Title: Fair and Trouble

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

Pairing: Harry/Draco

Warnings: Angst

Rating: R

Wordcount: 4500

Summary: Things that might be excusable when you're sneaking off at night to have sex seem different in the light of day. And while Draco's hair has changed back to normal, his personality is the same it's always been. Sequel to "Black and Fair."

Author's Notes: This is a Wednesday one-shot for nia_kantorka, who requested a sequel to my Advent fic "Black and Fair." Her prompt asked the following questions: What will the friends say when they find out? Will Harry have problems when Draco looks just like himself again? What happens when feelings (from one/both?) get into the mix? This story does attempt to answer them, though not always with happy answers.

Fair and Trouble

Harry leaned sideways on his broom. His vision was focused straight ahead, and he even ignored the Snitch he'd seen tauntingly hovering to the side a second ago in the intensity of his rage.

He slammed into Malfoy so hard that he knocked him spiraling away from Ron, and almost out of the sky. Not that that was going to happen, not when Harry altered his position in the next second to get around to Malfoy's other side and brace him on the broom.

It was a convenient position to be in. It made it possible to snarl threats that no one else could hear and misunderstand, for one thing.

"Do you want me to bite your cock off?"

Malfoy opened his mouth, ready to say Merlin knew what. Harry body-blocked him again, and heard the shrill whistle that was Madam Hooch trying to call them back down. Harry ignored her. This wasn't a real game, it was a wary practice with Gryffindor and Slytherin sharing the pitch at the same time, and Malfoy was the first one who had crossed the boundaries that were supposed to separate one side of the pitch from the other.

"Do you want me to? I could." Harry spun around Malfoy and ended up with his broom pointed at him. Madam Hooch was rising fast on her own broom, which meant Harry had only a minute to say what he wanted before he'd have to cut it out again. "Or I could just never take it in my mouth again. Your choice."

"So upset over a little insult to his friend," Malfoy murmured, and his eyes were half-lidded. His hair blew behind him, and he appeared to be under the impression that he was somehow seducing Harry by hovering there. "You'd think you could learn to ignore that by now. Harry."

"You'd think you would have learned how angry you make me when you do this by now," Harry replied. "Malfoy."

Malfoy leaned forwards. Madam Hooch was only a few broom-lengths away, and he kept his voice quiet. "I told you that just because we fucked a few times I wasn't going to change, Harry. Were you under the impression I was lying? Because in that case, you should have taken someone else to your bed."

Then Madam Hooch was there, and her scolding began with, "Boys!" Harry didn't listen to anything else, because he didn't need to. He knew exactly how it would go from there.

His gaze stayed locked on Malfoy, who smiled smugly at him, knowing how much it made Harry want to snarl when Malfoy got the last word.

Well. Harry had made one threat already. All he had to have was the resolve to keep it.

And he would. Because his friends were more important than what Malfoy felt like inside him.

The bracelet on his wrist grew warm.

Harry crossed his arms and lay looking out the window. The end of the war with Voldemort had had advantages beyond the obvious. For one thing, Harry could leave the window and his bed-curtains open without any fear that someone would try to fire a spell through one or the other.

The bracelet was growing insistent. Somewhere down below, Malfoy was pacing the Room of Requirement and wondering where he was.

Harry could have taken off the bracelet. He knew that. It was Malfoy's idea of a joke and a gift at the same time, a small silver snake with its tail in its mouth and topazes for eyes. It would grow warm when one of them wanted to summon the other for a bit of sex.

And it was burning the inside of his wrist now. Harry remembered something he'd once read about the skin being delicate there.

It would have to go on being delicate without him. Harry lay back and closed his eyes and waited it out. The bracelet grew cool at last.

Harry smiled faintly, and spelled his curtains shut, and went to sleep.

Malfoy didn't approach him the next morning. Harry thought about that, then shrugged. He supposed Malfoy had as much right to surprise him as Harry did to surprise him.

And the silver bracelet was cool.

"What did you say to Malfoy in the Quidditch practice yesterday, mate?"

Harry turned towards Ron. He had a curiously intent look on his face, enough that he didn't even to seem to notice the melted better from his scone was dripping over his fingers to fall on the plate. Harry blinked in silent salute to Ron's seriousness, and said, "I told him that he'd better leave you alone, or he'd answer to me."

"Hmm." Ron bit into the scone and glanced over at the Slytherin table. "Because he hasn't looked at me or spoken to me at all, and usually you know he can't wait to test prohibitions like that."

Harry didn't look in Malfoy's direction. He'd promised himself he wouldn't. "Well, he might be growing up," he said lightly, and took a spoonful of the bowl of mashed carrots that had started appearing on the table lately. Hogwarts seemed to have hired a house-elf with a predilection for slightly unusual breakfast dishes.

"Hmm."

Harry chose to ignore that. He wasn't ready to explain Malfoy to his friends yet. He knew he'd have to eventually, but it would help if he knew the terms he and Malfoy would associate on.

He managed one short peek at Malfoy from under his eyelids, when Malfoy was turned sideways talking to Zabini, before he had to look away again. And that was all. Malfoy seemed to be back to normal. Maybe even the normal he had been before he and Harry had started—associating. Certainly the potion that had dyed his hair black had long worn off, and he strutted around and spoke the same way he had before the war.

Maybe I—wasn't ever really attracted to him. Maybe I was only attracted to the Black in him.

That was something Harry had to ponder stoically. Among other things, it indicated that his memories of Sirius might be tainted or dark in a way he hadn't considered before. But in the end, he shrugged and accepted it. If this "association" was at an end anyway, then he could deal with the revelations in peace.

Of course, Malfoy stepping in front of him as they were on the way to Potions wasn't the way Harry had thought things would go. He jerked to a halt, almost slamming into Malfoy's chest, and for a moment, the air between them hummed with all the constant emotions that neither set of their friends knew about.

Malfoy gave him a smile that would probably have passed muster with a professor or a prefect, and said, sticky-sweet, "Can I talk to you, please, Potter?"

"What about?" That was Ron, bulling forwards, the loyal friend as always. Harry gave him a grateful smile.

"That's between Potter and myself." Malfoy gave Ron the barest touch of his attention, still lash-like enough to make Ron turn red and Harry flinch on Ron's behalf. "Weasley."

Ron opened his mouth again, but Hermione proved herself to be less insightful than she thought she was, and one of the prefects fooled by Malfoy's smile. "Oh, come on, Ron," she said. "It's not like Malfoy's being insulting right now. If he and Harry are going to repair their relationship, we should encourage that."

She gave Harry a glance that Harry ignored easily. Hermione wouldn't have done it if she'd known what she was "encouraging."

"Right," Ron finally said, and mouthed something at Harry over Hermione's shoulder that he didn't bother lip-reading, because he knew what it would be, and he smiled easily back and waved his friends on. Which left him alone with Malfoy.

Well, all right, alone with Malfoy in the middle of a well-traveled corridor, with curious students walking past them all the time. Harry raised his eyebrows and asked, "What's between us, exactly?"

"Oh, dear, Potter," Malfoy said, and his voice had dropped to a sort of hiss that, most of the time, Harry only heard on actual snakes. "Were you thinking we were friends? That something might change between us now that we're lovers?"

Harry might have panicked, except not only was Malfoy's voice low, he had finally noticed the faint shimmers around Malfoy that signaled he'd cast a spell to make his voice inaudible to the people passing them. Harry stood up a little straighter and said, "Right. I was foolish, I suppose."

"Yes," Malfoy agreed slowly, a crease between his brows. Harry knew why. Harry wasn't supposed to participate in his own humiliation or agree that it was justified.

Harry flashed him a flat smile and said, "But since we're not friends and we're not lovers, there's no reason for us to continue in this." He stepped fluidly around Malfoy and went on his way.

Malfoy grabbed him low on his arm, out of sight of passing people, before he got beyond the enchantments protecting their voices. "What?" Malfoy whispered.

"Oh, sorry," said Harry, and turned around to give him an insincere beam. "Did you think I should just fall into your arms and go along with whatever you wanted because the sex is so good? Sorry, Malfoy, but no cock exists that's good enough to melt my spine and make me go along with someone who's being a bastard to me." He paused, then added in a measuring tone, "At least, not your cock."

Malfoy's eyes—still the same Black, grey eyes, but no longer really resembling Sirius's, at least to Harry—narrowed. "I told you that I wasn't going to let you go even when the potion dyeing my hair wore off," Malfoy whispered. "I meant that."

"And I mean this." Harry ripped his arm free, ignoring the slight sting of blood from a cut Malfoy's nail had made. "There's two of us here, but you've made it clear that only one matters. I don't have to put up with that." With precise movements, he unclasped the silver bracelet and threw it back at Malfoy, who probably only caught it because he'd been a Seeker. "Good luck finding someone else to fuck."

"Potter. Potter!"

But all Harry had to do was keep walking, and although parts of him burned and stung far more than the little laceration on his arm, he could still ignore it. He was free, and Malfoy had made it clear where they stood.

It hurt. But it wasn't a killing wound.

Harry supposed he should have expected Malfoy to do something after that. But he still didn't expect the arm that snaked out of a side corridor when he was on his way back to Gryffindor Tower from the library that night, and dragged him into that corridor.

Harry found his chest pressed flat to the stone, while Malfoy stood behind him and glided one finger along his shoulder. Harry blinked in confusion when he realized he couldn't feel Malfoy's wand, though.

What is he doing?

Malfoy's shoulder brushed Harry's throat, and Harry figured it out with a sensation that felt like the tolling of a great bell in his skull. He wanted to laugh. It was the way Malfoy had seduced him when his hair first turned black. He'd only had to touch Harry a few times and look at him in a meaningful way, and Harry turned into a puddle lapping his feet.

But Harry wasn't content to lap anyone's feet this time, and he easily moved backwards and tore his head sideways. Malfoy stumbled, grunting perhaps more in surprise at being bumped than anything else, and stood there staring at Harry with eyes that glinted like moonstones in the faint light of the torches.

"I told you that wasn't going to work anymore." Harry was proud of himself. Not even his voice was breathless, and a week ago Malfoy had managed to take all his breath away with a touch like that. Harry smoothed down his robes and added, "And I'd appreciate it if you didn't ambush me anymore."

"I don't—I don't understand." Malfoy's voice hopped and hesitated with enough frustration that Harry found himself pausing to listen. "That worked a week ago. And you agreed that there wasn't—there didn't need to be any feelings involved. We just fucked because it was what we wanted."

"I did agree with that," Harry said. He wondered where he'd got the power to sound like this, calm and mature and self-contained. Maybe the growing up that Hermione kept insisting he needed to do since the war had finally started to pay off. "And it wasn't a problem as long as we could be neutral to each other out of bed. But then you started taunting my friends. I'm not going to put up with that, Malfoy, no matter how hot the fuck."

"You know what I am." Malfoy didn't strike a pose, but his arm moved as if he would have liked to. "I never pretended to be something other than what I am."

Harry smiled. He didn't know if it was a bitter smile; he didn't have a mirror. But it was the kind of smile that made Malfoy flinch, and right now, that was more valuable. "But you were different after the war," he murmured. "For one thing, you were different enough to want to make me come. But was that the only difference?"

Malfoy shook his head like a wasp had got into his ear. "What?"

"You weren't taunting Ron and Hermione for the past few months," Harry pointed out. "Or forcing confrontations with anyone except me. That's all right. That's what I signed up for." His blood heated for a moment with the memory of where those confrontations had so often led, and then he chased it away, because it was just making Malfoy look smug. "But once you start changing? Please."

"I don't have to do anything you command me to, Potter." Malfoy's face had frozen like a grave mask.

"Right," Harry drawled, and flicked his wand, blasting Malfoy back a short distance with a quick gust of wind. "The feeling's mutual, Draco."

He raised his eyebrows, waiting to see if Malfoy would come up with something new. But he only stood there, mute, staring, and Harry nodded a little and walked away.

He was disappointed that things had ended up that way, of course he was, but he honestly didn't see what else Malfoy had expected to happen.

Malfoy was less hot with blond hair, anyway.

Malfoy spent the next several days staring at him, and Harry spent the next several days ignoring him. Not always serenely, of course, but honestly, that wasn't the point.

Ron muttered, "Did you know that Malfoy's staring at you?"

"Well, yes?" Harry didn't look up. The half-Transfigured wooden dog in front of him, which he was supposed to be transforming into a real one, was more interesting, anyway. At the moment, only the left half of the poor thing was fur and flesh, and that kept lunging up to lick Harry's face, dragging its wooden leg and half-body along. Harry pushed it gently down and cast the spell again. "Commuto canem!"

This time, the charm worked. There was a fluffy brown-and-white puppy on Harry's table. He shook himself as though he didn't know what to do when half of him wasn't wood, stared for a second at the new set of legs, and then barked and flung himself at Harry. Harry laughed and let him lick his face.

"Very good, Mr. Potter." McGonagall gave him an exhausted-looking smile. She was doing both the duties of Headmistress and Transfiguration professor at once until they could find a new teacher. Harry was glad for her sake that one had apparently agreed to come after the end of the Christmas holidays. "Five points to Gryffindor." She turned to check on Lavender's dog.

"Potter."

The voice was low and charged and came from right beside him. More relaxed than he should be with his arms full of excitedly wriggling puppy, Harry looked up.

Malfoy was holding his own dog. It was black and sleek, not a surprise. McGonagall had told them that their own particular preferences in dogs would influence the colors they took.

But Malfoy's puppy also had a white fur lightning bolt in the center of its forehead, and bright green eyes that didn't belong on a dog.

Breathless again, the way a touch from Malfoy could make him feel, Harry stared. Malfoy gave him a single, smooth bow, and then sat down and began stroking the dog's small, pointed ears. Not floppy like Harry's dog's ears or the majority here, Harry thought, and dodged another wave of saliva.

It didn't mean anything. Probably.

But Malfoy didn't try to change things even when McGonagall came over and told him to work on the green eyes. Instead, he just watched Harry over her shoulder, and nodded a little when Harry stared back. Then he looked away and began to tickle his puppy's scar.

You make no sense, Harry thought, and tried to convince himself that Malfoy's automatic sneer when Ron's dog turned out red still ruined it all.

This time, a small owl Harry had never seen before flew through his window in Gryffindor Tower and landed on his chest. Harry reached out and stroked its feathers, and it gently turned its head to nibble at his finger before looking him expectantly in the eyes.

Harry sighed. "Right." Then he reached out and took the letter from the owl. Except it turned out not to be a letter, just a slim, straight envelope puffed out by the shape of something round. Harry shook it into his hand.

The silver bracelet. Or not the same one, Harry realized when he turned it around. Instead of topazes, this snake's eyes were emeralds.

Like the puppy's eyes in Transfiguration.

Harry sighed loudly, mentally asking himself what the hell he was doing, even as he clasped the bracelet around his wrist. It grew warm at once, and the snake became mobile, lifting its head to nudge him with a soft, insistent pressure. Harry glanced automatically at the puppy sleeping at the edge of his bed, paws twitching in his sleep, but he didn't wake up.

Harry slipped out of bed and followed the warm tug at his wrist the way he had so many times in the past few weeks.

As he had thought would happen, the warmth and pulling led him to the Room of Requirement. Harry stood there a while considering his own folly and the foolishness of people in general before he pulled open the door he could see, a gleaming silver affair with a hard block knob.

Malfoy stood in the exact center of the room, his hands behind his back. He quivered like the puppy, or like someone who really wanted to pace and was forbidding himself the satisfaction. He looked at Harry with slightly desperate eyes.

"Hi," he said.

Harry waited to see if there would be any more, decided there wouldn't for right now, and nodded. "Hello."

Malfoy took a delicate step towards him. Then he stopped. "I don't know how to apologize," he said. "I was never any good at it."

"For that matter," Harry said, "I never got much practice in accepting apologies." He hesitated, then added, "Why don't we concentrate on the future? Say that there won't be any more insults to my friends, or to yours. Say that we'll accept we both haven't changed that much, and if I remember that for you, you have to remember it for me at the same time."

Malfoy was silent, staring at him as if he thought Harry would turn around and walk out of the Room at any moment. Then he nodded. "If I say yes," he whispered, "will you come here? I've—missed your skin."

It was the closest thing he would probably get to an admission of missing him, Harry thought wryly as he crossed the distance. The same way the puppy's appearance in Transfiguration was the closest thing Malfoy could get to a declaration of softer feelings.

But, hell. He'd missed Malfoy, too.

Malfoy kissed him, and it was harder and more impatient than it had been since the very beginning. Harry let himself kiss back, but pulled away when Malfoy tried to tug him towards the pallet lying in the corner of the Room. Malfoy spun around with his mouth open, probably to protest that Harry was forgetting their bargain already.

But Harry only went on gazing at the pallet, and as he watched, it began to rise and transform. In a few seconds, a bed stood there instead, a soft and fluffy one like his own in the Gryffindor boys' room. Harry had required it, and the Room had provided.

The curtains were red, the pillows silver. Harry turned around and raised his eyebrows.

Malfoy paused once more, then murmured, "At least you didn't go for red and green. This isn't Christmas," and kissed him again, pressing him so hard into the bed that Harry's head spun for lack of air. Malfoy only pulled away to begin undoing his robes.

Harry reclined on the bed and offered no help, either to remove Malfoy's clothes or his own. He watched, instead, the way that Malfoy's scars on his chest seemed to ease into existence, and the planes of his shoulders, and the twisting way he bent and moved as he shucked off his robes. Then he stood up and turned towards Harry, only hesitating a little when he saw him still dressed.

His hands were soft and clutching as he undressed Harry. Harry lay there and looked up at Malfoy as he did it.

No, there was really no shadow of Sirius in his eyes at all. But that was all right. Harry couldn't keep living in shadows forever.

He did lift his face demandingly when Malfoy had tossed his robes and pants in the corner, and Malfoy bent down and kissed him without hesitation, this time. His fingers were as confident as usual after he'd conjured the lube, easing into Harry, but he didn't stare with the same greedy look at Harry's arse and face. He simply leaned over and let Harry feel what the fingers were doing, twisting inside him, reaching for him.

Harry finally rewarded him with a gasp and a twist, and Malfoy smiled like a flicker of light. Harry let him do it. There were some ways and times that Malfoy needed to win.

Malfoy mounted him with a roughness that was pretty usual, too, but at least he seemed to understand what it meant when Harry frowned at him. He reached down and stroked Harry's cock lightly and quickly, but until it was in the mood, and then really put some work into fucking him. Harry found his head tilting back and a guttural sound breaking from his throat.

Malfoy seemed to enjoy that, the sight of Harry not being in control of himself as he probably should be, and thrust again. Harry retaliated by turning a little to the side and clenching his muscles so hard Malfoy swore.

"You're—so fucking—a tease when you do that," Malfoy whispered incoherently, thrusting again, at least when Harry relaxed enough that he could.

Harry smiled again, and squeezed. He didn't need to say that this had lasted long enough, now, for Malfoy to develop expectations of him and compare his behavior to things they'd already done. It was obvious.

And as Malfoy picked up the pace, and Harry watched his fair hair flying around his face and the sweat trickling down his cheeks and his mouth relaxing into a grimace of pure pleasure, Harry decided that he didn't need to say anything at all. Just enjoy it, and come when it was time, and enjoy the rippling sensation of Malfoy coming inside him.

They didn't need to complicate or ruin what they had. They needed to understand each other, and that's what they were starting to do.

"Good morning, Harry."

Of course Malfoy came up behind Harry in the Great Hall the next morning and draped a casual arm over his shoulder and stood there smiling blandly at Ron and Hermione, waiting for them to react. Of course he did. Because that was the way he would handle becoming Harry's lover, and he hadn't changed that much at all.

Neither had Harry, though. So he turned around and stared up at Malfoy for a second and shook his head. "No kisses for you until you've brushed your teeth, Draco."

Malfoy glittered at him as he drew his wand. Ron's wand was out in a second, but Malfoy only cleaned his teeth and breath with a muttered charm, and then leaned down and said, "Well?"

Harry, his face burning, had to keep the implicit promise and kiss Malfoy in front of the Great Hall. At least it had one advantage, he thought, while Ron spluttered and Hermione asked calm, sensible questions about how long they had been together, which both Harry and Malfoy ended up ignoring.

Malfoy's arm was rigid and possessive around his shoulders, and that gave Harry all the feeling of warmth and exclusiveness that a public kiss really couldn't. Harry finally broke away from Malfoy and coughed.

"Well?"

The question broke from Ron and Hermione both at once, though in decidedly different tones. Harry cleared his throat a little and turned towards them with a nod. "Um, Ron, Hermione, I'd like you to meet my, um, my lover, Draco Malfoy."

Malfoy bent down towards him, and in that moment, with his face slightly shadowed by his hair and his eyes glinting, Harry thought he could see Draco in him after all.

"Lover of a few weeks," Draco said. He glanced sideways at Harry and added, "Friend for perhaps a slightly shorter time than that."

Harry gave him a slight smile and stood up so that he didn't feel quite so crushed and borne-down by Draco standing while he sat. Then he turned to Ron and Hermione, and the world, and waited for the sensible explanation from Hermione to Ron, and the questions, and the outraged, scandalized gossip that rapidly spread from the Gryffindor table around the Great Hall.

It wasn't the way it would have been, with so many other people. It wasn't ideal.

But still feeling how tight the arm around his shoulder had become, Harry thought they could risk a bit of trouble.

The End.