[one-shots]: Awakening, H/D, R, 2/3

[lomonaaeren]

*

Unfortunately sober, and somehow having ended up in Malfoy's bedroom, where he was not supposed to be, Harry didn't exactly know what was supposed to happen next.

Malfoy had kissed him and touched him like no one had ever kissed him or touched him. And it was true that when he'd spoken his commands, Harry had heard a buzzing in his head that seemed an awful lot like magic enforcing that command. And he could feel the bond pulling taut like a cord between them when he moved a certain distance away. There was even a decided anxiety in the back of his head, as though it was important that he kiss Malfoy and he shouldn't have stopped.

But that couldn't be allowed to matter. Of course it couldn't. Harry had a normal life to get back to leading, and Malfoy wasn't part of it.

"All right," he said. "I will. When you move off me."

Malfoy shifted neatly to the side and sat on the bed. Only then did Harry realize that he hadn't really been pinned down and ravished, although it had felt like that. Malfoy had been holding Harry in place with his breath and his eyes. Harry felt his flush worsen, and sat up.

"I'm going," he said.

"Do that," Malfoy said. "So I can get back to sleep." He cast a longing glance at his pillows and reached out to fondle one of them. Harry stared at the slender palm and fingers and remembered what it had felt like when they traveled from the edge of his shirt down onto his bare skin.

Suddenly he had slipped from cold water into perfect heat. It had felt as good as being in a warm bed on a morning when he didn't have to get up and go to training. Except sharper, of course. And more centered on his groin.

"I'm leaving," he said.

"We all await you," Malfoy said, with a perfectly disdainful tone in his voice that made Harry burn to get rid of it. He leaned forwards, caught himself, and then edged away again. The invisible cord between then pulled unpleasantly taut, and he shook his head. He couldn't allow the bond to dictate his movements.

"We do all await your leaving," Malfoy said, while Harry hovered and wondered why he didn't immediately leap up and go. Could it just be the memory of what Ron had said earlier that night, that Harry treated Ginny like a daydream instead of a real person? "If you're not going to give me sex, you might as well give me a pleasant night's sleep."

Harry felt his ears burn, and that decided his next move. It wasn't the most adult thing to do, but still. He wanted to show Malfoy that he wasn't an obliging little toy like most of Malfoy's lovers probably were, and he would do it by giving him neither object he wanted.

He leaned in enough that Malfoy's eyes widened and his breathing stuttered, and breathed delicately across Malfoy's lips. Malfoy opened his mouth with a moan. Harry watched the flush working its way down his throat and leaned in to follow it with his tongue and teeth.

Malfoy wrapped his hands around Harry's shoulders and held him there, moaning again while Harry pressed their groins together. The ache was steady, now, and Harry could feel that the thrumming of the bond between them had become nothing but a steady golden hum, delicious to feel.

If not give into.

He had to take several deep breaths and not yield to the temptation to just rock with Malfoy and let their movements carry him along until he came. That wasn't the plan. Instead, he bit Malfoy on the shoulder and urged him back, making him lie on the pillows and caressing his neck and chest until Malfoy's protests became quiet whispered pleas instead. Then Harry pulled back and tried to look at Malfoy the way a conqueror would look at a conquest.

The problem was that he didn't know exactly what that look was like, because he had never had the huge bloody lot of partners that the Daily Prophet attributed to him. He tried to fix that expression on his face anyway, though, and watched the shining edges of Malfoy's hair and the way that his eyelids fluttered, open and shut and then open again, as if he couldn't decide which way he wanted to have them.

"Ohhhh," Malfoy whispered. "Please, make up your mind."

A hard edge was creeping back into his tone again, meaning that he was coming to some awareness of the situation, and Harry couldn't have that. He sucked a new purple mark into appearing on Malfoy's chest, then moved over and sucked on one nipple. The taste of warm skin filled his mouth, and he bit down before he thought about it, reacting to it as he would to the taste of a sweet.

Malfoy yowled, a cat with a boot flung at it, and reached up, scrabbling along the side of Harry's head, trying to find an ear, a hold on his hair, the back of his head. Harry didn't know which, and he didn't care. It was all intensely satisfying, he thought as he pressed down, harder and harder, with his mouth against Malfoy's nipple, with his cock against Malfoy's.

Then he thought to add a little back-and-forth motion, and Malfoy went wild, grasping him and losing him in the same moment, his mouth drawing breath and rasping it out again. Harry could see all the way to his tonsils one moment, and then to the back of his eyes and mind in the next.

"That's good, that's good," Malfoy said, and he sounded surprised, and Harry felt smug, and it was wonderful, back and forth, back and forth, side to side with their hips bumping each other's, and he would get up in a minute--

Malfoy hunched as if he would come or get up, but when he moved, it was to roll them over again. Then he was crouched above Harry, back and forth, back and forth, and Harry could feel his own eyes opening very wide and rolling, his voice choking in the back of his throat, his hands flying open as if he would gouge out Malfoy's eyes. Malfoy gave a wordless explanation of his pleasure to someone and kissed Harry again, tongue caressing his gums.

He was going to do something. He was going to move, wasn't he? Oh, yes, that was right. And left. Back and forth, back and forth, back--

Wildness burst out of Harry: a cry from his throat, movements from his hands, come from his cock. He arched up, pleased when Malfoy didn't move except for his trembling above Harry, but pushing anyway, wanting him off, wanting to draw in a deep breath, and wanting to keep him there so that he could do other things, hold Malfoy's back and be pinned and driven into and--

Malfoy came, a thick splash, and they lay there panting in the sudden silence.

Harry closed his eyes. His throat ached. Malfoy stroked it absently, his fingernails catching in the hairs on Harry's chin. When was the last time he had shaved? Unremembered, unimportant. Harry rolled his head over, and Malfoy stuck his tongue in again, but this time thoughtfully, leisurely, scraping it up and down the way a dog might lick someone's face. Not at all the way Harry and Ginny had kissed.

Ginny.

The fuck.

Harry shoved.

Malfoy fell over, or fell off the bed, from the sudden wave of startled cursing that floated up to Harry. Harry found that he didn't care. He couldn't believe that he had been so careless, so stupid, to just go on like that. Yes, it had felt good when Malfoy touched him, but it wasn't as though someone had held him down, and made him kiss Malfoy, touch him, rock with him, and suck Malfoy's nipple. For some reason, it was that last one he felt most embarrassed about.

"Get off me," he told the air, perhaps, or at least he thought he did. His mouth was so thick with self-disgust that he didn't think he could speak. "I hope that you never come near me again, you--"

He left the sentence unfinished, because there were no words for what Malfoy was. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and not even bothering to see if he had collected all his clothes, Harry Apparated.

*

"You look as though you spent the night with a storm, darling."

That was his mother's cool assessment as Draco slipped into a chair at the table the next morning. Draco nodded apologetically to her and picked up a plate decorated with delicate slices of fruit, from which he chose two, a peach and an orange. He felt like sweet things this morning, to complement his dreams.

"Yes," he said. "I know." He had fixed his hair and brushed his teeth before he joined her, of course, but he could do nothing about the bruises on his wrists or the purple patch on his neck. He found that he didn't particularly want to.

"Does Mr. Potter know anything about bonds with an eros component?" his mother asked, apparently addressing the air. "From the way he has conducted himself so far, I would say that he does not."

Draco held back the impulse to laugh. His mother had moved from half-despairing at the existence of the bond to sounding as though she deplored Potter's lack of manners about it. "No, I don't think so," he said. "He was pulled to my room by the bond last night, but then he wanted to blame what happened next on me."

His mother's nod conveyed both understanding of the situation and approval that he had not chosen to burden her with the details. "Very well. Then he ought to accept an effort to break it."

"Yes, he ought to," Draco said, becoming very involved in eating his orange without spurting juice everywhere. Having touched Harry last night filled him with a marvelous sense of well-being, and he didn't think it was just the bond, which tended to act so sated at moments like this that there was no telling it was even there. "And I should do what I can. I'm sure that Father wouldn't approve of my being bound to someone like Potter, especially since there are ways in which any bond can be broken."

His mother reached across the table and laid her hand on his. Startled, Draco looked up and found that her eyes were the color of an early spring day, which he had almost never seen them be.

"You should think about what you want," she said softly, "rather than what your father does."

"Or what Potter does?" Draco had to ask. "It wouldn't be very fun to share the bond with an unwilling partner."

"I hold faith in your powers to convince him of the truth," Narcissa murmured, "that any Malfoy is a desirable partner, and that he might never have another chance like this."

Or that I might not, Draco thought, but he knew that showing that to Potter would be fatal. Potter would think he had an ally in Draco's reluctance to be bonded to him--reluctance he was drawing entirely from the reflection of his own soul that he saw everywhere--and he was more likely to include Draco in his plans as long as he thought that. Draco would have a chance to foil those plans, and fool Potter, only and as long as Potter kept him close.

"Be confident, then?" he asked his mother, his voice rising into a question although he tried to keep it down. "Is that the extent of your advice to me?"

His mother smiled, a bright flash of an expression that Draco had seen more often when he was a child. "Yes," she said. "You have never needed anything else."

And Draco did feel better when he thought about that, and the triumphs he had achieved in the past just because he acted like he knew exactly what he was doing and proceeded to do something decisive.

Granted, those had been minor triumphs next to the one he now pursued. But that didn't matter, not if the confidence was great enough.

*

"I just don't know why you're not horrified."

Ron and Hermione exchanged a speaking glance, although what they were speaking about Harry didn't know. He hated that he was the one with a headache, although Ron had drunk as heavily as Harry had last night and Malfoy had spelled him sober. He hated that Ron and Hermione apparently gave each other some complicated message with their eyebrows, because Hermione sighed and turned towards him.

"Because this is the way that these bonds are supposed to work," she said. "The magic does things like this sometimes, and so the pure-bloods have learned to make allowances for them. Your life would be easier if you did, too."

"Made allowances?" Harry laughed bitterly, and then held his head as it ached. "Not likely."

"Why not, mate?" Ron leaned forwards. "You're not dating someone right now, so it's not a question of being unfaithful. And it's not like you're sleeping with V-V-V-"

"Oh, Ron," Hermione said, with affection in her voice that made Harry's teeth ache with envy. "Just say it."

"Voldemort," Ron produced, with a groan of effort that made Hermione applaud. Then he turned towards Harry and went on with more enthusiasm. "Sometimes, things like this just happen. So, yeah, you should try to break the bond if you're not going to be happy, and Hermione's already found several ways to do that." He looked adoringly at her in turn, making Hermione bow her head and blush, and Harry wondered if he should leave the room. "But it's not as though this taints you somehow, or makes you less of a person. Malfoy is annoying, but he's not going to rape you."

"How do you know that?" Harry asked. That was the one point he really couldn't understand. "If the bond can Apparate me to him whenever it likes--"

"No, only when the bond is strained because you haven't had sex with him for a while," Hermione told him. Since she was already flushed, Harry couldn't see if she was blushing the way she ought to when she talked about two blokes having sex.

"Fine," Harry said. "But no matter when it happens, I don't want it."

This time, Ron and Hermione turned and gave him a message with their eyes that he could read. Harry tugged his shirt higher so that he could hide some of the damage Malfoy had done to him. "Well, anyway, I wouldn't be doing this if it weren't for the bond," he said.

"You're so fixated on that," Ron said. "Why?"

"Because I don't like blokes!" Harry said. "And I don't like Malfoy! And I want to marry someone--well, it doesn't have to be Ginny." He was starting to think that Ron had been right about that, since he really never had missed her too much after Hogwarts, or wanted to get back together with her during his last year there after the war. "How can I do that if I'm bonded to that git?"

"You're going to break the bond," Ron said, in the manner Hermione used to explain small words to an idiot. Of all the things he could have picked up from her, Harry thought, of course it would have to be that. "It's not a question of staying bonded to him forever, or getting married to him. In the meantime, why not have some fun?"

"Because it's not fun?" Harry said. "Because he's slimy?"

Ron sniffed, far too loudly for Harry's comfort. "It doesn't smell as though you showered before you came here," he said. "And you don't look all covered with slime."

"You're impossible," Harry snapped, and whirled away from Ron, feeling betrayed and used by the whole world.

Hermione caught up with him as he started down the steps of their house. "Look, Harry, I'm sorry," she whispered earnestly. "I can tell how annoying this must be for you." Harry nodded to her, glad that he had one understanding friend. Hermione patted him on the back, and then ruined it all. "But to break the bond, you have to know yourself well. I told you that. The spells won't work if you don't, because you need to look into your heart and renounce the desires that led to the bond in the first place--"

"I don't have any bloody desires for Malfoy--"

Hermione raised her voice slightly. "Or you have to come up with some other means to fulfill those desires, ones that will satisfy you more than the bond does."

Harry stared blankly at her. Hermione beamed back as though she had just said the most helpful thing in the universe. Around them were the small sounds of Hogsmeade coming to life, including the sound of a broom on the neighbor's back porch and the humming purr of a Kneazle dozing on the wall.

"You mean," Harry said, "I have to find someone else to fuck?"

The broom stopped sweeping. The Kneazle opened one eye.

"I wouldn't have put it so crudely," Hermione said, glaring at him. Apparently only Ron was to be approved of for saying difficult things with a great deal of force, Harry thought in irritation. "But yes, you could think of it that way. And things would be easier if you had Malfoy's help, you know."

"I could not agree more, Granger."

Harry whipped around. The bond should have given him some sort of warning, he thought, not just left him to stand there like an idiot while Malfoy strolled up to them. He looked far more polished and clean than Harry, and Harry looked in vain for the marks he had left on him.

Malfoy noticed him looking. He smiled, and Harry hated that he could already tell the difference between that and an ordinary smirk. He looked away. Malfoy continued talking, apparently to Hermione. "The bond might wear down over time, but I doubt it, not when it's this intense in the beginning. And things will go faster if we're both there to perform the necessary spells."

"That's what I thought," Hermione said, sounding pleased to have been right. When is she not? Harry thought. He knew he was being unfair, and he intended to keep on being that way. "I assume you have a better knowledge of your innermost heart than Harry does, so--"

"How can you think that?" Harry asked loudly. He turned to Malfoy, who still smiled at him, but this time with a touch of the smirk. "He probably doesn't even know what an innermost heart is, except something that he'll try to poison."

"Because I accept this bond for what it is," Malfoy said calmly. "I don't try to pretend that it came from anyone else--"

Harry pointed an accusing finger at him, which Hermione gently pressed down. "You told me that it came from Ollivander!"

Malfoy laughed. Harry tried not to notice the way that the sound seemed to compete with the Kneazle's purr for warmth. "He cast the curse, yes, but it couldn't have taken the form it does if I hadn't wanted you. He might have cursed us only to spend time together, or undergo a form of trial and initiation together, or of friendship. This bond manifested because we shared wands, and because we both had desires that the other person could answer."

"We shared wands, and that was an accident," Harry said. "The fortunes of war."

Malfoy gave him a quick, wondering glance, shaking his head. "I would think that you'd be glad for that, really," he murmured. "After having so much of your life shaped by fate and prophecy, a bond based on sheer chance should seem a blessing."

"I still want to choose it," Harry said. "I didn't get to choose this one." He turned away from Malfoy, because he got the feeling that he wasn't going to get to choose the git's help, either, and looked at Hermione. "Is it really going to be easier with him along?" he mouthed.

Hermione nodded, eyes big and face set with an expression that made Harry wince. He knew that expression. It had most often appeared right before marathon study sessions for the NEWTs or before Hermione made Harry apologize for some stupid mistake that he'd committed.

"Yes," she said. "He can show you what to do, Harry, and these spells are complicated. That will leave me more free time to do the research and hopefully keep you from having to wait months."

Harry closed his eyes and tried to ignore the way that the bond had started to life again, humming because they were standing so close to each other. Already he could feel the warmth beneath his palms as if he was touching Malfoy's skin right now, and he hated the idea of that.

To get rid of it would be worth paying any price, even that of staying around Malfoy for long enough to "learn himself."

"All right," he muttered.

*

It would have been more flattering if Potter could have shown the tiniest trace of being grateful for his presence.

Instead, Potter kept his back stolidly turned and worked with Granger only: reading the passages in the books that she told him to read, addressing his remarks only to her, taking notes with a grim readiness when she told him to. Draco sat on the floor beside him--Granger having decided that the room covered with cushions and rugs in her house would be more comfortable than any of the couches or chairs--and tried to catch Potter's eye. He remembered the way those eyes had shone last night when he was on the verge of orgasm, and the bond brightened and grew tighter between them, the humming becoming audible enough that Granger looked curiously back and forth.

Potter clenched his teeth and kept on working. Draco sighed, leaned back, and closed his eyes, trying to "see" the bond.

It took him a few tries, but at last he thought he had fixed it in his mind: a thick cord of energy that ran from his heart and groin to Potter's. Its color was mostly gold, the usual color of a bond with an eros component, but there were hints and additions of silver and scarlet. Draco wasn't surprised, since silver was his favorite color and scarlet was probably Potter's. All those unfortunate Gryffindor tendencies.

He reached out and plucked the bond with a finger. A twang filled his ears, and Potter swore.

"Stop it, Malfoy," he muttered, teeth clenched down so far that Draco's ears rang with that sound, this time. "What we're doing is hard enough without your interference."

Hearing that Potter suspected interference made Draco resolve to keep his fingers to himself. He didn't want to panic Potter into backing away. He folded his hands in his lap and maintained his air of perfect innocence as much as he could. Potter grunted and returned to his work.

Draco began to listen to their conversation, though now that he had located the bond he saw it constantly, as a streak of color, behind his eyelids. Granger was explaining the basics of meditation and studying one's own soul, and Potter made constant doubtful noises, sat still for a minute or two, and then started squirming around and saying that he would never understand.

"It's simple, Harry," Granger said. Someone had added steel to her voice and her backbone since Hogwarts. Draco approved. "Much simpler than you're making it appear. Listen--no, listen--just adopt this pattern of breathing--"

"I can't do anything with it," Potter snapped. "You know I couldn't do anything with Occlumency at Hogwarts either, Hermione. Telling me to clear my mind and not how to do it is useless."

Draco turned his head and opened his eyes, wondering where in the world Potter would have had occasion to learn that Occlumency didn't work for him. It wasn't a discipline that Draco could see him taking up on his own.

"If you focus on the breathing, then it gives you a way to clear out your thoughts." Granger was so patient Draco wondered how many times they'd had this argument, or if she'd simply expected it. "That becomes your world, rather than the things you're usually wondering about."

"No," Potter said. "Because the bond or the war or my training always comes back to mind. So it doesn't matter what I concentrate on. I just can't concentrate on it for very long."

Draco couldn't hide his smile. Potter, turning towards him, noticed it, but then again, that was exactly what Draco wanted him to do, so he kept it up. Potter bristled, as expected, and looked for a moment as though he would rise to his feet and pound Draco with his fists.

"What are you staring at?" he demanded.

"Nothing," Draco said, still grinning madly.

"Tell me." Potter rocked forwards on his heels, and the bond grew tighter still. Draco reached out and placed one hand on Potter's wrist, but carefully did it on the sleeve only, so that Potter couldn't accuse him of wanting to "take advantage" of the bond's presence by touching skin.

"I was only wondering how in the world you could never have learned the simplest technique for meditating that exists." Draco widened his eyes and looked past Potter at Granger, who only frowned at him. Draco decided that she was intelligent enough to figure out what he was doing, so this practically counted as giving the situation her blessing.

"The simplest?" Potter leaned closer to him, so that Draco could feel his soft huffs of breath across his lips. "What is it, then?"

Draco had to swallow. The bond had tightened again, and he seriously doubted they could move more than a foot from each other right now. Right now, the tightness meant simple closeness, but give it another minute and that would change.

"Focus on a door in your mind," he said. "It can be made of anything you want. Imagine that you're placing your thoughts, your problems, your irritations, behind it. Then shut the door and let your mind drift. What emerges is your essential self, and then you can know your own motivations in the way that Granger already suggested you should."

Potter frowned into the distance as though consulting someone in his head about Draco's proposal. Draco smiled some more.

"I haven't heard of this technique," Granger said abruptly. "Where did you learn it?"

"It's in some books on Occlumency," Draco said, which was perfectly true. That only made her frown more, but she didn't leave the room to begin research as Draco had suspected she might. Well, that made his task a bit more difficult, but as long as he sat close to Potter's side with one hand on his wrist, he could make it hard for her to see.

"I'll try it," Potter said, with the same rapidity of speech that he might use to plunge headlong over a cliff.

"Are you sure you should, Harry?" Granger glanced at Draco. "I mean, this is--"

"Only another technique that might or might not work," Draco said. "Weren't you the one who said that this would set you free, Granger, because I could teach Harry and you could research the spells? But you haven't left me alone with him yet." He leaned his leg into Harry's, shuddering as the bond hummed a jangling discord in his ears. Harry must have felt the same thing, though perhaps without knowing the cause, because he sat still instead of banging Draco's leg away.

"That's true enough," Granger said. She left the room with several backwards glances, however, so Draco waited until he heard her footsteps going down the corridor before he faced Harry.

"Now," he whispered, and paused, because his voice was husky. He wouldn't get Harry to trust him that way. He shook his head and smiled. "Imagine the door. See every detail of it in your mind."

"That's at least easier than being told to think of nothing," Harry muttered, closing his eyes. "Nothing doesn't have a shape."

"No, it doesn't," Draco agreed, delighted beyond what he should be by such a simple comment, because it was something he would never have thought to say for himself. "Now. Imagine that the door is open wide enough--"

"Shhh, I'm still imagining the door," Harry said, and took a few deep breaths that Draco thought exaggerated, but he was hardly about to say so at the moment, when they were getting along so well.

Harry seemed to sink further and further into the imagining, his brow wrinkling, his hands clenching at his sides. Draco wondered what sort of door he saw, stone or wood or a curtain of beads or something else, but didn't ask. Instead, he began to run a thumb very gently along Harry's knee.

This technique was indeed recommended in Occlumency books, but as a means to relax someone before he began the more difficult steps in mastering the mind-shields. Until the teacher directed the student to begin imagining barriers, it increased the sensations one felt and the hyper-awareness of one's body. An open door facilitated communication and passage, not keeping someone out.

Draco leaned in, stage by stage and pausing every time Harry let out his breath with enough of a hiccough, to breathe on Harry's ear. Harry squirmed, his leg rubbing against Draco's, his knee rubbing against Draco's hand. He stopped abruptly, and Draco prepared to leap back to a safe distance. If he had to, then he would content himself with ruining Harry's concentration for the day.

Instead, Harry's breath emerged this time into a quiet moan.

Draco smiled, turning his head and brushing his cheek across Harry's. His skin and his stubble, carefully trimmed down but not away, made Harry press closer still, snuffling like a puppy. Draco kissed him on the ear where he'd blown once before, and Harry tensed, then moaned again.

The bond encircled them now, a golden ring visible from the corner of Draco's eye, buzzing and bouncing in place, and drawing them in until Draco wondered if Harry was responsible for his actions. Well, it didn't much matter. The bond couldn't have existed in the first place if they didn't both want it.

Whether the desire is expressed or unexpressed.

"What did you do to me?" Harry whispered. "I feel...drunk."

"Really?" Draco whispered back, so softly that he didn't think Harry could have heard him at all if not for the open door in his mind lending strength to his hearing. "Because when I'm drunk, I'm muffled and held away from the world. This feels like we're skin to skin, doesn't it?" And he pressed his hand down over Harry's wrist, on the cloth, in the same position as before.

"Yeah," Harry said, and then abruptly leaned forwards and squirmed his way into Draco's lap, knocking him back onto the carpet. "Please. I. Touch me."

Draco did him one better, sliding his hands down Harry's arms to cup his elbows and kissing him instead.

*

Harry knew he was kissing Malfoy. It was kind of hard not to know that he was kissing Malfoy. No one else had a tongue that eager, or hands that could slip between every fold of cloth draping Harry's body and find the skin that was waiting there. Yearning, Harry thought, although that was the kind of thing that he'd heard Lavender and Parvati say and not what he'd ever thought he would say himself.

But the bond had given him a yearning for Malfoy's touch. Harry turned his head to the side and tongued at the corner of Malfoy's mouth, and still it was barely enough.

"Let's make this a little more private, shall we?" Malfoy's voice had the tone that Harry had already learned to recognize from his bedroom last night, lazy and slow like winding river water. He aimed his wand at something, and Harry heard a click. He knew that Malfoy had probably locked the door, and that Ron or Hermione might notice and think something was wrong.

No, they won't, Harry decided, hazily, suddenly. They're not going to decide that when they both want me to go ahead with this bond anyway...

He locked his mouth on Malfoy's again and scrabbled with his fingers beneath Malfoy's clothes, so filled with pleasure at every touch that he kept pausing and shuddering, letting the fire play through him. Malfoy laughed softly and waved his wand again. Their clothing vanished.

Malfoy abruptly stopped moving. Harry opened his eyes, impatient and shaking with the bond and wondering whether he should be relieved to have the chance to change his mind.

But Malfoy was staring at him as though he was going to drop his jaw at any second, or his pants, except that they were already off. He reached out with a hand that shook, and Harry arched into his touch, asking wordless questions with snaps and nips at his face. Malfoy kept moving back out of reach, though, which made Harry wonder if at first he hadn't wanted this, which made him wonder if he should back up, too. He glanced about with one slitted eye and spotted his wand. He could reach it if he tried.

"Holy fuck," Malfoy whispered, and now he looked at Harry with lion's eyes. "You're glorious."

He drew Harry into a kiss that dropped Harry's stomach straight through the floor and beyond, and drew him down. Once again Harry was on top of him, and again Malfoy rolled so that he was on top, the one holding down, biting at Harry's shoulders and rolling his cock in one hand.

"Oh, God," Harry said, strangled. "Dr--" He swallowed Malfoy's first name. There were some concessions that he couldn't make to the bond no matter how good it felt.

Malfoy hummed and took Harry's cock in his mouth, gently, as if he knew that no one had ever done this for Harry before. Harry hadn't been together with Ginny long enough, and there hadn’t been many people since then, because he had always hoped that there would be Ginny again.

Fantasies and daydreams shattered and flew apart in the face of the reality. Harry moaned and bit his lips and the insides of his cheeks trying to control himself, and lost it when he moaned again.

"Yes," Malfoy said. "Fuck. Gorgeous." He nudged at Harry's legs with his nose, and then opened them wider with his hands. He said more words, muffled by the licks and sucks he was giving Harry in succession, but Harry didn't hear them.

Harry was too weak to stand, too weak to push Malfoy away, just like last night. But it felt so good. If a touch to bare skin filled him with fire, this was like dropping him into the middle of pure pleasure, so wonderful that it seemed to simply pass straight into the center of his being without needing his skin.

He groaned and hissed and looked at his wand and knew all the while that he could throw Malfoy off. He would, any moment. He just chose, for a minute and then another minute as Malfoy licked at him, curling his tongue and lashing it and tracing the vein, not to do so.

And then Harry realized he was going to come. Like this. With Malfoy between his legs, his feet pushing flat against the floor, his hips arching urgently, and with no more protection than a locked door.

"Watch out!" he yelped, and thought later that it was a ridiculous thing to say. But he reached down and pushed at Malfoy's head with feeble fingers, because it wasn't good to come in someone's mouth, it was bad manners, he was sure one of the multiple books Hermione had pushed at him in the last few days had something about that in it--

Malfoy laughed around him, a deep, warm mass of vibrations that hooked into his gut and pulled the orgasm out of him. Harry wailed, a horrible sound, a tearing, painful one that seemed to well out of his throat and end there, and ended up panting on the floor, his arm around his head, his voice frozen as he felt the pumping shudders of his buttocks.

Malfoy continued to hold him in his mouth, licking occasionally, until Harry squirmed in protest. Then Malfoy sat up and leaned over him, pinning Harry with his hands on his shoulders, but bringing his mouth closer and closer, giving Harry plenty of time to understand what was happening and avoid him if he wanted to.

Harry didn't understand himself. He wanted to, but more than that, he didn't want Malfoy to think he was scared. Or he wanted to, but not enough. He stared back with narrowed eyes, and then Malfoy's mouth was on his and his tongue was dipping in and a foreign taste was on Harry's tongue.

He grimaced. "I don't like that taste," he said when Malfoy pulled back. "Is that--does everyone taste like that?"

Malfoy grinned at him. "It's nice, in one way, that you assume I'm so much more experienced than you are, and insulting in another," he said, and one of his hands dipped between his legs, fondling his balls as he leaned above Harry.

Harry would have launched another insult, but just then he looked down and saw Malfoy's cock for the first time.

It wasn't that it was so strange or different from his cock that it was worth a stare. It was just that it was the only one he had ever seen in right in front of him that wasn't his. Harry reached out a helpless hand and smoothed it down Malfoy's shaft, pausing at the head because it seemed like the right thing to do.

Malfoy leaned his neck back and groaned. The sound was so shameless that Harry flushed and cleared his throat. But he didn't back away because it seemed a bit pointless, now. Malfoy opened his eyes and smiled at him.

"You saw the way I sucked you?" he asked conversationally. "That's the way you're going to do it to me."

"I didn't see much of anything!" Harry yelped, his mind going back to the taste on his tongue and how foreign it had been. "I can--I mean, I can wank you or something, but I can't suck you off! I don't want my mouth full of that taste!"

Malfoy met and held his eyes. He showed no more than faint disappointment, as if Harry had told him that he was going to have to wait a day for a promised treat, but when he shrugged, the smile that tugged at his lips was sinister. Harry watched him with wide eyes, waiting for the moment when he would say something to match the smile.

The dread moment came. "Well," Malfoy said. "I won't suck you in the future, then." His own hand gripped the base of his cock, smoothing up towards the top and slowly but inexorably forcing Harry's hand off.

A shudder rippled down Harry's spine. "I don't want you to," he said.

"Oh, that's too bad," Malfoy responded. "I thought I had done a better job." He tweaked the head, and now Harry's hand was completely off and Malfoy was arching his back, lost in pleasure.

"I--look," Harry said, and then just watched the way that Malfoy's fingers cupped and curved around his cock for a moment, while his other hand wandered towards his hole.

"What?" Malfoy gasped, and then let his eyes flutter shut in such a way that Harry doubted Malfoy could have seen him even if he wanted to. "I'm rather busy here, as you can imagine."

"I didn't mean that you did a horrible job," Harry said. "It was fine. The best blowjob I ever had." Damn it, there was no reason that he should be the one squirming over the warmth in his groin when he'd just come and he was only watching Malfoy touch himself.

"The only one you've ever had, I would imagine." Malfoy pinched something, some fold of skin hidden from Harry's eyes by the way he sat, that made him jolt as though he'd stepped on a hot coal. "That's it," he breathed to an invisible lover, and turned his head to the side so that Harry could see the length of his eyelashes and the way his chin rested on his own shoulder. The pulse in his throat fluttered to the point that Harry thought he had to be in pain.

"Yes, but," Harry said. "I would. It's just the taste." He hesitated again, watching the blood pump through Malfoy's body and hearing the hum of the bond in his ears. I'd do a lot to make that shut up. "Can I spit?"

"If I swallow, I expect my partner to do the same thing--ah!" This time, whatever he had pinched made Malfoy rise onto his knees and shake all over. Harry thought he saw Malfoy's cock swell as though he was going to come.

He couldn't stand it anymore. The bond pulled at him, and he wanted to, and he had to show Malfoy that he wasn't someone who wouldn't return the favors that people gave him. He slid down, arched his neck to the side so that there was a chance he wouldn't bump his chin against Malfoy's knee, and then took his cock in his mouth.

For a moment, he tasted Malfoy's fingers, too, rough and salty. Then Malfoy willingly slid them out of the way, and Harry's tongue curled deep around them, licking flat nails, licking jagged edges of skin, and then finding the cock itself, warm and thick and filling his mouth and not like anything else.

He sucked. Malfoy groaned. He traced the tip of Malfoy's cock with his tongue. Malfoy sighed and bowed his head, bracing himself on the floor with his palms. Harry licked twice, then sucked.

Malfoy cried out and came.

The flood of come was just as disgusting as Harry had imagined. He felt his mouth swelling with it and tried to swallow, but it was hot and thick and horrid. But then Malfoy swayed to the side, his cock brushing against Harry's cheek, and Harry realized it was swallow the come or spit Malfoy's cock out along with it.

He chose to swallow.

He grimaced and grunted about it, but all Malfoy did was fall over on his side and release a gusty breath, his body rising and jerking, his shoulders shifting as if he would dig his way into Hermione's carpet and never move again.

"Stop being so dramatic," Malfoy said, voice stretched thin with satisfied desire. "You'll get used to it."

The hum of the bond had fallen silent. Harry was once again sane. He folded his arms and stared down at Malfoy. "What makes you think this will ever happen again?" he demanded. "We'll find a way to break the bond, and it should be soon."

"We've had sex twice already in less than a day," Malfoy said, opening one eye to look at him. "Both times, I gave you the chance to say no, and both times, you decided not to. Yes, yes, virtuously insist that the bond compelled you each time we're done, if you want. I'm going to sleep."

And he did, rolling over and pressing his face into his arm, which he stretched out beneath him, as if it were a blanket. Harry spluttered and glared at him, but Malfoy didn’t wake back up for all his spluttering. He chose to begin deeply and quietly breathing, instead, now and then releasing a gusty sigh that sounded like a snore.

“You can’t have fallen asleep that fast,” Harry said in a loud voice. “I refuse to believe it.”

Malfoy didn’t move. His snoring didn’t pause. Only when Harry had been staring at him for a few minutes did he open one languid eyelid and murmur, “Did you say something? Only I was having a rather good dream, and I’d like it better if you lay down beside me so that we could share it.”

“Hermione’s going to come back any minute,” Harry hissed, trying not to think about that himself. He was going to be horribly embarrassed just by the way she rattled the doorknob, he was certain, never mind the way she looked at him with one eyebrow raised.

“Sure she is,” Malfoy said drowsily. “If you thought that she didn’t know this was going to happen, you’re stupid. And I hope you’re not. I don’t want to share my life with an idiot.”

“It’s not going to be life. You’re the idiot—”

Malfoy reached up and grabbed him around the neck, dragging him down. Harry tensed to kick, but Malfoy turned his head and breathed into his face.

And that should have been disgusting, too, considering where Malfoy’s mouth had so recently been. Even if it hadn’t been there, Harry wouldn’t have been surprised if Malfoys had naturally bad breath and had to cast Freshening Charms every morning. But instead, the warmth passing over his lips and cheeks weakened Harry’s resolve. He lay down beside Malfoy so that Hermione, who was certainly capable of breaking the locking charm on the door, didn’t walk in and see them struggling on the floor like two-year-olds.

Once he was there, Malfoy rolled closer and flung an arm over him so that it would be hard for Harry to stand back up. That was why he stayed in place for the first few seconds. By the time those had passed and Harry’s brain started coming up with escape plans, Malfoy had started “snoring” again.

And it would take a lot of effort to get free, and Harry had never particularly wanted to walk away indignantly from someone who looked to be enjoying himself. So he lay there to think what he would do about it.

His eyelids drooped. He yawned. Malfoy’s breath went in and out in the most ridiculously soothing way.

This is ridiculous, Harry reminded himself. I can’t be considering this. I have Auror training, and I do want to get married even if it isn’t to Ginny. I have a life out there that isn’t waiting for me, and that can’t tolerate my bond with Malfoy. I didn’t want this bond in the first place. Malfoy can say what he likes about having something that happened by accident for once, instead of prophecy, but at least I always knew where I was with prophecy. I never know what’s going to happen next with Malfoy.

It occurred to him, his mind shifting glacially, that there was something wrong with his thoughts. He frowned, trying to pinpoint it.

It didn’t work, because the next moment, he was asleep.

*

Draco returned home quietly pleased with himself. His first attempt at foiling Harry from breaking the bond had gone quite well. Harry had never realized, or at least hadn’t said, that Draco’s “Occlumency” made him more open to sex. And he so rarely had thoughts that he didn’t express aloud, Draco wasn’t much worried.

He had to reconsider matters when he found Weasley standing on his doorstep, though. He might have been there for hours, if he was capable of letting hours pass while he examined the carvings on the front door. When he turned around, he nodded at Draco as though Draco was only another visitor here.

“Very nice,” Weasley said. “For things paid for with blood money. What do you think you’re doing with Harry?”

Draco swallowed, and hesitated. From what Harry had said, he hadn’t thought Weasley opposed the bond. They were both pure-bloods, and they understood that sometimes magic worked in random ways and had to be put up with. Besides, though Draco considered Weasley unforgivably poor, red-haired, and arrogant because of his luck in winning the friendship of the Chosen One, he had never thought he was particularly stupid. On the other hand, he was a blood traitor.

“I intend to remain in the bond with him,” he said at last, because he still trusted in Weasley’s blood to prevail over any illusions he might have acquired from Granger and Harry. And knowing Draco’s general strategy didn’t mean he would know Draco’s tactics for individual situations.

Weasley nodded with no special expression on his face. “You know how he feels about that?”

“He doesn’t want it,” Draco said. “Is that because he’s upset about being bonded to someone, or about being bonded to a bloke, or about being bonded to me?” He felt a sharp sliver of ice enter under his breastbone as he said that, and the bond hummed in his ears, as if protectively.

Draco shook his head. He had to remember that he and Harry were the ones who protected and promoted the bond, not the other way around. The ways it could actively interfere in their lives were actually limited, no matter how annoying Harry found them.

“All three, I think.” Weasley leaned forwards and peered at him. “And you can have a bit of fun. But I saw the expression on your face when you came into the house, Malfoy. This means more than that to you, doesn’t it?”

Draco hated the feeling of being helpless in front of an enemy. He hadn’t experienced it since the last time he stared into the Dark Lord’s eyes. He lifted his shoulders in a faint shrug and didn’t look down or away, because that much dignity, he could retain. “It sounds as though I should be the one begging for protection, rather than Potter,” he said.

Weasley tapped his wand against the heel of his hand. “I just wonder what your plans are,” he said. “Do you mean to hurt Harry if he doesn’t come around to your way of thinking and decide that he wants the bond?”

Of course he would think of violence. Gryffindor. But Draco was glad that Weasley’s mind had gone there, and not to the idea that he might try to interfere in the tactics that Granger was looking up for weakening the bond. He shook his head. “I’m hoping to persuade him otherwise.”

Weasley snorted. “I can tolerate the mere existence of this sort of bond better than Harry, but you’re mental if you think that I’d want him living with you.”

“He’s the one who has to make that decision, doesn’t he?” Draco stepped neatly around Weasley and up to his front door. “And if I can persuade him to do so, then it doesn’t matter what you think.”

Weasley raised one eyebrow at him. “You ought to know that you’re not that good a fuck, especially for someone who’s never had a male lover before.”

Draco shivered. He liked hearing the words spoken aloud, and not just for the disgusted expression on Weasley’s face as he said them. He shrugged. “Give me the chance to persuade him, that’s all I’m asking for.”

“I’m going to tell him about this conversation,” Weasley warned him. “I don’t keep secrets from my friends.”

“But you’re too noble to actually threaten me, or hex me,” Draco said. “I never would have reckoned.”

“Some of us grew up,” Weasley said. “Unfortunately, that number doesn’t include Harry, and I’m not sure it includes you. If it turns out that you’re only trying to play some sort of prank on Harry by convincing him that you have deeper feelings, then I’ll be there with wand blazing.”

The calm certainty of that declaration shook Draco more than a yell would have. He shook his head. “If you don’t interfere, you’re still giving me a fair chance at persuasion.”

“One that I’m only giving you in the first place because I don’t think it’ll work,” Weasley retorted, and then turned and walked down Draco’s steps, towards the gates. Draco watched him and thought that he would strengthen the wards next time to keep him out.

Then he remembered the Ministry no longer permitted the Malfoys to have wards that strong, and grimaced.

He decided that he practically had Weasley’s blessing, as it was, or the closest thing to it, and shut the door firmly behind him. It was up to Harry if he really wanted a way out of the bond. It would be nothing new for the Gryffindor Hero to talk as if he desired one thing and then take actions that contradicted his words.

Horror after the fact is practically its own kind of permission, Draco decided cheerfully, and went upstairs to think about his next plan.

*

“How could you sleep with him? I was only gone for an hour!”

Harry winced and glanced away from Hermione. He didn’t think she was upset about him sleeping with Malfoy, from what she’d said earlier, as much as she was that he was making a mockery of her attempts to help him.

“I don’t know,” he told the snow beyond the window, which was drifting down in light flakes and melting almost as soon as it touched the ground. “It just—seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Hermione’s snort told him that she didn’t buy it, and she folded her arms. Harry wasn’t looking at her, but he could tell from that small rustling of cloth and his knowledge of her. “You have to decide, Harry. Do you want to be free or not? Constant sex strengthens the bond.”

Harry whirled around to face her. “What? No one told me that!”

“I assumed it wouldn’t apply.” Hermione dropped her arms and gave him a look of pity. Harry must have been more distressed than he’d realized. He hoped that he hadn’t looked as though he was about to cry. “Harry, are you that inexperienced with bonds and bonding magic? I thought everyone studied that during our last year at Hogwarts! It was all I heard anyone talk about—”

“In Arithmancy,” Ron supplied, stepping into the room. “And that’s only because there’s always someone who thinks they can use equations to make someone else fall in love with them. Harry didn’t take Arithmancy, and he didn’t grow up with the stories about the strange things that magic can do sometimes. Give him a chance to think about it instead of react, Hermione.”

Hermione huffed and turned towards her husband. “I thought I was,” she said. “But he slept with Malfoy again.”

Ron stared at Harry. Harry stared back, flushing, and wished he could think about anything other than how good it had felt.

“Twice in one day?” Ron asked.

“No!” Harry snapped. “The first time was last night.”

Ron shook his head slowly. “That’s still twice in one twenty-four-hour period, mate.” Then he smiled, although the smile had a self-deprecating twist to it that Harry didn’t understand. “And to think I just told Malfoy off for trying too hard to get close to you and enchant you.”

“You did what?” Harry asked, and then saw the way Hermione was staring at Ron. At least he hadn’t been left out of an important decision this time, he thought, the last one to know about it.

“I went and talked to Malfoy, because I thought I should.” Ron shrugged. “He implied that he wants this bond and that’s going to persuade you to want it, too.” He grinned. “Of course he won’t be able to do that.”

Harry stared at the wall. He thought of the way that Malfoy’s arm had draped over him as they slept together, really slept, and how it felt natural when he woke up and realized that his nose was pressed into a warm shoulder. The nightmares hadn’t bothered him when he was with Malfoy. He hadn’t woken up and immediately started worrying about the future and the next test in Auror training. It had been a holiday from the world, and it had been…nice.

“Harry?” That was Hermione, and she had one hand raised in front of his eyes as though she’d waved it there a few times. “You don’t think he’ll be able to persuade you to have sex with him all the time, will he?”

“Even if he could,” Harry said, wrenching himself back to the present, “he wouldn’t be able to make me want the bond.”

Ron nodded. “That’s what I said. This is something that happens, but also something that you get over. I don’t know anyone who’s let a bond control their lives.” He paused thoughtfully. “I think Mum was bonded when she was seventeen to someone, but I don’t know who it was. Obviously she broke it so she could marry Dad. Do you want me to ask her about it?”

“No!” Harry said frantically. He didn’t want to imagine what Molly Weasley would say about this, or, worse, the advice she might give. “Anyway, she probably still thinks that I’m marrying Ginny.”

Ron rolled his eyes. “No one but you has thought that for the past six months. Gin isn’t pining over you, you know?”

“Fine, not her,” Harry said. “But someone else. Someone I can marry, instead of just bond with.”

“I don’t know,” Hermione said, and now she looked as though she was thinking about something else. “Bonds are said to be very intense, even more intense than the passion that comes from fancying someone. I’ve sometimes wondered whether it would be preferable to experience both of them, and not just marriage—”

“Oi!” Ron said.

Hermione smiled at him. “Oh, I would never want it for myself, Ron,” she said. Harry, watching the way her eyes briefly darted to the side, wasn’t sure about that. “I’m married to you, and happy. I’m only trying to point out to Harry that he doesn’t have to choose between them, bond or marriage. This experience could be something to treasure when he’s done with it.”

Harry and Ron traded a familiar look. Hermione was smart, but she was also mental at times. It went with all that reading of books.

“Just—don’t give up on it too soon, Harry,” Hermione finished, with another look at Ron as though to make sure that he wasn’t angry at her still. “I think it’s much richer as an experience than you like to think it is.”

Harry snorted, but didn’t respond. Yes, Malfoy had been warm when Harry curled up beside him, and had sucked his cock like an expert, and had made him feel good and unstrung without laughing at him—

But was that really enough? Couldn’t someone else do the same thing? Perhaps he should try dating blokes instead of women, but he didn’t want to be stuck with Malfoy for the rest of his life.

Then resist the notion to have sex with him, he thought, and stiffened his spine. He needed to go to Auror training, anyway. Since he had gone to hospital, he had been excused for a few days, but he knew he would fall behind if he let it wait too long.

And his resolve held firm until that night, when he woke from a sound sleep with the bond buzzing along his skin and tugging on his waist, and an owl waiting patiently on the windowsill with a note from Malfoy saying that he thought he might know another solution for getting rid of the bond.

Part Three.