time, though, Draco was right there, a hand to Harry’s sweaty nape, the short hair at the back of his head.

“Hey, it’s okay. Harry, wake up.”

Harry did, his eyes overtaken by his pupils for a couple seconds before adjusting to the bright lights of the lab. He looked at Draco, right at him as he had before, just as confused. “What’s happening?”

“You lost your memories,” Draco whispered, disarmed by the absolute trust in Harry’s eyes. “We can help you, but you have to drink this. Will you?”

He showed him the vial. Harry eyed it, swallowed. “Yeah, okay.”

Draco breathed out, relieved. “Here, I’ll help you.” He tipped Harry’s head back, brought the vial close to his lips. “It tastes good, I promise. I made it specially for you.”

Harry nodded, didn’t look away from him for a second as he swallowed, and soon enough, the vial was empty.

The potion acted immediately. The monitors beeped as Harry’s pulse skyrocketed, his breath quickening, but his core began to regain stability, the number climbing down from 400. His hand shot forward, clung to Draco’s arm, and Draco let him, watched him ride the waves of memories.

At last, Harry’s eyes fell closed, a faint sheen of sweat covering his forehead. The monitors showed his core at 80 joules.

“What’s your name?” Draco asked softly, gently.

“Harry James Potter,” Harry whispered, eyes still closed. He brought a hand up, covered his eyelids.

“Do you know what they hit you with?”

“Desvelo”

Unveiling.

Draco nodded at Zeller. She nodded back, took off her apron and walked out of the lab, to investigate previous uses of the curse on their records. Draco turned back to Harry.

“Do you know who I am?”

Harry stayed still for a moment, then nodded, a slight jerk of his chin. He didn’t say anything.

“How are you feeling, Harry?”

“My head really hurts.”

Draco moved his sweaty hair away from his forehead, still gentle, still speaking low. “Do you want a painkiller?”

Harry nodded.

“Nott, bring me ibuprofen, 650 milligrams,” he didn’t turn to see if Nott had listened, instead ran his fingers through Harry’s hair once again. “Anything else?”

He saw Harry’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “Yes. Back when— On the day of my graduation I—“

“Oh god, no,” Draco said quickly, hands stilling in Harry’s hair. “You don’t have to say anything. Please, just… you need to rest.”

“I do. But… we’ll talk about it later?”

Draco took a deep breath. “Yes. We’ll talk about it later.”

“Good.”

This is my gift to the amazing, lovely @onbeinganangel for the Wheel of Drarry Mini Exchange. Mari, you are the absolute loveliest and just, omg, give all of us on the server so much every single day, with your time and encouragement. It was a joy to get to write for you. I really hope you like it!! Infinite thanks to @moonstruckwytch for betaing this for me ❤️

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forfanfic · 4 years ago

Note

hi lou i have a mix up of things for you as a prompt : ) steamboat, stars, a secondhand sweater; and includes the sentence “who are you?” -softlystarstruck

love me a lil alliteration! thanks bee!! <3 cw: mention of past child abuse. wc: 729

Draco cupped his mug of tea in both hands, relishing in its warmth. Colorado was still too cold for his tastes, but he loved to sit out on his balcony every evening, wrapped in a flannel blanket, watching the colour and light shift over the ski slopes as the sun set. The sky directly above his isolated mountain home always turned the richest violet, then indigo, and he stared at the faint blinks of stars breaking through the retreating sunlight, flickering in greeting.

It was lovely, but it wasn’t home. He wasn’t sure where home was, anymore. He’d move soon. He’d keep looking.

He pulled the cuffs of his—Harry’s—sweater over the palms of his hands for warmth. The tea was getting cold, but he didn’t dare try a warming charm. Contrary to popular—Harry’s—belief, he didn’t have a death wish.

He sighed, standing reluctantly and padding back into the house. He closed the glass door behind him, longing for a place he wasn’t sure existed.

Well, he was sure. It did exist. Just not for him, anymore.

“This place suits you.”

Draco jumped, the blanket falling from his shoulders, the mug falling from his hand and shattering on the hardwood floor. His wand was in his hand before he could think about it, aimed directly at a man sitting leisurely on his leather couch.

“Harry,” he gasped, nearly doubling over with the rush of emotion.

Harry smiled, that familiar, lopsided smile, those sparkling green eyes watching Draco like a cat. Draco lowered his wand, trying to catch his breath.

“Why are you…?”

Harry shrugged. “I missed you,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Draco swallowed as Harry stood. Cold tea was seeping into his knit socks.

“You didn’t drink your tea,” Harry observed, frowning at the mess in confusion. Something uncomfortable twisted in Draco’s gut. His grip tightened on his wand.

Draco almost never drank his tea. He made it out of habit; he found the ritual soothing. He liked the comforting feeling of a warm mug in his hands.

Harry knew this about him—had teased him for it relentlessly, a long time ago. May as well stop wasting tea and give you a mug of hot water, he’d grumble, but he’d put the tea bag in anyway, because he knew Draco loved the smell.

And Harry would have flinched at the sound of shattering glass. He’d freeze up a moment, eyes wide in terror, until he could convince himself he wasn’t hearing the echo of his aunt and uncle’s heavy footsteps storming down the stairs, until he was sure no one was going to yell at him. He’d always insisted on going in first on raids, with Draco, so he could be in control of any glass that broke.

And he’d never let Draco just stand there, with cold, wet feet, surrounded by shards of broken glass just waiting to cut his feet open. But Harry did nothing, furrowing his brows at Draco’s socked feet, then flicked a pale wand out of his sleeve.

Not holly. Not Harry. Draco raised his wand again—

The glass door behind him shattered, causing them both to jump. A fist found the back of Draco’s sweater, yanking him backwards, shoving him behind a broad back.

Draco gasped again, and immediately recognized the scent that filled his lungs, the charged, crackling air of furious magic. He got his bearings, gingerly, quickly, ignoring the pain in his feet—no, there wasn’t any pain. Draco glanced down; the remnants of his tea and his mug and his sliding door had been Vanished completely.

“Who are you?” Harry growled—the real Harry, aiming a familiar wand at the Harry by the couch, whose pale wand was aimed at Harry's chest. Harry's other hand was behind his back, subconsciously reaching for Draco, as he always had when they fought together.

The impostor’s lips stretched in a wide, cruel smile.

Draco adjusted his grip on his wand, took another deep breath of ozone and pine, of Harry, of home, Draco was finally home.

There was nothing for it now, he thought. They’d already found him, somehow.

With a subtle, practiced flick of his wrist, he severed the chain and cord suspending the antler chandelier above the couch. The house went dark, the chandelier fell, the impostor yelled in surprise, and Draco gripped Harry’s arm hard, apparating them out of there.

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forfanfic · 4 years ago

Text

with whom can you sit in water

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forfanfic · 4 years ago

Text

I've a Room Here.

CW: some violence, angst, secrets

written for the prompt KING over @drarrymicrofic

word count: 1965

I’ve a room here.

When Harry comes to slowly, he realises that he is bound to a chair in the middle of the room.

A quick assessment of the space shows that he’s alone. His wand is gone from the nightstand next to the messy, majestic four-poster bed. There’s a fire now crackling in the hearth directly facing the bed, the littering of clothes he had so eagerly pulled off still scattered across the floor. He tries to turn his head, but a throbbing sensation from his left temple causes his vision to temporarily blur, a moan escaping him as he sucks in a breath to curb the sudden roll of nausea that hits him. A slick slide of blood runs from what is probably a gash there, down his neck, and across his bare chest. The candelabra that was no doubt used to knock him out rests at his bare feet.

He notices then that he is still completely naked.

The door opens and in walks Draco. He's dressed in all black, hair perfectly coiffed as if Harry’s hands had not run through it earlier. He pauses, hand still on the doorknob. His shoulders hunch forward, lips press into a thin line, and eyes drain of emotion as they fix upon Harry.

“Did you think I wasn’t going to find out?” Draco asks this as if he’s gently chastising a child. He turns to shut the door, facing away from Harry. Something slips by his mask because Draco shudders and rests his head against the door for a few beats. “I trusted you,” Draco’s small, broken voice hitches.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, his throat tightening around the words. “Draco, please. Look at me.”

KEEP READING BELOW.

“Death comes for all of us, Harry,” Draco says, slowly turning around, wand now in hand. “Even for kings.”

“You would kill me, Draco? After everything? Would it be that easy for you?”

Draco trembles, the mask of indifference slipping from his face as his eyes become bright. “I allowed you to compromise me. I gave up—you weren’t meant to mean anything.” Draco seems to catch himself. He firms his jaw, fights to smooth away the sudden look of terror on his face. “You have to accept this. Only one of us will leave this hotel room tonight, Harry.” Draco steps closer.

Harry begins to strain against his invisible binds, opening and closing his right palm as he tries to wandlessly and wordlessly summon his wand. Draco stops in his tracks, his gaze catching on Harry’s hand, a strange look crossing his face.

“It’s gone. Snapped,” Draco says quietly.

Those words hit Harry like a Bludger to the chest. A crushing fear mixed with anger and shock suffuses Harry then. He draws in several lungfuls of air, feeling as if he’s drowning. “How-how could-Draco. D-d-don’t – d-d-don’t do this, D-Draco,” he stutters out, convulsing in the chair as Draco continues towards him, his wand raised. “I wasn’t—I wasn’t going to—”

Draco lunges towards him, venomous anger rippling off him in waves, his teeth gritting together as he hisses in Harry’s face. “I have you strapped to a chair, about to end your fucking life, and you still think it’s necessary to lie to my fucking face?” Draco spits, “I deciphered your kill sheet! You just thought, well, now’s the time to fuck Malfoy before I do away with him—”

“No,” Harry whispers. “No. I was going to…” he trails off. Because what had he thought would happen? He knew, logically, that he had to follow The Society’s order and kill the mole in their organisation. So he did. That mole then led Harry to Draco, a top informant for The Society’s rival agency. When the kill sheet came in with Draco’s name on it, he knew it was his own intel that brought about the decision. As a vital player, killing Draco would destabilise the agency enough for Harry to begin picking off the rest of their hitmen and informants without breaking a sweat. Harry had slowly infiltrated Draco’s life for months, positioning himself as a friend. Someone to be trusted. Someone to fall in love with.

But he had taken Draco’s cleverness for granted.

He had taken both of their hearts for granted.

He had fucked up. He had fallen in love with Draco and let his guard down. It was his own fault that this is happening.

I’ve a room here.

Harry shakes his head wildly, his thighs trembling as he strains against the binds there, leaning as far sideways as possible in the chair, crushing his eyelids closed as if it will erase the hatred burning in Draco’s eyes.

“Don’t cry now, Potter,” Draco drawls coldly. Harry’s eyes snap open, once again blurred around the edges, but this time from tears he had not known were there. “It’ll be like what you once told me—quicker and easier than falling asleep.”

The fight leaves Harry’s body. He collapses against the back of the seat finally as Draco lifts his wand. “I did love you…I still do...I wish…I wish I had told you sooner. I wish. I wish I could’ve gotten you out, gotten us both out…”

“You don’t mean it,” Draco growls, his hand tightening around the handle of his wand, still posed and ready to strike. Harry bows his head. “You’re trying to fuck with my head, Potter. I won’t let you do this to me.” Again, goes unsaid.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says once more, an ache in his chest as he takes in Draco’s face, the undiluted rage etched like hard lines in marble. “I didn’t want you to mean anything, either. I didn’t want to look at you and feel like I had found home, Draco, but I did and I’m so sorry I’ve brought us to this point. You chose me, Draco, and I-I was too late in choosing you back and now we’re both at an end here. But I’m happy to leave this earth knowing that you were not only the first, but the last person I’ll ever love.”

The span of a few breaths passes.

And Draco screams.

He screams, and screams, and screams, into Harry’s face. It’s a tortured sound, dredged from the core of him. He screams until Harry can hear his throat dry up, can see the tendons in his neck contract, his lips crack from the strength of it, his skin turn hot and red. Harry can feel it, in his chest, the sensation of it slowly slicing into him like an entire length of a poisoned knife. The pain is agonising but not nearly as unbearable as looking at Draco in this very moment.

Harry closes his eyes against it. Wishes he could cover his ears against the horrific sound. Wishes Draco had never fallen in love with him if it would have spared him this earth-shattering grief.

The scream dries up, plunging them both into silence, the fire crackling in the hearth the only discernible sound.

A loud snap breaks the quiet of the room. The tight binds that were numbing Harry’s entire body suddenly vanish. His eyes fly open.

Draco is now near the fireplace, quivering like a leaf as he tosses his snapped wand into the fire, his eyes wide with fear as he lowers his hands, his chest rapidly rising and falling.

“They would’ve activated the Trace on it,” Draco says before falling silent.

They stare at one another, both breathing heavily.

It would be so simple for Harry to snatch the candelabra at his feet and swing it at Draco’s head. Or lunge at the shaking man in order to wrap his hands around his long, thin pale neck. Or push him to the ground and into the fire.

It would be so much simpler than what he decides to do instead.

He stands from the chair that was once his prison, crosses the room, wraps one hand around the back of Draco’s head and yanks him forward.

It’s punishing, when they come together. Harry’s lips slot against Draco’s full quivering ones, finding them hot and wet and perfectly made for him. He bites Draco’s bottom lip, breaking the already cracked skin there, tasting the sharp tang of copper as his tongue slips into his already opening mouth, deepening the kiss. A needy moan escapes the back of Draco’s throat that sends wild tremors along the nerve-endings in Harry’s entire body.

Harry finally chooses Draco back.

---------------

Harry freezes as he enters the bar for a nightcap.

He had recently set up refuge here at the Mandarin Oriental while in London, fresh off his mission in Munich. It was his downtime. No one knew he was here, not even The Society.

But there sat at the bar is Draco, elbow propped up, hand clenched in his hair as he stares down into his tumbler of amber liquid. The gold lighting of the bar plays off his sharp features beautifully and turns his white-blond hair into a glowing, golden halo. Harry can tell that Draco’s cheeks are slightly flushed, from the drink as well as the clear agitated stress lining his shoulders.

Draco’s name printed on a small postcard with a drawing of the scenery from Waterloo Bridge blazes through his mind. The message was in the lines of Parliament. But it wasn’t meant to happen today. It definitely wasn’t supposed to happen here.

Harry approaches slowly.

Draco startles when Harry subtly presses his shoulder against his. Draco’s forlorn expression shifts to one of pure shock before settling into a warm, if not teary, smile. “Harry! Mer-Christ—what are you doing here?” Draco slightly slurs.

Harry flashes him a grin. He knows it probably doesn’t meet his eyes, but Draco doesn’t seem to notice, his own eyes are too bright, his movement slower than usual. Harry wonders how much he’s consumed already.

“Me? Oh, well…” Harry starts, sliding onto the stool next to Draco. “That’s hardly important. What are you doing here?” Harry lifts a finger into the air, drawing the attention of the bartender. He taps the rim of Draco’s glass twice. The bartender nods, grabbing the 25-year-old Macallan from off the shelf as well as a clean, empty glass. He pours two generous fingers and sets it before Harry, then refills Draco’s before walking away. Draco hastily brings the glass to his lips, his hand trembling. He tosses half of the contents back. It is so out of character that Harry flinches before quickly recovering.

“I was sacked today,” Draco says miserably.

Harry’s eyebrows shoot up. He knows that Draco’s a paper-pusher in Games and Sports, a good cover for his real job. To be sacked at his cover-up wouldn’t be the end of the world, but a punishable fuck-up, regardless. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Er…what happened?”

Draco’s staring into his glass. “A task came up that I simply refused to complete.”

Harry’s eyebrows knit together. “Why didn’t you?”

Draco exhales as if he’s been holding his breath. “Completing it would, well…simply put, it would’ve killed me,” Draco says with a laugh. “I’m fucked anyway. Thought I’d have a few last drinks,” Draco says, knocking back the rest of his Macallan. He sits the glass down and stares at Harry under lowered, long, pale lashes, tipped gold from the lighting. “It’s all worth it, though, if I get to see your face one last time.”

Heat flares through Harry from the look. He sips his own drink before promptly placing it back on the bar, along with a fifty-pound note. The words are out of his mouth before he can even think up all the very real reasons this is a bad idea.

“I’ve a room here.”

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forfanfic · 4 years ago

Text

the shape of your soul (fits mine)

written for the 2021 Summer Writin' Challenge. prompt: wonder, trope: accidental marriage, craft: outsider POV, character/object: a gilded mirror. thank you @the-starryknight for looking this over!

It’s been years since I saw him last, but I recognise him. The same unkempt hair, those familiar round glasses slightly crooked from being mended one too many times, and of course, that lightning bolt scar. Harry Potter has come to visit me again.

He enters the room I have been stored in and closes the door softly. He does not move for long minutes. He looks drained, like he’s lost something essential and doesn't quite know how to navigate it's loss.

Harry's dulled emerald gaze traverses my gilded edges, soft nostalgia edged with profound grief writ across his face. I do not know what he saw in me, all those years back. Such is my magic – private. I wonder if the shape of his soul has changed, if he will see a different reflection now, all these years later.

He lets out a gust of air and straightens, steeling himself. Despite his apprehension, I can see a flicker of anticipation in his eyes, a wistful set to his mouth. He approaches me slowly, both the hunted and the hunter. Stopping two feet away from me, he closes his eyes. Strange, how he seems so scared of what he most desires. He takes a deep breath and opens his eyes. His jaw slackens and his eyes widen. He stumbles back a few steps but comes closer just as quickly.

Harry has changed, then. His deepest desire has changed.

A pained noise escapes him. His face crumples before me and his eyes shine with unshed tears. He lifts a shaking hand towards me, almost touching my surface, but then withdraws before he can make contact. His hand moves towards his chest. He’s still looking at my reflection, but his hand presses into his chest. I see his fingers trace the shape of a ring pressing through his shirt.

He takes several deep breaths. I watch as determination hardens Harry's face. He presses his hand flat over his chest, covering the ring with his palm. With one last glance, he is gone, leaving far faster than he entered.

The door opens again some time later. Harry is back, but he hasn’t come alone. There is another man with him, unfamiliar to me. He is all sharp angles, pale skin and pale hair. As soon as he catches sight of me, his nostrils flare, grey eyes flinty. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Harry?” he asks harshly.

“Please,” Harry entreats. “Please, Draco, just look at it.”

I can pinpoint the exact moment Draco gives in by the slight slump of his shoulders.

He eyes me warily as he draws nearer. Whatever he sees reflected back at him makes his shoulders stiffen. His lips press into a thin, hard line and he lets out a controlled breath.

“If you think I’m going to tell you what I see–” he starts, addressing Harry without turning around.

“I see you.” Harry cuts him off.

Draco’s head snaps up.

“I see you and me, in Grimmauld’s kitchen,” Harry continues, voice shaky. “You’re trying to teach me how to make beef bourguignon, but I keep getting distracted. The sun is coming through the kitchen window in just the right way, and you look,” Harry swallows, a small smile on his face. “You look beautiful,” he whispers.

Draco has not turned around and I can see the maelstrom of emotions on face. His eyes dart over my surface, before he closes them. He takes a trembling breath. “We never did finish making that beef bourguignon."

Behind him, Harry smiles. He walks up to Draco and places a gentle hand on his cheek. He doesn’t spare a glance for me.

“Darling,” he whispers. A request and a reassurance.

Draco laughs, a watery sound. His expression is open, hopeful. He covers Harry’s hand with his own, his other hand going to Harry’s chest, over his heart.

Draco inhales sharply and slowly brings out the ring Harry is wearing. “Harry,” he breathes in wonder.

“The marriage may have been accidental, but I fell in love with you anyway,” Harry says.

Draco smiles, his face awash with a contentment I rarely get to see. He pulls Harry in for a kiss, familiar and intimate.

"Take me home," he whispers when they break apart.

As they are leaving, Harry turns to look at me and it's the oddest thing — for the first time, I feel seen. Not my reflection, me. He smiles crookedly and then he's gone.

That is the last time I see Harry Potter.

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forfanfic · 4 years ago

Note

For prompts, this is p specific but allodynia (maybe look it up, but it's a condition where it hurts to be touched (I think - I briefly learned about it in psych class) maybe something like that through a curse + being touch starved? Or something in that area? I love your writing <3

This prompt is cool as hell. I had to cut what I wrote in half, I had too much fun 😂 Thank you, lovely! Wc: 839

“That’s what you get for stepping in front of a curse, you imbecile,” Draco muttered. Harry rolled his eyes.

“As if I’d let it hit you, Draco.”

“Perhaps, next time, you can exercise your hero complex with a simple protego, like the fucking wizard you are?” Draco snapped. There wasn’t any heat in it. Harry heard it for what it was: it kills me to see you hurt.

Draco’s mouth twisted and he leaned back, away from Harry’s subconsciously reaching hand. Harry pulled it back again, annoyed at himself.

“I’ll keep that in mind, next time,” he said, trying to inject lightness into his tone. It didn’t seem to make Draco feel any better.

Harry wanted to smooth that crease of distress between his pale brows, wanted to run his fingers soothingly through that sleek, blond hair, wanted to squeeze Draco’s hand, for both of their reassurance.

“It might help if you leave the room, Mr. Malfoy—”

“No,” Harry interrupted the Healer vehemently.

“Mr. Potter, until we figure out how to remove this curse—”

“He stays,” Harry said firmly. Draco shook his head in exasperation, clenching his fists in his lap. The Healer huffed, but relented, and left them alone.

Harry sighed, torn between not being able to keep his eyes off Draco, and wanting to close them to fight the temptation to touch him.

But whenever he closed his eyes, he only wished that Draco would reach for him, instead, despite the consequences, despite knowing that Draco was infinitely smarter than he was, and would never do such a thing if it would cause Harry pain.

His throat tightened. His eyes burned. Had he really always needed Draco’s touch this badly?

“Close your eyes, and don’t touch me,” Draco ordered softly. Harry didn’t want to obey, but he’d do anything Draco asked. Not that he’d ever tell Draco that. He took a deep breath and did as he was told, laying his cursed hands over his own stomach.

He heard Draco scoot his chair closer, felt the air by his side grow a little warmer, felt the side of the pillow dip next to his head.

“Do you remember that trip to Majorca, with our friends?” Draco murmured next to his ear. Harry shivered, and nodded. “How I told you that sun protection charms weren’t as effective as muggle sun cream?” Harry nodded again.

“I lied,” Draco said. Harry could hear the gentle grin in his voice. “I just wanted you to put your hands on me.”

Harry smiled. He’d suspected as much. It was the only thing Draco had ever claimed muggles did better.

“I didn’t get a single sunburn that whole trip,” Draco said. “We were very thorough, weren’t we?”

Harry chuckled. He had insisted on reapplying every two hours, if not more. He’d loved massaging it into Draco’s smooth, sun-warmed skin, the way Draco had melted under his touch, every time.

“Remember our wedding day?” Draco asked. Harry snorted.

“Of course,” he answered. “I was there, after all.”

“Fuck off,” Draco huffed. Harry felt the fabric under his head pull slightly—where Draco was no doubt clenching his hand in the pillow, to keep from smacking Harry on the shoulder.

“Remember how much of a mess I looked the second I got a drink in my hand?” Draco continued. Harry grinned wider, the images replaying behind his eyelids. Perfect, pristine Draco, white shirt untucked and half unbuttoned, his sharp cheekbones flushed with happiness and drink—

“I wasn’t drunk at all,” Draco said. Harry furrowed his brows.

“Yeah, right,” he said.

“I’m serious,” Draco chuckled. “I was stone sober that entire night. I had one glass of champagne for the toast. The rest was juice or water.” He adjusted his head on Harry’s pillow. “I acted drunk so no one would think twice about me untucking my shirt, unbuttoning it at the collar and shucking the tie, because I knew how much you’d love to be able to slip your hand beneath the fabric.”

Harry’s lips parted in mild shock. He’d been surprised to see Draco looking so discomposed, in front of all their family and friends, but it had indeed worked out in Harry’s favour. He couldn’t keep his hands off Draco—sliding his hand up his hips to feel the warm skin of his waist while they danced, intertwining their fingers; playing with the soft hairs at the back of Draco’s neck, his fingers slipping beneath the open collar to trace the knob of his spine, around his neck to the jut of his collarbone.

Merlin, he truly was addicted to touching Draco.

“Remember that brawl we got into in fifth year?” Harry said. Draco hummed. “I had wet dreams about it for weeks.”

Draco spluttered and pulled his head back before letting out an uncontrolled bark of laughter. Harry opened his eyes just to see it, the sound pulling up the corners of his own lips.

He already felt better, seeing that bright, uninhibited smile on his husband’s face.

Draco always knew just what he needed.

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