Chapter Seven of 'Chosen Chains' (1/5)- Through the Fire

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Six.

Title: Chosen Chains (7/7)
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! This is the last chapter of Chosen Chains. I hope that you’ve enjoyed it.

Chapter Seven—Through the Fire

“Mr. Weasley will be fine.”

Harry nodded shortly. He didn’t trust the Ministry Healer that they’d hired to preside in the hospital wing for the moment nearly as much as he’d trusted Madam Pomfrey, but he reckoned there wasn’t much one could do to mess up a broken leg. And as far as the Ministry knew, Ron and Hermione had cooperated with them in the past few years and hadn’t turned against them in open rebellion as Harry had. They would have no reason to deny or delay Ron’s treatment.

“All right, mate?” he asked, as the Healer moved away and he could look down into Ron’s face, which was tight with pain.

Ron sighed and nodded. He reached out one hand. Hermione took it up at once and kissed the back of it, shaking her head. Her eyes shone with tears and with irritation, both. Harry thought she was trying not to react with a scolding now that the danger was past.

“It might mean that I can’t help you for a few days, though,” Ron said. “Are you going to search without us?”

Harry could feel Hermione glance at him, though he was no longer looking in her direction. Her fingers on Ron’s hand were suddenly still, her stare so pointed that he thought he might have cut himself on it if he turned his head.

Any answer that he could give to this would be fraught, so Harry chose his words carefully. “It will depend on how hard the riddle is, and if Malfoy and I think we could handle it on our own. We did manage most of the battle in the Slytherin common room on our own.” He looked at Ron’s leg and raised his eyebrows again.

“We want to be there,” Hermione said fiercely. “Promise that you won’t run off and do it on your own?”

“I don’t know what Malfoy might demand,” Harry said. He had the feeling he was using Malfoy as a shield, surely an unworthy thing to do, but on the other hand, he didn’t feel like being caught in a tug-of-war between his friends and Malfoy.

“It doesn’t matter,” Hermione said in a low voice. “Whatever he demands, all you have to do is refuse him.”

Harry bristled in silence. They were just becoming friends again; he wouldn’t let her order him around the way she had tried, sometimes, to do in the past.

Maybe Ron sensed that, because he sat up and said, “If you can’t promise us, mate, then will you at least tell us before you go dashing off into danger again? Send us an owl, or Floo us. I’ll be here for the next day at least, if you can’t find Hermione.” He was glancing appealingly back and forth between them, and Harry knew that he was trying to make peace.

Harry hesitated, then nodded. It would cost him nothing to make that promise, and he thought he could keep it. He did want to be close to his friends again, he told himself. He wasn’t going to leave them behind if he could help it. The problem was that maybe he couldn’t help it, and then he didn’t want to put up with the endless assignments of blame, either.

As long as they knew that he wouldn’t do that—and maybe he should tell them—then he could live with the telling.

“Fine,” he said. “Just keep in mind that it might happen suddenly, or Malfoy might go off and investigate on his own without telling me. Don’t scold me if it does.” He stared directly at Hermione, who gave him a little smile, as if the words had restored her confidence and cheer.

“I don’t think he’ll do anything on his own if he has the option to work with you,” she said, with a tilt of her head. “I’ve never seen someone watch you like that, as if he had to figure you out and knew that he wanted to possess you at the same time.”

Harry coughed, feeling his face flush, and stood up. “I’m sorry this happened, mate,” he told Ron. “Rest easy.” He nodded to Hermione, not sure what he should say to her, and then left the room.

He went straight to the rooms in the dungeon that had been Snape’s. He wanted to see what the riddle was, at least, and start thinking about it in detail. If unexpected revelations came to him or Malfoy on the spot and meant they had to go on their solitary adventure, he wasn’t going to complain.

*

Draco had deliberately retreated to his rooms and decided to wait there for Potter. He wasn’t going to trail at the man’s heels. If he was sincere about wanting something more than a momentary, fleeting connection—if he wanted to do more than solve riddles and secure the future of Hogwarts together—then he would follow Draco for once.

Severus’s portrait sneered down from the wall, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to, when all his malice was contained in that sneer. Draco spun the cup of tea he had ordered from a house-elf hard enough to fling a few drops into the corners and responded with a raised eyebrow.

The knock came on the door.

It was Severus’s turn to frown, disconcerted. Draco reckoned his smile was bigger and more smug than the relatively minor victory warranted as he stood and crossed the carpet between him and the door, but he didn’t care. His fingers yearned towards the knob. It was a struggle to force himself to stand still for a few seconds, breathing slowly and indifferently, before he opened it.

Potter was there, and gave him a quick smile, starting to step in. “Have you opened the bubble yet?” he asked.

Draco leaned forwards and brought his hands into play, seizing Potter’s shoulders. He felt the ripple of cloth and the startled intake of Potter’s breath before their lips met.

Potter shuddered like a cat stretching and then reached up and put his hands in their own places on Draco’s shoulders. Draco leaned heavily against him. He had touched Potter more than the other way around so far—after all, Potter had been bound during their encounter in the Room of Requirement—and he had wondered if it would be strange to feel Potter’s hands.

It felt wonderful, at least in the same way that the ache in his cock felt wonderful rather than annoying.

Potter tried to steer him into the middle of the room, perhaps intending to press him against a wall or a chair. But Draco had no intention of upsetting the books, or of tipping over a cauldron where he was conducting important research, which seemed at least possible when kissing Harry Potter. He stiffened his stance and slid a leg forwards, hooking his foot around Potter’s left ankle.

Potter stumbled, and Draco caught him before he could fall completely and pressed his mouth into Potter’s neck. Potter arched up to him, twisting to the side, lips opening and closing. Draco took the invitation and plunged his tongue in.

Strong hands gripping and groping him, a tongue rising in answer to his own, and Potter sighed into his ear. He tried to say something, but the words were, understandably, muffled by their snogging. Draco turned him to the side, got him comfortably trapped against a high-backed chair, and proceeded to drive away Potter’s instincts to speak and ruin things with sharp, coordinated jabs of his tongue.

“That feels so good,” Potter said, tearing away his head at last and arching backwards. His voice was a groan. He was shifting restlessly, probing at Draco’s hip with his erection as if in imitation of what their tongues had been doing. “How can—how can you feel that good?”

“Your body responds to mine,” Draco said. He managed to get the words out calmly, which he thought was a credit to his self-discipline. He wouldn’t have blamed himself for simply throwing Potter down and taking him right there, with sharp thrusts and grunts of mutual satisfaction. “I noticed that when we had sex.”

“It responds to the chains,” Potter corrected him, an unfortunate stubborn look in his eyes, and suddenly acted as if he wanted to back away.

Draco stopped that retreat with a lazy circling of his tongue along the edge of Potter’s chin, and then closed his teeth down for a soft, punishing bite. He replaced his teeth so quickly with sucking lips, though, that Potter couldn’t have much to complain about.

“I don’t—I didn’t know you wanted to do things like this,” Potter said, when he could pull back. Draco moaned aloud; the red color of Potter’s lips against his dusky face demanded it. Potter flushed in what looked like pleasure and half-closed his eyes. “Kissing seems so normal compared to what we’re going to—I mean, we might share.”

Irritated, Draco nipped at Potter’s neck harder than he needed to, and then cupped Potter’s hip and arse with a single greedy hand, grasping firmly enough to make him yelp. “I want you to stop using that word,” he whispered. “Normal has nothing to do with this. It has to do with longing and desire. As long as we both want this, what should make it abnormal?”

Potter closed his eyes fully. “Nothing is that simple, Malfoy,” he said, with enough coherency to prove that he was clear-headed despite Draco’s best efforts. Draco wondered what he should redouble, the assaults of his hand or mouth, and settled for resting his cock along Potter’s hip and simply leaving it there. It worked the way he had intended, with Potter’s eyelids trembling. “You know that. We might wish it was, but there’s still my friends, and a world out there that’s going to think of us in all the ways that we don’t want and we can’t escape.”

“They’ll think and talk of us, certainly.” Draco stroked Potter’s spine. It felt oddly prominent, and he wondered if that was simply Potter’s body type or if he didn’t eat enough. “That need not control the way we act in private unless we want to let it.”

Potter grimaced. “It has to. For me, it has to.”

Draco laughed harshly at him and leaned down to rest his teeth along Potter’s throat in much the same way he was resting his cock on his hip, not tearing or biting, but letting him feel the pressure. “Why? After what you said about standing up to your friends and claiming what you need, I had thought you were past this foolishness.”

“I can’t jump into bed with you again,” Potter said, and turned to the side, slipping away like a shadow.

Draco controlled his reaction to that. If he snapped or shouted or waved his arms about, Potter would win. He forced himself to watch with indifferent eyes while Potter smoothed down his hair and shook his head, as if that would banish all the deviant desires from his mind. Then he said, “It seems that you do very poorly at keeping your promises.”

Potter was facing him again in a moment, one of those rapid movements he so often performed without seeming to perform, his eyes wide and wary. “What do you mean?”

Draco took his time looking up and down Potter’s body. He could still make out the half-hard bulge at Potter’s crotch, and bit the inside of his cheek to avoid drawing attention to it. It would serve his purpose little if all he did was make Potter retreat defensively.

“You made promises to your friends that you would stand up for yourself and make them leave you alone,” he said. “You made a promise to me that you would attempt being with me. So far, you’ve kept neither, and the promises are only a few hours old. Not a good record.”

Potter curled his hands into fists, but the sharp retort that Draco expected didn’t come. “You have no idea how hard this is for me,” he whispered.

Draco paused. “Don’t I?” he asked. If Potter could be human and accommodating, Draco could be the same way. But he needed proof that that was the source of Potter’s confusion and reluctance, rather than sheer stubborn adherence to outdated Gryffindor standards.

“You don’t.” Potter turned and sat down in the chair he usually took, throwing a wary glance at Severus’s avidly watching portrait for the first time. “Do we have to speak with him in the room?”

“Oh, he won’t betray us,” Draco said, and smiled at Severus over his shoulder. “I know too many secrets about him. But if you want him to go elsewhere, then he can.”

“You favor the living over me,” Severus said, drawing himself up with a stiffness that couldn’t conceal the flaring curiosity in his eyes.

“Got it in one,” Draco said, and waited until he snorted and stalked to the side of the frame. Then he conjured a cloth to hang over the frame for good measure and sat down in the chair in front of Potter. For long moments, Potter remained still, but Draco could see his flexing throat, and knew a confession was coming.

“I know what this looks like,” Potter muttered. “But it isn’t that I’m turning my back on those promises. It’s that I’m trying to change in a single day everything I’ve thought about my sexuality. I mean—it wouldn’t bother you if we had sex when I wasn’t angry.”

“Not at all,” Draco said, and deepened his voice on the last word in a way that made Potter look up at him with parted lips and steadily flushing cheeks, until he seemed to catch himself by force and looked away, shaking his head.

“Oh. Um.” Potter swung his legs. “And yet, for the past few years, that’s almost the only time I’ve had sex. There were a few other times, too, but they were rare, and that was still just for the easing of bodily needs. I never thought I would have more than that, and going from resignation to acceptance isn’t easy.”

“I see,” Draco said, though inwardly he was stunned that Potter had never thought to look into asking someone else if they might want more from him than the chains. He reached out and put his hand on Potter’s arm, though it meant he had to stretch quite a distance from his chair. Potter started and looked up with eyes that were almost guilty. “Very well. Then I would like to say that, yes, I would very much like to fuck you right now, chains or no chains, and will, if you’ll allow me.”

“God,” Potter said, and slumped weakly against the back of the chair.

“Is that a yes?” Draco asked quietly. He was not going to make a move until he knew that it would be welcomed. He could understand Potter’s doubts and hesitations, but that didn’t mean that he needed to put up with them more than necessary. If Potter wanted him, then he would have to ask.

Potter’s eyes blazed open suddenly, and he began nodding so hard that Draco might have feared he would break his neck if not for the support of the chair. “Get over here and fuck me,” he said.

Draco didn’t need to be told twice.

*

Harry almost thought he had forgotten how to have normal sex—no, wait, he should probably call it ordinary sex, because he didn’t think Malfoy would be pleased if he used the word “normal,” even in his head.

He automatically reached up as if there were chains on the back of the chair that he could attach his wrists with, and then brought his arms down and flushed as he realized there weren’t. Malfoy was on him by that point, his eyes focused and his smile vaguely frightening. To give his hands something to do, Harry began to unbutton his shirt.

Malfoy still used a forceful hand on his jaw when he wanted to tilt Harry’s head back and kiss him, which was fine with Harry, giving him one familiar thing to cling to in the sea of strangeness. He let Malfoy compress his mouth and stroke inside it with his tongue, and battled back in the cramped space he had. Then he dragged his shirt off over his head and forced Malfoy to back away briefly.

“See, you do have more control,” Malfoy murmured as he began to strip. His eyes were intense, and Harry found it hard to tell whether he was irritated or not. Harry decided to proceed as if he wasn’t and reached down to unbutton his trousers.

“So, are we going to Transfigure the chair into a bed, or what?” Harry asked. He had taken up Malfoy’s invitation because he wanted to and because he was sick of being afraid, but he had to admit that Malfoy’s rooms offered fewer opportunities for being comfortable than the Room of Requirement did.

“Of course not,” Malfoy said. “We’re going to have sex in the chair.”

Harry blinked. That wasn’t something he had ever done. “And how does that work?” he asked cautiously.

Malfoy tossed back his head and laughed. “You should see your face!”

Harry grunted and bent down to remove his shoes, which he only now realized he should have done before his trousers were halfway down his legs. He didn’t care if Malfoy made fun of him, he told himself fiercely. He really didn’t. He had done worse than this in his time.

But did he want to go into the first session with the new lover that he had actually chosen determined to grit his teeth and bear it?

No.

Harry took a few huffing breaths and shut his eyes. Then he opened them and looked at Malfoy’s hard cock, which his undressing had revealed, and let himself think of the way that it would taste and feel, sliding along his palm.

His mouth began to water, and his cheeks felt empty. Harry bit his lip and began pushing his pants and trousers down his legs again.

Malfoy gave him a smile that might have had a touch of relief to it, and jutted his hips forwards. “You didn’t get a proper look at me last time,” he said, when Harry stared at him. “I think you should this time.”

Harry coughed, his face flushing. He couldn’t remember the last time a lover had been that straightforward and sounded so unabashed and smug. Of course, most of the time the words he exchanged with his lovers were restricted to orders.

So he looked, letting his eyes trace the veins in Malfoy’s cock, the flushed color that alternated from pink to red on various parts of the flesh, and the way that it was wet and smooth at the tip. He discovered that he had reached down and started squeezing himself in a regular pattern without even noticing.

“Yes, that’s it,” Malfoy said softly. “That’s what I wanted.” He leaned forwards and covered Harry’s mouth with his, then reached out to help Harry get his clothes off. Harry found himself jumping when their fingers brushed against each other’s, as though Malfoy carried lightning in his hands. He pressed closer and moaned helplessly. Malfoy pulled back and shook hair out of his eyes, staring at Harry.

“You don’t need chains to bind me,” Harry said.

Malfoy made the chair rock by driving himself backwards then, which made Harry wonder, again, about how sex in a chair would work. But he felt it was better to give in and let Malfoy worry about that. He was too consumed in the way that their cocks felt rubbing along each other and the helpless motions of his hips.

*

Just when Draco had thought that Potter understood nothing about sex-talk of any kind, he had produced that line.

Draco was desperate to get his hands on Potter now, but he knew that he needed to hold back at least long enough to get undressed. And it would be better if he could maintain that cool mask he had in the first encounter, enough to give Potter orders in the tone he liked. It would do no good if both of them were rushing into this with Gryffindor emotionality and sloppy kisses and clumsy hands. They would get off before they could even begin to feel good.

But it was difficult. Draco wished a spell existed that would have them both stripped and slicked up and him buried in Potter’s arse in seconds.

He settled for kissing Potter nearly hard enough to choke him and then pulling back to render him naked. Potter lay back in the chair, panting, legs spread wide, and he spread them wider when Draco managed to pull the last of his confining clothes away. He had no shame, or at least Draco could pretend he didn’t if he ignored Potter’s horribly flushed face and looked only at those parted knees, that jutting cock, and the hole that he could see revealed.

“I do think,” Draco said softly, “that you might lift up your legs, holding them behind the knees, and spread them as wide as you can.”

Potter stared at him, a tingling silence in the air between them, and for a moment Draco wasn’t sure if he would do it. They weren’t in the same kind of situation that they had been before, after all, and Potter had fought him there before giving in to his direct orders.

But although Potter shut his eyes and flushed so hotly he must have been on fire inside, he did reach down and lift his legs as Draco had suggested. Draco studied every detail of that pose: the whitening of his knuckles, the dents he made in the skin behind his knees as he supported them, the pulled-taut muscles in belly and legs, the way his cock bobbed softly with his uncontrollable trembling, and the hole beneath that, visible and waiting.

“Yes,” Draco said at last, hardly conscious of his voice. “That was what I wanted.”

He dropped to his knees and reached for his wand. Potter flushed some more, but he was staring down at Draco now with a look of enchantment that Draco would have been loath to disturb, so he didn’t make the sarcastic remarks that he could feel running through his head. He lifted his wand and whispered the lubrication charm instead.

Potter arched his neck and whimpered. Draco could see the gleam around Potter’s hole. It made him drive himself forwards, rutting into the chair-leg, before he gained control again and drew a deep breath.

“Slowly,” he said, and didn’t know who he was talking to. He reached out and stroked the oil down and around Potter’s arse, highlighting the area he would cover. Potter tilted his head to the side and gave a small, gasping, choking cry that a newborn animal couldn’t have bettered.

“Have you ever had someone do this?” Draco asked. Again his voice escaped him. He wouldn’t have said the words to a lover ordinarily; he would have assumed that they did have some sort of past experience, and one that he could better without effort. The challenge was the point, not the knowledge. But with Potter, it was different. “Have you ever had someone touch you like this before he fucked you?”

Potter’s eyes grew wide, and he choked on a bubble of panic for long moments. Draco knelt there, not impatient, and not stopping his slow stroke, and not looking away from Potter’s brilliant eyes. In a moment of absurdity, he realized that Potter still had his glasses on.

“No,” Potter said at last, and might have been about to cry.

Draco nodded, the knowledge flowing through him and leaving a great calm behind. He didn’t know why. It was all he could do to recognize and name emotions at this point, never mind know the reasons for them.

He dabbled two fingertips in the lubrication until they were thoroughly soaked. Potter’s legs had started to shake with the effort of maintaining the position, and Draco wanted him to keep it for a while longer, so he could see the expressions on his face.

He slid his fingers inside.

Potter gasped and blinked, jaw falling, glasses barely clinging to his nose. “Oh,” he said. “That part isn’t supposed to feel so good.” He sounded vaguely accusing, as if the fates were at fault for giving him a sensitive arse.

“But it does,” Draco said, and spread his fingers, and reached deeper. He was already dabbing up liquid with a third finger so that he could follow the first two. “Does this part feel good, too?” The third finger went in.

Potter looked away, but the trembling cords in his neck and the flush that crept lower every second told Draco he was still paying attention, no fear of that.

“Yes,” he said at last. It sounded as though someone had pulled the word through his teeth against his will.

Draco smiled in triumph. Now he would try something else, something that the coiling heat in his belly and the watching, remembering part of his brain both demanded. He withdrew his fingers. Potter snapped his head downwards at once, eyes wide in protest and lips parted in what could have been the beginnings of a snarl.

Draco stood up and leaned backwards, enough that he could aim his cock at Potter and leave no doubt about what he intended. Potter’s lips closed in a firm line, and his gaze was bright with lust and longing. Draco stroked himself with the three slick fingers; he didn’t dare do more, when he would have come with a touch.

“I want you to beg for it,” he said.

Potter’s eyes snapped up to him, and he sat so still for a moment Draco thought this might be the condition that would break their bargain.

But he didn’t move and didn’t remove his gaze from Potter. He had made the promise to himself that he would never give Potter what he needed again unless Potter showed some signs of actually wanting it. Draco was never going to be anyone’s second best choice, or the best of a bad lot, or mere stress relief for someone who meant more to him than that.

If that was a sign of his own insecurities that should have been cured by now, so be it.

Now he turned to the side, displaying his cock and noting the way that Potter’s eyes fastened onto it. Potter was the one who had to make the decision. That ought to make up for any worries he had about the power Draco wielded over him.

*

Harry couldn’t swallow. His throat was too dry. He couldn’t move his eyes. They were frozen. He couldn’t even unhook his fingers from his legs, stand up, and tell Malfoy where to shove his pretentious demand. The orders locked his muscles into place.

He wanted…

It was just.

He had always been chained before when he did something that a lover ordered him to. He had always fought before he yielded. This time, neither was true, and that came roaring back to him as he sat there and stared at Malfoy and listened to what he’d demanded.

The chains were a necessity, but also a guarantee. He could put the encounter out of his mind later and think that he was himself again, instead of ashamed about it, because he hadn’t had any choice. To get out of the chains, he had to do as he was told. And that was easy to rationalize in one part of his mind even as, in another, he knew that he was in the chains because he had wanted to be put there. He wasn’t a prisoner.

Now Malfoy was asking him to say that the only chains he was subjected to were will and desire, and he would have to choose.

Harry lifted his shaking legs higher and met Malfoy’s eyes. He had thought the gesture would convey how much he wanted this fuck, but all it did was make Malfoy narrow his eyes and tilt his head as though he were considering walking out of the room. That he stood there with his hand on his cock still and his breath rushing in and out of him reassured Harry not at all. He knew the strength of Malfoy’s will.

“Say it,” Malfoy said, but only his lips shaped the words, so Harry didn’t actually get to hear them.

Harry shuddered. The fingers digging into the backs of his knees felt like hooks, or claws. He was propped on fishhooks, and he had to make his impossible decision—the first decision he had ever made about this that wasn’t at least nominally guided by someone else—while sitting on them.

This is the last barrier. This is the kind of barrier that keeps you from keeping your promises, that holds you back from having the kind of life you want. You can walk out of here and go back to being normal and ashamed, but Malfoy isn’t going to help you do it, and you know why.

Harry bit his lip so hard that he thought a small trickle of blood had started down his chin, and then took a deep breath and nodded. “I want it,” he said. So little breath was behind his words that he knew Malfoy could claim not to have heard them, and he lifted his eyes and his voice—impossible to say which of those was more difficult—at the same time. “I want it. Please, please fuck me. Come on, Malfoy. I only want you.”

The words fell out of him like lead, but the space left within him was suddenly light and airy and full of the sun. Harry had thought he would feel hollow and empty. Instead, there was courage there. The barrier was passed.

Harry spread his legs wider, and repeated the words.

*

Draco had been trembling on the fine edge of his control ever since Potter started to whisper, but now it broke, and now he rushed forwards, pinned Potter’s legs awkwardly back against the arms of the chair, and slid into him.

Potter released a great barking grunt and ground his fingers down into the middle of Draco’s back, his face agonized. Draco slid further and deeper, not taking the time to apologize. The pleasure would be its own apology. He bit the top of Potter’s ear and murmured meaningless words to him. Well, he thought they were meaningless, but since he couldn’t take the time to listen to them, they might not be.

“Come on,” one of them said, and Draco didn’t know which one, but he thought the instruction good. He began to rock forwards, making the chair wobble and tip on its legs, and then to stroke more smoothly in and out of Potter.

The fingers on his back clenched down and then began to fall away. Draco lifted his head and managed to catch a single glimpse of Potter flopping back in the chair, arms off to the sides as though chained there, his eyes fluttering weakly, his legs dangling, only his hips jerking down to meet the thrusts.

Draco gritted his teeth and focused his gaze on Potter’s flushed throat instead. He would come if he looked at the whole picture too long.

Potter had begged him. Draco had never really thought he would. He could see Potter standing up and walking out of the room, breaking the trembling intensity between them, more easily than he could think of Potter surrendering and begging for him, for his cock, for Draco to enter him and take him and—

That got him to the verge of coming again, not that the heat surrounding him wasn’t playing a part. Draco took a careful breath and began to rotate his hips, because Potter was too quiet and he wanted to hear him.

Potter’s eyelids fluttered and he looked up in what seemed to be confusion, eyes finding Draco’s while his brow furrowed. “What—what are you doing?” he breathed. “What you were doing was great, but this—”

Draco must have found his prostate. Potter’s head went back to flopping against the back of the chair, and his breath gave up. Then he was rutting even more enthusiastically against Draco, his cock flapping, his hands twisting back and forth against those invisible chains, his voice a mindless babble.

Draco took some delight in keeping his hands off Potter entirely this time, using only hips and cock to give him pleasure. He told himself that he would have time to kiss and stroke that red skin later. For now, he focused on the way that Potter’s hips bumped into his own, and the strain in his stomach muscles, and the uncoordinated jerks of his legs, trying all the time to get closer to Draco and closer to the sensations he was receiving from him.

Potter arched his neck back and froze at the top of the arch. Draco knew what was coming and abruptly sped up and shortened his thrusts, circling his hips hard enough to hurt himself. Someone else could have walked into the room at that moment, Severus could have come back into the portrait frame and spoken, and still Draco wouldn’t have been able to look away from Potter.

*

Harry ached with the pleasure. He had his teeth clenched, he’d bitten his tongue, and his eyes allowed in blazing light and complete darkness only, both of which hurt. He could feel his toenails digging into the bottom of his feet.

When he came, it hurt.

But considering that he felt better right now than he had in months, years, generations, he didn’t mind a little pain.

His head throbbed, his world spun, and he gasped and choked his way back to consciousness slowly, since it seemed far off. When he could breathe and see again, he lifted his head and realized that Malfoy still hadn’t come. Harry blinked and frowned. Was I really that awful, that he couldn’t even orgasm when he was inside me?

Any insecurities blew away like scraps of paper when he realized that Malfoy was buried inside him, smirking. He waited until he seemed sure that he had Harry’s attention and then whispered, “I wanted you as a witness to this.”

He began to rock again.

Harry shuddered. His nerves shot sparks of blue-white fire along the backs of his eyelids and through his spine and down his arse, and once again the pain began to mount. But he couldn’t have looked away from Malfoy or asked him to stop. He panted, and only realized a few moments later that he was panting in time to Malfoy’s thrusts.

Malfoy chuckled in the back of his throat and rotated his hips again. Harry hissed as Malfoy bumped his prostate, but there was no way that he could get it up again when he’d just come. He shook his head.

“Only want to make you feel good,” Malfoy told him, strands of hair dangling in his eyes, eyes themselves wide and blazing and blown, and then he tensed abruptly, clenched his hands in front of his chest, and began to move only from the waist down.

Harry had never before cared about making his lovers come. They always had, and he had, and that tended to be the only thing that mattered. But he watched hungrily, greedily, now, for the way that Malfoy twitched and shuddered and dug his nails into his palms. He would have leaned forwards and lapped at the small trickles of blood he could see from Malfoy’s nails, but the angle wasn’t right for it.

I knew we shouldn’t have had sex in a chair.

Malfoy seemed to lose the last of his orgasm and the last of his breath at the same time. He wavered, caught himself on the back of the chair with his hands, and then pitched forwards. Harry caught him against his chest and held him there, stroking his hair back so that he could see Malfoy’s bright eyes once more.

They weren’t bright now. They were shut, and Malfoy’s eyelashes splayed against his cheek in a way that made Harry have to touch. He ran his finger delicately over one, and Malfoy sighed and stirred.

“Did that live up to your expectations?” he asked hoarsely.

Harry waited until he had opened his eyes and could look into Harry’s face before he responded. “More than any sex I’ve ever had,” Harry said. “And there were no chains, and it was—it was powerful.”

“That’s a good word,” Malfoy said. His smug voice dripped out of his lips as thick as cream. He reached up and ran a languid hand down Harry’s chest to his nipples, which he pinched. Harry hissed and thrashed, and a trickle of liquid ran out of his arse. Malfoy glanced down with an even more smug smile, as if he had forgotten himself that he was buried inside Harry until Harry reminded him. “A very good word,” he said. “Imagine what you’ll feel when I do tie you up with chains, which I know you’ll want at some point.”

Harry arched up, rutting against Malfoy’s stomach. It was an entirely involuntary movement, and useless, since he knew he wouldn’t be able to get an erection again no matter how much he wanted one, but that was Malfoy’s effect on him. He dropped back, limp and panting and exhausted, and murmured, “You’re a bastard.”

“Yes, I know,” Malfoy said, and forcefully kissed him, hard enough that Harry thought the inside of his mouth was at least bruised. “I think, by the way, that you should call me Draco. And think of me that way, as well. You should be on a first-name basis with someone whom you begged to fuck you.”

Harry flushed. “You’ll never let me forget that,” he said, starting to untangle the mound of limbs that they represented.

“Hmmm.” Malfoy licked at his nipple again. “No, I won’t. And I won’t let you forget what’s happened the next time you start making noises about being ‘normal’ and ‘ashamed’ of this, either.” He began to drag himself off Harry, but he did it without letting his gaze waver, so that Harry couldn’t look away from those challenging eyes.

Harry coughed. “I’m not going to change my mind about my sexuality all at once, you know.”

“Well, you’ve made a start by having sex in a chair,” Malfoy said, and turned away, running his fingers through his hair. That simple gesture made Harry’s mouth dry, and he shook his head. Why do I have it so bad for him? Malfoy’s body was lithe and handsome, but he wasn’t the most gorgeous lover Harry had ever had, and he was far from the most compassionate and sympathetic, which Harry had once thought was a requirement for him.

Then Malfoy glanced back at him with a devastating smile, and Harry’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth so he had to nod in response, and he knew.

Malfoy was the one who had the most effect on him. That wasn’t an answer for the deeper questions of why and how, but it could explain why one gesture from him made Harry want to kneel.

*

Draco watched Potter covertly from the corner of his eye as he cleaned himself up and dressed again. He remembered how different the git had seemed after the first time they fucked, the way he had smiled and laughed when he was striding out of the room. He was curious whether such a great change would come about this time.

There were signs of it, he decided. A fugitive smile flickered around the corner of Potter’s mouth—perhaps Draco should call him Harry, given his own dictate—and he looked at his hands and feet as if the sex had renewed them. And he stared often at Draco, then away again, perhaps trying to reconcile him with a future where he didn’t storm out of the room and off on his own the instant he was done.

Draco was looking forwards to the next time he fucked Harry in a bed. If Harry tried to roll away from him and pretend nothing had happened, Draco knew some painful places to bite.

Harry turned around and froze when he realized that Draco was still naked. Draco bit his lip to keep from laughing and stared innocently back, then sat down in the chair he usually took. It was soft and made of a material that wouldn’t stain from semen or sweat, so Draco had no hesitation. “We should talk about the riddle,” he said. “Granger would surely complain that we’ve already wasted enough time.”

“But you—” Harry said, and then sat down and looked away in discomfort.

Draco wondered idly if he had misdiagnosed part of Harry’s response to him. Perhaps Harry was uncomfortable around the idea of sex in general as well as the particular kind he desired. “Yes?” he asked, with a raised eyebrow.

“You’re still naked,” Harry whispered, his cheeks flushing.

Draco was about to applaud him for noticing the obvious when he continued, eyes now on the floor, “And you should put some clothes on, because when you’re like that, I can’t think about the riddle. The only thing I can think about is you.”

Draco let a delicate moment pass before he began to think again. Harry was far more adept at a certain version of romanticism than Draco had thought he would be.

“I will put on some clothes, then,” Draco said, stretching once and watching the way that Harry stared at him in frank appraisal before he turned his head aside. “Only for you.”

“Thank you,” Harry said, voice so low that it was difficult for Draco to hear him. Draco nodded magnanimously and reached down for the robes and other clothing he had discarded.

Part Two.