EXCHANGING WANDS
By Celandine and Your Cruise Director

Exchanging Wands

The last time Harry had seen Malfoy Manor, it had been as a most unwilling guest... a prisoner, before Aberforth Dumbledore and Dobby provided a means of escape. It felt very strange to be returning, though Lucius was a broken man and Harry had in his pocket the only instrument that might have threatened his own life.

Narcissa answered the door, staring for so long that Harry wondered if she would refuse to let him in. "I came to see Draco," he told her.

At once she stepped protectively into the doorway. "He was exonerated. You told the Ministry yourself that you believed his repentance was sincere. You have no reason to..."

"I didn't come here to make trouble for him," Harry assured her. "I do believe his repentance was sincere. I'm hoping he'll come back to Hogwarts in the autumn when I do. I just wanted to return this." With his left hand, Harry held up the wand that had killed Voldemort.

Narcissa's eyes widened. "Is that...?"

"Yes." Harry nodded. "May I see Draco, then?"

"Of course." Suddenly Narcissa had pulled around her the rags of her former pride, although her expression still bore the marks of months of fear. She gestured him into the hall. "Come... come this way." It was the room where Harry had been brought as a prisoner, and Narcissa flushed slightly as she realized he recognized it. "I'll send one of the house-elves for Draco. Just a moment."

As she turned away, Harry glanced around. The house was still elegant yet it appeared in places to have been stripped bare, as if someone -- the Ministry, likely -- had come through in search of suspicious objects and taken everything that might have served a dark purpose. He did not feel comfortable sitting in any of the chairs -- Hermione had been tortured in this house -- so he was still standing when Narcissa returned to ask whether he would like tea.

"No, thank you," Harry replied automatically. A door opened and he turned, but it was Lucius Malfoy who stepped inside. Draco's father did not look quite as battered as he had when Harry had last seen him, pleading before the Wizengamot that any wrongdoing had been his own and his son should be spared prison, but the imperious man who had curled his mouth at a half-blood appeared quite subdued.

"Mister Potter," he said with a forced expression of respect. "You honor our home..."

"Save it. I'm here to see Draco," Harry told him shortly.

"He's brought Draco's wand," Narcissa said.

"Oh." Lucius raised his head to meet Harry's eyes, then looked away quickly. "That's thoughtful of you." His right hand twitched, as if yearning to snatch it from Harry.

Harry remembered that although he had escaped imprisonment, Lucius had been forbidden to possess a wand for three years. He didn't respond, simply waiting for Draco to appear, and had begun to wonder whether Draco was actually in the house when the door opened again.

Although presumably the house-elf had told Draco who had come to see him, Draco still looked shocked by Harry's presence, turning to his parents for reassurance. "What's going on?"

"I brought..." Harry began, and then suddenly could not bear to spend another moment in that room, with both elder Malfoys gazing apprehensively at their son and so many reminders of what had happened right there months before. "Listen, Draco, can we walk a bit?"

Though he darted a glance at his parents as if he needed their approval, Draco nodded. "Did you want to see the gardens? They're in relatively good shape, despite... despite everything. Or I could show you the library..." Lucius Malfoy made an almost imperceptible motion with his chin. Perhaps the Ministry had not yet finished searching the library. "Or my rooms." This time it was Draco's mother who looked uneasy. "You'll have food brought up, Mother?"

"Mister Potter declined tea..." Narcissa began, but Harry interrupted.

"The gardens. But tea would be fine later. Whatever." His hand tightened around Draco's wand in his pocket.

With one last look at his parents, Draco said, "All right. Come on." He turned, and Harry followed him.

They went out of a set of French doors and down a short stone stairway onto a spread of lawn. Harry glanced around. "Let's walk that way," he said, pointing to what looked like a formal maze. It reminded him, a bit uncomfortably, of the maze in the third task of the Triwizard Tournament, but beyond there was a grove of trees, and he thought he saw a bench where they could sit.

"Are my parents in trouble?" Draco asked after a few moments.

"I don't think so. I mean, I don't know about it if they are; that's not why I'm here." Harry was torn between the urge to carry out his business and leave -- now that he had replaced his own wand, he had no more need of Draco's than he had had of the Elder Wand -- and to postpone it for awhile so he could talk to Draco. Dumbledore had been so certain that Draco was not beyond redemption, that his soul was worth saving...

"Am I in trouble, then? You don't want me back at Hogwarts, do you?" It almost sounded as though Draco might be relieved at that prospect. "I keep telling my father that of course I shouldn't go back. A lot of people were hurt. They won't want to see me."

"They'd rather see you than Goyle, you can be sure of that." Harry hesitated. "I'd like to see you back at Hogwarts."

"Why?" Draco stopped walking and stared at Harry, biting at the edge of his lip. His face was thinner and more pointed than it ever had been, and there was a raw spot on his mouth; he must have developed the habit of chewing on it sometime in the past months. "Why did you come here, anyhow? If Hogwarts wanted me to return I'd have had a letter." He spoke bitterly.

"Why do I want you back there? I don't know. Maybe because it wouldn't seem like school without you across the Great Hall at the Slytherin table." That was the truth, if only a small part of it.

"What about Granger? You can't tell me she ever wants to see anyone from my family again."

"She knows you aren't your aunt. Or your father. You didn't want to tell them who we were when Greyback brought us in," Harry reminded him.

They had reached the edge of the maze. Draco stepped in first, and the carefully cut hedges suddenly moved, leaving a straight path up the center. "Sorry. Father's a bit lazy about walking the long way through."

Again Harry was reminded of the Triwizard Tournament, when the plants had seemed to close in on him, but he grimaced and followed Draco forward. He had survived far worse at this house.

"I brought you something," he said.

"Oh? Don't tell me, it's a letter from the Wizengamot requiring me to return to school, whether I like it or not. Harry Potter, Ministry errand boy."

Harry set his teeth. He'd come here to return Draco's wand, and he was going to do it. Reaching out, he grabbed Draco's sleeve. "No. It's something else."

"Give it over, then, whatever it is." Draco sounded tired. "Then you can leave."

"I don't... oh, to hell with it. Here." Harry slid the wand from his left-hand pocket and held it out. "It's yours. I thought you should have it back."

Draco stared at the wand almost fearfully, as if he didn't quite recognize it. "Did they..." he whispered. "Did they purge it? Priori Incantatem or whatever they use?"

"I don't think so. They're a superstitious lot at the Ministry these days. This is still the wand that killed Voldemort." Draco flinched outright at the name. "They wouldn't have wanted to tamper with that. Don't you want it anymore?"

Slowly, as if he were thought the wand might have become fragile in Harry's care, Draco slid his fingers along the handle and closed them around it. There was something oddly erotic about the gesture and Harry felt his groin stir. Blushing faintly, he looked away as Draco lifted the wand in the air.

"Feels like it always did. It worked as well for you as it did for me? Are you sure it will want me back? I looked up what you said, all that stuff about the Elder Wand and how it should have been mine to command, but I've been using my grandfather's wand and it's not the same."

"You didn't win your grandfather's wand, though," Harry pointed out. "I don't know if this one worked as well for me as for you, but I didn't have any trouble with it. Try it and see."

For another moment Draco continued to stroke the wand, rubbing his thumb along the length as if trying to discern some change. "Engorgio!" He pointed at a fallen leaf, which swelled obediently to the size of a dinner plate. "It seems... different, somehow, but it's working."

Something besides the leaf had been affected by Draco's spell. Or at least, that was what Harry told himself must have happened. "What seems different, can you tell?" He glanced ahead. "Sun's a bit warm -- let's sit down?"

"Okay." Draco followed Harry to the bench. "It felt the same when I just held it, but not when I cast the spell. I didn't expect the leaf to get that big, actually."

"I think it's pretty obvious it will obey you, at least," Harry said. "Ollivander told me some things about wands and loyalties. A lot of it sounded as woolly as Divination but there's no reason this wand wouldn't return its loyalty to you, since I'm returning it without a struggle..."

He broke off, mouth dry. Draco was stroking his fingers up and down the wand, inspecting it, and though Harry knew of no magic that should have connected himself with the wand, it was as if Draco was touching him. "Feels good to have it back," Draco admitted. "I wasn't sure it would. I had to do some terrible things with this wand."

"I know. I saw." Harry's hand reached out toward Draco's knee. What was he doing? Quickly he pulled it back. "There was a connection between Voldemort and me -- I saw some of the things he saw. It's how I knew when he was coming to Hogwarts."

"There were rumors..." Draco gulped and started over. "You went out there. He demanded your life to stop the attack on the castle, and you went." Abruptly he turned, looking right at Harry, so close that Harry could feel his breath. "I would have run as far away as I could. My father, too."

"Your father came running back to look for you when he could have been hiding to save himself," Harry said. Why was Draco talking to him like this? "And you didn't run away either. In the Room of Requirement you waited for Ron to pick up Goyle." He glanced sideways at Draco, remembering how it had felt to have Draco holding onto him as they flew out of the Fiendfyre. "You risked your life to save others."

"Not like you did." Draco hadn't stopped fiddling with his wand. "If you hadn't..." He swallowed. "I'd be dead if it weren't for you. You came back for me when we'd been trying to kill you."

"You didn't try to kill me." This time Harry let himself touch Draco's knee, bony and cold inside his trousers, despite the sun. "You tried to stop Crabbe." He gave a wry smile. "Actually, I think I've come closer to killing you, with Sectumsempra."

Draco held very still under Harry's touch. "Snape," he said, looking like he might cry. "He saved me. I know you said he was on Dumbledore's side all along. He knew I was supposed to kill Dumbledore, and..."

Harry drew in a shaky breath. He felt as if he should put his arms around Draco, and at the same time he was certain it could be a serious mistake to do so when they were both so emotional and when his body was misbehaving so badly. It had to be the wand. Fine, not just the wand -- he'd had odd feelings too, that whole year he'd spent obsessed with Draco and what Draco was doing in the Room of Requirement -- but not like this, not where they were sitting together touching.

Gulping, he said, "Snape was on Dumbledore's side all along. They both knew what you were supposed to do. Dumbledore wasn't going to let it happen, and neither was Snape."

"I owe -- " Draco's fingers came down over Harry's, gripping so tightly that Harry knew he meant not to comfort but to gather strength. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"It's all right." Draco was clutching at Harry's hand as if it were a lifeline. Harry wondered if Draco had ever been able to mourn Snape. No one had found the body; everyone assumed that one of the Death Eaters had destroyed it, but with no corpse and no funeral, it was hard to have a focus for grief. And Harry, despite the years of antagonism, felt a certain shame that it had taken Snape's death for him to realize the man's true allegiance. "He -- he loved you, I think."

"You do?"

"Yes," said Harry firmly, and felt Draco relax, just a fraction, leaning against him. "He must have. And Dumbledore knew what would have to be done; he was dying anyway. It's okay, Draco. It's over."

"It'll never be the same, though," said Draco in a small voice. "I owed him so much, and now I can't... I can't..." He raised his other hand and scrubbed it furiously over his eyes.

There had to be something wrong with himself, Harry thought. It was not right that he was sitting here with a stiffy while Draco was crying. "He'd want you to go back to Hogwarts," he said, as much for something to say as because he hadn't forgotten that Draco was looking for an excuse not to return. "He thought you were worth saving -- he'd want you to finish school so you could go on with your life."

"And you? You really want me there?" asked Draco dully. "Your friends hate me, and I can't blame them. They'll make things miserable for me."

"They aren't like that. Haven't you figured out by now that not everyone needs to look down at someone? I doubt you and Hermione will ever go to Madam Puddifoot's together but really, would you want to?"

"Not really. Bit tiresome listening to someone who knows everything." Draco managed a watery smile and Harry smiled back. "Besides, Granger's not really my type. Not because she's a Mu-- Muggle-born, either."

Harry was unexpectedly touched that Draco had not said "Mudblood" -- after a lifetime, it must be hard to change such a habit. "That doesn't surprise me, you went out with Pansy. I doubt she'll be going back to take her N.E.W.T.s, though."

"Probably not, but..." Draco hesitated. "She's not my type either."

"Not your type either?" said Harry blankly. "I don't get it. You went to the Yule Ball with her. And I saw how she used to act around you."

"Never mind." His face had turned pink.

But he'd piqued Harry's curiosity. "Come on, Draco. I can understand not wanting to go out with Hermione -- I love her like a sister, but I can't imagine... no." He shook his head. "Besides, I think she and Ron are going to be a permanent item. And fair enough about Pansy, too. But what girls are your type?" He thought for a minute. Both Hermione and Pansy had brown hair. "Blondes?" Thinking of Ginny and the rest of the Weasleys, he added, "Can't possibly be redheads."

Draco had gone even redder. "Sixth year was a disaster, with Pansy," he muttered. "I couldn't... all right, maybe it was that I didn't want to."

Harry wished his cock wasn't quite so interested in him trying to picture Draco naked and turning away Pansy Parkinson. "I've never thought that she was a very nice person," he said lamely, which made Draco snicker through his blushes.

"She's not a nice person at all. Like most of my friends. She's a real bitch." He said this with a kind of satisfaction in his voice. "When I... wouldn't, she threatened to tell everyone that it's because I'm a poof. Only thing that stopped her is that I was already with the Death Eaters. And my parents have more money than her parents."

Harry's heart was hammering in a way he knew it should not have been. "My friends may dislike you for having been a Death Eater, but I don't think they'd care if you were a poof," he said as offhandedly as possible.

"What makes you think that?"

"Well, I wouldn't." Harry held his breath, waiting.

"You wouldn't?" Draco's tongue darted out to lick his lips. "Why not? It would be just one more reason to despise me... except..." He paused. "You don't despise me, or you wouldn't have come here today."

"No, I don't. And, um." Now it was Harry's turn to turn red. "If they cared if you were a poof, they'd have to care that... that I am too," he finished in a rush. "I think."

If he'd half-expected Draco to snicker again, he was wrong. "You think? You haven't...?"

"Haven't told them anything? No... it's complicated... Ron thinks I'm dating his sister..."

"That's not what I meant." Draco was looking at him very intently. "Are you? I mean... you've been with men?"

Somehow that was a harder question than simply admitting that he might be a poof. "I've never, actually. I spent most of last year camping in a tent with Hermione. It isn't as if there were opportunities."

"But you've wanted to." Draco's expression was still entirely earnest, without a trace of the triumphant scoffing Harry would once have expected to see.

"I suppose. Yes." I'm hard for you right now. No, he couldn't say that! But Draco smiled slowly, as if he knew, though he still didn't look mocking; he looked pleased. "You?"

"I've been attracted to men for a long time." Draco's gaze flickered.

"Have you... been with any?" Harry wasn't sure whether he wanted to hear Draco answer yes or no, but he couldn't help asking.

"Yes... but not the one I wanted most."

Harry's mouth was dry. "Who was that?"

"I think you know." The hand that had been clutching Harry's had softened its grasp. Draco's thumb moved gently, tracing the edge of one of Harry's fingers. "Or do I have to spell it out for you?"

"Oh," Harry whimpered. He'd told himself that he was imagining things, the way Draco had been holding him as they flew to safety at Hogwarts, and he'd told himself it couldn't possibly mean anything that he had such an affinity for Draco's wand... but here it was. "I thought you hated me."

"Thought Snape hated you too, didn't you?" Harry felt an odd pang. "I was trying to do what my parents wanted... what I thought they wanted, anyway. Now I know my father would have been much happier if V-Voldemort had never come back, but he couldn't tell me that before -- he was convinced that as long as you were around, our family was in danger. The Dark Lord expected my father to do his bidding and my father thought we would all die if he didn't. So I tried to do the same thing."

Harry watched Draco's thumb slide back and forth across his knuckles. He was happier than he'd had any idea he could be to learn that Draco had not wanted to be a Death Eater. It occurred to him, however, that if Draco had suspected Harry was gay, he might be playing along right now just to ingratiate himself or get some kind of leverage. "You actually wanted me, even though you knew you might be asked to kill me?"

"Yes." Draco stopped moving his thumb for a moment, then resumed. "Not just you, all right... but you more than anyone else. I didn't expect to be asked to kill you, though, and I was right. He wanted that pleasure for himself." He shuddered. "Pleasure. That's what it was to him, and to Aunt Bella, too. It was horrible to watch them."

"I guess it must have been." Harry tentatively shifted his hand within Draco's grasp, beginning to echo the tiny caress with his own fingers. Draco's palm was damp and Harry heard him breathe in sharply when Harry stroked over it. "Was that why you pretended not to know it was me when your father asked, the night we were all captured and brought here? That took guts, to do that."

Draco squeezed back. "Sort of. I couldn't say absolutely that it wasn't you, you have to understand. As long as I said I wasn't sure, no one else there was more likely to recognize you... but if there was something that did verify who you were, then I'd have been in too much danger to have any chance." He swallowed. "So it wasn't really brave at all."

Harry supposed that that was true; he'd understood that the Carrows were in more trouble for reporting his presence without keeping him in their custody than they would have been had they never sent Voldemort a signal. "It's over now, anyway," he said. "He's gone. He isn't coming back this time."

"My parents are so relieved, they haven't even been on my case this summer about marrying a pureblood girl." Draco smiled mirthlessly. "I think they suspect about me but they're still just happy we're all alive. A lot of families weren't so lucky."

Draco was probably thinking of the Crabbes, but Harry felt a surge of anger as he thought of the Weasleys, the Lupins... Draco's mother had lost her sister, yet in the end no one but Voldemort had seemed sorry. "You aren't sad at all about how things turned out? With what happened to your friends, and your aunt?"

"If Voldemort had won, I'd be dead anyway." Draco spoke with great certainty. "He kept people around only as long as they were useful, and he knew I didn't want to be doing any of the things he ordered." His fingernails bit into Harry's hand. "I don't blame you for not trusting me. I'm surprised you brought my wand back. But I'm telling you the truth."

"I believe you." He did, although he wasn't sure why. Maybe because he felt that he wouldn't have been so at ease with Draco's wand if Draco had been as vicious as Bellatrix, as violent as Fenrir, as ruthless as Voldemort. Draco might be a coward in some ways, and Harry didn't entirely trust him, but that didn't make him a liar.

"Thank you," said Draco in a quiet voice. "That means a lot to me... more than you know."

Harry felt himself turning red. His body was still reacting to Draco's touch, so he shifted on the bench, trying to relieve the pressure of his cock against his trousers, but succeeded only in pressing closer to Draco. "Um. Well, thanks." He couldn't use his free hand to adjust himself; Draco was sure to realize what he was doing, and that would be embarrassing. Even if Draco had pretty much said flat out that he fancied Harry.

"I want..." Draco began. He was leaning slightly forward, looking at their entwined hands, and shook his head as if he wasn't sure he should say whatever he had in mind. Then he glanced up at the mansion off in the distance. "Fuck it, anyway." Harry felt Draco turn, and suddenly his face was between Draco's hands and Draco was kissing him.

Oh. He had imagined this, more than once, and then had tried to convince himself that it wouldn't be like kissing Ginny. But while Ginny made him feel sort of vaguely happy and comfortable -- Harry had experienced few hugs in his life, let alone having another person wrapped around him stroking his hair -- she didn't make him feel on fire from his fingertips to his toes with most of the parts in the middle, particularly his cock, leaping and quivering in pleasure.

"Tell me if you want me to stop," Draco said rather breathlessly, and did it again. Which meant that Harry couldn't have told him that, even if he'd wanted to. Which he didn't. Very much didn't; with the small part of his mind that wasn't entirely focused on how it felt to be kissing Draco, he was hoping that it could just go on forever.

It wasn't completely different from kissing Ginny, although Draco's lips were a different shape and he used his tongue with a lot more force, but it was hotter and wetter and just much more, as if every nerve in Harry's body had tuned in and said yes, that's what was missing all this time. He tried to kiss back with the same intensity, clumsily putting his arms around Draco and pulling him closer.

Draco made a little noise, almost a whine, and said against Harry's mouth, "Fuck, yes," grabbing Harry's hand and guiding it -- and Harry learned that Draco was just as hard as he was, and that made him more excited still. He rubbed hesitantly, not entirely certain what Draco wanted -- did he think that they were going to have sex here, in his parents' garden?

Then Draco put his hand on Harry's cock, feeling the shape of it through his trousers, and Harry forgot all about where they were or why he had come here... he only wanted to continue, moaning into Draco's mouth until Draco pulled back enough to grin. "Maybe we should go someplace more private."

"You don't honestly expect me to walk back into the house..."

Draco snickered. "You could probably shag me in the foyer and my parents wouldn't dare say a word, but I hadn't intended on walking that far."

He rose and gestured at the maze, pulling Harry's hand to help him stand. "Useful for more than just shade." As they stepped into the rows of hedges, the plants curved around them, creating a private bower. A wide, flat patch of soft grass covered what had been a hard stretch of bare pathway.

"It's like the Room of Requirement," murmured Harry, impressed.

"Not quite. Can't make pillows, or lube." Draco winked at him. "But it does have some good points."

"I see that." The hedge had grown tall enough that no one from the house could see them, not even from the highest windows. Harry suspected that no one would be able to get through the now-solid ring of bushes, either. He wondered if Draco had brought any of those other boys he said he'd been with here, but stopped thinking about that when Draco tugged him down to the grass and started kissing him again, one hand working to undo Harry's trousers.

When Draco had managed to get the button and zip undone, and his fingers were sliding under the elastic, Harry belatedly started to reciprocate. Draco's fastenings were complicated, with buttons and hooks. He had to stop kissing and look down to figure out how to open everything, and Draco snickered again -- but with amusement, not malice.

"Sorry. Wasn't really expecting that anyone else would be taking them off today."

He helped Harry undo the last hook, and then Harry saw that Draco had nothing on underneath; his cock poked out, hard and red against the pale skin and fair hair around it. Harry couldn't stop looking. He'd seen other cocks before, of course, he'd lived in a dormitory for six years, and even a stiffy wasn't completely unfamiliar. But this was different. Draco was hard because of him.

"If you've never done this, maybe you'd better let me start." Draco was grinning widely at him, pushing Harry's trousers and pants down to his knees. Harry blushed -- he wasn't used to being half-naked in broad daylight with someone studying his cock -- but then Draco ran his thumb over the head, nudging at the slit until a drop of fluid spilled out, and Harry couldn't think enough to be embarrassed.

"Oh fuck, Draco!" He clutched at the blond hair as Draco bent his head, licked once across the swollen head of Harry's cock and lowered his mouth to wrap around the shaft. Obviously Draco had done this before; he knew just where to put pressure with his tongue and how to move the foreskin up and down with his lips and his fingers were cupping Harry's balls, rolling them against his palm. Harry let out a desperate whimper. He thought it was quite possible -- probable -- that he was going to explode before he'd even touched Draco.

Then Draco hummed, and did something with his fingers, and Harry threw back his head and shouted. Draco stayed on him, swallowing twice, and his teeth scraped Harry just a little when he did that but it didn't seem to matter.

"Oh, fuck," Harry said again, when he could breathe. "Fuck." If he hadn't felt so good, he would have been humiliated that he'd come so fast, but Draco didn't seem to be bothered; he looked up, his mouth still around Harry's cock, and grinned. He licked along it again deliberately and then sat up, absent-mindedly wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

"Not quite. No lube, remember?" Draco was smiling, a self-conscious smile. "Although there are spells for that. If you wanted...?" His voice trailed off in the question.

"Um. I, um, I..." Harry stammered. Not that he hadn't thought about it, but here? In the garden at Malfoy Manor? Even with the protective hedge hiding them, he still felt too exposed to be quite comfortable with the idea.

"It's okay," said Draco, though a flash of disappointment crossed his face. "Here." He took Harry's hand and urged it towards his prick, gasping when Harry closed his fingers around it.

It felt odd to wank a cock that was not his own, and Harry kept moving his eyes anxiously back and forth between the swollen organ and Draco's face -- so different with the tension of arousal than the stress of the last time Harry had seen him. He wasn't sure he dared to take it in his mouth, not when Draco had just sucked him off so skillfully, but he was curious to taste...

Lowering his head, he licked tentatively around the part of the shaft covered in skin, and then, at Draco's whimper, let his tongue travel over the ridge of foreskin to taste the head. The flavor there was stronger but not bad, and Draco let out an actual groan. "Please..."

Harry had never heard Draco beg him for anything. He liked it. A lot. Cautiously he slid the whole head of the cock into his mouth and sucked.

"Ohhh... Harry, yes please..." Draco was actually shaking. Harry tried taking in a little more, worried that he would gag, and put his fingers around the base to make up the difference. He could taste the bit of fluid that had welled up, vaguely acrid, and under his tongue he could feel the pulsing of blood. A feeling of pleased triumph, almost power, went through him and he sucked harder.

Draco's hand touched his head, pulling off his glasses -- probably he should have done that himself before starting, Harry realized -- and then returned, tightening on his hair. Under Harry's fingers he felt Draco's bollocks drawing up. "Harry," Draco whimpered again.

He knew Draco must be about to come. Draco had swallowed Harry's spunk... he supposed that was the right thing to do. He tried to relax his throat... then he felt Draco buck beneath him and his mouth filled with hot, bitter fluid. He tried to swallow; it burned in his throat going down, and Draco was still coming, semen spilling out the side of Harry's mouth and down his chin in a hot trail.

"Ohh," sighed Draco happily. Sitting back, blushing, Harry wiped his face with his hand. "Thanks." It seemed an odd thing to say -- Draco had, after all, just done the same for him -- but Draco had never thanked Harry for anything and besides, a moment later he leaned forward to kiss Harry's cheek, licking at the wet streak.

"Are you sure you've never done that before?" Draco whispered in Harry's ear.

"Never." He must have done it all right, after all. Harry turned his head to look at Draco, whom he had never seen look so relaxed and satisfied and happy before in his life. "But I probably need more practice," he added, wanting to make sure that Draco knew he'd enjoyed it and would do it again.

A smile lit Draco's face. "Me, too." He put his arms around Harry, leaning back so that they lay together on the warm grass, clothing in complete disarray but Harry didn't care that his bits were hanging out in the breeze. This was better than it had ever been with Ginny; with Draco kissing him eagerly, already Harry was starting to get excited once more. Well, it had been ages since he'd done anything but have a quick and private wank.

"So you liked that?" asked Draco with a trace of his old smugness. "Tried to warn you, but I needed to come so much..." He was grinning, and his fingers slid over Harry's hip, crossing Harry's belly until they bumped into his stiffening cock. "Someone feels like he isn't finished yet."

"Oh," Harry groaned feebly, trying to press himself into Draco's hand. "Not yet."

Rolling, Draco levered himself onto his elbows over Harry. He settled between Harry's legs, rocking up until his mostly-limp cock was rubbing over Harry's and Harry was moaning helplessly. "Think you might want to try putting it in me?" Draco asked, making Harry groan again.

Although he still felt self-conscious about the idea, Draco asking flat out made it seem less impossible, and Harry's prick found it a very interesting proposition. "You said there are spells?"

"Mm-hm. Didn't anyone in Gryffindor share how to cast those? But now that I have my wand back I can teach you." Draco moved away, to Harry's regret until he realized that Draco was reaching for his wand. "Before I do that, though, I don't know about you but I'm taking these off." His trousers had been at half-mast all this time, and now he kicked off his shoes and pulled his trousers off completely. "And the rest, too."

As Draco set down his wand and began to take off his shirt, Harry sat up, fumbling to do the same. If he was going to be fucking Draco -- oh, god, he was going to fuck Draco -- he wanted to feel everything, skin to skin.

He was nervous, but he was also half-afraid that Draco would rescind the offer, so he quickly stripped off, grateful that he'd got in some Quidditch practice with the Weasleys -- he'd been in pretty poor shape after months of traveling with Hermione, eating little and exercising mostly of necessity.

Draco looked surprisingly good, too, considering that for months and until not too long ago Voldemort had been living in his parents' house with him. Too thin, but good. He caught Harry looking and smiled, flopping back on the grass with his legs partway spread. His cock was getting hard again, dark red against his pale skin. "Ready to try the spell?"

"I thought you were going to do it." Harry swallowed, watching Draco slide his fingers along his wand.

"We both can." Draco's smile was pure invitation. "You do want to learn it, right?" At Harry's nod, he said, "Well then. You'll want to aim your wand where you want the lube to be; it's not strictly necessary if you're focused right, but easier that way. So aim at your cock, yeah." Draco drew up one leg, angling his wand towards his arse where Harry could just see the tight pucker. "The spell is Lubricio. Concentrate and try it."

Harry said nervously, "Lubricio!" Nothing much happened, and he flushed.

"Come on, say it like you mean it." Draco watched Harry intently, but there was no mockery in the glance. "Or here, watch. Lubricio!" He shivered slightly. "It does feel a little strange at first. Try again, Harry."

Harry's hand holding his wand was trembling. Closing his eyes to concentrate for a moment, he tried to focus only on his cock. "Lubricio!" This time it worked, though it definitely felt strange, as if he had somehow come all over himself without actually ejaculating. His cock gleamed with wetness. "Is that it?"

Draco smirked. "Be more comfortable for me if you stretch me a bit first."

"Oh," said Harry, feeling like an idiot. He'd known that, in a vague and theoretical sort of way. Draco spread out widely in invitation and Harry slid his fingers hesitantly up Draco's thigh. When he reached it, the hole felt impossibly tight, like nothing his cock would ever fit inside, even though it was only average-sized. He pressed a fingertip in very carefully.

"Oh fuck, go on, yeah." Draco pressed down, swallowing more of the finger into that tight heat. "More!"

It was slick inside. The flesh clung tightly as Harry slid in a second fingertip. Draco rocked against him, urging him further in. "Do... you do this to yourself?" Harry asked, feeling a rush of heat at the image of Draco impaled on his own hand.

"Of course. Haven't you ever tried it?" With a soft groan, Draco pushed again.

"Um. Not really." He'd never gone inside, not like this, only rubbed over the pucker of his hole. Seeing how much Draco was enjoying it, now he wondered why he hadn't, since what he'd done had felt rather good.

"Well..." said Draco softly, "maybe sometime I'll show you something else I think you'll like. Try another now... oh! Fuck, yes there, feel that?"

The hard swelling that must have been Draco's prostate brushed against Harry's seeking fingertip. "Just like that?" he asked, doing it again and listening to Draco's groan in response. His arse clenched around Harry's fingers at the stimulation and his cock twitched.

"Ahhfuck! Enough of that." Draco jerked back from Harry's fingers and for a moment Harry thought he had done something terribly wrong, but then Draco gave him a somewhat embarrassed grin. "Much more and I might have come, or not lasted when we started." He glanced at Harry's cock, still gleaming from the lubrication spell. "Ready to feel fantastic?"

Face warm, Harry nodded, watching with a combination of relief and disappointment as Draco rolled over. "Be easier the first time this way," Draco told him, spreading his legs and lifting his bum off the ground. "Just slide it in there. Not too fast if you can help it."

The matter-of-fact tone might not have been the most intimate but it made it easy to follow directions. Harry knelt behind Draco, pushing the head of his cock against the hole that still seemed too small... then it parted around him, tight heat enclosing the head of his cock, and he moaned helplessly.

"That's it, slowly," said Draco in a strained voice. "Uhhh... oh yeah."

With an effort, Harry managed to keep from slamming in; Draco was right, it did feel fantastic, better even than when Draco had sucked him off, and he had been sure that nothing could top that. He grabbed onto Draco's hips and pulled most of the way out again, relishing how the muscles at Draco's entrance quivered, stimulating each inch of skin as he moved, then let himself sink slowly back inside. "Is that okay?" he panted.

"Shift just a little?" Harry tried again, angling his cock slightly differently at each stroke, until Draco groaned in unmistakable pleasure. "There... ohfuckHarryjust move!" Draco's voice cracked on the last word.

Harry had no choice but to obey; he was certain that he would explode if he did not. Still gripping Draco's hips, he began to slide in and out quickly. After a moment he felt Draco bend his arm and reach beneath himself, moving it up and down in a jerky rhythm faster than Harry's thrusts.

Knowing that Draco was touching himself just made everything hotter. "Oh fuck, let me do that," Harry begged, fumbling beneath Draco's body with one hand. He couldn't find anything but slippery belly for a moment until Draco grabbed his wrist and guided his hand lower, keeping his own fingers over Harry's as he wrapped it around his cock.

"Oh yeah," Draco groaned. "Oh fuck, harder..."

Merlin, nothing was ever going to be better than this! Harry called out as he slapped his hips against Draco's bum, hoping the spell that had made the hedges surround them would also muffle the noises they were making.

Heat spiraled through him, every nerve alive and focused on his cock, the feel of Draco's arse clenching around it tighthotslick, and he gave in almost reluctantly, only because it was too hard not to let go. He cried out Draco's name, an incantation of need, his orgasm spilling deep as he slumped forward.

Draco still had hold of Harry's hand, pumping them together on his prick. "Don't stop," he begged -- begged! -- and Harry blinked sweat from his eyes and kept his hand moving, still pressed up inside Draco and feeling the flex of his bum muscles.

"So close, oh fuck, oh fuck, need you Harry please..." The words were almost incoherent, but a twinge of pleasure went through Harry at hearing them. He couldn't reach Draco's face; he planted rough biting kisses on his shoulder and back instead.

"Come on, come for me," Harry growled.

Draco screamed -- really screamed, to Harry's surprise -- and bucked into their joined hands, shoving against Harry's palm. Harry could feel the inner muscles squeezing his softening cock as Draco's hot spunk poured out and between his fingers.

"Oh fuck, oh yeah," Draco groaned, slumping forward and panting. Harry's own heart was still hammering and he could feel Draco's pulse as well, leaning over his back. "Fuck! We really need to do this more often."

A wide grin split Harry's face. "If you come back to Hogwarts, we can," he pointed out.

"Do you mean that?" Draco had gone still, and now he twisted, trying to look at Harry who finally pulled away. His cock was sticky but he ignored it as Draco went on. "It's not as if we've had a good history together at school. You said your friends wouldn't make my life miserable if I went back, but it might be different if they knew we were, you know. Seeing each other like this. You can't tell me that Weasley would be happy about it."

"None of his business, is it?" Harry felt uncomfortably that Draco might be right, but this was his life, not Ron's. If he wanted to be with Draco, why shouldn't he be?

"Doesn't matter if it's his business, he'll make a fuss if he knows. And his sister." Draco's eyes were challenging. "I know you can't promise that everything will go smoothly, but are you willing to say that you'll stick by me?"

Harry hesitated. Hermione and Ron had given up months of their lives to help him on a quest for which he had been ill-prepared to lead them. But he also felt entitled, finally, to enjoy the life that had been returned to him.

"I'm not talking about every minute," Draco added quickly. "I mean, my parents expect me to marry some pureblood and produce another generation of Malfoys, which I'm not ruling out, someday. But I don't imagine the Weasley girl will share you."

"I don't know," Harry replied honestly. He and Ginny had either been together or not-together; they had never discussed dating each other and other people at the same time. "I think it would be silly for any of us to make promises when we're still so young. But... we need to figure out what we want, don't we?"

"Yeah. Doesn't have to be now, today, but... I know I don't want just to be your piece on the side." His thin face looked vulnerable, but his eyes were determined. "If both Snape and Dumbledore thought I was worth something, then I should think that of myself, too."

He was right, Harry had to admit that. And Harry hadn't had sex with Draco just for kicks; there was something more there, he was sure, and maybe they owed it to each other to find out what that could be. "That's fair."

"All right then." Draco gave a short sharp nod, which contrasted oddly with his sprawled nudity, and then relaxed and grinned at Harry. "Just wanted to make sure that was straight between us."

Laughing, Harry said, "Bent between us, more like."

"You know what I mean." Draco laughed too.

A breeze made Harry abruptly aware that he was still lying naked and damp in the Malfoy garden. "Um, your parents," he said uncomfortably, "won't they be wondering where we've got to?"

"Don't really care," Draco shrugged, though he glanced in the direction of the house. "Oh, I suppose we had better make Mother happy and have tea. You don't mind, do you?" Picking up his wand and looking it over again with a smile, he performed an expert cleaning charm.

Harry did not at all relish the idea of tea or anything else with Lucius and Narcissa, but he supposed that he could manage for half an hour. If he wanted Draco to make a real effort with his friends, it was the least he could do in return. Reaching for his trousers, he asked, "Will there be sweets?"

"Of course there will." Draco licked his lips and picked up his shirt, slipping his arms into the sleeves. "Especially with a guest -- three kinds of biscuits and two kinds of cake, I'd bet." He sniggered. "And Father won't be able to say anything if I have a third slice of cake, not if you do too."

Privately Harry thought that Draco looked as if he could use a third slice of cake every day. He would have said something about not putting Draco's mother to the trouble, but of course it would be house-elves preparing everything. "Sounds good," he said, managing to inject a reasonable amount of enthusiasm in his tone. Now dressed, he held out a hand to Draco, pulling him to his feet.

"Harry. Before we go inside..." Draco was holding out his wand. "Thank you. For this. I thought you might keep it as a trophy, and I was wrong." He took a deep breath. "That was one of the reasons I didn't want to go back to school."

"I never really thought about keeping it... it wouldn't have been right," Harry said, then blinked in surprise as Draco's serious expression suddenly dissolved into laughter.

"You really are a Gryffindor. Though I suppose I should be grateful for that as well." Pocketing the wand, Draco reached for Harry's hand instead. "Come on, before Father thinks you decided to test out Unforgivables on me or something. He's convinced that he's going to be made to pay for the fact that we all survived. He's even willing to grovel to Shacklebolt."

Harry was delighted about that, but knew better than to say so. He only returned Draco's grin and took his hand. "They won't think it's odd if you tell them you've decided to return to school because I asked you?"

"They'll think I'm behaving like a proper little toady, saying yes. Probably with plans to seize power for my own."

"Are you?"

"What do you think?"

Harry shook his head. "I don't think so, but if you were then I wouldn't be supposed to think so, would I?"

"No." Draco gripped Harry's hand more tightly. "But I'm not."

Whether or not to believe him, Harry wasn't sure... he put it aside to think about later.

As Draco had hinted, Lucius Malfoy looked relieved to see his son back safely. It was soothing to Harry's ego to have the man so evidently ill-at-ease, but he tried to remain reasonably polite, not wanting to jeopardize the tentative accord he'd reached with Draco. There were plenty of sweets with the tea, as promised, and Harry and Draco gave each other small grins as they took large slices of cake.

"I've decided to go back to Hogwarts in September."

Harry was almost sure that Draco had deliberately waited to say that until both his parents' mouths were full, because Narcissa choked and Lucius turned an unbecoming shade of purple. He recovered quickly, however, and put a wide if insincere smile on his face. "That's wonderful news, Draco. Did Mister Potter convince you of the wisdom of such a course?" Lucius Malfoy's eyes darted towards Harry, though to his credit he did not let the smile waver.

"In a way. Now that my wand is back in action," and here Harry had to duck his head to hide a grin, "I've concluded that you're right, Mother, that the only way to restore honor to the Malfoy name is to make something of myself."

Narcissa wore an expression suggesting that she had never said such a thing, but she only nodded, carefully dabbing her mouth with her napkin. "We both believe education is very important, as you know," she told her son, glancing at Lucius and then Harry before returning her eyes to Draco. "But... did you test the wand, Draco?"

This time Harry had real difficulty repressing a snicker as Draco said, "I played with it a bit. Doesn't seem to be cursed."

"It's a pretty potent wand, really," said Harry offhandedly, adding, "It is the wand that more or less killed Voldemort."

"But it felt natural in my hand; and since Harry gave it to me voluntarily, I think the affinity is still there." Draco nodded for emphasis. "So since it seems to be in good working order, I really should take the opportunity to go back to school and make proper use of it." He smiled sweetly at Harry. "It was very kind of Harry to make such an effort for me."

Harry had to pretend to a coughing fit after all that, setting down his plate and covering his face with his hands. "Sorry," he said when he felt able to control his laughter, "bit of cake went down the wrong way."

"You'd better learn how to make things go down the right way, then." How Draco kept a straight face, Harry couldn't understand. Lucius was looking at his son guardedly, but he didn't say anything.

"More tea, perhaps?" Whether Narcissa had not caught the undercurrents and thought Harry was choking or whether she simply refused to acknowledge them, she sent the teapot floating toward Harry without the slightest change of expression. "If you'd like something more substantial, I shall have the elves bring up some sandwiches." Before Harry had a chance to reply, she was ringing the small bell that summoned a fierce-looking house-elf.

"See?" muttered Draco. "They like you already." Lucius took great pains to study his tea leaves as if he planned to read his future in them as Harry grinned. In a louder voice, Draco said, "See? Watch!" and raised his wand. The remaining shortbread transformed into the chocolate biscuits Harry preferred, though these had the Slytherin House emblem on them. "Good as new, this wand is, really."

Picking one up, Harry kept his eyes on Draco as he ate it, sure that Draco would guess what he was thinking -- he'd rather have Draco in his mouth than the Slytherin symbol.

"Excellent," said Lucius somewhat wanly. He probably envied his son the chance to have a wand again, but Harry couldn't be too sympathetic to his plight. "The new term begins in only a few weeks, Draco. I shall write to the Headmistress and tell her that you will attend after all, and we will need to go to Diagon Alley..."

Narcissa interrupted. "Draco can go by himself."

She and Lucius looked at each other for a long moment, and Draco took the opportunity to whisper to Harry, "Last time my father went there... well, it was unpleasant. Someone cast a Scalping Hex on him."

"I'll be going to buy my own books next week. Draco could come along with me, if he likes," offered Harry.

The older Malfoys exchanged looks as if they both thought they ought to voice doubts about this plan, but could not figure out what the objection should be. Finally Lucius said, "How kind of you. I hope it won't inconvenience you."

Harry wasn't sure whether Lucius meant because of their schedules or because Draco had been a Death-Eater. Likely he was calculating the balance of having his son seen with the Chosen One versus the fact that Harry was, in the end, a half-blood. "It won't inconvenience me at all. My friends are still visiting their families."

In fact Harry had only recently left the Weasleys, feeling that he ought to visit Grimmauld Place and attempt to restore some sort of order to the house that was now his. It occurred to him that, since the house was his and the Order of the Phoenix was no more, he could invite a guest. "Draco could come stay with me in London."

"We couldn't permit you go to such trouble," said Lucius.

"It wouldn't be any trouble." Harry carefully didn't look at Draco. "There's a house-elf there, Kreacher, who used to belong to the Blacks; he would be delighted to have another person to serve, I'm sure, especially someone like Draco who's a cousin of his old master's family. And it's a bit dull staying there alone. It would be a favor to me if you would let Draco come."

The elder Malfoys looked nonplussed. "If you truly wish that..." Narcissa said.

"I do," said Harry firmly. "I wouldn't make the offer if I didn't mean it."

"Let us think about it," Lucius said. An elf arrived with the sandwiches that Narcissa had requested, and Lucius continued, "We'll discuss the matter now. Please, eat." He rose, and his wife followed suit. Draco smirked at Harry as his parents left the room, already talking quietly to each other as they went.

"They're going to say yes. No matter what they're afraid we might get up to, they aren't going to risk angering Harry Potter." Grinning, he picked up a sandwich and took a bite. "Are you sure about this, though? You do remember that you thought I was a git even before the Death Eater stuff?"

"I still think you're a bit of a git," Harry said easily, choosing a sandwich for himself. "I'm sure you think I am too, or if you've forgotten, you will again as soon as Quidditch season starts."

"As if Slytherin can't take a team with two Weasleys," snickered Draco. "Just because we're fucking, don't think that means I'm rooting for Gryffindor."

"Not even if it's Gryffindor against Hufflepuff?"

"Maybe then." Draco swallowed and laughed. "It'd be a tough choice to make, though."

"Oh, well, I'll just have to give you incentive." Harry ate the last bite of his sandwich and took another from the plate. "Or we could make a bet -- if you lose, you root for Gryffindor, if I lose, I root for Slytherin. Except against our own houses, of course."

"A bet?" Draco raised his eyebrows. "On what?"

"We can think of something while you're staying with me."

"That works," said Draco, and licked his lips before choosing a second sandwich. "That was a good idea, you know."

"I know," Harry said smugly.

"Sneaky, though. Rather Slytherin. Are you sure my wand didn't rub off on you?" At that, Harry had no choice but to burst out laughing again, even though he had a mouthful of food. Draco smirked more broadly. "I think it must have, Potter."

"Lucky for you that I had it, then," Harry said when he had swallowed and wiped his face.

"Lucky for everyone." For a moment Draco looked serious. Then he grinned once more. "Rather nice wand, isn't it? Maybe when I visit I'll let you use it again."

Meeting Again

It was much easier to knock at the Malfoys' door this time, Harry found, and Narcissa Malfoy didn't hesitate in asking him to come inside.

"Draco will be down in a moment." She eyed Harry speculatively. "You're very kind to come fetch him, Mister Potter."

"We're still not sure whether the Fidelius Charm on the house is completely defunct or not, so this seemed sensible," said Harry. He didn't particularly want to make small talk with Draco's mother, and was thankful when Draco did, indeed, appear shortly, carrying his broom, with his trunk floating behind him.

"Hello, Harry. I'm ready to go." Draco gave his mother a quick kiss on the cheek. "See you in a week."

If, thought Harry with a private grin, Draco didn't persuade his parents to let him stay on with Harry until it was time to catch the Hogwarts Express. September was only a fortnight away. Lucius had stipulated that Draco ought to return home for the last few days before the term began, and Draco had agreed, but Harry suspected that he didn't really intend to follow through.

"Come on, my father isn't here," Draco added, stepping outside the door. Harry knew there was a charm on the house to prevent anyone Apparating directly in or out -- part of Lucius' punishment, like the loss of his wand and the Ministry surveillance of all the Malfoy family's dark treasures. Probably Draco's father was in hiding this morning not because he did not wish to say goodbye to his son, but because he did not wish to risk any unpleasantness with Harry. That made Harry a bit sad. Even though he found the elder Malfoys loathsome, he couldn't help envying Draco for having living parents who adored him.

Harry hadn't wanted to Apparate to the vicinity of Grimmauld Place, either. In the aftermath of the war, he had much less privacy than before, particularly in London. "If it's all right with you, I thought that perhaps we could fly," he suggested.

Draco's face lit up. "All the way to London? In daylight? Be fantastic!"

"We'll have to Disillusion ourselves or stay above the clouds, but yeah." Harry grinned. "I thought it'd be fun. I see you got your Nimbus back." It had occurred to Harry that Draco might not, since he had left it at Hogwarts when he fled the night of Dumbledore's death.

"Professor Snape had it sent back to me when he became Headmaster." Draco blinked and bit his lip, then put on a determined expression, stroking over the handle. "Haven't had a lot of opportunity to fly, lately."

Harry nodded, watching fascinated. "The only thing is, what about your trunk?"

"Oh, I'll just shrink it." Draco cast Reducio, then used another spell to tie the trunk to his broom. "I'll Disillusion you if you do me, okay?"

"I'll do you if you want." Harry caught Draco's eye and they both laughed. "When we get to my house." Raising his wand, he cast the charm that would make them invisible to Muggles, then felt a pleasant tingling as Draco lifted his wand to do the same to Harry. Probably the tingling was more from the way Draco was grinning at him than the spell. Tucking his wand away and straddling his broom, he said, "Ready?"

Instead of replying, Draco kicked off the ground, soaring above the grounds of the mansion. "Race you to Stonehenge, Potter!" he shouted.

The two of them wove back and forth, laughing, as they approached the stone circle that rose above Salisbury Plain not far from where Draco's family lived in Wiltshire. Harry dove low, sailing between two of the massive megaliths. Muggle tourists visiting the monument looked around as if they had felt the breeze from the broom, but none of them appeared to notice Draco landing inside the circle at nearly the same moment Harry's feet touched the ground.

"Think we had better call it a draw," Draco snickered. "Good thing we didn't bet on this." He was still straddling his broom with the handle pulled up to his chest, pressed lightly against his groin.

"I'd have flown faster if we did," Harry countered. He'd bought himself this new Firebolt only a few weeks before, and it made even better speed than his old one had.

"Funny, I thought you were quite happy to chase me," Draco grinned. "Or was that someone else whose eyes were glued to my arse?"

Harry blushed. How had Draco seen that? But it was true. "Um." He glanced up at the stones. "I've never been here before... do you come often?" Then he realized what he'd said and blushed again. "Come here often, I mean."

Draco appeared not to have noticed; he was looking around reverentially at the sarsens towering above them. "This is one of the first places my father ever took me flying," he said. "The Giants' Dance... he told me it must have been built by wizards, no matter what those books by Muggles say." Harry glanced over at the tourists carrying guides, wearing headsets, completely oblivious to the presence of two wizards standing within the rope that marked the boundary for trespassers. "Still, if this once belonged to wizards, you'd think we'd have protected it better."

Harry placed his hand on the nearest upright stone. It seemed to vibrate with energy. "These are so old... they were put here a long time before wizards started hiding their world from Muggles," he reflected aloud. "They've been a part of Muggle Britain all that time. It wouldn't have been easy to make them disappear without causing more trouble than it was worth."

"Yes, but they attract all sorts of charlatans and liars." Draco was looking at the throng of tourists with thinly-veiled dislike. "Phony magicians and religious fakes. Are your Muggle relatives like that?"

"Phonies and fakes, yeah, but not religious ones." Harry snorted. "They used to go to church only at Christmas and Easter, mostly I think so that they could wear smart new clothes. So they weren't religious fakes, just faked having religion, if that makes sense. But phonies in other ways -- one summer to get me out of their house without a fuss, Mad-Eye Moody arranged for them to think they were finalists for the All-England Best-Kept Suburban Lawn Competition."

"The All-England Best-Kept Suburban Lawn Competition?" Draco hooted at that. "What a load of rubbish. You're well rid of them."

"I don't have a lot of yearning to ever see any of them again, no," agreed Harry. Even though Dudley had been almost decent the last time Harry had seen him, that hardly made up for sixteen years of bullying. "Anyhow. What do you know about the henges -- what did your father tell you?" He was prepared to take whatever Lucius Malfoy had said with a grain of salt, but since he didn't really know anything about it, he was curious.

"This whole area," Draco swung his arm about, indicating Salisbury Plain, "was inhabited centuries before the Roman Muggles came and tried to get rid of wizards and everyone else who wouldn't obey them. You can feel the magic in the stones, can't you?" Harry had to nod. "Muggles live in Avebury and Little Compton now, but those stone circles are ancient, too. And the burial mounds, the long barrows? These were ours once, like Hogsmeade and Godric's Hollow -- we shouldn't have to share them."

"And that's why your father hates Muggles?" Harry couldn't help sounding incredulous. It wasn't as if the Malfoy family had ever personally owned the stone circles. He didn't think. And if there were wizards buried in the nearby barrows, they were as dead as the Muggles of those ancient eras.

"That and all the Muggle blood mixing with ours..." Then Draco grimaced, apparently having remembered that Harry's mother had been Muggle-born. "You know what I mean. He thinks that if we don't protect what's ours, the Muggles will overrun everything. Far more of them than us. Do you know they have weapons that can blow up half the world if we don't act quickly enough to stop them?"

Again Harry thought about the Dursleys, who were just as prejudiced as the Malfoys, only toward different people. They would hate the idea of invisible wizards visiting Stonehenge as much as Lucius apparently hated the idea that it was open to Muggles. And Harry no more liked the idea of Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia in charge of anyone's fate than Lucius and Narcissa. "There's good and bad wizards and Muggles both," he pointed out. "We've both known a lot of the bad ones, I guess."

"I haven't really known any Muggles, good or bad," Draco admitted. "Not in person. But no one I trust has ever had much good to say about them, not even you. And if the stuff Skeeter wrote about Dumbledore is true, even he once thought Muggles needed to be ruled. Anyhow." He looked around at the Muggles outside the ropes. "I don't see why there have to be such crowds of them... at least there's the rope to keep them back."

"Most wouldn't be vandals, but there's always a few rotten apples," said Harry, thinking that he wouldn't trust a wizard like Goyle not to do exactly the same sort of thing, only with magic rather than a knife or paint. "I'm glad that we could get in, though. I've heard about it but always wondered what it would be like to be here. Wish that I could spend some time just being around the henge, feeling the old magic, you know."

"There's a small henge near my house that's been hidden from Muggles for centuries by various spells. We could go there sometime, if you wanted?" Draco sounded half-eager, half-nervous, as if he wasn't sure how Harry would react to the invitation.

"As long as there aren't any nasty old spells lingering." Harry grinned. "And if it's private..."

Draco grinned back. "Probably not as private as your house," he said. "Speaking of which, much as I enjoy visiting this historical marvel, I can think of other things I'd like to see on this holiday."

"Shall we, then?" Harry swung his leg back over his broom, taking one last glance around the magnificent stones. He hoped that he would get to visit it again with Draco, and those other places Draco had mentioned... odd though it felt to be making such plans with someone whom until recently he had tried to avoid as much as possible. "We'd better not race through London, though. Not Muggles but wizards around who might report us to the Ministry if we're spotted."

Draco followed him obediently as he kicked off and swerved east, and Harry looked back over his shoulder to smile, waiting for him to catch up. He loved flying low over the Thames and he suspected that Draco would as well. For a moment he felt a bit disloyal to Ron, who would also have loved a long trip by broom like this, but Ron had his family and Hermione to keep him company... this was Harry's time to spend as he wished, and he wanted to spend it with Draco.

From Wiltshire to London was a lengthy flight by broom, but Harry enjoyed it. Until they were near London, they were able to veer and loop and race a bit; when they weren't competing in a Quidditch match, Harry discovered, it was rather a lot of fun to fly with Draco. He would swoop down near trees and pull off just one leaf in passing, holding it up in triumph and daring Harry to do the same. Draco looked very at home in the air... well, that wasn't surprising, was it? He'd obviously been flying since he was tiny, even if at first it must have been on toy brooms. But it meant that even when Draco was focused on racing Harry to the next hill, he seemed relaxed and at ease, much more so than Harry was accustomed to seeing him.

"We're getting near enough now that we should be careful," Harry called out as the buildings below started to appear in thicker and thicker clumps.

"Even Disillusioned?" Draco yelled back.

"It's not perfect invisibility. Better be pretty quiet, too." Harry flew nearer, nudging Draco's knee. "Muggles go a bit berserk if they start hearing voices out of thin air. If we stay this close though it should be all right to talk."

Still, Harry couldn't resist following the river, flying slightly behind Draco to watch him sail low above the water and then soar up to avoid the boats. They managed to get to Grimmauld Place without being seen. Harry hadn't been altogether truthful with Narcissa about the Fidelius charm -- most of his school friends had visited without incident -- but he also wasn't sure whether Mad-Eye had used any spells on the house specifically to identify the Dark Mark and keep Death Eaters away.

He had planned to invite Draco formally inside, to counteract any such charms, but as soon as they had dismounted their brooms, Draco strode over, grabbed Harry by the shoulder and kissed him hard on the mouth. "Couldn't exactly do that with my mum around," he snickered. Already rather stimulated by all the flying, Harry found himself instantly hard. He stumbled up the steps, holding on to both his broom and Draco, kissing him, and they were through the door before it occurred to him that no spoken invitation had been necessary.

"My room's upstairs," he said breathlessly.

"I imagine that means I should save the unpacking till later." Draco grinned back at him. "Although I should at least put the trunk down. Do I get my own room?"

"Kreacher will want to take the trunk and unpack for you anyhow," Harry mumbled against Draco's cheek. "And yeah, I chose a room for you, but, um, you can sleep with me if you'd rather. I didn't know what you'd want." He was trying to pull Draco's shirt out of his trousers and guide them both up the stairs at the same time.

"I'm definitely going to sleep with you right now... but whether I sleep with you is another question. Do you snore?" Draco snickered, sliding his hands under Harry's shirt.

"BLOOD TRAITOR! Disgrace to the name of wizard!"

Harry swore, and Draco yelped, "Circe's knickers, what's that!"

"Mrs. Black's portrait," said Harry grimly.

Turning, Draco squinted at the curtains that mostly covered the painting, then strode over and yanked them wide. "Listen to me!" he declared as Sirius's mother opened her mouth to scream again. "I am the son of Narcissa Black Malfoy, and you have no business speaking to me that way!"

Mrs. Black stared from Draco to Harry and back, and for a moment, Harry dared to hope that Draco had succeeded in shutting her up where all others had failed. Then she shrieked, "UNNATURAL FILTH!" and was off again, shouting insults until Draco had yanked the curtains shut over her and Harry had dragged him upstairs.

"Why haven't you put that portrait in the cellar?" demanded Draco.

"I can't get rid of her. We tried everything. Not just me, but Sirius and half the--" Belatedly Harry reminded himself that, no matter how nice things were between himself and Draco at the moment, Draco was merely relieved to have escaped with his life and his family intact. He had done nothing to earn Harry's trust about things like the Order of the Phoenix. Even if there didn't seem a need for secrecy any more, it wasn't Harry's place to tell. "Well, everyone we knew. There's a Permanent Sticking Charm, apparently. The frame won't budge."

"Maybe you're going about it wrong." Striding back downstairs, Draco yanked open the curtains over the painting again. "Mrs. Black!" he shouted over her rantings. "Why don't you visit my mother at Malfoy Manor? There's a portrait of your grandmother there -- I imagine that she would be delighted if you dropped in."

The scowl on the old lady's face diminished only slightly, but her voice was as moderate as Harry had ever heard. "Don't you know, you young fool, that portraits can only move to pictures in another house with permission, unless their own portraits are also there? I would have expected Narcissa Malfoy's son to be better informed."

Draco gave her a winning smile. "I'm extending the invitation. The portrait of Violetta Black hangs in the drawing room, and there are a number of other family pictures there as well."

"Foolish boy." She glared at him.

"You can assure my mother that I've arrived safely here; she'll be ever so grateful," Draco told her, and the idea of that seemed to do the trick. With a final mutter that cast aspersions on Harry's blood, sexuality, and taste in companions, Walburga Black turned and stalked out of her frame, to Harry's great relief.

"Amazing! No one's ever come up with a way to get her out of there before." He wrapped his arms around Draco again. "Now, where were we?"

"I was about to do this." In one smooth gesture, Draco slipped his hands beneath Harry's shirt, sliding the material up and over his head while managing to get the maximum contact possible between his palms and Harry's nipples. Harry shivered involuntarily, and Draco grinned at him as they hurried up the stairs once more.

"Are you cold? Perhaps we had better get you to bed." Grabbing his hand, Harry tugged Draco toward the bedroom he had taken over at Grimmauld Place. He was a bit nervous -- he was sure that Draco had a stunning suite in Malfoy Manor, perhaps it was just as well that he had not gone up to see Draco's rooms -- but Draco appeared to be sparing less attention to the decor than to getting Harry undressed. His free hand had come round and was unbuttoning Harry's trousers, causing Harry to trip as they slipped down.

Snickering, Draco caught him. "Careful. I'm not ready to get you on your back just yet." He pressed Harry up against the nearest wall and dropped to his knees. "Your pants are a bit tight, Potter." Draco tugged them down, licking the crown of Harry's cock.

Harry's head thudded against the wall and he whimpered at the sensation of Draco's tongue rubbing along the length of his prick. He'd been wanking to the memory of the previous time Draco had done this for the past week, but that was nothing compared to the reality of it. "Ahhfuckyes, ohgod," he gabbled when Draco sucked at the head, teasing the foreskin with his fingers. He looked down to see Draco's eyes shining up at him, and unsteadily he brushed back the hair from Draco's face.

The heat was building up inside him, centered on his cock, and Harry knew that if Draco kept this up he was not going to last long. He saw that Draco was pumping his own prick with the hand that wasn't wrapped around Harry's, and felt a sudden longing to taste Draco again, bury his nose in the thatch of pale hair that surrounded Draco's cock and smell the salty-musky scent there.

"Wait," Harry said with a groan, brushing his thumb over Draco's cheek. "Gonna come... want to suck you too."

"Bed," said Draco promptly, pulling his mouth away from Harry's cock and releasing his own, which stood dark and swollen against his pale skin. He let Harry help him to his feet and leaned in, crushing Harry against the wall, for one hard kiss, giving Harry a taste of his own cock from Draco's mouth, hot and slightly salty.

They stumbled to Harry's bed, Draco throwing aside the rest of his clothing on the way. Harry had an instant's vision of Kreacher coming in to clean up, finding Harry and Draco's things commingled... would he find this as unnatural as Mrs. Black did, was Harry going to have to work to put things right with the elf again?

But then Draco dragged him down on the bed and he couldn't spare a thought for anything but finding Draco's cock, getting it into his mouth before Draco made him come. He licked over the head, sliding the foreskin with his tongue as Draco had done to him, and when Draco cupped Harry's balls in his hand, Harry did the same to him. Draco made wonderful noises, moving his hips slightly to tell Harry to slide his lips up and down. Even at this angle where Harry had no hope of getting most of Draco's cock into his mouth and Draco had to arch his back to make up for Harry's smaller height, this was amazing.

As Draco flicked his tongue into the slit at the tip of Harry's cock, he also slid his fingers around the base and then behind, rubbing across the perineum, then gently touching the tight pucker of his arsehole. Harry imitated him and felt Draco's hole ease open slightly at the pressure, though without any lube Harry didn't try to push in further -- he wasn't yet sure that he wanted Draco to do that to him, in any case. Besides, the feel of Draco's lips and tongue were far too distractingly good. Harry moaned around his own mouthful, wanting to thrust his hips but not quite able to.

Heat surged through him again. Harry had enough presence of mind to let go of Draco's cock, sliding off it with a little pop, lest he bite down as he came. He couldn't help clutching hard at Draco though, with Draco sucking at him as if to draw out every drop of semen Harry could give.

Sweaty, triumphantly relaxed, he lay there panting for a moment until Draco nudged against him, hard against Harry's cheek, and said reproachfully, "Potter..."

Blushing, Harry turned his head and kissed the stiff shaft. "Sorry," he said sheepishly, turning so that he could take Draco back into his mouth. Now that he was no longer distracted by his own need to come, he could pay more attention to what he was doing, and he didn't have to stretch to keep his cock in Draco's mouth while he was sucking him. Draco let out a small whimper, as if he might be displeased about something, and tried to press down on Harry's finger again. Harry nudged at the hole, but it felt like he was forcing it, and after a moment he released Draco's cock again to suck the finger, which had a sharp musky taste.

Now his fingertip slid inside of Draco easily, and Draco groaned his appreciation as Harry took his cock back into his mouth. "Oh fuck, more," hissed Draco. Pushing in more deeply, Harry felt around until he felt the firm bulge of Draco's prostate. He rubbed his finger over it as Draco's cock twitched in his mouth. "That, fuck, oh, harder..." Harry almost choked as Draco's hips snapped, thrusting his cock to fill Harry's mouth, but when he tilted his head it fit better and Draco shuddered and then Harry's mouth was filling with bitter liquid.

"Ahh," Draco sighed. "Fuck. You're rather good at that." When Harry had finished swallowing and licked Draco clean, Draco reversed positions and crawled up so they lay face to face. "You're sure you didn't suck anyone off before me?" he asked, with a mischievous expression. "Or is it just innate talent with a 'wand'?"

"I think I'd remember if I had." Harry elbowed Draco, embarrassed by the compliment, but also curious. "How many am I being compared to, anyhow?"

"Oh." Draco gnawed at his lip. "Guess I asked for that, didn't I? You really want to know?"

Harry nodded, then shook his head. "Yes, but you don't have to say if you don't want." He nuzzled at Draco's neck, tasting the tangy salt of his sweat, listening to Draco's breath slowing. "I suppose it was other blokes at school, right? I wondered who else was queer... it's not something people talk about that much, just rumors." Harry recalled the whispers he'd heard about Terry Boot in Ravenclaw and Millicent Bulstrode in Slytherin.

"Um." Now Draco seemed hesitant, far more than he had about simply telling Harry a number. And Harry remembered that Draco had not spent the last year at school, either. He had been trapped in his own home with Voldemort and any other Death Eaters in attendance...

Abruptly Harry shuddered. Maybe that was why Draco thought Harry was good at this... maybe his other experiences hadn't been Draco's choice. "You didn't," Harry began, trying to think how to phrase the question. "He didn't make you -- do things, did he?"

"He?" asked Draco, confused, pulling back to look at Harry. Then his face cleared and he merely looked revolted. "You mean -- him? No! He thought sex was weakness. Kind of disappointed my parents and the Lestranges got married. He thought living forever was preferable to copulation and reproduction. He would never." But Draco bit his lip again, and Harry knew he'd guessed right about why Draco didn't want to answer his question. "A couple of the blokes I was with were at school. A couple... weren't. You knew about Finnegan, right?"

"Seamus?" asked Harry, astonished. "No -- I had no idea." He'd shared a dormitory with Seamus for six years and never suspected. Amazing that Seamus could have been so discreet; he wondered if Dean or anyone else had known. Rather than being jealous, as he had thought he might be, Harry felt relieved that Draco hadn't named some Slytherin he despised, even Crabbe, who was dead.

"Well, Finnegan is queer. But don't tell him I told you." Draco grinned a bit. Then the smile faded. "Snape was too," he said.

"What? Snape! I don't believe it," exclaimed Harry, remembering the memories he'd seen in the Pensieve. Snape had been obsessed with Lily Evans... he couldn't have been queer. Harry felt awkward about explaining that to Draco, though. "What makes you think he was?"

"What do you think?" Draco shook his head. "Don't be dense. Didn't you ever notice how he looked at some of the boys in class? Not that he ever did anything with a student." There was a note of mingled resentment and pride in Draco's voice. "I'm pretty sure of that... I tried. More than once. But he wouldn't touch me. It wasn't until after the end of sixth year," he closed his eyes briefly and swallowed, "when we ran for it, and it was obvious that I wasn't going to be going back to Hogwarts. I, um. That summer when he was at the Manor, I managed to get him off into one of the rooms where no one ever goes except the house-elves to clean, and begged him. I was nearly mad by then, with what he was making me do, and I trusted Snape at the very least not to tell anyone, even if he turned me down. But he didn't."

"Snape had sex with you?" Harry wasn't sure if he was disgusted or excited by the idea. His opinion of Snape had been altered so radically by the events of the past few months that he couldn't tell how he felt about the man at all any more.

"It took a lot of persuading," said Draco, a bit defensively. He took a deep breath. "Sorry you asked?"

"It doesn't make me want to stop having sex with you," Harry replied honestly. He felt faintly smug that Draco had complimented the way he sucked cock when Draco had done it with someone so much older and presumably more experienced. But it also brought up some unhappy thoughts. "Were you and he close? Were you upset, when he died?"

"Of course I was." Draco scowled, though the expression didn't seem directed at Harry. "Close? He lied to me, same as everyone. He saved me because Dumbledore told him to, and he slept with me because I begged him to, but he didn't trust me. I don't even know whether he liked me or just saw me as a pathetic extension of my parents and pitied me."

"Of course he liked you." Harry remembered Snape praising Draco's potions -- Snape had wanted the Slytherins to do better than the Gryffindors, but Harry didn't think Snape would have said anything positive about Draco's work if it hadn't actually been good. "Anyway, he hated me. He only tried to save me because of my mum." Now that he had this information about Snape from Draco, he was more confused about the man than ever. How could Snape have been in love with Lily if he had been queer? Or had he been so lonely he had only wanted her friendship? Suddenly Harry wished that Snape weren't dead, that he could confront his erstwhile -- antagonist? savior? whatever Snape had been -- and demand answers from him.

"Because of your mum?" asked Draco, not understanding.

Now it was Harry's turn to hesitate. "I don't know what you've heard about what happened, the night of the battle, about Snape's death."

"Not much," Draco admitted. "Just that the Dark Lord killed him, and no one found his body afterward. I know you lot think that one of the other Death Eaters destroyed it."

"Well, as he was dying, he passed on some of his memories to me, so that I could look at them in Dumbledore's Pensieve and see what he'd done, and why. Snape had... had known my mum since they were both children, they grew up in the same town, and he loved her. Was in love with her. Or at least, that's how it seemed to me, from how he acted, and things he remembered saying." It felt almost disrespectful to be telling anyone else this, but Draco clearly had cared for Snape... so Harry guessed Snape might not have minded too much, if he could have known. "Snape hated my dad, though, and since I look a lot like my dad, I think that was kind of adding insult to injury -- like I was living proof that my mum didn't love Snape back."

Draco was looking curiously at Harry. "I suppose that explains some things about how he treated you. I mean, you weren't anything like as good as Granger in Potions, but he acted as if you were as atrocious as Longbottom."

"He didn't really care what I thought of him. He told Dumbledore he only ever cared about my mum -- Dumbledore asked him right out whether he'd started to care about me and Snape told him he only cared about her."

"Did he actually say that?"

Well, no, Snape hadn't; instead he had conjured his Patronus, to show Dumbledore that it was still a doe. But it had certainly seemed that way.

"He did resent that Dumbledore treated you as a favorite," Draco said. "When Lockhart was picking people for the Dueling Club, things like that, he always told me that I had to outshine you, not because you were a Gryffindor but because you were Dumbledore's pet. I think he might have been a bit jealous." Harry was tempted to laugh, but Draco continued earnestly, "I can't imagine Snape would have admitted it to Dumbledore, but I doubt he would have died for you if he hated you. He must've seen something in you more like your mum than your dad."

Harry's eyes were stinging. He hid his gaze from Draco's, even though he had seen Draco cry twice now. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. Snape's gone," he said gruffly.

Draco looked pensive. "Are you positive it wasn't someone from the Ministry who took his body?" he asked.

"All of the people on our side who died during the battle were laid out in the Great Hall... if it had been someone from the Ministry, Snape would have been there, too." Harry thought about it. "I mean, there were Ministry people under the Imperius spell, working for Voldemort, but I can't see why one of them would have been interested in hiding Snape's body."

"Well, why would one of the Death Eaters have done it?" Draco sat up, frowning. "It doesn't make sense. If he was dead, who would want to bother with either destroying or moving his body when there was a battle going on? It wouldn't have gained any points from him... he was practical in his own twisted way." Even now Draco avoided saying Voldemort's name, Harry noticed.

"What are you getting at?" Harry sat up too, staring at Draco.

"What if... what if Snape isn't really dead? What if the reason no one found his body is because he somehow survived and escaped?"

"I saw him die," said Harry. "His neck was gushing blood, his eyes went glassy... his thoughts were oozing out of his head. He died, Draco."

"How could he have passed on those thoughts to you if he weren't alive to do it, though?" Draco sounded excited. "The snake bit him, right? But Snape was really, really good with poisons... he must have known there was a chance of that happening, he would have had an antidote, probably even been taking it all along, just in case."

"No," Harry said with certainty. "He would never have taken that risk. If Voldemort had checked to see that he was dead but he hadn't died, then Voldemort would have had reason to doubt Snape's loyalty. After all he'd done to defeat Voldemort..."

"You were supposed to have died, and my mother lied about it, didn't she?" Draco interrupted. "The Dark Lord wasn't as thorough as he should have been -- he was too eager to declare victory, wasn't that the problem all along? And Snape knew him loads better than I did. I'm just saying, I think there's a chance."

Harry didn't know how to feel. Ought he to be jealous that Draco was so determined that maybe he could see Snape again? But the idea excited Harry too. He had so many questions he wanted to ask Snape now. "All right, then, suppose Snape could be alive. He'd have to be in hiding... how would we ever find him? No one's seen him, there aren't any rumors or anything. He must want people to think that he's dead. Wouldn't he be angry if we did figure out where he was?"

"Maybe, maybe not," said Draco stubbornly. "Depending on where he went, he might not know much of what's happened, though I expect he'd have managed to hear that your side won. It would be reasonable for him not to want to risk being tried by the Wizengamot, sent to Azkaban -- even if the Dementors are gone -- for what he did."

"If we found him, he still could be put on trial," Harry pointed out. To his own shock, he added, "But I'd testify for him."

"You would?" Draco's face lit up. "If you spoke up for him..."

"Wait, I think we're getting way too far ahead of ourselves here. We don't even know that Snape's still alive; we just have a suspicion that he could be." Harry lay back down and tugged at Draco's hand to pull him back to the mattress too. "Maybe it's worth thinking about. I managed to find the Horcruxes... with help, sure... but it would almost have to be easier to find an actual person whose identity you know, than an object about which you know nothing at all."

"There are ways to trace magic," Draco agreed, trailing his fingertips along Harry's skin. Harry shivered; they had been talking for so long that his cock had had time to recover, and was now reminding him that he was lounging naked on his bed with an equally naked Draco. Who had had sex with Snape, and instead of being a turn-off, that idea was somewhat arousing.

Glancing down, Draco grinned when he saw the effect his touch was having. "Got a bathtub?" he asked. "I was thinking I could get you clean and relaxed, and then I could show you the appeal of being on the bottom, if you were interested." Harry whimpered softly; his cock was definitely interested, even if he felt a bit nervous. Smiling again, Draco leaned over and kissed him. "Or we could take turns making each other come in the shower and save the fucking for later in the week. What do you think?"

"The bathroom's right through there," Harry said, sitting up straight and pointing with the hand that wasn't grabbing Draco's to tug him up. He had never taken a bath with another person and the concept had definite appeal. Somehow he hadn't expected Draco to be the sort who lay around talking and petting him in bed, or the sort who'd want to relax him in a tub before fucking him for the first time. He liked it. A lot.

"Does that elf of yours cook?" Draco asked. "Because if you don't have anything planned, I think we should go out afterward. See London a bit -- Muggle London, where we won't be recognized. I hear the service is terrible but the pies aren't bad."

Harry thought of all the places he'd heard about from the Dursleys but never seen -- the trip to the London Zoo had been a rare treat born of desperation. Hermione had visited most of it already with her Muggle parents and Ron hadn't wanted anything much to do with the things that fascinated his father. He'd never have suspected Draco Malfoy would be offering to take him.

"Kreacher cooks quite well, but I'm sure I could ask him not to have anything for tonight. Going out sounds fun." It was still only early afternoon. "Although before we go maybe eat a sandwich or something," Harry added, feeling his stomach rumbling a bit. "Was there any place in particular you wanted to go see?"

"The Tower. There are supposed to be ghosts there, my mother says." Draco's eyes gleamed as he turned on the water. "First things first, though. A relaxing bath and try something new, or a nice mutual wank in the shower?"

"The bath," said Harry, a nervous quiver in his voice.

"Splendid choice. And this is a wonderfully big tub," Draco said approvingly as it began to fill. He opened the wall cabinet and poked through it, opening bottles and sniffing at them. "This will do." He poured a stream of thick blue stuff into the water and immediately it foamed up, giving off a scent like warm pine needles and spice. "Climb in and sit in the middle... I'll get behind you."

Obediently Harry lowered himself with a splash into the water.

"Move up just a little," Draco told him. "I'm going to put my legs around... yeah." He began to knead Harry's shoulders, his thumbs digging into the muscles. "Do you like that?"

He liked leaning back against Draco, feeling Draco wrapped around him in the warm water, as much as he liked having his muscles kneaded. He was only just beginning to realize how little he had been touched all his life -- Ginny had taken hugs and pats so for granted that she had sometimes startled Harry in an unpleasant way, he was so unused to being stroked just for the sake of it. "S'good," he moaned softly, feeling Draco lean forward and slide his cheek against Harry's hair. Surrounded by warm water, his prick felt very hard again.

"You're still tense," Draco told him, splashing warm foamy water up his back and rubbing it in. "We don't have to have sex right away, you know -- we have all week, if you want to get more used to me first."

Was Draco laughing at him? Harry jerked his head around to look. It was hard to give up instinctive habits like that, no matter how much things had changed, in the world or between them.

Draco gave him a puzzled look, then looked a bit ashamed, as if he had guessed what Harry was thinking. "Yeah, might be better to wait. I don't want to fuck everything up again."

"Again?" What they'd done so far had been pretty much fantastic, in Harry's opinion. His head sank forward again as he tried to relax more.

"You know. The reasons why we hated each other until... well, I don't know when you stopped hating me. I guess I stopped hating you sometime during sixth year."

Presumably after he'd kicked Harry in the face. "About then, yeah. But I wouldn't say that it was all your fault either. It was pretty rude of me not to shake your hand right at the beginning, even if you were being a prat with all your talk about the right sort of people."

"We both did things that we probably shouldn't have," Draco agreed. He touched Harry's cheek with wet finger. "Here, look at me."

When Harry did, Draco stuck out his hand. "Draco Malfoy. Pleased to meet you."

Harry laughed and awkwardly turned far enough to shake hands. "Harry Potter. Likewise." Draco grinned back at him.

"Okay, turn back around again." He went back to touching Harry, rubbing at the knots in each muscle. "I mean it, though, there's no reason you should bottom right away, if you're not sure about it. I like it, a lot, and you might too, but it's your choice. Not every bloke does."

"I like..." Harry stopped himself. He had nearly said something soppy about how he liked having Draco touching him, and he doubted that Draco would want to hear that. "Well, I liked being on top, last time. That felt amazing."

Warm, wet hands slid beneath his arms, making him shiver, though Draco was still kneading his muscles. "We should do that again, then," Draco said with satisfaction in his voice.

"But I want to know... I mean, obviously you liked what you were doing. And I'd probably be better at it if I knew what it was like from the other side."

"That's true -- I think everyone fucks differently once he's been fucked," agreed Draco. His hands had come all the way around Harry's body and were rubbing his chest. "But I still say there's no hurry. If you like having your prick in me, and I like having your prick in me, then maybe when we get out of this tub, what we should do is put your prick in me."

All this talk was making Harry's prick very, very eager to do something, whether it was come in Draco's arse or in Draco's hand. He moaned softly. "Fuck -- I don't think I can say no to that."

"Then fuck it is," Draco snickered. He slid one hand down. "And I'd say you're quite ready, hm? In the water might be fun, but I think the tub would be a little hard on the knees and elbows."

"Whatever you, ohh, want." Harry gave another moan as Draco stopped touching his cock.

"Stand up, then," said Draco, suiting actions to words and grabbing a couple of towels as he stepped out. "I'll dry you off." He rubbed a towel quickly over his own body, then wrapped it around his waist. The bulge of his erection showed through the rough fabric and he gave himself a leisurely stroke, smirking at Harry. "Think maybe I'd better leave that bit alone, for now."

Draco dried Harry off, taking time to run the towel up and down his legs, though avoiding touching his cock and balls. Even so Harry felt as if each inch of skin that Draco rubbed was directly connected to his prick, and he was glad when Draco finished and started pulling him back towards the bedroom.

"Now the real question is, do you have any lube?" At the shake of Harry's head, Draco said, "Thought not. I brought some; it's in my trunk, though. Can you wait long enough for me to get it? Can't Accio with the trunk locked and I don't know whether your elf has unpacked it yet."

"I can wait," said Harry, again feeling rather as if Draco might be mocking him by implying that he was too eager... but perhaps that was just Draco's kind of teasing, not meant to be cruel? He returned Draco's grin uncertainly as Draco sauntered out, and took a moment to clean and straighten the sheets on the bed while Draco was gone.

Then he heard voices, and cringed. He had completely forgotten to speak to Kreacher after they arrived, and now that Kreacher had encountered a towel-clad Draco, things were sure to go badly...

But Draco returned just as Harry reached the door, grinning and holding the lube. "I met your elf," he explained. "He bowed and said it was an honor to serve the son of Narcissa Malfoy."

Harry's own smile vanished at once. He often allowed himself to forget Kreacher's role -- and Narcissa's -- in Sirius's death, for Kreacher had been loyal since Harry had learned of Regulus Black's fate from him. Discovering that Kreacher admired Draco's pureblood family served as an unpleasant reminder.

Draco's smile wavered as well. "He's a house-elf, Harry. He can't out you to the Daily Prophet."

"That's not..." Harry tried to force a smile back to his face. Likely Draco hadn't known about the plan to lure Sirius to the Department of Mysteries, where his own father had been arrested. "Kreacher and I haven't always had the best relationship."

"Well, he was very respectful about you. He asked whether his master required anything, and I told him that soon we would be requiring sandwiches. Was that presumptuous?"

"It's fine." Harry took a breath. "I'm sorry. It's something we can talk about another time."

Still looking a bit doubtful, Draco nodded. He unwrapped the towel from around his hips and, looking around, tossed it over the chair that stood against the wall. "Okay, then." As Draco hopped up onto the bed, Harry noticed again how thin he was, but forgot it as soon as Draco pressed up against him.

"The first thing to remember," Draco's breath was warm in Harry's ear, "is not to be stingy with the lube. In case of doubt, more is definitely better. Have you ever used it to wank?"

"No. Just, you know, spit. Or hand lotion." Harry blushed. He'd borrowed some from Hermione while they were searching for the Horcruxes, claiming that being out in the cold so much was making his skin peel away around his knuckles... which had been true, but he'd used more of it for other purposes.

"Lube is better," said Draco firmly. "Even for wanking, and definitely for fucking." He was rocking against Harry's thigh as he talked; feeling how hard Draco was made Harry want to fuck him that minute, but he waited to hear what else Draco had to say. "Slop some on your hands, and then do just what you did last time. Start off with one finger and stretch me a little, then add more."

"Should I be behind you again?" Harry wanted to be able to see Draco's face, if he could.

"Not necessarily." Draco grabbed one of the pillows and lay back on it, elevating his hips. He spread his legs widely, grasping the backs of his knees to hold them in the air, giving Harry a full view of everything between them. "Not the most dignified position, but it works."

Grinning, because it was impossible not to feel at ease when Draco was so comfortable with this, Harry squeezed out what seemed to him a great deal of lube and slid a finger down behind Draco's balls. Again the hole seemed impossibly tight at first, but the slippery fingertip slid in easily and soon Draco was pushing down against it, grunting encouragement.

"Second finger. You can stroke the backs of my... ohhyes!" It was hard, at first, to tell which faces Draco made because something was momentarily uncomfortable and which he made in pleasure, but that flared-nostril, open-mouthed expression was obviously a good one. He groaned eagerly as Harry stretched him, reaching down to stroke his own cock, which made Harry's feel like it was going to explode.

"All right. Get up here and fuck me." Rubbing slippery fingers around his cock, Harry shifted on his knees between Draco's legs, smiling back as Draco lifted his ankles up to Harry's shoulders. "You can get in deeper this way. But don't neglect my prick."

Harry sucked in a breath as he guided the head of his cock to Draco's hole, which stretched to accommodate him. The lube was sloppy but it felt good, too, warm and wet as he slid inside. Once he had, he paused for a moment and leaned forward, bracing himself with his left arm and reaching for Draco's prick with his right hand. Draco was still touching himself, but he let Harry close his fingers around the heated firm length and then showed Harry how fast and hard he wanted to be stroked. Harry was glad of the distraction; if he'd started to thrust into Draco's arse right away he was sure he'd have come within seconds.

A flush spread over Draco's face and chest. "Fuck yeah, that's right, now come on and move, Harry, I'm not going to break..." he gasped. "Love the way your prick feels in me, nice and big, come on, yeah, fuck me..."

Hearing Draco saying all that almost made Harry's cock convulse right then. Who'd have thought that the snooty pureblood would talk dirty in bed? Harry couldn't respond the same way, the words felt awkward on his tongue, and besides, he knew that he wasn't that big but supposed Draco meant it as a compliment, which pleased him in an embarrassed sort of way. So he just moved with as much control as he could manage, watching Draco's mouth open again and his head tip back as Harry's prick rubbed across his prostate.

"Harder," Draco moaned. "Gonna come, want to feel you come with me..." His skin was gleaming and the hair around his face had darkened with sweat, and he couldn't seem to close his mouth. Even so, he had surprising control over the muscles in his arse, squeezing Harry's cock firmly, then moaning like it gave him just as much pleasure as it gave Harry.

Harry's hand had sped up unbidden, probably rubbing too hard but he couldn't help himself. "Close," he groaned. "Oh fuck Draco can't wait!"

"Don't wait, come in me, let me feel your balls empty," gasped Draco, writhing, obviously enjoying saying the words as much as Harry enjoyed hearing them. Harry slowed, his orgasm now inevitable, and just as his cock began to erupt he felt Draco clench down hard, face twisted in pleasure, releasing hot spurts over Harry's fingers as they stuttered and squeezed around Draco's cock.

"Fuck," breathed Draco one more time. His eyes opened and he gave Harry a lazy, relaxed smile, then swiped his finger through his semen on Harry's hand and tasted it, sucking at the fingertip with a hint of a dare in his gaze. Harry's cock gave a final spasm at the sight. It seemed somehow more erotic to lick it up deliberately than to swallow because someone had come in your mouth.

If Draco had showed this side of himself to Harry back in sixth year... well. No use thinking about that. When Draco started to lift his legs up and off Harry's shoulders, Harry quickly twisted to help untangle them, and pulled his now-softening prick out of Draco's arse.

"That was really good," he said lamely, not daring to tell Draco that he'd especially liked the way that Draco had wrapped himself around Harry, that he'd felt, well, cherished was perhaps the word but it was far too emotional to use. Yet. Probably he was just imagining things. It wasn't as if he had that much experience; maybe any time people had sex, they felt like there was some kind of connection that was more than just the physical pleasure of it all, and if he said so to Draco he'd sound silly for believing it was real.

"It was brilliant," Draco announced, swinging himself around to face Harry as he settled on one elbow. "If you don't want to try being on the bottom, you should at least try coming with a plug in your arse sometime -- feels fantastic to have pressure there." He smirked, not at all self-conscious telling Harry how much he enjoyed having his arse filled.

Having grown up with Dudley, to whom "queer" was perhaps the worst insult in the world, Harry found it rather remarkable to discover that Draco was so comfortable with his sexuality. It made Harry feel loads better about what people at school might say; maybe most wizards weren't quite so prejudiced about this as many Muggles, even if it still wasn't something talked about too openly.

Grinning, Harry wriggled closer. There was a white streak spattered over Draco's belly, and he bent his head to lick at it, keeping his eyes on Draco who rewarded him with a shiver and a murmured, "Got a taste for it, now, do you?"

"Mm hmm." Despite their exertions, Draco still smelled like soap from the bath and something like rising bread, a good smell that made Harry's mouth water. It also reminded him that he was hungry. "Need some proper food first, but I want more of this later."

"Don't worry -- plenty where that came from." Snickering, Draco leaned over to pull Harry back up for a kiss. "Or will be again in a bit. Think that elf of yours has made us sandwiches?"

"I'm sure he has by now." Harry kissed Draco again. He wanted more of Draco's kisses, too, but Draco would be at Grimmauld Place for a whole week... there'd be time. His stomach gave a loud insistent gurgle, and Draco laughed.

"Okay. Let's eat and then go out. We're in London, Muggle London, on our own -- we can do anything we like, and no one to say no."

"Have you ever been out like that without your parents?" Harry asked. It wasn't much fun to do things alone, so he'd mostly kept to the house, with just a few ventures out by himself. He picked up the damp towel and wiped himself off, then tossed it to Draco.

"Well..." Draco hesitated, and Harry suspected he might not tell the entire truth. "A few times. Not much in Muggle places, though."

"I haven't either," Harry told him. "So that's all right." Pulling on his jeans, he added, "You'll definitely want to wear Muggle clothes. Should we stop in a bookshop and buy some sort of guide, or would you rather just explore? I'm pretty sure I can get us to the Tower on the Tube, but after that I don't know."

"Let's just explore. As long as we can find our way back tonight," Draco winked, a lascivious smile on his face. "Growing boys need to go to bed early, after all."

Phoenix Tears

"So, we've been to the Tower, the Natural History Museum, Kensington Park, the London Eye, and the National Gallery. I'm still not sure I believe that was your however-many-greats grandfather in that picture," Harry said. He was sitting with Draco in Leicester Square, watching Muggle tourists and trying to decide whether to see a film or not.

"Didn't you see the family resemblance?" Draco's voice was only slightly indignant; he was reading the film reviews and shaking his head over each one. "I can't believe anyone would waste their time and money on any of these. Much better ways to spend time, if you have it." He lowered the paper and peered over the top of it at Harry. "We don't have to see every sight in London this week, you know."

"True." It had been fun, though, going around with Draco the past several days. Draco had done far better at blending in to the Muggle world than Harry would ever have expected. Unlike Arthur Weasley, he seemed quite at home on the Tube and the buses, although Harry kept a sharp eye on him as Draco did have a tendency not to pay attention at zebra crossings and had nearly been hit by cars more than once. "What better ways did you have in mind?"

"Do you need to ask?" Draco smirked, and Harry blushed, taking a long drink from his bottle of lemonade to cover it. "You did say you were interested in trying something new today."

"One of those boat rides up the Thames to Greenwich?" Harry asked innocently. "Not as quick as by broom, but they tell you about pirates who were hanged on the wharf as you cruise past."

"Funny, Potter." Draco grinned at him and Harry felt his cock stir. "If you're determined to top, you only have to say so. I'm perfectly happy to be the one getting his prick and arse stroked at the same time..."

"When you put it that way, it hardly sounds fair if you get to bottom again," Harry snickered. "Forget the movie -- we'll go home. But there's one thing I want to do first."

"What's that?"

Harry and Draco had avoided most of the major wizarding destinations in London. Naturally, there were always a handful of magical folk among the Muggles at places like the Tower and the reconstructed Globe Theatre -- it might not have been perfectly apparent to Muggles that Shakespeare had been a wizard, yet like his contemporaries Marlowe and Dee, he had clearly studied Transfiguration and History of Magic. But they had not set foot in any of the wizarding pubs, performance venues, or shops hidden away among the Muggle buildings.

"You know Knockturn Alley better than I do," he began.

Draco made a face. "What do you want to go there for?"

"Because if Snape survived, I'm guessing he needed potions that aren't exactly available at any local apothecary. And he'd have bought them from people who could also be paid not to talk."

"You're probably right," said Draco with a sigh. "Yeah. There are a couple of shops in Knockturn that will sell anything -- legal or not -- to anyone with the Galleons for it, no questions asked. Murdle & Spinks would be the place to start." He gnawed on his lip. "I'd better be the one to talk, there, but I'll have to have something to convince Silo Murdle that it's worth his while to share information on another client."

"We'll stop by Gringotts beforehand. I need to get some money to buy this year's supplies for Hogwarts anyhow. We don't have to do that today, though, unless you feel like it. Still a couple of days before you're supposed to go back home."

With a grin, Draco said, "If I do go home. I could always send an owl to say that I'm having such a good time, and you're being so kind, and wouldn't it be all right if I just stayed on and went straight to school with you... I brought everything I needed with me anyway."

"You never had any intention of going back like your father said, did you?" Harry laughed.

"Nope. But it wasn't worth the argument, not when it's much simpler just to do what I want when he can't get after me about it." Draco stood up. "All right, let's see what we can find out about Snape. I'm still confused about how to get to Diagon Alley from here. Do we need to take a bus?"

"It's close enough to walk." Harry pointed towards the south. "That way."

All the corners of London where magic was hidden away never ceased to amaze Harry. He had not often traveled to the city when he was a child -- the Dursleys had hated taking him anywhere -- but on the occasions when he had visited, even when extraordinary things happened like with the snake at the zoo, he had never suspected that there was an entire world tucked away behind the one he saw. So even Knockturn Alley, with its dirty windows and dingy shops, made him smile.

Despite Draco's most charming greeting and the stack of Galleons he placed casually onto the counter, Silo Murdle had no useful information for them. Neither did Borgin of Borgin & Burkes, whose stock appeared to have been greatly reduced since Harry had last visited that shop; apparently the Ministry's crackdown on magical artifacts did not extend only to the homes of Death Eaters. The last shop he and Draco visited, feeling somewhat discouraged, held a different surprise.

"Melinda!" Harry exclaimed. He hadn't known Melinda Bobbin well, even though she had been one of Slughorn's favorite students; he'd had the impression that she was quite wealthy, as her family owned a large chain of apothecaries. Draco looked equally startled to see her working behind the counter at a Knockturn Alley shop, though Melinda jumped slightly as though she was even more surprised to see them.

"Never know who's going to walk in here these days," she said. "What can I do for you?"

This time Harry took the lead. "Draco and I are both returning to Hogwarts this autumn," he said in confidential tones, "and since we've been out for a year, I was thinking that I'd like to do some sort of extra project, both to get back into the whole school thing, and maybe to impress Professor Slughorn a bit -- I think he's going to teach one last time. Maybe something on venoms and poisons, and the best antidotes for them."

Melinda's expression was puzzled. "Professor Slughorn liked you; I don't think you'd need to do anything special to impress him. He was always saying that you were one of the best Potions students he'd ever had."

"He didn't much care for Draco, though, and we're going to make this a joint project." Harry winked at her. "Draco's at least as good as I am, really, and he's the one who came up with the idea."

"I was wondering if you'd sold any unusual ingredients in the last several months, ones that would be useful for some of the more obscure kinds of antidotes," Draco cut in smoothly. "Or even premade potions of that type. We'd be interested in buying the same items, and maybe talking to the customers who bought them -- learn some tricks that aren't in the textbook, you know? If you could tell us who'd bought what, along those lines, it would be very helpful." He gave a smile that was practically blinding in its sincere hopefulness.

"We keep a record of each transaction," Melinda admitted. "I suppose I could at least look and see what we've sold that would fit that description."

She disappeared into the back, and Draco whistled softly. "Didn't think her parents had any Death Eater connections at all. They must have been awfully friendly with the Ministry under You-Know-Who, if this is where she's working now."

Harry felt uncomfortable. "You mean the Ministry is punishing people for... collaborating?" Even as he said the word, he realized that of course that was what was happening. Once Scrimgeour was gone, the people who did business in or with the Ministry had had to decide how far they were willing to go to stay in favor -- some, like Dolores Umbridge, had done whatever they could to further their own ends, while others, like several of the officials in the Department of Magical Creatures, had gone along with outrageous edicts without protest though without much zeal, either.

"It wasn't just the Death Eaters who kept You-Know-Who in power," Draco said darkly, inspecting shelves of ingredients. "And it wasn't just the Ministry. The booksellers and apothecaries and even the animal emporiums... a lot of them did what they were told without asking questions: firing employees, taking compensation when certain ingredients disappeared. It takes a lot more than an inner circle to do what he did."

Melinda came back, frowning. "I'm not sure if this means anything, but we had a request for phoenix tears -- quite a large order. I'm sure you know how hard that is to fill; the phoenix has to volunteer the tears."

With a rush of excitement, Harry asked, "Were you able to fill it? Did..." He was about to go on to ask who had placed the order, but Draco nudged him and he fell silent.

"It's marked on the invoice as pending -- we had only about half the requested amount, and that was delivered with the rest of the order. Apparently the customer still wants the remainder when we get in a new supply."

"So you haven't any more right now." Draco sounded disappointed. "That'll make it difficult for me to work on this project."

"We've been hoping to restock for months, but there just aren't many wizards or witches who own phoenixes, and fewer still who care to collect and sell the tears. Professor Dumbledore used to, occasionally, but of course since his death that's ended." Melinda scratched her cheek thoughtfully. "That was such a large order, I can't imagine what it was going to be used for. Usually just a few drops is enough for any potion."

"I don't suppose there's any chance that the person who bought you out would be willing to sell me just a bit?" Draco pulled out a handful of Galleons and began to lay them out, one by one, in a pattern on the counter. He swept them up and laid them out again. "I'd be most grateful for a name or even simply a way to contact him."

Melinda looked from the coins to Draco. "I can't give you a name," she said slowly. "Even if I knew it... the book says John Smith, I'm sure it's not the real name. But the records say he also requested plantain root -- that's an unusual request for an apothecary, most people eat them, but certain American healers say the roots are valuable for treating snakebite. We just received some of those and there's a note here that an owl was sent."

"Does that mean that whoever it is will be in to pick it up?"

"Probably not until tomorrow, since I'm about to close up for the evening, but if he's so anxious to have it, perhaps he'll be here tomorrow morning."

"And we could happen to come round and see," Harry smiled at her. "Thanks, Melinda. You've been great."

She ducked her head, embarrassed. "And you saved everyone at Hogwarts."

Now it was Harry's turn to blush. For all the publicity, he still wasn't used to hearing that sort of thing from people he actually knew. "Uh, thanks. We'll probably stop by early, then. Good night."

Outside, Draco hurried them out of Knockturn Alley, and as soon as they were a few doors along in Diagon Alley where they wouldn't be noticed, he crowed quietly. "It's Snape! It has to be him. Plantain root for snakebite? Phoenix tears? Couldn't be anyone else."

It could, Harry knew, but he thought Draco might just be right. "We'll find out tomorrow, hopefully." They'd need to talk later about whether they should use a Disillusionment charm, or perhaps the Invisibility Cloak -- it might not be a good idea to go undisguised. If it was Snape, he was obviously trying to be as discreet as possible; in fact, it wouldn't surprise Harry if Snape were in disguise himself. An image of Snape dressed in Augusta Longbottom's hat, the way Neville's boggart had appeared, made Harry chuckle.

"What's so funny?" When Harry explained, Draco laughed too. "You're right, though, he probably won't look like himself, if he comes in person. He'd know that Melinda and other people would recognize him. We'll have to be inside the shop to see who picks up the plantain root."

They were both cheerful as they headed home to Grimmauld Place, stopping for fish and chips on the way. "My mum never let me have chips at home. Too Muggle, I think," Draco explained cheerfully, pouring enough vinegar over the lot to disintegrate a doxy. "You know that Snape's a half-blood?"

"Yes. I'm a bit surprised that you do, though. I thought he'd hidden his past the way Voldemort did."

Draco glanced around nervously as if he still expected Death Eaters to appear at the sound of the name. "My father knew Snape at Hogwarts. Not so easy for a first-year to keep secrets from a prefect. Snape's family came from a Muggle town -- his mother married well below her, that is, she seems to have gone over to her husband's life and not kept in touch with her school chums." Chewing thoughtfully, Draco dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. "I'm a bit surprised he would have come to London."

"We don't know that he did," Harry reminded him. "But if he was as badly injured as it seemed, I doubt he could have bought what he needed in Hogsmeade without attracting attention."

"That's true," agreed Draco. "He'd almost have had to have taken a dose of an antidote before the snake bit him, to survive at all, but since he died in the Shrieking Shack he could've Apparated away." He took another bite of fish and said through it, "In fact, I suppose it would make sense that he'd not want to be in Hogsmeade just then; he wouldn't know who would be there or which side they'd be on."

"Whereas London would be more neutral, even if still perhaps dangerous." Harry nodded. "It does fit together... but it's still just speculation, remember. If the person who bought the phoenix tears and plantain root turns out to be someone else altogether -- "

"Then we'll keep looking." Draco's voice was determined. "Until either we find Snape alive or find proof that he's dead. I owe him that much."

Harry did too; without Snape's memories, he wouldn't have been able to defeat Voldemort, in the end. He quashed the surge of jealousy that Draco cared so much about Snape and said, striving to sound casual, "Of course we'll keep looking. I just don't think we should feel badly if this doesn't turn out to be him. Snape's always been good at deception, after all, and hiding for his life would give him a lot of incentive to be careful."

If Snape did not want to be found, Harry was quite sure that they wouldn't find him. But while he doubted that Snape would hide from Draco -- Snape had saved Draco's life at least twice -- he wasn't sure whether Snape would ever want to see the son of James Potter again. Snape had done what Dumbledore had asked him to do, he'd protected Lily's son, and in desperation he had showed Harry some of his most private memories. What if he felt that his obligations were discharged now, and he could get away from a young man he'd decided was as arrogant and thoughtless as his father?

"Can't do anything till morning, anyway," Draco said reasonably, tossing aside his last chip, which was burnt around the edges. "Want to pick up some firewhisky on the way back?" His grin was suggestive.

"I'd prefer to be sober, but if you think you're going to need it..." Harry grinned back. He was still a bit nervous, but several days of shagging Draco and discovering what Draco liked and expected in bed had made him quite confident that Draco knew what he was doing and would try to make anything he did with Harry good for Harry too.

Popping a last bit of crunchy fried batter into his mouth, he pushed back his chair, and Draco followed. "Been looking forward to this all week," Draco told him in a low voice as they headed out into the evening light. "I'd prefer to be sober too."

That was a relief. Not that Harry wouldn't trust Draco -- in bed, at any rate -- even if Draco were slightly drunk, but he rather thought that more control was probably better. Hearing that Draco had been looking forward to shagging him gave Harry a boost, too. It was plain that Draco very much enjoyed having Harry fuck him; turning it around was not going to be about power, but about pleasure.

"We could still buy a bottle, for afterward?"

"If you want." Draco elbowed Harry. "Lush."

"You suggested it first," Harry countered. "But no, Kreacher can probably scout out something from the corners of the wine cellar. I don't think Sirius managed to drink everything in it."

"Hm, yes, that sounds good." Softly, so that the Muggles they passed couldn't hear, Draco said, "Besides, my cock is already hard just thinking about fucking you, and I don't want to wait."

Harry shivered. "If we duck into this alley, we could Apparate home right away," he suggested.

Grinning, Draco grabbed his hand and pulled Harry around the corner into the alley. To anyone watching, they probably looked like two gay Muggles who couldn't wait to be alone... Harry hoped there weren't any Muggle police officers around. But no one followed them, and after a moment to be certain that they were out of sight, Draco pulled him in close and made the world compress around them.

Apparition was not comfortable under the best of circumstances, but it was oddly intimate now to do it Side-Along with someone Harry was planning to let inside his arse in a few minutes. He stumbled as they popped out on the steps of Grimmauld Place, inside the charms that kept the house invisible to Muggles. Draco tugged him upright and they entered the house, where Kreacher was waiting.

"Will Harry be requiring his supper?"

"No, we've already had supper, thank you. Kreacher, when you have a moment, would you look in the cellar and see if there are any decent bottles of wine? We won't be needing it until later."

"Kreacher knows where the finest bottles are hidden," the elf assured him. If house-elves were sorted at Hogwarts, Harry was certain that Kreacher would have been a Slytherin.

"Perhaps you could leave one outside Harry's bedroom door, and a couple of glasses with it." Draco's tone was halfway between a command and a request, but it seemed to go over well with Kreacher, who bowed and agreed.

"Less interruption," Draco explained unnecessarily, ignoring the departing elf and pulling Harry close again to give him a hungry kiss. "Mm. Last time I suggested that a bath might relax you before bottoming; do you want to try that again?"

The way Draco had touched him in the bath had been awfully nice... and definitely relaxing. Plus, charms or no, Harry thought he'd be less concerned about being clean if some soap and water were involved. "I'd like that," he agreed.

"Good." Draco's grin was knowing. "We'll get you in a right proper state for this. And there's something else I'm going to show you first... something that Snape did for me once and I'm sure you'll enjoy."

"What?" asked Harry, feeling a bit nervous as they reached the bathroom and Draco turned on the water.

"Let's just say that he has a wicked way with his tongue."

The bath did feel wonderful; they had been walking nearly all day, and while Harry had enjoyed it, his legs were very happy to stretch out in warm water with Draco behind him, soaping up his chest. "Hands in the air," Draco ordered like a Muggle bank robber in one of the old movies Dudley watched, but Harry's smirk turned into a groan as slow, soapy fingers worked their way down his biceps into his armpits.

"Did your parents bathe you when you were small?" he asked Draco.

"Nah -- I had a nurse. You can't think that my mother changed nappies, even using magic?" Draco snorted, working his hands down Harry's sides. "My parents weren't big on hugging. Thought it would make me soft. Bet they're sorry now that I'm turning out to be a poof."

"Let me." Squirming around in the tub, Harry took the soap from Draco. He'd had little opportunity to touch someone at his leisure; if Petunia had ever bathed him, he didn't remember it, and he'd been nervous about touching Ginny, making her think he expected or wanted more than just holding her and kissing. It was surprisingly arousing to touch Draco like this, just with soapy hands; his cock was throbbing even though it wasn't touching him. Although they'd been having sex all week, Harry hadn't felt able to explore Draco's body in quite the way he could now, running his hands along every inch of Draco's skin.

Compared to Harry, Draco didn't have much body hair, and what there was, was pale and sparse. When Harry asked if that bothered Draco at all, he got a surprised look and a shake of the head.

"Why should it?"

"I don't know... because it's supposed to be a sign of manliness, I guess?" Harry shrugged, running his fingers underwater along Draco's thigh from knee to groin, stopping just short of his cock.

"Tease," Draco accused him without rancor. "Come on, Harry, why should I think hair showed manliness? If I wanted hair, I'd brew up a potion or something. You're not saying you think I'm any less male because I don't have a great thicket of growth on my chest, are you?"

"No, of course not," said Harry with some embarrassment.

Draco looked at him thoughtfully. "I've known I preferred blokes for years... but you haven't, have you? I don't know how Muggles think of it..."

"It's not as big of a thing as it used to be, but there are still a lot of people who disapprove," Harry said. "My aunt and uncle and cousin would be appalled." He snorted. "Although I don't know if they'd think it was worse than being a wizard, to be honest."

"What I was trying to say was that maybe you have some ideas about what it means to be queer that are different from how wizards usually see it." Draco slid a hand over Harry's chest, and Harry closed his eyes, enjoying the sensation. "If I was fucking you to get ahead in the Ministry or something like that, my parents wouldn't be disappointed, they'd be pleased. No one talks much about it but there's plenty of same-sex shagging among wizards, especially in schools like Durmstrang where it's all boys together."

Harry knew that plenty of that went on among Muggle boys as well. "Then how come everyone seems to pair off and get married by the time they're in their early twenties?" he asked Draco, stroking the firm hairless stretch of abdomen above his pubic hair.

"Because producing children is supposed to be the most important thing, especially if you're a pureblood. And unlike with Muggles, it still matters a great deal among wizards that your parents were married before you were born. How many wizards did you meet at Hogwarts who came from homes with just a mother? And you must have met some where you couldn't figure out why they were married to the person they were with. After a certain age it's considered more respectable to live alone than with someone of the same sex. Didn't you wonder why Dumbledore never passed on his powerful blood to a child?"

"Dumbledore!" Harry exclaimed in astonishment. He'd never much thought about Dumbledore as someone young enough to have sex, let alone with a family. Yet all the youthful passion of Dumbledore's letters to Grindelwald remained in his mind. That bond had gone deeper than ordinary friendship, to have sparked such jealousy and anger.

"So you see, it isn't that I like bottoming to you that would bother my father," Draco added with a wry grin. "It's that I'd rather live here with you than try to pair off with the right sort of girl and fulfill my obligations to my family. That's what makes me a poof."

"You'd rather live here with me?" Harry's heart beat faster.

"After we've finished school. If we're still getting on. Yes, I would." Draco's grey eyes were steady. "But that's a long way off... we don't need to think about anything like that yet. It's not something that's likely to be easy for either of us, you know." He put his hand over Harry's and guided it to his stiff cock. "Right now I'm more interested in fucking you."

"Okay." Harry swallowed, feeling Draco's prick hot and heavy in his hand, his mind chattering at him that this was going to be filling his arse very soon, and judging from how Draco acted when Harry fucked him, it was going to feel amazing. "Back in the bedroom?"

They dried off quickly and within minutes Harry was lying sprawled across the bed, Draco over him in a tangle of limbs, exchanging heated kisses. Draco trailed his tongue along the edge of Harry's jaw, up to his ear, and whispered, "Do you trust me to make this good for you?"

"Yeah." Harry stroked Draco's back. "I do."

Draco pulled away a little and gave Harry a brilliant smile. "Grab that pillow and put it under your hips. No, a little further back -- yeah, there." He started to kiss and lick and nibble his way down Harry's body, nosing into his armpits -- which tickled, and when Harry begged him to stop Draco chuckled wickedly but did switch over to nipping his nipples gently instead. Harry had never thought that he would be so sensitive there, but each tug felt like a stroke over his cock, now leaking a few drops onto his stomach. He reached for it only to have Draco capture his wrist. "Patience, Harry."

Patience was not something Harry much wanted to have to practice just now, not when he'd been hard for so long already. He whimpered as Draco bit into the skin at the juncture of his thigh, and then cried out more loudly when Draco licked a long wet stripe down his cock and blew over it, the feel of the air making him jump and shake. "God, Draco, please!"

"I'm flattered, I must say."

Distracted as he was, it took Harry a moment to realize the joke Draco was making. He gave a chuckle that was half-groan, and muttered, "Prat," but Draco merely grinned at him and went back to nuzzling at Harry's bollocks.

After a few minutes of that, Draco paused. Harry heard him murmuring something, and suddenly his arse tingled. "What did you do?"

"Oh, nothing much," said Draco in an offhand tone. His tongue trailed down, over the skin behind Harry's balls, and then he was licking at Harry's arsehole, the tip of his tongue easing inside, and with relief Harry figured out that it must have been a cleaning spell. He couldn't be impressed by Draco's wandless magic for long, though, not with Draco's tongue sliding around the tight pucker of his arse, coaxing him to relax and open. Harry had never imagined anything like this; every nerve there was overloading with pleasure.

"God, Merlin, Draco, I'll come like this if you keep doing that!"

Draco snickered. "God and Merlin now? I'll get a swelled head, Potter. And not just this head." Harry felt Draco's cock nudge against his thigh and moaned. If fucking was anything like what Draco had been doing with his tongue, then Harry wanted to push down on that cock and find out before he exploded.

"Please, would you just hurry!"

"It'll be much better if I don't." The lube was in Draco's hand -- had he conjured it from somewhere? -- and Harry could see him squeezing it over his fingers. "My tongue isn't quite as big as my cock. Let me..." He slid a finger in and out of Harry, which felt a bit strange at first, and then a second finger, which felt even stranger. "Tell me if it gets uncomfortable."

"Just feels a bit different," Harry whispered. After having Draco's mouth there, it wasn't the same overwhelming delight, and Harry was feeling a bit disappointed when suddenly Draco bent a knuckle and his fingers nudged... "Aaahh!"

"Like that?"

He could hear the smirk in Draco's voice but he didn't care, he didn't care about anything but "Oh fuck do it again!"

"Thought you might." Draco did do it again, and again, and Harry was back to thinking that he might come before Draco even put his cock inside him. The fingers went away before he could, though, and then Draco was kneeling, bracing himself on one arm and leaning over Harry, saying, "Are you ready?"

Harry could only nod. The tip of Draco's cock was pressing against him, almost teasingly, and Harry squirmed, wanting more. "Please, oh fuck!"

"I'm going to fuck you," Draco promised. His face was red and sweaty and all of a sudden Harry remembered how quickly he always came, fucking Draco, and realized that Draco was doing an amazing job of holding back to make sure that Harry's first time as a bottom was good. Then Draco's prick slid inside him, and it was good, the way Draco moved against him, shifting a little bit each time until he was rubbing against that same spot that had felt so wonderful before, and Harry groaned and Draco's face relaxed for a split second, then tensed again with that pre-orgasm strain Harry always saw on him.

"You're so tight, Harry, fuck, so great..." Even though Draco was thrusting faster now, harder, it didn't feel painful at all as Harry had expected it might; between the lube and the way that Draco's cock pushed against him, sending sparks up his spine, he was teetering on the edge. "Touch yourself, come on, want to feel you coming around me," panted Draco. "Want to see your come spilling out of that gorgeous cock of yours."

How did Draco manage to wait, and to talk in such deliciously dirty ways at the same time? Harry wrapped his hand around his prick and lifted his knees higher, holding the left one with his free hand and resting his right ankle on Draco's back, pressing him even deeper. "Draco, oh god," he whimpered, and didn't care if Draco laughed at him again.

But Draco didn't laugh. Draco shoved in hard, knocking the breath out of Harry, and groaned, "Fuck, Harry, won't last long in this tight arse of yours! Wank yourself for me, please!"

That ragged tone, that sound like begging in Draco's voice, was more than Harry could withstand. Stroking his cock feverishly, he arched and exploded with a grunt over his fingers as Draco impaled him. Hot spatters landed on his belly. "Oh fuck, Draco!" Harry gasped.

"Fuck, yes," panted Draco in agreement, still thrusting. "You clench up like... oh bloody hell going to come in your arse!" Throwing back his head, Draco shouted triumphantly, moving jerkily over Harry as his cock erupted inside him.

Though he had been embarrassed about coming first, Harry was glad to be able to watch Draco now, undistracted by his own need to come. He liked seeing how much pleasure Draco obviously took in fucking him, and the delight that stole over Draco's face as the spasms of his orgasm faded. "I really hope you enjoyed that as much as I did," Draco wheezed, "because that was as fantastic as it gets."

Harry hoped that wasn't entirely true -- it would be pretty sad to think that he'd had the best orgasm he'd ever have at the age of eighteen -- but he did have to agree. "Yeah; it really was great." He realized that he was still wrapped around Draco, more or less preventing him from moving, and with some reluctance lifted his leg away from Draco's back, but Draco didn't pull away as he expected.

Instead he leaned forward and kissed Harry's eyes, one after the other, and then his mouth. Only after that did Draco flush and seem embarrassed. "I haven't topped very much. You're not just saying you liked it?"

Harry shook his head. "Not at all. I can see why you like bottoming now... and you're right, I think having done that will make a difference next time I top. Um. I'm glad you didn't tell me beforehand you hadn't done it much, though. I might have had a harder time relaxing, and all that."

With a snort, Draco said, "Why do you think I didn't?" Now he began to ease out of Harry's arse, which was feeling slightly sore but not too bad. "Hang on. I'm going to go get that wine... Kreacher must have left it by now."

He looked satiated but self-possessed, naked as he was, as he padded back across the floor with the bottle and glasses, and poured for them both. "Cheers."

They clinked glasses in an unspoken toast, and then an unquenchable curiosity prompted Harry to ask, "Did you... you said you hadn't topped much. Did you do that to Snape?"

Draco snorted softly. "Do you really think Snape would have let me do that? I tried, once, when he was half-asleep, and he used some kind of stinging hex on my bum." Harry frowned, but Draco grinned. "Felt kind of good once it stopped smarting. I bet he would have spanked me if he wasn't so anxious at that point to fuck me."

Harry's eyes had widened. "And you liked that?"

Shrugging, Draco took another sip of wine. "Snape was the most defensive person anyone could imagine. Now I think he must have been Occluding the whole time, but then I was grateful he was willing to do it at all. It was all about sensation with him -- no talk, almost no kissing. He didn't even like me to tell him his cock felt good in me while we were doing it."

If it had been himself, Harry decided, he would have found that upsetting and impersonal, but considering what Draco had been living with at the time, he supposed he understood why it hadn't bothered Draco too much. "If we found him... would you want to keep doing it with him?" he asked Draco cautiously.

"No idea, really. I'm not even sure he'd want to." Finishing off the glass, Draco poured again, topping off Harry's as well. "I liked the sex well enough, but it was just sex, you know? He never pretended that we were friends or lovers or equals. I owe him a lot, but don't get the idea I have some kind of romantic delusion about him."

Which Harry was glad to hear, though he promptly wondered why he should be so relieved. Because it meant that Draco wouldn't go off with Snape, should they find him, and leave Harry alone? Well, not necessarily alone. Draco had said that Seamus was queer, and even if Seamus had finished school now there were other blokes around who might be too. On the other hand, although Draco could still be a git sometimes, sex with him wasn't something Harry wanted to give up, not if he didn't have to. Harry realized that Draco was staring at him and took a gulp of wine to cover his confused thoughts. "He'd be hard to be romantic about," Harry agreed, thinking of Snape's greasy hair and large nose, and the way he managed, always, to make Harry feel about two feet tall and six years old.

"You keep asking about him though." Draco peered owlishly at Harry as he refilled his glass once more. "Why?"

"I don't know." Squirming, Harry added, "I guess because I'm still surprised... both that Snape is queer, and that you had sex with him." Images of Snape pounding into Draco -- maybe even in the same piece of garden where Harry had done so -- flickered through his mind. "And, you know, I owe him a lot too... which is why I think it's worth trying to find him," he finished, hoping to shift the subject.

Draco's expression was skeptical, but he nodded and poured the last of the wine, dividing it between them. "The lead that Melinda gave us seems likely to be a good one."

"Yeah." Harry took a drink. "Whether we find Snape tomorrow or not, though, we should plan to buy our books for Hogwarts, get that out of the way. Unless, if we do find him, there's something more pressing than going to Flourish & Blotts."

Draco nodded. "Either way, though, we shouldn't waste the morning." He nudged Harry's elbow, grinning. "Sharing a bed isn't going to be possible at Hogwarts, so we won't have opportunities for enjoying the early part of the day. I somehow don't think I'll be made Head Boy, so the Prefect's Bathroom is out, too."

In fact the status that Draco had enjoyed during all his time at Hogwarts, while his father had been respectable and his family name admired, was likely at an end, and Harry suspected that McGonagall and Slughorn would see to it that he was kept very busy and accountable to them. With a sinking feeling he wondered whether Draco would even be allowed to play Quidditch. "I think your days as a prefect are over," he agreed, "but, year away or not, I expect that Hermione will be Head Girl. Maybe I can convince her to let slip the password for the bathroom."

"Never happen if she finds out you intend to go in there with me." Draco's voice was resigned, but his expression was bleak. "I don't mind telling you, I am not looking forward to going back. Half my friends have gone, and the other half may not acknowledge my presence."

"You could make new friends." Harry's jaw set. "If you really want us to be together, and this isn't just a distraction..."

"Is that what you think this is?" asked Draco incredulously. "I already told you I wanted us to be together. It's a bit soon to expect me to get down on one knee and propose to you." Harry felt his face turning red and started to stammer out a protest, but Draco elbowed him again. "After the past week, I'm a bit insulted that you think this might be just a distraction."

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. It's more than a distraction for me, too. Whatever Hermione and Ron think, it's not really any of their business." He gave Draco a small smile. "I know it's going to be harder for you, but I expect I'm going to find that some of my old friends won't be too happy either when they find out you and I are together."

"No one's going to cut the Savior of the Wizarding World to his face, though." Draco sighed. "Maybe it's not really a good idea for me to go back."

"Forget that." Harry sat up straight and scowled at Draco. "You can't run away and hide forever. Now's your chance to show everyone what your feelings really are. That you did what you did because you loved your family. The people that should matter will understand. I did, and Merlin knows I had a lot of reasons not to like you."

"This means a lot to you, that I be at Hogwarts, doesn't it?"

"Yes, it does." Harry touched Draco's knee. "We'll figure out ways to spend time together, I'm sure of it. And even if it's hard at first, things will get better."

Draco gazed into his empty wineglass and heaved an overly dramatic sigh. "But if you ditch me for a Weasley! Think of the humilation, Potter."

"I'm not going to ditch you for a Weasley." Harry couldn't help laughing, and Draco grinned at him, sending both their glasses floating to the bedside table with a wave of his hand. "More likely you're going to get fixed up with pureblood girls."

"If any respectable families would let their daughters date me. You see how little my parents have tried to meddle this week. I think I have a bit of time before they start chirping that chorus again." Draco waggled his eyebrows. "Besides, I think my father's afraid that if he asks directly, I might tell him I'm a poof. He'd rather pretend otherwise for as long as possible. You must have noticed what a coward he can be."

Lucius and Narcissa's cowardice had saved lives, perhaps including Harry's own. He elected to ignore that last statement. "All right, then, we have a plan. Tomorrow we look for Snape, we get our books... and we don't waste the morning." Harry curled up against Draco. "But if we're going to get up and do all of that, we should probably go to sleep."

"Two things first." Draco's hand felt for Harry's.

"What two things?" asked Harry, squeezing back.

"Since I don't feel like waking up stuck to the sheets... Accio wand!"

With the wand in his hand, Draco cast a cleaning charm. Harry realized that, in fact, he'd been a little uncomfortable from the dried remnants of Draco's semen and nodded. "And the second thing?"

"This." Draco pulled Harry close and gave him a kiss that had him hard, panting and squirming, in under two minutes.

"Hey!" Harry gasped once Draco let him breathe again. "I thought we were waiting till morning!"

"Can't keep your hands and various other parts off me?" Draco smirked. "We said we weren't going to waste the morning. Doesn't mean we can't have another go tonight, if we want. Although I don't expect you'd be up for bottoming again quite yet."

"Not really," Harry agreed. He still felt a bit odd -- not sore, exactly, but tender, and he didn't want to push it. "Since you don't seem terribly tired, though..."

Draco was still smirking. And since it wasn't really all that late, Harry felt no qualms about taking full advantage of sharing the bed.