Chapter Five of 'Chosen Chains'- Eight Legs and Two Tails (1/2)

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Four.

Title: Chosen Chains (5/7)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione
Rating: R
Warnings: Heavy angst, bondage, D/s elements, violence, sex, profanity. EWE.
Summary: Harry has spent the last two years in semi-exile from the wizarding world after bitter arguments with the Ministry and his best friends. Now the Ministry summons him back, since they can’t run the school without the cooperation of Dumbledore’s portrait—and Dumbledore will only talk to Harry. Draco, summoned to talk to Snape’s portrait at the same time, meets a Harry he hasn’t expected, one who’s going to request something strange from him, and perhaps require more than that.
Author’s Notes: This will be an irregularly updated story of, probably, five to seven parts, with fairly long chapters. The Dominance/submission elements are limited, but an important part of the story, and I haven’t often written them before, so please don’t read it if that bothers you.

Chapter One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Five—Eight Legs and Two Tails

“Mr. Potter. I trust that there are no obstacles to speaking to you now?”

Harry smiled with his mouth alone. He had gone back to Hogsmeade after he had sex with Malfoy last night and had his best sleep in months, then eaten so heartily that some of the other people in the Three Broomsticks had stared at him. This morning he had walked in early, because he thought they had wasted enough time over the second riddle and Malfoy would probably want to talk about it.

And, of course, Covington had waylaid him before he got to Malfoy.

“Of course not,” Harry said, and shifted his stack of papers from hand to hand, as if he were controlling impatience. That would make her think she had some advantage over him. In reality, with the anger banished yesterday and Harry’s confidence that he could handle this situation while he stayed at Hogwarts, he was better able to combat her than he’d ever been. “Do you wish to go to your office?”

Covington looked around as if she were only now realizing that they stood in the middle of the Hogwarts grounds, not far from the lake. “I find conversations conducted in the open air extremely stimulating, Mr. Potter,” she said. “I would prefer to stay here.”

If she’d expected him to object, Harry was determined to disappoint her. He merely inclined his head and turned to follow her along the banks of the lake. He would make her speak first, though.

But Covington seemed to have the same tactic in mind, since she didn’t speak but just walked along with her gaze bent on the ground. Harry rolled his eyes mentally and gave in, as far as he thought it advisable to do so. “What did you want to talk about?”

“I know that you found the solution to the first riddle in the lake,” Covington said softly. “I know that you’ve spoken to Headmaster Dumbledore’s portrait the way we asked you to. I know that you’re keeping secrets from the Ministry.” She turned her head and fixed him with large eyes, while she waited for him to respond.

Harry’s first impulse was to think that Malfoy must have betrayed him. How else could Covington know about everything they’d striven to keep secret?

But then he took a deep breath and focused his thoughts more precisely. Malfoy had every reason to despise and fight the Ministry when they were going to get rid of Slytherin. He had told Harry as much, and Harry really doubted that Covington would have reversed herself on that simply to get Malfoy’s cooperation. She probably didn’t have the power to promise something like that anyway.

It was a usual Ministry tactic, though, to pretend to know something they didn’t, for the purpose of making people opposed to them distrust each other. They were already doing it with pure-bloods and Muggleborns when Harry left.

He sighed, as though he was sorry for her, and said, “You don’t really know anything. And of course I’m keeping secrets from the Ministry. How much I hate everyone there, for instance. You know that I hate you, yes, but not how much,” he added when she opened her mouth.

Covington shut her mouth again and frowned at him severely. “There’s no reason for your hostile tone, Mr. Potter. We could work together.”

“Could we?” Harry offered the question up like a scone on a plate and then waited.

Covington fell for it. “Of course. The Ministry reconsiders its policies on Hogwarts constantly, and will revise them every year. You could be a part of that process, an honored part of that process, with the chance to speak your mind on the policies that you consider dangerous, damaging, or unnecessary.”

“Hm,” Harry said. Hermione, he thought, would be salivating at the chance for something like this. She would probably say that it was a wonderful compromise and they should take it because they wouldn’t get a better choice.

Strange, Harry realized after a moment of stunned astonishment that he was without anger. I can even think about my former best friends without immediately getting upset. Malfoy fucking me did me more good than I realize.

Then Harry remembered the chains and the way he had felt with his ankles held down, and shook his head. It had nothing to do with Malfoy. He’d simply had someone who knew how to tie him down the way he liked. If he found one person who could do that, then he’d find another. He’d make sure to ask for ankle chains the next time he was with a Muggle.

“Does this mean that you’re declining our offer, Mr. Potter?”

Harry glanced up. Covington was walking beside him, staring at him, and of course she knew nothing of his private thoughts or the fact that Harry had shaken his head in response to them. She would think that the Ministry was the only important thing he could consider, because it was the most important thing in the world to her.

“I’ll have to think about it,” Harry said.

Covington accepted that graciously, where someone less intelligent might have pressed him and been rejected. Harry had to admire her, and to wonder why the Ministry hadn’t sent her in the first place, rather than Wimpledink. She nodded, bowed, said, “I will be in my rooms during the whole of the day, if you’d like to speak with me, Mr. Potter,” and turned towards the school.

Harry watched her go, not following until he was sure that the doors of the entrance hall had shut firmly behind her. He had no intention of accepting her offer, of course, but he thought the offer was an interesting weapon to have. Malfoy would have ideas of how they could twist it around and use it to stab Covington and her kind in the back.

Malfoy.

Harry experienced a brief wash of trepidation at the notion that he would see him in a few minutes, and then shook himself. They’d fucked, and that was all. Harry had always rolled out of bed and left his lovers behind, because once they’d given him what he needed, he had no idea what to do with them. Bradley was the only exception, and that only because Harry would come back and have normal sex with him on other days when his anger hadn’t built up.

Malfoy couldn’t even be that much to him.

Harry shook himself again. He felt strangely sorry about that, and it simply wouldn’t do.

*

Draco ignored Severus’s murmur about how he must be feeling overwrought. He was too busy lashing the sentient potion back into the cauldron for the fourth time that morning. It had come out quickly the first two times, but it was cowed now, and Draco had had to wait nearly an hour for it to emerge between the third and fourth occurrences.

He was wise enough to know that his anger wasn’t at the potion and he could take it out in other ways, on other things, but he saw no reason to do so. The anger would be useful in taming the potion and doing some of the things Draco needed to do this morning. It would not be useful for others, and it would be best if Draco had worn himself into calmness before Potter arrived to discuss the riddle.

The tendril of potion he was watching began to creep down the other side of the cauldron. Draco stepped around the cauldron in response and rapped it busily with the copper wire he had selected that morning. He had thought copper might be even better than steel, and so it proved. The potion made an audible bubbling noise of misery and climbed back into the cauldron of its own free will.

“I wonder what Potter would say if he could see you at the moment,” Severus remarked.

Draco stiffened, which he knew would tell Severus the shot had gone home, but he thought he recovered nicely. “He would have no chance to offer an opinion,” he said coolly, and put a Stasis Charm on the cauldron to hold the potion while he discussed matters with Potter. He thought it probably time for him to arrive, though of course he might need an extra half-hour because of Potter’s laziness. “I would never allow him in my lab while I was brewing. I thought I had told you that before.”

“But this is my lab,” Severus said. “I might see him here. I might see him staring at you with flushed cheeks and eyes bright with desire—”

Draco shot him an irritated look. Portraits in the castle had seen Draco and Potter enter and leave the Room of Requirement, and apparently they had surmised what the two of them had been doing and spread the rumors.

Severus leaned forwards. “Tell me, Draco,” he whispered hoarsely, “what does he look like in the midst of sex?”

Draco widened his eyes in a parody of innocence. “Longing to know so that you can compare the picture with your fantasies about his mother?” he asked.

Severus’s face stiffened, and he turned away with a dignity of conduct that Draco knew meant he was hiding deep shock. Well, let him hide it. Draco had better things to do than soothe a portrait’s hurt feelings, like make sure that the potion was completely back in the cauldron.

By the time that Potter stepped through the door, Draco had recovered himself. He inclined his head and picked up the cup of tea that he’d had one of the house-elves bring. At least the controversies over the running of Hogwarts hadn’t damaged the promptness and efficiency of the meals. “Tea, Potter?”

“Yes,” Potter said, and sat down in the chair across from him, sparing one quick glance at the frame on the wall that Dumbledore had sometimes appeared in.

Draco studied him narrowly as he held out the cup and Potter accepted it. Draco hadn’t tried to touch Potter’s fingers as they handed the cup across, but he hadn’t gone out of his way to avoid it, either. Potter simply didn’t touch them, and made it all look natural, to the point that Draco had no proof it wasn’t. He wanted to hiss between his teeth. Instead, he sat back and nodded to Potter, adopting a neutral expression. “You look like you’re simply bursting with news. What is it?”

Potter snorted a little and sipped at his tea. “Covington met me outside. She implied that I would be put into a position of power if I betrayed you to them.”

Draco felt a small shock go through him, but he wasn’t sure if it was the mention of Covington’s tactic or the fact that Potter had casually used the word “betraying,” as if he thought that it really would be betrayal to turn Draco in. “I see. I hope you gave her no hints.”

Potter raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “I didn’t really need to, though,” he admitted. “She’d already made some extremely good guesses, including that we’d found whatever we’d gone into the lake to look for, and that I’d spoken to Dumbledore’s portrait. She also said that she knew I was keeping secrets from the Ministry, but since that was perfectly obvious from the time she met us on the lakeshore, I’m less inclined to give her credit for that.”

Draco frowned. “Could she have picked up the clue from your mind in any way? Is she a Legilimens?” He had sensed nothing of the kind during his private meetings with her, but then again, she might have known better than to try that weapon on a fellow Slytherin.

“I don’t think so,” Potter said. “I would probably recognize the touch of another mind on mine, for—many reasons, although I don’t think I could block it.”

“You are unexpectedly honest this morning, Potter,” Severus said caustically from behind Draco’s chair. “Does that have anything to do with your recent experience?”

Draco hissed, but Potter didn’t seem to notice that anything was amiss. He looked up at Severus, and his eyes were simply blank. “What recent experience?”

And he sounded—normal. Perhaps a bit curious. It seemed he didn’t think Severus would have any reason or way to know that they’d slept together.

Draco cut in smoothly before Severus could go about revealing any clues he might have had in mind. “We’ll string her along and convince her that you’re interested but need more solid promises. It would be interesting to see what she would commit herself to. I’m not yet sure exactly how far she stands up in the Ministry, although I know her official title. Do you remember meeting her or hearing of her when you were with the Aurors?”

Potter shook his head. “I doubt I would have remembered if I did. I wasn’t much interested in politics until I found out what the Ministry intended to do to Hogwarts.” He leaned forwards. “I thought we were going to work on the riddle. Aren’t we? We can string her along, but it’s a distraction from the real task that we’re here to accomplish.”

Draco nodded, hoping that he masked his irritation, and then drew out the parchment with the riddle on it from his pocket. “I’ve considered it several times since yesterday, but I have to admit that I know of no creature which has four legs in reality and eight legs and two tails in legends. There are superstitious tales of all sorts that wizards believe, just like Muggles, but we have the option of correcting them because of the research of people like Newt Scamander. The corrected version would have made its way into all the magical creature textbooks.”

Potter was giving him an odd look. Draco stared back. “What?” He would not be the one to flush or stammer or make the first reference to the sex that sometimes still felt branded on his skin when he was incautious enough to think about it.

“I didn’t think you had much respect for people who studied magical creatures,” Potter said, shaking his head. “Considering the way you treated Hagrid.”

Draco sneered, and didn’t care if Potter saw it. Or at least he told himself that. “He couldn’t control the creatures that he wanted to study. He couldn’t protect his students. Someone who’s going to study beasts like that needs to care more about their students than about the beasts.”

Potter clenched his teeth and shut his eyes, and Draco half-hoped to see the flames that would mark his anger rise along his skin. At least that would prove he needed Draco, and that Draco had done something for him, and perhaps he would invite Draco into his bed to do it again.

Only, this time, Draco might refuse, at least until he reached the point where Potter was writhing and begging in front of him.

“I won’t argue about that,” Potter said, opening his eyes. “But anyway, isn’t it at least possible that some of the textbooks might print the old stories along with the corrected version? That way, we can find out what creatures were once believed to have eight legs and two tails, even if they don’t believe that now.”

“Don’t forget the other part of the riddle,” Draco said. He wasn’t anxious to go looking through old textbooks; he could imagine few things less exciting. “That part about not seeing it when you cross the sky with the sun.”

Potter grunted in annoyance. “That sounds as if it has something to do with Astronomy. I was never much good at that. Do you know what constellation it might be right away?”

“No,” Draco said. “And there’s no reason to assume that it’s a constellation. It could be a planet or a star. I don’t know of any constellation that’s visible all the time at both morning and evening.”

“Yeah.” Potter tugged at his hair. “Just to make it even harder.” He looked up at Severus’s portrait, shaking his head. “You bastards were paranoid.”

“Not paranoid enough, in the end, to save my life.” Severus had a distracted tone in his voice, and Draco knew without turning around that he was squinting into the cauldron. But he would also be paying careful attention to the conversation, not allowing any of the words to escape his ears. Draco was certain that he would report every word to Dumbledore later, if not the other portraits. “I will not wish the protections on the riddles less to appease your childish desire for simplicity and clarity.”

“Listen, Snape—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Draco said, cutting across them both. “We should look for the solution to both parts of the riddle. I could possibly solve the second part—in fact, I think it’s probably Venus, which is sometimes called both the morning and the evening star—but we need the connection between the two parts. After all, even if the answer to the second part is Venus, what connection does that have to something with four legs or eight legs and two tails? I know there are no legends of Venus like that.”

“How do you know?” Potter said, seemingly content to be distracted from his row with Severus.

“Because my mother made me study Astronomy as a child,” Draco said, with a little shudder. There had been one year when Narcissa was obsessed with it, giving him books of constellations to memorize at the same time as she was making him study the Black genealogy and compare the personalities of their ancestors with the star-names they’d been given. “I would have heard any stories like that of Venus, if they existed.”

Potter laughed. “I know the feeling. There was a time when we were looking up charms that I could use against dragons in the Tri-Wizard Tournament. By the end, I never wanted to know anything else about dragons.”

His face darkened suddenly, and Draco suspected he was remembering that he had been friends with Weasley and Granger in those days, and had spent his “studying” time in their private little circle. Draco spoke so that he would stop the hero’s plunge into brooding, which he thought neither relevant nor useful. “You would volunteer to look through the old Magical Creatures textbooks for some evidence of an animal with eight legs and two tails in the legends?”

Potter raised his eyebrows. “You want to avoid the chore enough to trust me with research?”

Draco wanted some breathing space from Potter, to be perfectly honest, but he would hardly be perfectly honest with someone who had regarded him only as the means to an end, the best of a bad lot. He raised his eyebrows back instead. “Do you want to stay here with me while I cudgel my brains for memories of Astronomy lessons?”

“When you put it like that, no.” Potter stood and held out his hand. “Let me make a copy of the riddle so that I can carry it with me.”

Draco sneered automatically. “You’re not capable of remembering it for the few hours that we’ll be apart?”

“I don’t always trust my memory,” Potter said, and nothing more.

Draco sighed and cast a Duplicator Charm on the small piece of parchment that held the riddle. He tried to toss the one he held to Potter, but Potter simply snatched it from his hand, nodded back, and then turned around and walked out the door as if he had no thought in his head but the research.

Draco watched him go for longer than was wise, given the way Severus cleared his throat behind him. “Trouble in lovers’ paradise?” he asked.

“Be still,” Draco said, and leaned back in his chair to shut his eyes. “I have to concentrate on the possible answers to this riddle, what mythological creatures are linked to Venus, and what they would have to do with a place on Hogwarts’ grounds. You can’t help me, since you admitted that you have no memory of the riddle or what drove your former self to write it.”

That silenced Severus, as Draco had known it would. And with his eyes shut and his inner world undisturbed, who was to know that he lingered for a short time over the events of yesterday before he began to pick his memories?

*

Harry grimaced and staggered towards the library table he’d chosen with another double armful of books on magical creatures. He hadn’t known that the library housed what seemed to be all the textbooks that had ever been used for the classes here. They also put, in the same space, any textbooks for other classes that were, for whatever reason, primarily devoted to magical creatures, like Potions textbooks that talked about their eggs, skin, and feathers.

And textbooks were almost the only kind of books in the library, Harry thought, with a final glance around before he settled himself in front of the pile. The shelves looked full because there were so many, but it hadn’t taken him long to notice that most other books—history books, general references, even the books on Quidditch—were gone.

Done by the Ministry for the safety of the students? Harry thought sarcastically as he flipped open the cover of the first book. That cover had no title, but the first page said, in bright and gleaming gilt letters, The Hippogriff and Lesser Cousins, so at least he was on the right track. Or because they want to sort through the books of the library and decide which ones should belong to the Ministry?

Really, either alternative was plausible, and depressing enough that Harry decided he wasn’t going to think about it any longer. He did wonder that Hermione could support the Ministry in any way, though.

He cast the spell that would make this research a lot easier and settled back to wait. The charm made a cascade of shimmering pink light with golden flecks rise up over each book and form into a question mark. Then each question mark dissolved as the magic raced into the book, marking, with a big, easily visible card, each page that mentioned a specific word. In this case, Harry had chosen the word “eight,” since he thought “legs” and “tails” would be mentioned too often to matter.

While he waited, his mind drifted, and it went straight back to the place he should have suspected it was going. After all, Hermione had invented the spell he was using to search the books.

Harry rubbed his eyes and looked wearily at the shelves. He wondered sometimes whether it be worthwhile to reach out again and try to coax Hermione and Ron to reconcile with him. A day like this would be favorite, because he was still drained and calm from the sex with Malfoy and wouldn’t get angry at them as easily.

But then he thought again of the way they supported the Ministry, and shook his head. Why should he care what they cared about? They hadn’t cared enough to stand by him when he was clearly in the right, and the Ministry was sacking him just for asking questions. They’d made their own compromises and come to their own solutions in the years that passed, without a single solitary attempt to contact him. They had a right to be hurt by what he’d said, Harry thought, but they didn’t seem to acknowledge his same right to be hurt by their words.

Yeah, we’re probably destined to stay apart forever, Harry told himself, and then sat upright as the spell finished and the books glowed pink once before the final cards settled into place. And I can’t believe how maudlin I’m becoming.

The books, as it turned out, weren’t any help. The only thing that appeared to have eight legs was a spider, and none of them had four legs in reality—even though Malfoy was wrong and a few of the textbooks did include old legends about creatures that the researchers hadn’t been able to verify, or stories about what people used to believe. Harry learned a lot about Acromantulas and more about deadly fire-brown spiders and white widows, but there was nothing in the whole pile that seemed likely to lead him on. He shut the last book with a bang that Madam Pince would have frowned at, if she was there, and stood up.

“Harry, my boy. I’ve wanted to talk to you since yesterday.”

Harry spun around with a yelp. He hadn’t even realized that an empty portrait frame hung behind him. Dumbledore stood in it now, his eyes so bright with hope that Harry winced. He knew what was coming.

“I don’t really have time, Headmaster,” he said, and began gathering up the books with a spell. He probably should have floated them to the table that way in the first place, he thought. Then he might have been out of here before Dumbledore arrived. But at first, he hadn’t known that all of these books really were about magical creatures. “Malfoy will be waiting for me to come back and tell him what I’ve discovered—”

“Which will be little enough, I’m afraid, having watched you,” Dumbledore said serenely. “Could I offer some advice, Harry? I speak as a friend, and you do not have to take this advice.”

Harry turned around and leaned against the table. “But are you my friend?” he asked quietly.

Dumbledore blinked and cleared his throat. He didn’t seem to have been expecting the question. “I would like to think that I am, Harry,” he said at last. “I don’t like to think that you would look on me as an enemy.”

Harry shook his head. He was remembering, or trying to, that this portrait wasn’t the man who had saved the world and very nearly damned Harry, but the portrait kept wanting to act as though it was. So maybe the best solution was to treat it that way. “Not an enemy. But—your plans worked. But they still involved me dying. That was something I had to think a long time about before I accepted it. Hermione still thinks I haven’t accepted it,” he added, and didn’t care about the twist of bitterness in his voice. Dumbledore knew, had to know, the tension of the situation with his friends, if not all the details. “I did. It was just complex, and I didn’t think I’d have to talk to you again.”

“I have been waiting for you all these years,” Dumbledore said. “I’d very much like to explain what I did.”

“But you already did,” Harry said, “when I died and met you in a place that looked like King’s Cross. That was the only explanation I need.”

Dumbledore gave him a keen look. “Would you not rather hear an explanation that exists outside your head?” he asked quietly. “From what I understood, you could not be sure of what happened there because you were dead at the time.”

“Have you been talking to Hermione?” Harry asked, and felt a return of the anger, like a rush of bile in the bottom of his throat, when Dumbledore nodded seriously.

“I felt as if it were the closest I could come to talking with you,” he said. “And I was lonely, longing to reestablish a bond of trust between us, but unable to do so as long as you avoided me. She was the one who told me that you thought you had seen me when you were dead, and were satisfied with the explanation that my ghost offered.”

“I am,” Harry said. “There’s no reason to drag this all up again. You aren’t Dumbledore, not completely, and you’ve said that you’re missing some of his memories. I want the full explanation, not the partial one.”

The portrait looked hurt. “I can offer you some of the friendship that existed between you and my former self, at least,” he said gently. “I had hoped that would be enough to build a deeper relationship between us.”

Harry shook his head. “I came to terms with Dumbledore’s death,” he said, and looked over his shoulder to make sure that the last book had floated off the table. Just as well not to let the Ministry know what they were researching. “I don’t need a reflection of him to offer me reassurances. Really, sir,” he added when he saw that the portrait had opened its painted mouth again. “It’s all over and done with. I don’t want to talk about it again.”

“You must, for your own health,” Dumbledore said. “I do not think that you can have passed through the traumatic events that took place in your life and be psychologically normal.”

Harry laughed hollowly. “You think normality should be the goal? I think I should be grateful that I’m still breathing and sane.”

“Your sanity remains in doubt for a few of your closest friends.” Dumbledore was peering at him over the top of his spectacles now, and his eyes were bright but grim. “I must admit my doubts join with theirs.”

Harry snorted. He still felt less anger than he should have in the face of an accusation like that. Malfoy really had been good for him, he thought with some surprise.

Or not Malfoy, but being bound. Harry knew he would pay a price if he forgot the distinction between those two things.

“What exactly did you expect me to be like, after the war?” he asked. “Did you think that I’d wake up the next morning, shrug, say, ‘Well, glad that’s over,’ and then become an Auror and stay one, and marry Ginny Weasley and have a ton of children? Or did you want me to go through years of therapy and come to some profound revelation at the end of it? Hermione sounds like that’s her preferred option. But I can’t do both at the same time. I’m not normal, I won’t be, and it’s time to accept that.”

Dumbledore shook his head. “I wished to see more of a reaction,” he said quietly. “I wished to see you reconciled with the wizarding world. I wished to see you have the life you would have had without your parents’ death and without the scar on your forehead.”

Harry stared at him. “But that’s stupid,” he finally said, since there was no kinder way to put it. “I can’t—look, I can’t just roll over and accept the blows that life has given me and get up from them. That requires a fantasy hero, and I thought that you—I mean, the man you used to be—always knew I wasn’t that. I’m me. Flawed and normal. Why does everyone have a hard time accepting that? Or else they think I’m too flawed, like Hermione, and need some kind of correction.”

Dumbledore sighed. “Perhaps it was an unrealistic fantasy,” he agreed. “But you cannot pretend that the life you have now is the life of your choice, Harry.”

“It’s a lot better than the life I would have had if Hermione got her way,” Harry said frankly. “I’d be pretending to happiness. I’d be pretending that nothing had ever happened to me, which is stupid. I’d be pretending to be normal sexually, for that matter. It’s all a matter of chance. I can’t make something be real by wishing it was.”

Dumbledore simply watched him solemnly. Just when Harry thought he wasn’t going to speak any more and was about to walk out of the library, Dumbledore whispered, “I wish it for you anyway.”

“Stop wishing,” Harry snapped. “If you’re concerned about what I want, then knowing this isn’t what I want should be enough to make you stop wishing.”

Dumbledore started to say something else, but this time Harry really had had enough. He made his way quickly to the dungeons, hoping that Malfoy had had better luck than he had.

*

Draco could have wished that his mind wandered less often to images of Potter’s eyes wide open and blazing beneath him, and the texture of warm limbs and arse clenching around him in desire, or the expression of sheer surprise on his face when Draco had slid into him for the first time.

But it probably wouldn’t have made any difference if he had thought solely of Venus for the hours before Potter came back, he considered, opening his eyes at the click of the door. If there were any legends about Venus being associated with magical creatures like the ones the riddle described, his mother had never insisted that he learn them.

“Nothing,” Potter said, slumping into a chair in front of Draco’s fire as though he had been walking for miles instead of simply studying books in a library. “I used a spell that brought every occurrence of the word ‘eight’ in all the books to my attention. It didn’t work.” He glanced at Draco and smiled a little grimly. “But I could tell you a whole lot about spiders, if you have some reason to want to know about them.”

Draco felt a flash of heat pass across him at the image of those eyes. He rose from his chair as if casually. Potter had already turned back to the fire, so Draco didn’t really fear Potter would notice his half-erection, but he had thought of something else he could do.

He paced behind Potter’s chair. “I can remember nothing that would mark out Venus as being associated with magical creatures, either,” he admitted. His hand fell on Potter’s neck and clamped down.

Potter tensed—Draco could feel that through the tremble in his muscles as well as see it—but his voice remained light. “Well, then we’ll have to try something else. Maybe look at the riddle again? Maybe you’ll find a clue in the wording, the way that you did when thinking about the difference between ‘stop’ and ‘end’ in the first riddle.”

Draco pressed down more heavily, to the point that he was almost bending Potter’s head forwards, and stooped to put his lips to Potter’s ear. “Why don’t we do something else for a while?” he murmured. “A short break could prove helpful and refreshing to our minds. As well as our bodies.” He let his other hand stray down Potter’s chest.

Potter caught his hand. Draco felt another flash of heat and worked hard not to pant—

Until the point when Potter squeezed his fingers so hard that flashes of red and black across Draco’s vision replaced the flash of heat.

“Potter, what the fuck?” he said, concentrating despite his dizziness so that he could rip his hand free of Potter’s hold. He leaped back and stood staring in confusion at the idiot in front of him.

Potter took his time sitting there and breathing, almost long enough for the tingling to fade from Draco’s fingers. Then he rose from the chair and turned.

His eyes were close to black with rage. Draco looked instinctively for some sign of the green flames or the other things Potter did that would signal his magic getting out of control, but none of them appeared. He thought he understood why when he looked back at Potter’s face. This wasn’t the uncontrollable fury Potter had shown before, but simple outrage.

As though I did him an indignity, Draco thought, his heart thumping hard and anger of his own replacing his shock. As if he thought I somehow wasn’t worthy to sleep with him.

“You don’t understand,” Potter said. “I only do—that—when I need something to control my anger. We did it yesterday, and one good session is enough to sustain me for a couple of months. So I’m not in need of any attentions that you might spare me right now, Malfoy.” His lips had drawn back from his teeth in a way that made him look as if he might bite—and, stupidly, only made Draco want him more.

Of course, he wanted Potter bound in a bed, where he would be earning the risk if he brought his hand near Potter’s teeth. Being assaulted when he’d taken no risk displeased him.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “That you only need to be bound to the bed and fucked when you’re angry?” It sounded incredible to him, but he supposed that might be why it had been a subject of such bitter disagreement between Potter and his friends. He and they both saw it as a nonessential part of himself, or at least not as part of him all the time.

“Exactly,” Potter said, voice cool. “It’s a last resort, the only thing that works, but that doesn’t mean I want it all the time. I don’t enjoy it.”

Draco snorted.

Potter flushed in a beautiful way, the red creeping up his face from his shirt collar and gratifying Draco with the extra embarrassment he seemed to feel because he was flushing. “Shut it, Malfoy,” Potter muttered. “I don’t mean—there’s a difference between physical and mental enjoyment. You’ve never noticed that?”

He was sneering again, and Draco felt able to meet him eye to eye and say, “It was physical enjoyment when you came. You didn’t want me to touch you. You came because of me, because I was inside you, shoving deeper and deeper.”

His voice grew husky in spite of himself and he knew he was stiffening in his pants, but nevertheless, he didn’t regret that he’d used the words. It was worth it for the way that Potter shifted and looked aside.

“I don’t want what you can offer me, Malfoy,” he said, “which is a few days of commitment at the most. We’re here to solve a problem, and we’re bloody well going to solve it without taking out time for fucking along the way.”

Draco took a step closer and arched his body, letting Potter see his hard cock, his muscled forearms, his heated eyes. “Tell me that it would be only a fuck. Tell me that you didn’t dream about this last night.”

“I didn’t dream about this last night,” Potter said, and he looked sincere, as well as puzzled that Draco would want him to say anything else. Perhaps there was even a trace of pity in his expression that those dreams had plagued Draco. That impression came home full-force when Potter added, “I’m sorry if you did.”

Draco turned away, biting the inside of his cheek savagely to contain his disappointment and humiliation. He had sworn that he would never offer himself to someone who didn’t want him again, and that promise had seemed possible to keep when he was in the middle of the situation with Potter. But outside that, Potter apparently felt free to deny him.

“We have to solve this riddle and find the keys to unlock the wards,” Potter said, in a condescending tone. “Don’t you think that’s more important than coming, Malfoy?”

Draco turned back around. He knew the tactic to use now. If he was injured, the best thing to do was injure in return. “Of course,” he said. “At least for someone like you, who’s so repressed he probably only wanks once a year.”

Potter’s nostrils flared, and he rose to the bait. “It has nothing to do with that! I told you, this isn’t normal for me. I did try to discourage you from doing anything to me, remember. You were the one who demanded that I choose you.”

“You’re the one who felt better the instant those chains were around your ankles,” Draco retorted. “I saw your face, remember? You couldn’t have lied. You were relaxed and tossing your head, hard and moaning for me. And you dare act as though you can put all that behind you the minute you’re out of the bedroom?”

“Yes.” Potter looked furious and conflicted, but still without that driving edge to his anger that Draco was familiar with by now. “Because that’s something I only need sometimes, I told you, like a—like a medical potion. My normal sexual response is completely different. I can fuck in different positions at other times.”

Draco leaned back against the wall and waited until he was sure Potter wasn’t going to say anything more, but face him, panting and irritated and beautiful. Then he raised one eyebrow and said, “I see Granger and Weasley have got to you after all.”

Potter went still, his eyes fixing on Draco. “What do you mean?” he demanded. “Tell me what you mean by that.”

“They think there’s something pathological about you, something wrong with your sexuality,” Draco said. “And you insist there’s not, but the minute your needs are fulfilled, you act ashamed of it. You won’t speak of it openly. You won’t admit you need it except at certain specific times. You won’t even admit that you enjoy it. They’ve got to you. You’re ashamed.”

Potter’s hands clenched, but still the flames didn’t shimmer around his fingers. Draco was beginning to wish that he hadn’t done quite such a good job of fucking Potter’s demons out of him last night, if this was the result. “I am not,” Potter said between locked teeth. “I simply don’t see the need to talk about it, or do it again until I need to. Tell me, Malfoy, if we were really lovers, wouldn’t you want me to be normal?”

“There you go again, using words like ‘normal’ that wouldn’t matter to you if you’d accepted yourself as fully as you’ve told Granger and Weasley,” Draco said. He shook his head sadly and then locked his eyes on Potter’s, so that he didn’t have the chance to turn away. “If we were really lovers, I would want you to be yourself, as hard as you can.”

Potter’s lips parted, and his eyes flamed. Draco thought he was trembling on the edge of something in that moment, and the something might have been a step towards Draco. Draco tried to make his expression as welcoming as possible.

But then Potter turned his eyes away and shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense for you to say something like that,” he said. “And I didn’t come here to find someone like you. I came to solve the riddles.”

“For no other reason?” Draco murmured. He wouldn’t let the moment go until Potter pried it away from him. It had been too close to what happened between them last night, giving him such a clear glimpse that he longed for it now and wouldn’t be satisfied until it was brought into existence. “I hardly thought you likely someone to come and go at the behest of the Ministry.”

Potter’s gaze snapped to him. Draco didn’t see the anger in it, still, but the clear, uncertain curiosity he had felt himself this morning, when he couldn’t stop thinking of Potter. He smiled, because he couldn’t help it.

Potter turned his back decisively. “We should think about the last line of the riddle, too,” he said, as if their discussion had never happened. “Look unto the last. What’s the last, and what does it have to do with Venus or magical creatures?”

Draco bit the heel of his hand in frustration. But he would not show the emotions if Potter wouldn’t. He was not going to be Potter’s servant or the conduit for the recovery of his sexuality. Potter would have to do that himself if he was going to do it at all.

He could mourn the chance lost and gone, however. That was something Potter would probably be incapable of doing even if he was refusing Draco for a rational reason.

He stepped up beside Potter and bent over his shoulder, taking a petty pleasure in the way that Potter shuffled when he felt Draco’s warm breath on his ear. “I don’t know what it means,” he murmured. “The prior riddle? The riddle that led us to the lake was obviously meant to be solved before this one, since it hid the bubble that held this one. Or perhaps the location? We might learn something if we go out to the lake.”

As Draco had thought he would, Potter snatched eagerly at the suggestion, stepping away from him and striding to the door of Severus’s room. “Let’s do that. At least few people should be out there now, and Hermione will stay away from us because I filled her mouth with metal.” He made a complicated sound that Draco thought was not a snicker.

Draco started to follow him, but Severus cleared his throat first. Draco looked up and caught the portrait’s sardonic gaze.

Draco flushed. He could read what Severus was suggesting or saying well despite the silence. Was the knowledge he had gained by listening at the door worth it? Was sleeping with Potter worth it, when Potter remained Potter despite all that had passed between them, holding on to ideals of normality?

The only answer Draco could offer before he followed Potter was a shrug. He didn’t know whether it had been worth it, and that was the only honest answer he could give.

Part Two.