Chapter Text
February 21st, 2004
3:07 A.M.
He’s at the Dusty Cloak– a dingy, back alley pub that reeks of piss and dirt-cheap whiskey. It’s a wizarding establishment, and Harry doesn’t put himself in those types of public situations anymore; but the clientele of the Dusty don’t care about him, or much else besides.
It’s what many would describe lovingly as a shithole— every surface vaguely sticky, floors littered with weeks old trash, doors that never close— but if the price of anonymity is going home with shoes that smell of human excrement and rotting takeout, he’ll gladly pay it.
Harry’s smoking a cigarette, perched against a grimy, graffitied wall, and chatting about nothing with Ronaldo— the bouncer— when he spots him lighting up on the sidewalk across the way. He’s illuminated only by the orange spark of a lighter, but Harry would know the slope of that pointy nose anywhere, and it’s him for sure.
Harry hasn’t seen Draco in the five years since the trial, but he’s heard of him. Making a name for himself abroad through his revolutionary Potions work for academic journals and hard-hitting essays that grace the covers of the Daily Prophet and, surprisingly, the Quibbler. The voice of rehabilitated Death Eaters everywhere, bravely deconstructing his own views for the public to read– real and honest and vulnerable in a way that Harry feels speaks to how much time has passed without him.
Draco Malfoy shouldn’t be any of those things. He should be emotionally blockaded and reliably deceitful. That’s just who he is.
Even now, Harry doesn’t know when everyone else started changing, moving on, and becoming new people. He’s become good ol’ Harry. Reliable, consistent, stagnant….
Drunk. It’s Saturday night, and that’s when he gets drunk. He used to get drunk more often, but everyone agreed that was a bad idea. So, Saturday nights.
People ask him “What’s new?” all the time, and he finds he never has an answer. They ask about broom-making, and what he likes about it. He can’t find the strength to say that the best part about it is the lack of interaction, as opposed to his failed career as an Auror. Turns out, having someone as recognizable as him as a recruit just makes people fake distress calls to see if he’ll show up, and that wasn’t exactly convenient for the Department.
So, he has a routine. He knows what works– what keeps him safe and just satisfied enough to not jump off the deep end– and he sticks with it.
The shadow of a man looks his way and speaks with a voice so familiar it cuts Harry somewhere deep, cavernous, and long-untouched.
“Potter.”
It echoes across the street, bouncing off the darkened buildings and piercing the silence of the night. Harry hesitates. He doesn’t want to talk to Draco. He doesn’t know this Draco.
“Malfoy,” he calls, and it comes out all wrong.
Draco crosses the street, looking smart and put-together even though it’s three in the morning and anyone else would look like they’d been mugged, shagged, and drowned all at once. An emerald green shirt is unbuttoned halfway down his chest, tucked into some remarkably pressed charcoal slacks. Harry expected to see scars. There are none, and he's thankful. His hair, once platinum and pin-straight, has turned up into curls, honey-soaked and golden.
He steps under the streetlight Harry’s parked himself under, and Harry takes a step back, leaving Draco to bask in it. For some reason, Draco can’t see him like this. Harry can’t have that. Draco isn’t allowed to see the details. Or, the lack of them. The smooth canvas he’s painted himself into, forever stuck at nineteen.
“Potter,” he says again, and the cut grows deeper.
“Malfoy.”
Draco Malfoy is a beautiful man– and it’s almost nauseating. He’s grown into himself far better than Harry has– still too skinny, having lost any muscle he gained during Auror training– and he’s thankful for the cover of the dark street, hoping that Draco is blinded by the light above him.
He’s willowy, yet angular, every inch of him graceful. A delicate wrist hangs limp where smoke curls from the spliff between his thumb and index finger before he places it in his pink mouth and inhales.
“Long time, no see.” Draco murmurs, like it’s some secret the world can’t know. There’s the faintest quirk of an eyebrow as Harry watches the smoke escape from his nostrils.
“Yeah,” he agrees, feeling awkward, feeling wrong again. He shoves his hands in his pockets to stop their fidgeting. “How’ve you been?”
“I’ve been fine, Potter. How have you been?” He takes a step closer, eyes glinting with mischief as Harry takes another step back. His inquisitiveness is terrifying, and Harry wonders if Draco’s heard about him as much as he’s heard about Draco.
Draco tilts his head, looking fascinated and taunting all at once, “You couldn’t possibly be scared of me.”
“I’m not,” Harry says, and it almost feels true.
He’s not scared of Draco. He’s scared of the idea of Draco. He’s moved on. He’s grown. Harry hasn’t even gotten Aunt Walburga off the wall yet, let alone come out. Meanwhile, Draco’s talking about his sexuality in the bloody Prophet, inspiring queer wixen everywhere, while Harry shags faceless men in bathroom stalls and is "just a bit nervous to get back out there, y’know?"
“I’m doing well.”
“Are you?”
“I am.”
“Alright.” Draco concedes, humming and bringing the spliff back to his mouth, letting the question lie.
Harry’s universe consists of this empty street, not a car in sight. Ronaldo senses something in the air that Harry’s not caught a whiff of yet, slipping back inside unnoticed.
Two lines once thought parallel, with angles so slight they take twenty-four years to intersect, and here they are.
“I heard you’re making brooms.”
“I heard you’re a writer.”
“Of sorts.”
Convergence.
“Hermione had a baby.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Consulted her for a paper I wrote a few months back. The one on the ethics of using live animals for Transfiguration.”
“Ah.”
They chat about life for a while, and as much as Draco seems to know about his friends, he asks questions about Harry’s life as if they’ve just met for the first time, and it feels fresh and cool, like a breeze. There’s no dull pressure in his head, like when he’s asked questions by anyone who already thinks they know the answer– when they just want to make him feel included. Draco simply wants to know things, and Harry’s glad to tell him.
“Are you seeing anyone?” he asks, and Harry’s stomach does a dangerous flip.
“No.” he breathes, “You?”
Draco chuckles lowly, “No.”
Silence engulfs their spot on the sidewalk– and Harry takes a moment to appreciate their positions, the light and dark reversed, Draco in the spotlight, just like he’d always craved– before Draco holds out the spliff, one side of his mouth lifting in an unspoken question. Harry takes it, holding out his own cigarette. They swap, inhaling at once, and Harry knows he’s agreeing to much more than a simple trade.
3:29 A.M.
“Can I see your flat?”
“Oh, is that what we’re doing, now?” Malfoy asks, voice coy and thick with smoke.
“I- I just thought-”
“No, you’re right.” A laugh, “That’s what we’re doing.”
Harry’s stoned, and Draco tastes of weed and baking spice as he kisses him up the pale blue wall of his London flat. The Draco Harry’s always known is loose with his movements, flowy, a flower in the wind. But, this Draco– he’s firm, calculated. With manicured fingernails that dig into the skin of Harry’s lower back, rucking up the frayed t-shirt he’s pretty sure was Dudley’s.
He’s not sure where this desperate desire came from, this insatiable thirst for Draco. Maybe it appeared the moment he spotted him in that alley, the sharp angle of his jaw in the light of a spark. Maybe it’s been here all along, somewhere Harry wouldn’t dare touch without fear of unlocking something dangerous. He’s been the container for too many malevolent things, and how could this hunger be anything else?
“Malfoy -”
“I’m about to suck your cock, Harry .” Draco whispers into his mouth, nipping at his bottom lip, and Harry’s hips stutter as images of pressed trousers on cherry wood flood his mind, “It’s Draco now.”
“Draco.”
“Good boy.”
Harry’s fucked men– he fucks men– just never in a bedroom. The closest he’s ever gotten was a kitchen counter, and even then he didn’t see any other room in the house.
His sexuality is the only thing that’s changed in the last five years. Still Muggles, still few and far between, but men.
Draco’s hands are greedy, dragging him through the house, unwilling to release his grip on any spare strip of skin he can find. When they reach it, the furnishings of Draco’s room are sparse but elegant. Various shades of taupe blur into nothing as Draco’s body encircles him– long legs that straddle his hips and hold him down against silk bed sheets. He flicks his wand to turn on the lights, but Harry stops him, a bit manic.
Draco straightens abruptly, ripping a strangled groan past Harry’s lips at the slow grind of his hips over his clothed cock, hard and straining against the fabric of his trousers.
“Can’t bear to see me, Potter?” he murmurs, and Harry knows he’s fucked this up already.
“It’s Potter again?” Harry asks, shocked when his voice comes out as a whimper.
“Answer the question.”
“No,” Harry says, chest tight with the need to tell him that he would have fucked him under that streetlight in all of his shining glory if he could’ve remained unseen.
His hand follows the line of Draco’s collarbone, overwhelmed with some insatiable desire to map out every angle and movement of this body he’s known so long now that it’s touchable.
When Draco Malfoy gets close enough, his eyes are blue. So light they could be grey but they’re definitely blue.
When Draco Malfoy kisses, he breathes you in like you’re his last breath.
When you stroke Draco Malfoy’s collarbone, he shudders from tip to toe.
Harry’s not sure how to put everything he thinks of himself into words: inadequate, complacent, consistent in all the wrong ways. His body just feels like a casing, holding everything he doesn’t want the world to see inside. Sex is a way to prove that he can still feel and give feeling, never much more.
So if he can keep this in the shadows, leave it in the shadows, this moment never has to see the light of day. This Draco doesn’t have to know this Harry. And that’s fine, and it’ll work, and he’ll have this forever.
“I just- I look better in the dark,” he whispers, sure that hours must have passed between words.
Draco softens, the tense clench of his thighs relaxing and giving Harry a moment of respite, still desperate for some sort of friction despite his desire to pull those words out of the air and shove them back down his throat.
“I doubt that,” he murmurs, head dipping to bite the taut flesh of Harry’s jaw– so slowly Harry’s sure he can feel the imprint of each tooth being made over the course of a few seconds. “I doubt that.”
It’s a whirlwind after that.
Draco undresses him with deft hands, like he’s been formally trained in the art of popping shirt buttons out of their holes since birth. Knowing him, he probably has. No inch of Harry’s scarred chest is left untouched– by lips, palms, tongue. This want for whatever Draco he’s happened upon tonight has left him with a sick need to be marked– to be reminded in the morning that this wasn’t some cruel dream.
Part of him wishes it were a dream, then he wouldn’t have to think about tomorrow.
His trousers are next, and Draco’s fingers don’t fumble for a second as they undo his flies and slide them over his legs. With each piece of clothing that comes off, Harry feels more exposed. But Draco’s hands attack every newly revealed bit of skin with the same enthusiasm, leaving him little room to breathe, much less for any sort of embarrassment.
He pauses at Harry’s waistband, tracing patterns into his skin as he licks into Harry’s mouth with fervour. Harry has to drag his mouth away, breathing in the musky scent of cologne lingering on Draco’s sweat-soaked neck. He presses a kiss to the sinewy curve of his shoulder.
“Do I have to beg?” he asks, knowing he’d be willing to do it.
Draco takes this as permission, deeming the act of begging unnecessary and slipping his hand into Harry’s pants.
“Fuck.”
Sensation floods through the cotton in Harry’s head as Draco wraps those elegant fingers along his cock, shoving his pants down and giving it one firm stroke.
“God, fuck-“
Harry bites off a choked sob as Draco starts pumping him in earnest. He kisses Harry through it, swallowing his moans and running his tongue along the back of his bottom teeth. Harry can’t even imagine what that tongue can do to his cock.
He doesn’t need to, because Draco is sliding down his body, and Harry would miss the taste of his lips and the twist of his wrist more if he didn’t know what was coming next.
A gentle kiss to his hip bone, so featherlight Harry’s not sure it was meant for him to feel.
Draco’s tongue glides across the length of Harry’s cock, eliciting an animalistic noise from Harry he didn’t know he was capable of making. His hand finds Draco’s hair in an instant, and he relishes in the smooth feel of those glossy strands between his fingers, tugging gently.
Draco groans, wrapping his lips around the tip, and everything falls away as he takes Harry into his throat, burying his nose in Harry’s pubic hair. His mouth is warm and welcoming and wet, so wet around Harry and the pleasure is instantaneous, running through his veins and straight to his weed-heavy head.
“Draco, ngh–”
Draco holds him down with firm palms and thumbs that dig into Harry’s hip bones as he sucks him with single-minded focus, drool pouring down his aristocratic chin and dripping onto the bed sheets. Harry curses his own fears for depriving him of a better view of Draco in all of his debauched beauty. But, even in the darkness of this room, he can make out what’s important– the shine of Draco’s eyes, the way his plush lips stroke, pliant, along Harry’s cock, his curls devastated and tangled in such a way that Harry’s balls ache with the need to come.
“Please, I’m gonna-”
He tugs at Draco’s hair in warning, but that just encourages him to take Harry’s cock deeper, swallowing around it while one hand massages his perineum. Harry sobs, and in seconds he’s spilling down Draco’s throat, choking out broken moans mixed with an incoherent stream of expletives until he’s left gasping and spent, heaving and gulping down air as Draco wipes his swollen mouth and rises from his knees.
Harry’s too overwhelmed for words, watching silently as Draco traces a line up his torso, circling a nimble finger around his Horcrux scar. His chin is shiny with spit and his eyes have that dangerous, fiery look to them again. He crawls on top of Harry, pressing sloppy kisses to the side of his neck, nipping at his chin.
His teeth graze Harry’s earlobe, and Harry exhales a shuddering breath as a puff of hot air hits his skin, soaked with sweat and sensitive to the touch. In his daze, Harry hardly registers Draco’s whisper, asking how long it will take for Harry to fuck him.
7:46 A.M.
Harry didn’t mean to fall asleep. It's just– Draco was so warm, collapsed on top of Harry after riding him for what felt like hours– filthy whispers turning to quiet mumbling turning to silence when his breath evened out, peaceful in sleep, head nestled in the curve between Harry’s neck and shoulder.
He wakes up drenched in sweat, swaddled in far too many blankets. How anybody could sleep like this comfortably is a mystery to him. Upon realizing where he is, he bolts upright in a panic. Draco is gone, and Harry is still here, therefore he needs to leave, and fast.
His clothes are folded neatly, perched atop a gilded cream armchair, and he rushes for them. He’s just getting his flies done up when the door opens, smooth and quiet, Draco emerging.
“Leaving so soon?”
“I-”
Draco is holding a tray with two steaming cups of what looks like coffee, wrapped in a pale blue dressing gown, hair still a mess from their activities last night.
“I don’t-”
“Hangover blend.” Draco interrupts, setting the tray down on the bedside table, spoons clinking in their mugs. “My specialty. Get your hangover cure and your caffeine fix all at once. Genius, eh?”
Harry’s not sure how Draco is acting so bloody casual about this when Harry is internally spiraling. He should be gone. This should have never happened. Draco can’t see him in the morning, especially not when he looks all soft and domestic, bringing Harry his special blend of coffee and idly chatting about its benefits with a bashfully proud look on his face.
“Sounds good,” Harry says, because how is he supposed to bolt now?
Draco strolls over to a broad window, silk swishing and shifting around his hips. Harry licks his lips.
“You’re not, like, a vampire, right?” he asks, one hand grasping the edge of the lily-white curtain, sounding oddly hopeful.
Harry shakes his head, “No.”
Draco rips open the curtain, and sunlight cascades into the room. Harry squints his eyes against the onslaught until Draco comes back into focus.
There’s a broad smile on his face when he speaks, eyes raking over Harry– half-dressed and petrified.
“Beautiful.”