Chapter Twenty-Seven

This chapter was written by literaryspell.

Note: This chapter explores Harry's perspective of the previous chapter's events. As such, there will be some overlap, but I think I've kept it interesting enough that you won't want to skip it. ;)

The second thing Harry saw when he entered the game room was that someone...it had to be Draco...had written his name on the darts scoreboard. That damn 'visitor' label had haunted him every time he'd been in that room. He couldn't begin to fathom what had prompted Draco to change it, but he knew it could only be a good sign.

The first thing Harry saw, of course, was Draco, perfecting his form as he prepared to launch a dart through the air. Harry could see his concentration...could almost sense the gathering of his magic at his fingertips...and he exhaled sharply when the dart hit its intended target, aided by magic.

"Wow, that was amazing! You're really coming along," Harry said, moving closer now that all the pointed objects were safely away.

Draco's shoulders jumped a little, and Harry had to smile. It still gave him perverse pleasure to see Draco out of sorts.

"How long have you been there?" Draco demanded.

"Just long enough to watch you try throwing the dart with magic. You're really making progress. That shows incredible control." Harry was certainly impressed. He didn't know if Draco was ready to beat him, but he would have a fighting chance.

"It wasn't a bull's eye."

Harry fought the urge to roll his eyes. "Still, that's admirable. You have to be close to ready for a duel." He tugged the dart from the board and rolled it between his fingers. He wondered if it had felt almost like a wand in Draco's hands.

Draco flopped down on the couch, looking for all the world like a weary traveller. "I'm tired."

Harry chuckled under his breath. "How can you be? You just got up."

Draco narrowed his eyes at him. "Well, you woke me from a restful sleep."

"Well, lucky for you, I'm a little tired, too." Feeling bold, Harry took Draco's legs and sat beneath them, replacing them on his lap. He waited a half-second for outrage, but none seemed imminent. "Shove over and quit hogging the couch, will you? And maybe we can just skip the lesson for today. You're doing so well that a little slacking off won't hurt, anyway." The truth was, Harry was perfectly content to remain where he was.

Draco shifted but said nothing, so Harry continued. "You know, watching you with the darts right now reminded me of this one Quidditch practice. You had the same look on your face. You probably don't remember it, but we were playing in the rain, and it was a terrible storm, and we both saw the snitch at the same time..." He bit back a smile. He didn't have many fond remembrances of their time at Hogwarts, but there was no denying Draco was a competitor.

"Yes! I do remember! It was the last game of the season, and I was determined to get that snitch." Draco's laugh had Harry enthralled...embarrassingly so.

He covered his lapse by resting his hand on Draco's foot, the strong but somehow delicate arch warm beneath his fingers. They continued to talk about their time at Hogwarts, and Harry was amazed that when he thought back on those days he didn't feel near-overwhelming animosity toward Draco. They really had just been children.

When Harry confessed to Draco what he'd smelled in the Amortentia potion, he could sense things between them changing. Draco was looking at him, really looking...like he hadn't seen Harry before. Harry waited; he was determined to be patient while Draco sorted out his issues.

He couldn't be sure what was going through Draco's mind, but it no longer mattered, for Draco moved in and placed a kiss against Harry's lips. Harry returned the kiss, amazed and strangely honoured that Draco had made the first move, that he took control to show he was sure about his decision.

Draco's kiss was careful, measured. He straddled Harry's lap and settled, and Harry's hips jerked up of their own accord. Draco's body was so warm, so uncharacteristically welcoming. When he felt Draco's hand on his belt, it was all he could do not to throw Draco to the ground and rut against him like an animal. Instead, he used his fervour to strip Draco, who did the same in return.

The first touch of Draco's bare skin was a revelation. Harry sucked in breath through his teeth, marvelling at the almost unnatural smoothness. Then Draco was kissing him again, hard and fast, like he was wild, and Harry struggled to keep up but eventually settled for just letting Draco do what he needed to.

"Please, Potter. Harry."

Harry couldn't move. He had to close his eyes. "What did you say?"

"Please. I'm not sure what to do," Draco said quietly, his cheeks pink though he refused to look away.

"No. After that." He needed to hear it again...suddenly, there was nothing more important.

"Oh," Draco said, seeming to understand. He swallowed. "I said Harry."

"Say it again," Harry urged, smoothing his hands over Draco's arms.

"Harry," Draco said against his lips.

Harry's smile split his cheeks. "I never thought you'd do it. What made you change your mind?"

"Was it worth the wait?" Draco was trying to appear nonchalant but Harry knew him...Draco wasn't a mystery to him anymore.

He laughed. "Definitely. You deserve a reward. Are you sure you're ready for this, Draco?"

Draco nodded. "I am. Harry."

"So you won't freak out if I Accio the lube this time?" Harry smiled but in truth he was worried. Draco's last freak-out over their kiss had been alarming. The last thing he wanted to do was push or pressure Draco. Though it was hard to argue against Draco's erect cock between them.

"Accio lube! " Draco said, grabbing it and waggling it in the air. "You aren't the only one who can do that now, you know. How's that?"

"I guess you're as ready as you'll ever be," Harry said, not even trying to hide his happiness.

He could see Draco falter a little with the lube, so he took over, shifting a little awkwardly until he was on his back on the couch and Draco was above him. He raised his face for a kiss, which Draco gave without reservation. Harry drew his legs back and slicked his fingers with the lube. The back of his hand pressed against Draco's cock and sac, and Draco ground down into it...the action pushing Harry's own fingers into himself. He groaned at the sensation. He hadn't had sex in a while and hadn't bottomed for longer, but he needed Draco inside him.

Draco's rocking hips drove Harry crazy. Deciding he was prepared enough, he withdrew his fingers and took Draco's long cock in his hand. Draco sighed and rested his face on Harry's shoulder, thrusting into Harry's loose grip for a moment before looking up and meeting Harry's eyes.

Harry watched Draco's face as he guided Draco's cock to his hole. There was certainty there, and it was what Harry had wanted to see. The stretch was uncomfortable at first but Draco urged forward, inch by inch, and when his balls pressed against Harry's body, the slight pain replaced by satisfaction...which was quickly overridden by pleasure when Draco pulled back and thrust.

Breaths coming short, Harry arched and encouraged Draco with his body. Draco's pace quickened, his thrusts going deeper and harder, and Harry could barely withstand it. Draco was good...he should have known but he hadn't guessed.

A sharp pain in his shoulder made him cry out. He'd been bitten. "What the fuck, Draco?" But then the pain transmuted to pleasure and Harry almost wanted to ask Draco how he'd done that, but the only words he could manage were, "Ugh... don't stop..."

Draco didn't. He shifted and the angle changed...everything changed. Draco's cock hit his prostate with startling accuracy and Harry's eyes rolled back. With the physiological sensation came an emotional one as well. Draco...

"Come for me, Harry," Draco begged. " I can't take much more of this."

Harry forced himself to look at Draco. He was distracted by the bare flesh of his chest, the inexorable pounding of his cock, the smoothness of his belly dragging over Harry's prick, the grey of his eyes, oh Merlin, his eyes...

It was so obvious, he realised, dazed. It was so, so stupidly obvious.

He was in love with Draco Malfoy.

Harry came, hard and unexpected, crying out with the intensity of it. His fingers dug into Draco's arms, wanting to leave his own mark...but he didn't think Draco noticed as he was coming himself. They rocked together as they finished, neither wanted to end the spell.

Harry opened his mouth to voice the foolish but undeniable truth he'd only just realized, but then Draco was pulling...too fast...from his body and jumping to his feet. Harry winced, certain Draco was going to run scared, as he was so fond of doing. He couldn't even begin to decipher his emotions when Draco Summoned his wand.

While waiting, he threw a wandless spell at the chess board...magic exploded into the room...and Harry was frozen.

He couldn't move. The chess pieces replicated exponentially.

Panic set in immediately. What had Draco done? What had Draco's magic done? He'd obviously cast Immobilus or another spell that prevented him from moving. How had he even managed? Or had he done it one purpose? Was he keeping Harry in place to make sure he saw that Draco's magic had returned...that he didn't need Harry any more?

If he'd had only his wand on him, he would have been able to break the spell. But no...it was in his denims, which he'd let Draco tear off of him so violently, so passionately. He felt sick to his stomach as he thought about how close he'd been to telling Draco his true feelings.

Now all he could do was watch Draco explore his power until he deemed it time to release Harry. The powerlessness, the hated vulnerability ate at him, and he seethed inside.

Draco turned to Harry, panting and naked. "Did you see that?" There was a near-manic gleam in his eye.

Harry could only stare at him. He shouldn't be surprised, he told himself. He shouldn't even care.

The wand smacked into Draco's hand with a sound like a door closing.

"Lumos, " Draco said, his voice determined. And the resulting light was brilliant.

Harry waited, growing more furious with each spell Draco cast.

"Potter, are you seeing this?" Draco asked, voice tinged with glee. "Potter?" When Harry didn't...couldn't...answer, Draco began to look concerned. "Potter!"

Harry watched, unblinking and devastated, as Draco ran through counter-spells. At last the Immobilus was lifted. He sucked in a sharp breath and moved his limbs, heartily relieved to have regained his agency.

"Look!" Draco crowed. "I got my magic back, can you believe it? Watch! Avis!" True to Malfoy form, the room swarmed with flamingos.

Harry was shaking with anger. "I know. I could see while I was Petrified. "

Draco stilled, his face falling a little. "What? Aren't you happy? This is what I've been working for. What we've been working for, actually."

Harry couldn't believe his self-absorption. Or rather, he could believe it only too well, as much as he'd hoped Draco had changed. "Happy? That you used a spell we'd both promised we'd never use on each other...at a moment like that? No, Draco. I make myself vulnerable for you, and you just..." It was all he could think to say. Yes, ages ago they'd made that promise, but Harry couldn't care less about that. He felt like a total fool. He'd been used...for Draco to get his magic back, and for Draco to fuck. Those goals accomplished, Draco obviously had no use for Harry.

He avoided the ostentatious fowl while dressing. He couldn't seem to stop talking, his words bitten out through tight lips. "I guess that's where trusting you gets me every time. Used. Well, I won't make that mistake again. I hope you're happy with your wand. I guess you deserve to have it...but you didn't need to whore yourself out for it. You could have earned it fair and square. You had the talent. But you and your cheating ways aren't my problem anymore. Goodbye, Draco." There was no hope of regaining his dignity. He doubted he'd ever see it again. And this time, he didn't want a drink. He didn't want revenge. He just wanted to get as far away from Draco as he possibly could.

*

"It's good to have you back, mate," Neville said, clapping Harry on the shoulder as they entered their office.

"It's good to be back," Harry said. He tugged on the sleeve of his crimson Auror robes, more content than he would have thought to be back in uniform after so long. There was no questioning the sense of satisfaction and even importance he got from knowing he had a job to do. Knowing he was needed.

"Here he is!" Ron burst through the door wearing a wide grin.

"Here I am," Harry said, rolling his eyes. Still, he couldn't help but beam a little when Ron pulled him into a one-armed hug. "Surprised to see me?"

"Thought Robards was taking the piss. How come you didn't tell us you were coming back?"

Harry scratched the back of his neck. "I didn't really know until I walked through the doors. Didn't think Robards would put me back in right away."

"Yeah, turns out Singer wasn't right for ol' Neville here after all."

Surprised, Harry turned to Neville. "That so?"

Neville shrugged. "He's no Harry Potter," he said with a wry grin.

Ron laughed. "Got that right. Now, you better be coming over for dinner tonight, Harry. Hermione will want to know what's new. You haven't been around much lately."

"Yeah, I know." Harry sighed. He didn't want to talk about Draco but he could barely keep from thinking about him...and he knew Hermione would be drilling him about that exact topic. "I'll be there, Ron."

The next hour was spent with Neville catching him up on some cases and Ron filling him in on the office gossip...though he didn't use the word gossip. He insisted he was just keeping Harry informed.

When it was time to get to work, Ron squeezed Harry's shoulder. "Really is great to have you back. And it won't be long before we cure you of that mopey look you're sporting. Forget about him, mate."

"Can't, Ron." Harry just shook his head. "He's not the one you forget about. He's the one you remember."

Ron seemed to see Harry wasn't ready to talk about it in any detail. He nodded and left Harry and Neville to their work after making Harry promise that dinner was a go.

"Everything all right, Harry?" Neville asked later that day.

"Yeah. No." Harry took of his glasses and scrubbed at his eyes. "I don't know anymore."

*

Dinner with Ron and Hermione was the same as ever, as if no time had passed since he'd last graced their table, as if they hadn't seen him mid-binge and at his very lowest. He loved them all the more for acting like nothing had changed...or least like he'd done nothing wrong. It occurred to him that maybe in their eyes he hadn't.

"That was amazing, Hermione, thank you."

"Well, it can't compare to whatever you've been eating at Malfoy Manor." Her tone was bright but Harry could tell she was probing, trying to see if he was ready to talk and how sore the subject was.

To Harry's surprise, it didn't hurt. "It does more than compare, it surpasses," he assured her. "Fancy food can be great but there's something to be said for dinner cooked with love."

"And lard," Ron piped in.

Hermione smacked Ron on the shoulder. "I didn't use lard!"

Ron shrugged. "Mum used to, it's not as bad as it sounds."

"Anyway," Hermione said, sounding fondly exasperated, "So I take it Draco mastered his wand?"

"He did," Harry said in a tight voice.

"What!" Ron exclaimed, looking appalled. "How did he beat you? How could he have?"

Harry knew he had to tell them. He needed to talk about Draco...he couldn't keep it in. And they would help him because that was what they did, what they'd always done. "He did it during sex. Just... one minute everything was..." Harry coughed and felt his face heat. "Everything was good. Then he was jumping up and I couldn't move. He Petrified me."

Hermione gasped and Ron looked a little ill and more than a little outraged. "So then you two are together?" he said after a pause, commenting on entirely the wrong part of the confession.

"No. Not really. Not anymore, that's for sure." He took a long drink of his tea. "I thought there was something... I mean, there was something. Definitely. But not anymore."

"I don't understand why he would do that," Hermione said, a frown marring her normally soft features.

"Because he's an arse, Hermione. I've been saying that for years and now you can all see what I see. He used Harry to get his bloody magic back and then he showed his true colours." Ron seemed to be working himself into a right fit, and Hermione put her hand over his. He took a breath but his face was still pink with sympathetic anger.

"There has to be more to it than that," Hermione said, looking to Harry as if he would think so too. "You wouldn't have slept with him if you hadn't thought there was something there. Right?"

"Well, what does it matter what I thought? I was wrong, really wrong."

"You're better off, Harry. Really." Ron looked a little awkward giving the best mate break-up pep talk, so Harry shot him a grin to let him off the hook.

Hermione still looked thoughtful. "So it was mid... mid-coitus?"

"You can say sex," Ron teased. "Or even fucking, if you're feeling brave."

Without acknowledging Ron's leer, Hermione waited for Harry's answer. Knowing she could outwait him, he sighed.

"It was right when we ca...climaxed." For some reason, talking to Hermione about sex was more awkward than talking to a doctor.

She nodded, her eyes narrowed in thought. "And what happened after? While you were Petrified?"

Harry forced himself to go back to the game room and the moment when everything had changed. "He kept casting spells... they were all sort of wild. Like he couldn't quite..."

"Control himself," she finished for him. "Yes, I see. Did he say the spell to freeze you?"

Harry shook his head. "It just happened." He laughed, a bitter sound. "Just as I was thinking that maybe he was something special. I feel like such an idiot."

Ron looked rather like he wanted to agree, but he said nothing.

"You love him," Hermione said, her eyes wide as if everything had fallen into place...when Harry felt the exact opposite.

"Oi, don't say stuff you can't take back," Ron said quickly, glancing between Hermione and Harry.

"Of course I bloody love him, why else would I have gone back there time and again to fix up his sorry arse? Why else would I put up with his drama and his bullshit and his snootiness and everything?"

Hermione waved him off. "That's great, Harry. No, really, it is! See, the rules about mastering a wand aren't hard and fast, as you've both figured out. Draco never would have beat you in a wizard's duel...not without magic to begin with."

"If you knew that, why was I even bothering?"

"Well, I didn't know for sure. There was always the chance he could have won by fluke, and I will admit he advanced further than I could have anticipated."

"What are you saying, then?" Harry asked, trying to follow her train of thought, even though he didn't even know what station she'd boarded at.

She leaned forward, looking a little too eager for someone talking about Harry's sex life. "I'm saying, Draco's magic knew he couldn't win in a real duel. But sex... that's like a duel. It's like a fight, even more so, I imagine, with the two of you involved."

A twitch of a smile touched Harry's lips. "I guess you could say that."

Ron groaned.

Hermione continued. "So, he won. He beat you...you had sex, you thought about being in love with him, and he won."

"That's not how it works," Harry protested. "Right?"

"Well, I wouldn't have thought so, but the evidence is right there. He has his magic back and it happened while you two were intimate." She looked pleased with her conclusion and sat back in her chair, nodding.

"Doesn't change anything," Harry said. "He could have warned me, could have said something. He didn't have to be such a prick about it."

"No, no," Hermione said, drawing closer once more. "He didn't know! He didn't know what was happening, what he was doing. It was all his magic, securing his victory."

"All because I thought about being in love with him?" Harry wasn't sure if he could believe that. It seemed too easy, too clean. Had he grown so used to twists and turns with Draco that he couldn't accept what seemed like a reasonable explanation? Did it even matter anymore, when he'd already moved on?

Though of course he hadn't moved on. He'd wanted to, been desperate to, but Draco was stuck in his head, in his life.

"In a way, that's a victory. It's very Slytherin, if you think about it, even if Draco didn't really have anything to do with it."

"Sneaky fucker and his sneaky magic," Ron said, shaking his head. "So what now, Harry?"

Tangling his hands in his hair, Harry groaned. "I don't know. I really don't."

Hermione patted his hand. "You'll get it sorted, don't worry."

He smiled at her. No, he didn't know what he was going to do about Draco, if anything...but he did know he was ready to make sure he never lost himself again, never exiled himself from life. "Thanks, Hermione, Ron. I'm so lucky to have you both. And I have a favour to ask."

"Anything, mate," Ron said, smiling. Hermione nodded.

"I think it's time I got the information for that addictions counsellor."