A Matter of Convenience

Summary: Malfoy agrees to help Harry with a no-strings-attached arrangement to discover if he really is as bent as he suspects.

Warnings: This story contains mature content (Slash, Harry X Draco).

For those who haven't read it yet, you can also check out the one-shot outtake to this story, "A Matter of Misunderstanding."

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to J.K. Rowling. I just like to torture her characters.

Chapter One:

Harry ducked as the History of Magic textbook came hurtling towards his head. It made a spectacular crash as it knocked over his ink bottle instead of hitting its intended target. He held up a hand in what he hoped was a peaceful gesture and spoke in a low voice. "Ginny, I know you're mad, but there is no way Madame Pince didn't hear that."

Ginny raised her hands to the ceiling in a gesture of frustration. Tears stung the corners of her eyes as she gathered up her study notes from the library table. "Can't I ever get a reaction from you?" She glared at Harry. "I just told you that we should just be friends and you said, 'okay.' No arguments, no denials, just okay. I can understand wanting to go slow, but the pace of our relationship has been positively glacial. Nothing I do gets a rise out of you, emotional or otherwise." She gave a pointed glance at his crotch that made Harry's cheeks flush with embarrassment. "I think you need to take a good hard look at what it is you actually want. At least now we both know that what you want isn't me."

She vanished the spilled ink with a wave of her wand and stormed out of the library without another word.

Harry realized that he had a problem. What with the whole defeating Voldemort distraction, he hadn't paid as much attention to certain things as he perhaps should have. When Ginny announced that she thought they should just be friends, his only feeling was relief. He was bothered, not by the breakup, but instead by his lack of a reaction. They hadn't even gone any further than a few hurried make out sessions. He supposed that most normal teenage boys should feel some measure of frustration that things wouldn't be progressing past that point, but again all he could muster was a feeling of relief. Did the events of the final battle break something vital in him? He was afraid that he had always felt this way and just never took the time to pay attention.

As with anything, he decided to jump head first into the issue. He tried looking up some books in the library, but it was difficult to be discrete with Madame Pince hovering in the background trying to be helpful. He wasn't even sure what subject to look under. Would the library even stock books on broken sex drives?

Harry was similarly hesitant to ask his friends for advice. He loved both Ron and Hermione, but he would sooner nail his head to the wall than discuss his lack of interest in shagging his best friend's only sister with said best friend. This was a problem that he could only solve on his own. He decided that he needed some hands on assistance, so to speak.

Later that evening, he waited until he was certain that all the other inhabitants of the Gryffindor eighth-year dormitory were fast asleep. With the curtains tightly drawn and silencing charms in place, he took a deep breath and tried to calm his nerves. He cleared his mind and slipped his hand under his pants, ghosting a hand over his soft prick. He tried to visualize Ginny's supple curves and gentle touches, but nothing happened. The sensations were pleasant enough, but that was all.

He sighed and tried to let his mind wander to other sources of inspiration, so to speak. Soon, his head filled with confusing thoughts about hard muscles and surrendered control. His flesh swelled in his hand as he quickened his strokes. Random flashes of angry grey eyes and smooth pale skin rose to the front of his consciousness. His breathing became ragged as he fell over the edge. Even as the golden warmth crested over him, he felt guilty that it wasn't images of Ginny that inspired his reaction. At least he knew that he wasn't broken.

He didn't have enough experience to fill in the mental images beyond vague pictures, but he knew he couldn't ignore the fact that the person touching him in his mind, stroking him, caressing him had not been female. It gave him some direction about what to try next, but he was still left feeling unsatisfied and unsettled. Sleep was a long time coming.

His next step was to attempt a discrete mail order. He knew about the existence of such magazines, of course. Living in a dormitory with four other boys for so many years meant that certain things were inevitable. He was certain, though, that none of the magazines currently secreted away in his friends' trunks shared the same… variety… as the one he had ordered. When the brown paper wrapped package arrived at breakfast a few days later, Harry could hardly think of anything else. His midnight wank a few days prior was still fresh in his mind. Indeed, it had been repeated every night since then, to both his growing arousal and guilt.

He suffered through an entire morning of classes, but his curiosity got the best of him. He begged off lunch, claiming he wasn't feeling well and needed to lie down for a while.

He closed the curtains around his bed, casting first one and then a second paranoid silencing charm. He unwrapped the brown paper and flipped open the magazine. He stared in shocked fascination at the pictures moving on a repeated loop. Men in various states of undress were performing acts he didn't even know were possible. What would it feel like to have someone do that to him, to do that to another person?

He started off slowly, just stroking himself while flipping through the pictures. He paused at one particular frame of a muscular dirty blonde in Quidditch gear doing his best to nail one of his teammates through the locker room floor. Every time the picture neared the end of the loop, the blonde looked straight at the camera and gave a saucy wink.

Harry came with a muffled groan in an embarrassingly short period of time, splashing onto the pages of the magazine. He threw his head back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling.

That was it. Definitely gay, then.

His magazine kept him more than occupied for the beginning of the term, but it couldn't keep the same insatiable curiosity that had driven him to purchase it in the first place at bay for very long. He needed more. He needed… another person.

After the idea hit him, it became all Harry could think about. This was the perfect solution to his quandary. He just needed to find someone to help him figure things out, no strings attached. The only question left was who to approach?

The pool of possible candidates was depressingly slim. It was uncomfortable thinking about being with anyone much younger than himself. The experiences of war created a maturity gap that may as well be insurmountable for someone who hadn't lived it. Harry refused to approach someone who would only accept out of misplaced hero worship. Once he narrowed his choices down to seventh or eighth year students another problem presented itself. There just weren't that many students that he was certain were gay. There was a pair of Ravenclaw seventh-years, but they were already together.

It was during one of his marathon wank sessions that he realized he had forgotten the most obvious candidate of all, Hogwarts' most notorious ponce. The blonde Quidditch player, which had quickly become his favorite, gave his standard wink. Harry closed his eyes and the man's features morphed to pointed features and white blond hair.

It was the thought of Malfoy's mouth on his, Malfoy's body moving in him that sent him over the edge. Explosive waves of pleasure wracked his body, all his previous efforts paling in comparison. Panting and trying to come down from the high, Harry groaned. He had finally gotten the reaction he had been searching for. It was just his luck that the person causing it was such an insufferable git.

Harry spent a moment contemplating whether or not he could try to bury his frustrations until he graduated or find a Muggle bar or something where they didn't recognize him. What if he waited and it still didn't work? He didn't think he could stand the embarrassment if he tried something with a bloke and the same problem he had with Ginny resurfaced. What if Malfoy was the only person that could ever cause him to feel this way?

There was nothing else to do then. He didn't know how, but somehow he had to approach Malfoy.

Thanks for reading!