Chapter Thirty-Four of 'I Give You a Wondrous Mirror'- Life-Debts and Marriage Vows

[lomonaaeren]

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Thirty-Four—Life-Debts and Marriage Vows

Harry waited a long moment before he tried to get his hands beneath him and rise to his feet. That was partially to give himself time to stop trembling, but also to give Draco time to move away from him.

Draco stayed right where he was. Harry let out a quiet breath, then leaned on his lover’s shoulder as he stood. Draco supported him without comment, which let Harry turn and face Hermione.

“I need to know something,” he said. He winced at the hoarseness of his own voice. Had he been screaming? He couldn’t remember doing so—only the intense pain as the tunnel had done its very best to rip him apart, and Harry had fought to stay both whole and by Draco’s side. “You said that the couple you studied who had ten mutual life-debts still had to yield to the marriage vows in the end. The woman stayed with her husband.”

“Yes.” Hermione’s face was pale and cautious. Harry couldn’t blame her. She had just seen what it might cost Harry to remain married to Ginny. It was a more graphic demonstration than Harry had wanted to give her. The tunnels and the other consequences of the life-debts had more often happened to him when he was alone before, or at least when he was alone with Draco.

“We have ten life-debts now,” Harry said. He pressed Draco’s arm, to let him know that he was including Draco as part of the discussion. “What happens if we accumulate more than that? How many more do we have to have for the life-debts to become stronger than the marriage vows? And what happens in a case like that?”

“I don’t know,” Hermione breathed. She had raised one hand to her mouth now. Harry wondered if she was trying to keep from vomiting or crying. “There’s no case like that on record. Most wizards and witches who have anywhere near that many have already given themselves to each other. The—the vows and the life-debts in combination are rare.”

Harry shut his eyes and nodded. He had suspected that he was swimming around in the waters of the unknown again. Since the day Voldemort had marked him with that curse scar, magic had never acted normally around him.

“But I know one thing,” Hermione said.

Harry opened his eyes to look at her. Her voice was stronger now, and he suspected she was hoping that the gift of knowledge, the only one she could offer, would be enough to soothe his pain and panic.

“The life-debts and the marriage vows alike are some of the most powerful magic known to the world,” Hermione said. “They both must be true, if they ever reach equal strength. You must stay married to Ginny, but you also have to be able to give yourself to Malfoy if you choose to fulfill the debts that way.” She very carefully didn’t look at Draco. “That’s the way these laws of magic work. They both must happen.”

“But they can’t both happen,” Harry whispered.

“I’m telling you they have to.” Hermione stood a little straighter, and looked him directly in the eye. “I’ll research further, and learn what I can, and how these both being true might affect you. But they’re true, Harry. They are.” Her face softened then. “And I’ll keep looking for Andromeda and Teddy, and researching the Masked Lady. I have the time and the resources to do that. Why don’t you go home—I mean, back to the Manor? You look terrible.”

She walked away then. Harry shut his eyes and let Draco’s arm around his shoulders guide him away.

He knew what he had to do. Really, it was obvious, wasn’t it? He had his children and Draco to think about. And even though he had tried to put Ginny out of his mind and his life, it didn’t seem as though he would be allowed to. And he really should put these emotional problems behind him as soon as possible, so that he could concentrate on finding Teddy and Andromeda and fighting the war. The war wouldn’t wait for him to flop around and figure things out.

Harry only hoped that Draco would be amenable to his solution.

*

Draco kept a wary eye on Harry as they arrived back inside the Manor’s wards. Harry had fallen far too silent towards the end, just after Granger had told them they should go home. He was chewing his bottom lip, and his eyes had gone far away. He greeted Narcissa and told her his part in the battle coherently enough; he went in to reassure his children, who had awakened and begun crying when they found him gone. But still there was that shadow, that reserve, that growing certainty in his eyes that Draco thought would probably make him want to strangle the other man. When had Harry ever done something productive while he looked like that?

When Harry turned to go back to bed, Draco caught his shoulder. Harry turned and looked at him soberly.

Tutela promptly swooped onto his shoulder, nibbling at his ear, but Harry didn’t react to the owl. If the scar on his side was tingling, then he didn’t seem to feel that, either. He stared into Draco’s face for a moment and then nodded. “I’m tired, but I do think we should talk,” he said, and let Draco guide him to his bedroom.

Once there, Tutela took to her perch. Harry sat on the bed and motioned for Draco to sit on the chair. Draco curled his lip, not liking the distance between them, wondering if it had to do with whatever Harry was planning.
“Hermione said that both the life-debts and the marriage vows had to be true,” Harry began, in a voice of controlled intensity. “That makes me wonder if there’s a way to let them both become true and not harm us.”

Draco narrowed his eyes. “Go on.”

“I can’t break the marriage vows with Ginny,” Harry said. “On the other hand, I have absolutely no desire to go back to her. It’s just something that has to exist, like the loss of a limb, and which I have to live with.

“But the life-debts.” He shifted a little. “They’re the unknown factor. They could tear me apart. And they started becoming competition for the marriage vows only recently—“

“You can’t say that,” Draco murmured, raising his eyebrows. “They were showing us the images in mirrors for years. And you had the dreams. You said they were like memories. Why else would they have to be, except to provide decent competition for the vows? We didn’t understand them, but there they were.”

“Maybe,” Harry said, but he didn’t look fully convinced. “There’s another way that we can neutralize the life-debts than by giving ourselves to each other, though. We can fulfill them. You can ask favors or promises of me to fulfill the—is it two now? I think so—debts I owe you, and I can think of something I want that’s not simply you.” He shook his head, as if to say that he would labor to come up with requests he could make of Draco, but he knew it would be hard.

“I see.” Draco hardened his voice. He didn’t quite believe what he said next, but he didn’t understand Harry, either, and he thought it was better to force the issue than to leave it lingering in uncertainty. “So you want to leave me.”

Harry lunged across the distance between them, putting his hand on Draco’s cheek. Almost immediately he grimaced and drew back again, and Draco could feel the resulting itch of his own marriage vows, which said that he couldn’t bring a lover who wasn’t his wife under the Manor’s roof. But the violent, uncontrolled movement had helped reassure Draco, as did Harry’s next words.

“Never,” Harry said, his voice cool and deep, his eyes fixed on Draco’s with a brightness that belied the weariness Draco knew he felt. “I chose you, and I’ll never go back on that. What you said about considering my children’s feelings but not letting them dictate the course of my life made sense to me. I would become a lesser father to them if I were like that. And I want to be your lover, even if we can only do it in dreams.”

Draco relaxed and looped his arms behind his neck. “Then I don’t understand what you’re saying. Exactly.”

“We’ll still be each other’s,” Harry said. “We just can’t give ourselves to each other the way that you were saying has been done to fulfill life-debts in the past. That’s all. That’s the only thing that would change.”

“You don’t want to?”

“I want to. But not when it might kill me.” Harry spread his hands. “Do you know what I felt when the marriage vows and the life-debts were tugging on me at the same time, Draco? As if I was literally splitting apart. I could feel it in my bones. They were coming out of the sockets.” He grimaced. “I felt that once when I faced curses from one of the pure-blood supremacist groups the Blood Reparations Department disbanded. It’s—not pleasant. But that convinced me this is real. I won’t die if I can help it. I have more to live for than ever now.”

“And I can think of nothing that I want so much as you,” Draco said softly. “Everything else you could do for me pales to nothing before that.”

“I know,” said Harry. “I’m willing to neutralize the life-debts that way. I just don’t think it can happen.”

Draco shut his eyes and tried to think rationally, past thoughts of possessiveness that insisted he had to pounce on Harry and prove his claim, now, any way he could. Granger’s words returned to him. Both the life-debts and the marriage vows had to come true, had to exist, and apparently in the ways that they were stated to exist in the literature.

“You won’t die,” he said, his eyes flying open. “The magic needs you alive to fulfill both your obligations—“

“Don’t class yourself with Ginny.”

Smiling, Draco reached out, caught Harry’s palm, and kissed it, a gentle gesture with almost no desire behind it. “But that means it can’t kill you,” he reasoned. “It can hurt you, but it can’t kill you.”

“Then it might do something worse,” Harry said flatly. “We don’t know, Draco, because this has never happened before. And I’d rather not take the chance that I could be separated from you and the children and my friends and Teddy and everyone else I love.”

He shuddered a little, as though the mention of his godson’s name had reminded him what it was possible Teddy Lupin faced. Draco felt a trickle of remorse. They really had sat up too late talking, and on a night when Harry had suffered a devastating loss and Draco had suffered—a loss he still wasn’t sure had affected him.

“Come to bed,” he whispered.

Harry raised an eyebrow and gestured at the bed beneath him.

Draco squashed his irritation at his lover’s literalness, and said, “Go to sleep. I’ll join you there.”

Harry blinked a little. Since their initial meeting in dreams, they hadn’t tried to make love, and the dreams had responded by filling their minds with more images. “Do you think the debts will let us?” he asked.

“The magic wants us to give ourselves to each other.” Draco slid his hand down Harry’s arm, suddenly starving for the sensations of making love to him. “It’ll help.”

Though Harry didn’t look convinced, he let Draco cast a sleeping charm on him and then arrange his head on the pillow. Draco ran a finger around his chin, then lay down a safe distance away, so his aroused body wouldn’t touch Harry’s here in the real world and activate the marriage vows into pulling them back before it was time.

Then he cast a sleeping charm on himself, concentrated intensely on Harry’s feel and scent and taste, and closed his eyes.

*

Harry opened his eyes in the same featureless room he and Draco had visited before, and spent some moments staring around before he felt his lover’s presence behind him. He turned and reached out eagerly for Draco again. The mere sliding of palms over shoulders, though they had not imagined away the cloth separating them, made him sigh gustily in relief and drop his head so he could kiss Draco’s collarbone.

There was no way that he could give this up, and not simply because of the pleasure he’d experienced when he and Draco came together the last time. He had never had a sense that he was so completely giving and taking at once. He was responsible for someone else’s happiness, but at the same time that other person cared for his own.

If it had ever been like this with Ginny, the time was long past.

Draco tilted his face back up and kissed him until Harry’s head was swimming and his vision blurred and his hips twitched impatiently. Then he drew away and whispered into Harry’s ear, “Will you let me make love to you this time?”

Harry gulped back a moan of eagerness—that would just have embarrassed him—and nodded. He knew the suggestion should probably alarm him more than it did, but. Well. He knew the feeling of Draco’s body sliding against and around and above him, and the feeling of Draco’s cock inside him, from the numerous dreams he’d had over the past ten years. Some of that was probably imagination instead of reality, but now was his chance to find how much might be real.

“Good,” Draco said, and lowered him to the ground. Where Harry had simply asked the floor to turn soft so they could have something to lie on, though, Draco conjured a whole four-poster bed, complete with green curtains and silver pillows in the shape of snakes. Harry laughed, and then let that embarrassing moan out after all as Draco began to unbutton his robes, kissing each patch of skin as it was revealed.

“You thought something was funny?” Draco perched himself above Harry when his robe was open enough to reveal his torso, a faint half-smile on his face.

Harry looked up at him, caught between shaking his head and sticking his tongue out. A clump of Draco’s hair stuck out to the side, mussed and smashed thanks to contact with the bed and Harry. There was tenderness in his eyes that someone like Hermione would never believe Draco Malfoy could exhibit.

Painful happiness roared through Harry. No, he could not give this up.

“Only how long you’re taking before you make love to me,” he whispered.

Draco uttered a satisfied noise and lowered his head again. This time he parted the robes to Harry’s waist and then licked his navel. Harry arched up. It seemed ridiculous that he couldn’t have been aware of how hard he was before now, but he really hadn’t been. Now that things had changed, he wanted Draco to go further down, to banish his clothes and suck his cock, or at least nuzzle his erection through the cloth and breathe warmly upon it.

“Problems, lover?”

And Draco was grinning up at him, his cheek against Harry’s groin, the clump of hair now stretching away above it. Harry had to swallow twice before he could call up enough moisture into his dry mouth to speak.

“Move, damn you.”

“Me?” Draco’s eyes widened innocently.

“You can feel exactly what you’re doing to me,” Harry said roughly. “I want—“ And he shivered as the sense memory of one of the dreams came to life, bubbling over and covering him like hot water. “I want you to be as rough as you can without hurting me. I want to feel what it’s like.”

*

Draco rose when Harry had finished speaking and tore apart the cloth that still concealed his erection and legs. His heart was beating fast, erratically. He was glad for that, because if he had the voice to, he thought he’d be making low, whuffling sounds of excitement. Marian had thought they were amusing the first time she’d heard them. Merlin knew what Harry would think.

Draco had to have him.

Harry opened his legs to help, and then concentrated on Draco, so that his own clothing vanished. Draco didn’t mind this, since his hands would have shaken quite badly if he were required to strip now. He did bend down and kiss Harry thoroughly, though, since they hadn’t done that long enough and he wanted his partner as dazed and incoherent with desire as he felt right now.

When he pulled back, Harry’s eyes were crazed. He arched his back as if bringing his cock closer to Draco would solve the problem. Draco lifted a finger and slowly dragged it down the length of Harry’s erection, and then further down, so that he could fondle the skin behind Harry’s balls.

Harry whined, and rolled over on his stomach, offering his bare arse to Draco.

Draco tilted his head. He could feel his excitement building, but he wanted to be sure that Harry wouldn’t actually regret this once Draco got inside him and started moving. “You don’t want to do this face-to-face?”

“Did it that way last time,” Harry cried—or it might have been a cry, if there were any voice behind the words. He dropped his head into his arms and lifted his hips; a pillow appeared beneath them immediately, courtesy of the magic of the dream-world. “I want it this way. I want to see what it’s like.”

“It’s rather different when you’re the one on the bottom,” Draco muttered, but he accepted the arrangements. If this was what Harry wanted, Draco was more than happy to give it to him.

Hell, he was more than happy to give Harry anything he wanted.

That emotion would have alarmed him, except that he knew Harry would give Draco anything he wanted in return. When they were both this interested and this invested in each other, the emotions surged back and forth, the willingness to help feeding on itself, forming an endless circle that Draco didn’t think would become less important or loving as the years went on.

There were difficulties, to be sure—difficulties that had the names Ginny Weasley and marriage vows—but for this moment, they didn’t exist.

Draco imagined the kind of lubrication he wanted, a soft, sweet-smelling oil that would make the experience better for Harry and which he’d used with his own first male lover, and then gripped Harry’s arse-cheeks and began to part them.

*

Harry was gasping and shivering, but inside, he was calm.

Well. Mostly calm, anyway.

Draco had done this before. He didn’t want to hurt Harry. He wanted to do what he could to help, and he was doing it now, easing one finger inside Harry and then stroking his back, as if he were soothing a frightened horse. Harry did his best to relax around the finger.

He hadn’t thought it would feel so large.

On the other hand, he’d done this to Draco, and Draco had been fine afterwards, hadn’t he? Of course he wouldn’t carry any pain into the physical world, since this was a dream, but he surely would have whinged if he’d felt it. And Harry was confident that his tolerance for pain was greater than Draco’s.

Thinking of the expression his lover probably wore instead of the finger, Harry persuaded his muscles to relax one by one. The finger slid deeper, and Draco grumbled and twisted it. Looking for the prostate, Harry thought, which his dreams had certainly told him about even if he had never—

And then, there it was.

The dreams could inform Harry about it all they liked, but it was nothing compared to feeling it touched, the sensation like fireworks going off in his abdomen. Harry cried out, his fingers scrabbling into the sheets and his hips moving in some humping movement that he hoped Draco would forget later, instead of teasing him into red-faced humiliation about.

Draco’s hair brushed against his ear as he bent down and whispered, “Sensitive there, Potter?” His breath did some brushing of its own, along Harry’s neck and earlobes, and his shivers increased.

“Lack of confidence getting to you, Malfoy?” he snapped back. “Or maybe it’s just that you’ve never had a fuck like me before.”

Draco laughed and kissed his shoulder blade. “That’s true, at least,” he said.

Harry glared into the circle of his arms, thinking it wasn’t fair that Draco could steal the whole force behind his retort with a few simple words.

And then two fingers were inside him, and he realized he had slightly more to worry about than whether Draco got the upper hand in their contest of words or not. Harry took to deep, quiet breathing, and wished that Draco would touch his prostate again soon.

Draco either could read minds, or simply remembered, from the dreams and his own experiences, what someone in this position would like. He curved and hooked his fingers again, and Harry dropped straight back into a sea of excitement so volatile that he felt as if he would shatter before Draco entered him.

*

Harry, demanding bloke that he was, had started insisting that Draco slide into him long before either of them was ready, but finally Draco’s fingers and the pleading note in Harry’s voice did their work. Draco carefully slicked himself up, and then laid the lubrication to the side, where it spilled in a glittering circle of liquid on the blankets because he’d been too excited to cap it. He made a note to himself to banish the bed before Harry could see and comment on it. He already had too much to tease Draco about.

Then he slid in, carefully.

He’d done this enough times, God knew, and he’d done it to Harry in dreams more often than he could conveniently remember right now. There was no reason for the sensation to wrack him from the feet up and bring tears to his eyes.

He bent down and kissed the curve of Harry’s spine, to give himself time to focus and restrain the desperation that would have driven him to thrust straight ahead with no concern for Harry’s comfort whatsoever. His hands roamed up over Harry’s shoulders and down his sides, slipping in sweat, wringing whimpers from his own throat. And then he drew back, carefully aimed, and thrust ahead.

Harry cried out, a ringing shout that restored Draco’s grin. Score one for a Malfoy’s skill and dexterity.

Somehow he lost the moment between his smugness and when he next became aware of his movements, his body strong and surging like a runaway horse’s, his thrusts rough and uncontrolled. And Harry made encouraging sounds under him, now and then flexing his spine and lifting his head as if he thought he could look back and somehow control Draco’s movements.

Of course, from the dreams, Draco did know that Harry liked it rough when he was in the mood for it. They just hadn’t had much time to test whether what the dreams said was the truth.

Shall we?

Draco braced his hands on the bed and shoved hard enough that he winced a moment later. But Harry groaned in satisfaction, and then muttered, “If you—hadn’t done it—would have—picked myself up and—fucked myself on you in a—minute.”

Draco growled and hurled himself forwards, pushing as hard as he could, pulling back for the minimum amount of time necessary, intent on either getting more words like that out of Harry or rendering him breathless enough that he couldn’t make noises so complicated.

*

Harry now knew something he had suspected was true for ten years, but which he had been able to ignore as long as it seemed the dreams were in no danger of coming true.

He loved being fucked.

He loved fucking, too, but that was one set of sensations and this was another. This made him squirm in raw need and enjoyable helplessness, not needing to hold himself back and care about his partner’s pleasure before his own. Draco was certainly getting quite a bit of it, if the frenetic kisses and random scratches that covered Harry’s spine were any indication.

Harry was free to be a little selfish.

He reached down and pulled on his own cock, timing his strokes to the strokes Draco made in his arse. He imagined for a moment what they probably looked like from the outside, or what Draco would have seen when Harry was trying to ride his fingers and demanding he move faster than he was ready for—

The orgasm stung him when it came, the explosion of pleasure like a bite. Harry’s fingers spasmed open, unable to keep their grip, even though he normally would have liked to hold on and wank as he came, to make it last longer. But he couldn’t. His body was motionless around the sheer bliss of the feeling, and then he collapsed and was unable to move, a muffling layer of soft exhaustion protecting him even from the continued thrusts behind him.

Draco came just a few moments after Harry had collapsed, and collapsed across his back. Harry wondered if he should ask him to move off before they fell asleep.

And then Draco turned his head, letting his cheek scrape along Harry’s back, teasing him with the hint of stubble that clung there.

Harry shut his eyes. No. They could stay here. They deserved every bit of enjoyment they could get.

It wasn’t perfect yet. It still wasn’t real, for one thing. But it was theirs, it was shared and entirely mutual enjoyment with the man Harry hadn’t thought he’d ever call partner, and it had lit, once again, the flame of his determination that nothing could stop this.

No matter what obstacles they had to go through on the road to getting rid of the marriage vows and outwitting the life-debt magic, they were worth it, for this: the warmth and the closeness, the heavy laxity of Harry’s muscles and the soft whistle of Draco’s breath.

Chapter 35.

Comments

[dysonrules.livejournal.com]

Harry only hoped that Draco would be amenable to his solution. LOL! Harry, will you never learn? At least it wasn't something ludicrously noble this time.

<...but that was one set of sensations and this was another. Hell yes, lucky bastards!

Wow, steamy goodness! They should just stay in dreamland. Hmmm, guess that would cut the fic short. Up, boys! Get a move on!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

That was exactly why Harry thought Draco might agree. See, he can learn!

They'll get moving in the next chapter, I promise.

[sofiaottoman.livejournal.com]

This was a really interesting chapter, which I enjoyed reading. I hope that Harry and Draco don't just get stuck with dream sex, though if that does happen it will be interesting to see how the marriage vows are circumvented. I must confess I also like this chapter because Hermione seems to finally be realising that Harry is serious about his relationship with Draco, and that possibly him marrying Ginny was a mistake (or at least the vows they used).

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I do have a permanent solution in mind, but it doesn't appear much before the end of the fic.

Hermione is torn. She knows that she doesn't like the person Ginny's become and what's happening to Harry as a result. On the other hand, she doesn't see what's so hard about staying married to the person you married in the first place.

[vwalk.livejournal.com]

Wow! Another tremendous chapter.
"Harry now knew something he had suspected was true for ten years, but which he had been able to ignore as long as it seemed the dreams were in no danger of coming true.
He loved being fucked.
He loved fucking, too, but that was one set of sensations and this was another. This made him squirm in raw need and enjoyable helplessness, not needing to hold himself back and care about his partner’s pleasure before his own. Draco was certainly getting quite a bit of it, if the frenetic kisses and random scratches that covered Harry’s spine were any indication." *struck speechless*.
This was just..... *mouth opening and closing soundlessly* ...
Brilliant!!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much!

[vwalk.livejournal.com]

Now that I've somewhat recovered from the fantastic sex (Harry and Draco's, not mine unfortunately :]. I'd love to know what's going through Hermione's mind right now. Obviously her perspective is changing, but I'm wondering how the first hand view affected her. I like the way her voice got stronger as she moved back into her known area of strength, "the gift of knowledge, the only one she could offer, would be enough to soothe his pain and panic."
I absolutely loved the ending; "It wasn’t perfect yet. It still wasn’t real, for one thing. But it was theirs, it was shared and entirely mutual enjoyment with the man Harry hadn’t thought he’d ever call partner, and it had lit, once again, the flame of his determination that nothing could stop this.
No matter what obstacles they had to go through on the road to getting rid of the marriage vows and outwitting the life-debt magic, they were worth it, for this: the warmth and the closeness, the heavy laxity of Harry’s muscles and the soft whistle of Draco’s breath."
I'm really glad to see Harry's determination.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Her perspective is shifting. She doesn't yet understand the strength of the bond between Harry and Draco, though. She still wonders how Harry could have fallen in love with an old enemy over the space of a few weeks, a month at most.

Harry will not let himself be put off, now. He's finally decided to fight both for what he wants and what he thinks other people should have.

[neji-chan.livejournal.com]

::dies:: I love you, I really do.

First of all, is interesting that both the vows and the life debts have to happen... I have the feeling there are clues about how that could be possible but don't know where :P

Harry only hoped that Draco would be amenable to his solution. When I read that I thought Harry was gonna ask Draco for Ginny to live in the manor. I was already imagining Draco's reaction ::lol::

OMG, the smut! Sweet rough sex! I didn't think that was even possible, but you pulled it off! I I had to mention which part I loved the most, I'll end up copying the entire scene. So the top three were: how it wasn't perfect yet, rough!sex, and the reason why Harry liked to bottom... and the banter in the middle... and demanding!Harry... ok, I'll stop (it's now or never).

Can't wait for more!! I want to know about Teddy and the masked lady. I could read Keep it simple, stupid, but I want to wait till it's finished (prepare to see me fail)

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

The clues are everywhere! There was a big one in this chapter, though, just with the statement that both the debts and the vows have to happen.

Harry would never ask for something like that. He only asks for things that he thinks he has a chance of getting. :)

I did enjoy that sex scene, especially because it was a chance to show that Harry's perceptions of himself as selfish really have changed.

[neji-chan.livejournal.com]

I guess when it's over and the answer is revealed I'll tell myself how stupid I was not to see it coming :P

I love your sex scenes, not only because they're hot, but they are a way for character development in them. Not many can (or do) that.

[shrila.livejournal.com]

Oh. My. God. *incoherent rambling* You do bottom!Harry so well!

But on another note, in this chapetr I think we can really tell how much both Harry and Draco have come to rely on and balance each other out so perfectly. The moment when Harry reached out to comfort Draco and ease his fears was so beautiful I gasped.

Can't wait for the next installment!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I have to admit that I slightly prefer Harry as bottom, though I'm not sure.

Oh, and I'm so glad you liked that moment. That meant so much in my head, but it was hard to transfer to the screen.

[anathema91.livejournal.com]

Ooh, how very clever of you...
you're keeping us hanging about Teddy and Andromeda by distracting us with hot smex.

I approve. XD

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Hey, it worked, didn't it? :p

[firedraygon97.livejournal.com]

...But what about Teddy?!

Haha, fantastic chapter. I really love how Harry just lets go and takes the moment as it comes. Draco scrambling to sex Harry up is so fun to see. Please do write more soon!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

His fate will have to be revealed by slow detective work.

And thank you! Harry's relaxed a lot, to be able to just ask for what he wants now.

[thrnbrooke.livejournal.com]

I sooo need more!!! There has to be some way to get out of that marriage vow!!!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

There is, but it won't show up for a while yet.

[ravenqueen55.livejournal.com]

Great chapter! Fantastic sex...really, truly what Harry needed ~ to be taken care of, without being treated as fragile. Rough and loved at the same time.

This life debt/marriage vows business is entirely intriguing! I'm trying not to think too much about it, b/c I don't want to figure it out before you tell us!

Loved it, as usual.

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I hadn't put what Harry needed in just those terms, but yes, I think you're right.

I hope I've left enough clues for someone to figure it out if they really want to, but at this point I'm not sure.

[mugal.livejournal.com]

"It wasn’t perfect yet. It still wasn’t real, for one thing. But it was theirs, it was shared and entirely mutual enjoyment with the man Harry hadn’t thought he’d ever call partner, and it had lit, once again, the flame of his determination that nothing could stop this."

It's so good to see Harry being selfish for once!

And now I'll have this stupid grin for a week at least. :D
Thank you!!!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

He's learned how to be selfish while being selfless at the same time, and I think that's a real achievement.

And you're welcome!

[elephantqueen25.livejournal.com]

*happy sigh*
I loved this chapter. I've sighed so many times in the past ten minutes that I've been getting a few funny looks from family members... ;)
But I can't help but feel like there's a whole lot of angst on it's way :(

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

There's a ton of angst on the way.

Er, sorry.

[lisbet.livejournal.com]

This was WONDERFUL! So hot and sexy and sweet and breathtaking, all at the same time. How did I manage to miss it the other day? *shakes head* OK, now I'm off the read ch. 35. Yay!

[lomonaaeren.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

I really liked writing this sex scene, maybe because it was the second one and so I was a little less nervous about messing it up. And because it was a chance to show how much Harry had changed.