lomonaaeren | Epilogue of "Forgive Those Who Trespass"- Gray Light

Thank you for all the reviews!

This is the last chapter of Forgive Those Who Trespass. A few people have asked about sequels, but I don’t think this is a story that’s suited to them. Thanks again for reading along!

Epilogue—Gray Light

Draco woke screaming and thrashing at night, his lips dropping broken mumbles of words, his hands scrabbling frantically for reassurance that wasn’t there. And then Harry rolled over and embraced him, and the reassurance was there.

Harry kissed him and whispered to him, and Draco would calm down. Sometimes he would make a short acknowledgment of what the nightmare had been about. Thanks to their shared experiences in the maze, he never needed more than a word or two to make Harry realize what he’d been dreaming about. Then he would turn and bury his head in his arms.

Sometimes, depending on what he seemed to need, Harry let him. Sometimes he dragged Draco’s head back around and kissed him full on the mouth, tipping his neck back, creating enough heat between them to keep Draco grounded.

Draco would cry out and touch him softly, reverently, unsurely, as if he had momentarily forgotten that he had fingers. Harry touched him back in the same way, running his fingertips into the shadows under the coiled muscles of Draco’s torso and counting all his ribs.

They slept wrapped together like vipers, but Harry always woke earlier and watched Draco breathing noiselessly, a great murky peace rippling through him like the motion of light in water, like light on thunderheads.

*

Their flat in Morgana’s Yard was their place, decorated with no one’s insight or furnishings but their own. Narcissa had tried to convince Draco to decorate it like the Manor; Hermione sent tasteful arrangement after arrangement by owl post and through the Floo. Harry and Draco adopted none of them.

The entrance hall was broad and open, so full of enchanted windows that no shadows were cast there no matter how late in the day it was. Draco didn’t like shadows; he tensed up around them and hunched his shoulders. Harry hated to see him hunching his shoulders. He would rub them flat again and create one more diamond-shaped, tiny pane in the windows, to fracture the light into yet more beautiful patterns, until Draco’s face became radiant like the light and he laughed.

The flat had three large rooms that had probably been bedrooms or studies for the flat’s previous inhabitants; Harry and Draco made them into drawing rooms, one private one for each of them, and one where they could be together. Draco’s was deep green, deep blue, with moving paintings of tropical birds on the walls. Harry knew he’d never quite healed from the year spent amid the bleakness of gray stone. The long sojourn in St. Mungo’s and its soothing blue banality probably hadn’t helped, either. He needed life around him, and life was what he had.

Harry’s drawing room was decorated exactly like the Gryffindor common room. Hardly original, but he needed comfort when he’d had a fight with Draco, or another sharp reminder of how much his body couldn’t do now, or just a bad day. He’d prop his feet up on a couch and chat with Ron and Hermione through the fireplace, or do the exercises that Odd Robert had sternly assigned to him. He liked flowing from one motion to another. It exercised his body, and soothed his thoughts, and prevented him from having to reflect on anything in depth.

The drawing room they shared together was brown, with softer tones of the same color striping the furniture. Warm brown with a hint of gold, like honey, made up the rugs. The enchanted window gazed out on a brown savannah landscape, flecked here and there with green and blue, grass and water, but only the faintest touch for each. This was the room where they came to work together on the writing exercises that St. Mungo’s Mind-Healers assigned them—Harry thought in faint amusement that it was like doing lines again—and to talk about memories, or to read together, or just to sit side by side in peace and silence after a meal.

The kitchen was filled with brown, too, but so many windows glowed here, as in the entrance hall, that it looked gold. The sun always shone on the broad table that they didn’t really need but which they kept for the pleasure of shifting from place to place about it as they fancied, and Harry inhaled each time he stepped into the room. It was filled with quiet light. He liked that.

Their bedroom and the loo were at the back of the flat, behind their shared drawing room. The bedroom was the only room in the flat with a natural window; Harry and Draco had argued about that, but in the end they agreed they could stand to look at Wales weather once in a while. The view wasn’t spectacular—just a flat field butted up against some stony outcrops of hills—but it was adequate.

Harry was learning to live with adequate.

The bed itself was big, lavish, and imprinted with a spell that let it change colors to match the moods of the people lying in it. When Draco was alone, it often looked like gray velvet or black satin. It took Harry a while to stop panicking and accept that as just a natural part of the life they lived now. When they were in it together, red or gold shone out of the curtains most often, and Draco would arch his back and tease Harry with constant jokes about the randy exploits Gryffindors must have got up to at Hogwarts, encouraged by their own bed curtains.

Harry would lean down and kiss him, muffling any reply. It still hurt, sometimes, to think about Hogwarts.

The entire flat was decorated in wood—wood on the walls, wood on the floors beneath the rugs and carpets, wood on the ceilings. Harry had had enough of stone.

*

There came a day when they went shopping in Diagon Alley, and Draco didn’t shrink against Harry and flinch from the crowds about them, and Harry didn’t snarl and bristle and see danger in every shadow. He put his arm around Draco’s shoulders for the pleasure of comforting him, not in desperate reassurance, and they walked on.

And no one insulted Draco, either. Though Draco stated when they got back to Morgana’s Yard that that had more to do with Harry’s drawn wand than anything else, and Harry was forced to agree.

*

Draco did write to his friends, and they wrote back. Harry knew that for certain the day he came back from an interview with the retiring coach of the Chudley Cannons and found Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini drinking tea in Draco’s drawing room.

They both stood when they saw Harry, but calmly, not as if they expected the Man-Who-Had-Defeated-Voldemort to whip out his wand and eviscerate them. In fact, their eyes studied him with more open curiosity than Harry had ever expected to see from two Slytherins. He supposed Draco had been telling them tales.

Harry nodded and smiled at them and walked past, heading for his own room. The temptation to stay nearby and listen in on their conversation wasn’t even there.

Well, it wasn’t large, anyway.

Besides, Draco had cleverly foiled the impulse by choosing the drawing room that opened directly from the entrance hall into their shared one, with no doors, and therefore Harry had no way to eavesdrop. But that had nothing to do with his decision. What did was his newfound maturity.

*

Ron and Hermione were married at the end of the next summer. Harry stood happily at their sides, and danced happily with the bride afterwards; the first song chosen wasn’t one that would be dangerous for him to move to.

Then someone pulled Hermione aside, and Harry blinked as Draco stepped into her place, his eyes brilliant and dangerous, like sheet lightning. He leaned over and pressed his lips against Harry’s ear, and murmured words Harry could barely hear, but which staked his claim.

Harry shivered, and let himself be swept away. Most of the time, he still enjoyed playing the protective role—particularly when Draco was too overwhelmed by a memory of the maze to do anything but cling—but sometimes it was nice to be watched over, and touched like this, and seduced with just a glance.

*

Strong arms clasped his body, and a voice murmured frantic condolences and reassurances into his ear. Harry clung to them, not having a reason to doubt or mistrust that voice, and the arms swept him through a bumpy Floo ride, and then the voice rose and shouted imperiously for Odd Robert. Harry stirred fretfully. He preferred that voice when it was quiet and whispering words for him alone.

Draco got Harry to Odd Robert in time. Odd Robert was able to save Harry’s life when his body locked down after he’d cast spell after spell in a fit of pique and self-loathing at not being able to fly. The Mind-Healer was disappointed, and his lecture before he left Harry to see to his next patient—a woman who had spent a month trapped as a housefly in a botched Transfiguration—made Harry squirm and feel small.

When Draco found out Harry had endangered himself, and pushed his body recklessly past the first warning signs, he made Odd Robert’s scolding look like a love-tap. He screamed in absolute rage. He kicked the bed. He used the secrets Harry had entrusted to him against him, and cut Harry to small and wriggling shreds, until Harry was crying, panicked, hurt, fearful that Draco might leave him.

And then Draco sighed, and wrapped his arms around Harry, and murmured more reassurances. He couldn’t leave, he told Harry. If he could have, he might have walked out long ago. Might. He didn’t think that he knew how to get along without Harry anymore, and no one could ever take Harry’s place for him if he walked away.

Harry clung back, letting his hands travel over Draco’s shoulders, and eventually fell asleep, murmuring promises that he didn’t remember on waking.

*

Draco wanted it.

That was the main reason Harry had agreed to go through with this, even though his hands shook as he pulled off his clothes.

Draco wanted it.

He’d hinted and teased and touched until Harry was in a haze of desire last night, and then he’d whispered his request, and Harry had moaned, tortured and full of tenderness that Draco would ask like this, when he was defenseless and would agree to anything so long as Draco would make him come. Draco was still a Slytherin. But that he could ask for something so large so unscrupulously and trust Harry not to hate him afterwards was a sign of incredible progress.

Draco wanted it.

Harry finished undressing and lay down stiffly in the middle of the bed, his arms at his sides. The blankets and curtains promptly turned black. He knew he looked like a corpse. He couldn’t help it. He felt like one.

They’d discussed who should be on top, and finally, Draco had agreed with Harry that he’d do it. Harry was too incredibly afraid of hurting Draco, even when Draco had assured him that he’d enjoy it because this was Harry. But finally he’d raised one eyebrow and agreed, murmuring that maybe when Harry saw anal sex wasn’t an unmitigated evil, he’d be more willing to do it the other way around.

A light footstep sounded near the door of the bedroom. Harry turned his head, shivering, and met Draco’s eyes.

And he felt a slow, delightful burn start building from his stomach. This wasn’t desire. This was trust.

This was Draco, and whilst he hurt Harry, again and again, they always stood a chance of coming back together and healing their wounds.

Draco never took his eyes from Harry as he undressed, and though Harry had seen him do it hundreds of times before, he pulsed like it was new when he watched those long, pale limbs emerge from Draco’s clothes. Only when Draco’s cock came into sight did he remember where it would go, and then he sickened and turned his head away.

Draco paused. Harry read the message in his silence. They could stop if Harry’s fear was too great, and though he would be disappointed, there was no shame in it.

But Draco had had too many disappointments in his life. Harry wanted to help make up for them. He looked back at Draco and managed a smile, and Draco smiled back, drew off his pants, and laid them neatly on the chair beside his trousers. He was always being neat, folding his clothes like that, even when he’d wear a different set the next day. Harry never knew why; they only got wrinkled in the end when they were washed, anyway.

Draco walked up to him and spent long minutes just touching, running his fingers up and down Harry’s shoulder to his elbow, caressing his inner thighs, letting his hair, which was growing out, rasp across Harry’s neck. Finally Harry shivered again and spread his thighs, and Draco leaned over and retrieved the jar of lubrication from the bedside table.

Lubrication. The word sounded like a fat, juicy beetle in Harry’s mouth, something ready to burst and crunch. Was there a less sexy word in existence?

But he spread his legs, and Draco reached down gently to his anus—no, think of it as the entrance, Harry counseled himself, it was sexier that way. They had already performed purifying spells, several times, so Harry knew he was clean. But he still had to close his eyes when Draco nudged a finger inside.

He listened instead of looking. Listening had been his keener sense when he was transformed into the maze, easier to use than sight, and the one good legacy his transformation had left him with—if you didn’t count Draco—was hearing that even Odd Robert admitted was excellent.

He listened to Draco’s breaths, which became heavier and deepened into pants as he fingered Harry. No matter how Harry concentrated, though, he couldn’t hear Draco stroking his own cock. He was becoming aroused just doing this to Harry. He was full of desire, shaking with it, his fingers shaking as they stroked deeper and deeper inside.

That was something, wasn’t it? He was happy. He was pleased. Harry could be proud of that.

And then Draco’s fingers stroked over something inside him that made his eyes fly open and a shrill scream break from his throat. He saw Draco’s happy, smirking face for a moment before he shut his eyes again.

Draco had told him about his prostate, but Harry hadn’t really believed him. Of course, Draco got off on fingering and didn’t mind Harry doing it to him, but Harry had thought that was a pleasure real, normal gay men got to experience and he just wouldn’t. He wasn’t normal. It wasn’t normal to still be this frightened of something real gay men did every day.

And then Draco murmured his name.

Everything went soft and slippery and warm from there, time melting and dripping down past his ears. Harry heard the sound of his own voice begging softly, and Draco responded with kisses to his shoulder and flanks. He worked in—how many fingers? Harry couldn’t tell—and then he drew away, and Harry almost tensed, because he knew what came next.

But it was so impossibly soft and so impossibly slow, with Draco pausing between each quarter-inch to groan and touch Harry, and Harry’s own breathing, though it grew faster, never rose to full panic. And their bodies slipped against the sheets, but didn’t squeak, and the lubricant didn’t make horrible squelching noises, as Harry had been afraid it would. Draco had assured Harry that he retained enough Potions skills to breed serviceable but still silent lubricant, but Harry hadn’t believed him about that either.

He could distrust Draco, the way Draco could hurt him and he could hurt Draco, but they always curved up and came back together, and the wound healed—sometimes with a scar, sometimes without.

At last, Draco began to move, gentle little rocks of his hips. Harry lay with his eyes closed and refused to look. He knew he would be undone if he looked. Hell, it was hard enough listening to Draco’s deep grunts and gasps of pleasure, hard enough getting used to the shifting feeling of fullness in his own body.

But—maybe it wasn’t so bad. So long as it was done with cleaning spells beforehand, and the partner on top was careful and gentle and slow. Harry relaxed. He would be willing to do this again. He would be willing to do this to Draco, maybe. As long as he didn’t think too much about it, and as long as he relied on something else to actually come.

And then—

Then Draco touched the thing inside him again, and Harry whimpered and shifted, and Draco’s voice whispered, “Harry,” in the pleading tone Harry hadn’t heard often since the maze.

And then he made the mistake of opening his eyes.

Draco was golden, skin and hair and eyes, in the light of the single lamp, and he was pleasure, his face transfigured with it, and he was strength, his muscles clenching and bunching and releasing the way Harry had seen them before but with a far greater balance and tension, and he was—

He was not entirely happy, from the small wrinkles in his face. But those smoothed out when he saw Harry looking, and he smiled.

And then he began to move faster.

And time slipped again and sped, and Harry never knew exactly how fast Draco moved, but it couldn’t have been as bloody fast as it felt like, and his own muscles took the strain and began to ache pleasantly, and he became aware he was shoving himself backwards—how did that happen?—and this really wasn’t so bad after all, though he could feel the cracks starting in himself as he stared into Draco’s eyes, and then Draco mouthed Harry and tossed his head back, neck a long curve like a leaping dolphin’s as he began to come.

And Harry broke into pieces, the way he had been afraid he would, and puffed into dust, and fell into darkness as his own orgasm took him, entirely unexpected, born of the passion and the joy that had struck Draco in that one moment.

But Draco followed him down into the darkness, and picked him up, and put him back together again with soft kisses and a continued, gently insistent pressure in his arse, always present but making no demands. And when he was free he cleaned them at once, and then lay down beside him, and he and Harry curled there together in silence of their own choosing, whilst Harry’s fear flapped idle wings above him like a raven on a corpse, itself frightened, uncertain.

*

Harry opened his eyes and shifted his body experimentally. His arse hurt, but he’d had worse. And he knew Draco would be happy to practice Healing Charms on it.

He’d had anal sex. And he’d survived. And he loved Draco as deeply and passionately and dependently and jaggedly as he ever had.

Maybe being gay wasn’t quite so bad as all that.

He lay on the inner side of the bed. Draco was snoring beside him, those deep, snuffling breaths that meant he hadn’t woken from a nightmare all night. His head lay on his curved arm, his face tipped towards the window. Harry watched him for long moments, his heart hurting with his emotions, finally becoming aware that the lamp had burned down and the light on his face came from the window itself.

Harry lifted his eyes.

Gray light was coming in across the field and the stony hills outside—the gray light of dawn before the sun, gray light of morning, gray light of ambiguous promise.

The End.