“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered softly in Harry’s ear just before he caught the lobe between his teeth and pulled.

Harry gasped and let his head fall back, let Draco touch him with his wicked hands, his elegant, defiled fingers, skin on skin, gold and silver pressed so close together that they fused.

“I’m not,” Harry said, but the trembling of his body betrayed him and Draco chuckled. “I’m not,” he said again. And again, Draco laughed.

“It’s alright,” Draco murmured, pressing against him, then pushing a finger inside him to make him moan. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

“They wouldn’t…believe you anyway,” Harry said softly.

Draco curved his finger and probed, searching for the little spot that would draw something more from Harry than whispered words and faltering moans.
“That’s right,” Draco said. “You’re the great Harry Potter. The Chosen One. The Child of Prophecy. The Boy Who Lived…have I forgotten anything?”

Harry moaned again and pressed back against Draco’s hand, wanting, needing, despite himself, to feel those slim fingers sliding into him, over him, marking him, wounding him, making him feel things that, in the eye of war, he had forgotten existed.

“What does that…have to do with…anything?” Harry whispered back.

“Who would believe me if I told them that the great Harry Potter spends his nights being fucked against the headboard by a Death Eater instead of curled up in his bed with his wife?” Draco said, the tone of mockery in his voice unmistakable. “No one, that’s who.”

“Draco…”

“Yes, Harry?”

“This fucking you’re going on about,” Harry said, pushing back on his hand again, becoming frustrated, “are you ever going to get around to doing it, or…are you just going to talk about it all night?”

With a growl, Draco removed his fingers and forced Harry’s legs open. Harry reached out and grasped the headboard as Draco gripped his hips and tilted them up for a better angle. “So impatient,” Draco chided. “Haven’t you heard, Potter? The war’s over.”

“Shut up,” Harry said roughly. “Shut up and just fuck me.”

Draco’s laughter was a little astonished this time, but he was willing to comply. He pushed the very tip of his cock into Harry, felt him tense, then he thrust deep, tearing a choked scream from him with the sudden violence of the movement. Draco held himself flush against Harry’s back and bent his head to graze his teeth over one shoulder.
“Like that, Potter?”

Harry whimpered and shivered under his hands. It hurt, the way Draco could get inside him, fill him so full that it was almost too much, then push further, breach every barrier, smash every defence that Harry tried to set against him. It hurt more because Harry liked it.

Times like this, in the stolen sweaty hours before dawn, he could let himself pretend that he was alive, that the war was not over, that somewhere outside these walls, Voldemort and a hundred other evils were waiting to tear him apart.

He could pretend that Draco cared and that Ginny did not. He could lie to himself and almost believe it.

“Please, Draco,” Harry whispered, closing his eyes and letting his head fall forward. “Please, just do it.”

In answer, Draco pulled back and thrust deep again. Harry cried out, mingled pain and pleasure dancing along his skin and spiking through his blood. His pulse was sweet and rich on his tongue, like blood and chocolate, as Draco started to move, his fingers biting into Harry’s hips to hold him in place, his stomach muscles quivering with tension. Though it did not seem like it, he was holding himself in check.

Draco was rough with him, but then, he always was. It was that ferocity and violence that Harry craved. It was what had him sneaking out of his own bed in the middle of the night and apparating to the Manor. It was that violence that had first drawn him to that hated place and to Draco Malfoy, of all people. The world wanted to cradle him and exalt him, but Harry didn’t want that. He had never wanted that. What he wanted was Draco’s hands bruising him, his evil velvet voice taunting him as he fucked Harry so hard that he would be sore in the morning and many days after.

It was here and only here that Harry could submit and not be scorned for it—mocked, yes, but never scorned—and it was here and only here that he felt the urgency of life coursing through his veins and riding on his back once again. With Draco’s hands on him, his teeth against his neck, his tongue on his skin, fucking him and holding him down, Harry felt alive as he did nowhere else. It was something he had not known in far too long.

Draco changed the angle of his thrusts and slid over his prostate. Harry caught his breath and moaned, his muscles contracting around Draco’s cock, squeezing so tight that Draco cursed and sank his teeth into Harry’s shoulder to muffle a strangled cry. Harry screamed, the vibration of Draco’s voice running down his spine like a tuning fork, coupled with the fierce, snapping drive of his hips and his cock gliding again and again over that spot that made him feel like his bones are melting into liquid gold.

Draco growled and bit down harder, almost, but not quite, drawing blood, and forced him down deeper onto the mattress. Harry let go of the headboard, twisted his fingers in the sheets, and pressed his face into the mattress, little panting cries escaping with every relentless thrust of Draco’s cock inside him. The head of his own erection brushed against the silk sheets as his body rocked forward under the force of Draco’s movements, sending little thrills of pure agonizing pleasure up his belly and along his nerves with every thrust.

Draco slipped one hand between their bodies and eased a finger inside Harry’s ass. Not gentling his thrusts in the slightest, he pressed it deep inside him, stretching him wider and flicking it over his prostate until Harry was screaming into the mattress and quivering so violently that Draco knew he was instants away from coming. The sensation of his finger rubbing over his own cock every time he pushed inside Harry’s hot, yielding body was a delicious feeling and Harry’s screams only made him thrust harder.

“This is why you come here…isn’t it, Potter?” Draco murmured against Harry’s sweat-slick back. “Because everyone wants something from Harry Potter…Even your wife…They want you to smile for them…or shake their hands…kiss their children…say something witty…tell them stories…about the war…”

“Yes,” Harry hissed, arching his back a little more to brace himself against Draco’s thrusting hips. God, he could feel his pulse on the back of his tongue and the tips of his fingers.

“Except me,” Draco said. He licked the back of Harry’s neck and tasted the salt of his sweat and musk. “I don’t want any of those things from you, do I, Potter?”

“No,” Harry moaned. He could hardly think around the brilliant sensations rushing through his blood, but the answers to these questions came easily to him. They had rested unspoken between them for years. “No, you…don’t.”

“All I want from you…is this,” Draco emphasized his point with a particularly hard thrust. Harry cried out and clenched his hands into fists at the edge of the mattress. “And since that’s what you want from me…it’s okay that I want it.”

“Please,” Harry whimpered. “Oh God, Draco, finish it. I—”

“And your wife loves you, doesn’t she, Harry?” Draco whispered, slowing his thrusts to draw out Harry’s impending climax.

“Yes,” Harry groaned. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, braced on the very edge of release, yet denied it by the consummate skill with which Draco manipulated his body.

Draco knew him, inside and out, better than any other person alive. Harry did not need these little taunting questions to admit that. It was funny really, how little of themselves they were capable of giving to the outside world, and yet how easily they yielded everything up to each other. There was no love between them, but there was truth. Always, there was truth.

“And you hate her a little for it, don’t you?” Draco asked.

“Yes,” Harry hissed, answering without hesitation. “Draco, you bastard…”

Draco chuckled softly and quickened his pace again, driving into him again and again, intent on his own release, more than Harry’s. “But you won’t…leave her, will you?”

“No, I…couldn’t.” Harry was panting now and so close, so very painfully close.

“You always have to be…the fucking hero…don’t you, Potter?” Draco snarled. “You’ll stay with her and she’ll fake orgasms for you for the rest of her life…because she still thinks it’s what you want.”

“No,” Harry moaned. “Shut up…you don’t know what…you’re talking about.”

Draco laughed wryly and thrust hard, giving one final rough stroke to Harry’s prostate. Harry gasped, then screamed and clawed at the bed covers, his whole body tightening as his orgasm ripped through him and spilled onto the silk sheets beneath him. It was the sound of that scream, more than the tightening of his muscles, that brought Draco’s climax an instant later. His nails bit into Harry’s hips and he threw his head back with a shout as he came.

Harry lay there, panting and limp, with Draco draped over his back. He didn’t want to ever move again. He wanted more than anything to tie himself to that bed and never leave it. It was life singing in his blood, slumped over his back, filling him up and flowing over. Every time he walked away from Draco, he was leaving it behind, and every time he came back, it was like waking from a bad dream. Harry knew that he should hate him. Perhaps a part of him still did, at least a little. But it was only here, in this bed, with this man, that he remembered what it meant to be alive.

“I never asked for it,” Harry whispered. He was still twitching with aftershocks, but his voice, though light, was steady. “I never asked to be their hero.”

Draco sighed and pressed a kiss to the centre of Harry’s shaking back. “I know. They offered you magic if you would save the world,” he said, just as softly. He was no longer taunting Harry. His touches were light and soothing, not meant to punish or arouse. He was still inside of him, but he knew Harry didn’t mind. He was as reluctant to draw away from that physical connection as Draco himself. “Who can blame you for accepting their offer. But, Harry…”

“What?”

“You didn’t really know what they were asking for, did you?”

Harry was quiet for a minute, then he said, “No.”

“Was it worth it?”

Harry laughed. It was not an amused sound. Was it worth it? Was magic, in exchange for everything that made life sweet and enjoyable, worth it? He walked around all day, every day, in a numb haze of indifference, but he had magic to comfort him. Was it worth it?

“Sometimes I think so,” he whispered. “Sometimes I’m sure that magic is worth anything.”

“But…?” Draco asked.

“But then I come here,” Harry said simply. “Then you touch me and whisper your maddening shit in my ear and I hate it. I hate the magic, Ginny, the world, and myself because I can’t see you. I never thought I’d miss that more than anything else, but…I do.”

Draco sat back and pulled out of Harry, catching his breath a little when he writhed at the withdrawal. He gently turned Harry around to face him and looked into his beautiful sightless eyes.

“No,” Harry said when he realized what Draco was doing. He tried to turn his face away, but Draco grabbed his chin in one hand and made him hold still.

“Harry, stop it,” Draco said firmly. He bent his head and brushed a kiss over each of Harry’s eyelids. The lashes trembled beneath his lips and he smiled. “I’m sorry.”

Harry drew his bottom lip into his mouth and closed his eyes. It was a pointless gesture. One that those with sight did to block out the world when it became too much to bear. Those with sight, and the newly blind.
“Don’t say that,” he whispered. “You didn’t do it. You couldn’t have known…”

“I’m still saying it,” Draco said. “It may not be worth much, but there it is.”

Harry shook his head, then lowered his face to the curve of Draco’s shoulder. “I wish I could see you,” he murmured against Draco’s skin. “You smell like sex, you taste like a thousand different kinds of sin, and I know…I know you look like some kind of fallen angel, and oh God, I wish I could look at you.”

Draco sighed and wrapped his arms around Harry’s waist. “Stay the night, Harry,” he said. “I have no right to ask, I know, but I’m asking anyway.”

Harry tensed. He wanted to stay. Christ, he wanted to stay. He wanted to curl up on that bed with Draco’s body pressed to his and sleep. He wanted to wake up to lazy morning sex with the sound of Draco’s laughter in his ears. He wanted it so badly that it made him ache. The problem was, he didn’t want it for just one night. He wanted it forever. He wanted to throw away everything to make that possible, and he knew that it could be so easy to walk away from everything for the promise of a single kiss from this man. He knew it and he was tempted.

“I can’t,” Harry said.

“You want to,” Draco pressed.

“Yes,” Harry said. “But there’s Ginny—”

“You don’t love her,” Draco said. It was not a question.

“I don’t love you either,” Harry said. “I don’t love anyone.”

“But you don’t want her,” Draco said. “And you do want me.”

“More than anything,” Harry admitted, his voice a little rough.

“Then stay with me,” Draco said.

“It’s not that simple.”

“It’s not that simple only because you refuse to let it be that simple, Harry.”

“Maybe,” Harry said, but he was pushing away from Draco, moving across the bed to find his clothes. “Maybe not.”

He found his trousers and started pulling them on.

“I don’t want anything from you, Harry,” Draco snapped, glaring at his back. “Nothing, except you.”

Harry stopped with his hands on his belt and turned back to him. “I know. But maybe that’s the problem.”

“What the hell are you going on about?” Draco demanded.

“That’s how it starts,” Harry said. “None of them start out wanting anything from me.”

“Harry, shut the fuck up,” Draco snarled. He got off the bed and started for the door. “You want to go back to them—to her—go ahead. I won’t stop you. I won’t even ask again.”

“I don’t want it,” Harry said. “That’s just the way it is.”

Draco clenched his hands into fists at his sides to keep from throwing something at Harry’s head. “You’ve got some kind of fucked up logic, Potter,” he said. “I’m only one person. Even if I did want something from you, I’m only one person.” He shrugged, trying to convince himself that it didn’t matter. He wasn’t nearly as good at it as Harry was.

“I’m sorry, Draco,” Harry said, shrugging into his shirt.

“Yeah, you are,” Draco said bitterly. “When you need your fix again, I’ll be here, Potter.” He turned and strode out of the room. He needed a fucking shower.

Harry stared sightlessly after him. He wished yet again that he could see him, if only to watch him walk away. He knew that he would be beautiful even doing that.

He pulled on his cloak and picked up his wand from the nightstand. It occurred to him as he was leaving the room that he might have lied to Draco. The sting of unshed tears behind his eyes felt a lot like love.



/Fin/