Title: The Book of the Hours of Litha
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Content Notes: Angst, dual timelines, established relationship
Pairing: Lucius/Harry
Rating: R
Wordcount: 6600
Summary: Harry and Lucius make love for twenty-four hours on the longest day of the year, to cement their bond and look into their past through the Midsummer fires.
Author's Notes: The present-tense sections of this story are set during Lucius and Harry's established relationship, and the past-tense sections detail how they met. The subheadings are some of the canonical hours. Litha is another name for the Summer Solstice.

The Book of the Hours of Litha

Lauds

Harry knows his hands are probably not going to stop trembling until he's actually holding onto Lucius's. So he holds them out. Lucius catches them and clutches them firmly, bending down to press a kiss to the back of his right one.

They stop trembling.

Harry turns to face the bonfire that is already burning next to them, consuming purely grass, stems, twigs, and branches from the Malfoy Manor gardens. To make it a traditional bonding bonfire, it should also have an equal amount of kindling from Harry's ancestral estates, but the ruined cottage at Godric's Hollow and Grimmauld Place are all he has. He did contribute a few timbers from the walls of his parents' cottage.

The bonfire crawls up into the sky to greet the dawn. Harry watches the sun rise on the longest day of the year, and turns to look at his partner.

His partner, but not his bondmate—until today. If they can make love for twenty-four hours straight with the most intense moments of their pasts flashing through their minds, they'll have a stronger bond than any two wizards have shared in a hundred years.

Harry bares his teeth. He was the youngest Seeker at Hogwarts in a century. He's good at breaking that sort of record.

Lucius clears his throat. "Are you ready?"

"I am." Harry holds out one of his steady hands now, and to prove it, pulls a ribbon of flame from the fire. It shimmers red and gold and scarlet, but it is only cloth, not burning him. Harry binds it around his wrist and raises a challenging eyebrow at Lucius.

Lucius smiles thinly and reaches out to do the same thing, although the ribbon he pulls is blue and white instead. It sparks like the first one as he binds it tight, and then he nods to Harry.

Harry swallows once before he comes into his arms. Lucius kisses him gently, tilting Harry's head back and forth the way he likes, because he's bossy that way. Harry firmly resumes his position as also in control a few seconds later, tangling his tongue around Lucius's and drawing out a long moan from him.

They kiss for long enough that Harry's mouth feels numb by the time Lucius lowers him to a pallet in the middle of the gardens, on the other side of the fire. Then Lucius begins to remove the thin green summer robes that he wore out into the garden as a concession to modesty. Harry, having no concept of modesty in a giant set of gardens where they're all alone, is already naked.

"Come on, Lucius."

That earns him a long, level look, but Harry knows how to get him to hurry up without words. He spreads his legs open, so that Lucius can see the glistening slickness already waiting between them, and writhes.

That does indeed get the robes off faster than words would have, and Lucius buried inside him. Harry sighs out and hooks his ankles behind Lucius's legs, pulling him in until Lucius grunts and Harry feels delighted and full.

Lucius thrusts above him, his eyes half-closed, his hair and skin glistening with shadows of gold. Harry leans a hand on his chest and turns his head to look at the fire. Lucius doesn't bother. He did tell Harry the visions would show up whether or not they were looking in the right direction, but Harry wants to see the first one come.

It does. The flames snake together and braid into a glowing golden mirror. Harry sees his face in that image, startled and five years younger, his jaw hard and his eyes wide.

And then the torrent of both the vision and Lucius's lovemaking crashes over him, and Harry loses track of where he is in the wash of gold.

"Mr. Potter. I wanted to speak to you."

Harry hunched his shoulders and moved faster. He didn't want to speak to Malfoy. And he didn't see what more there was to talk about, anyway. Harry had testified that Narcissa had acted to save him in the Forbidden Forest. He'd testified that Draco hadn't identified him and his friends when the Snatchers brought them to the Manor. He'd testified that Lucius hadn't done anything personally against him or his friends since he escaped from Azkaban. That had been all he could honestly say, but it was enough. The Malfoys were free, under limited restrictions, such as weekly visits from Aurors and heavy fines.

Honestly, Harry was only at the Ministry today as a favor to Kingsley, who wanted all perspectives in his new coalition. Harry had no intention of talking to anyone else.

"Potter!"

Harry turned around, finally, when people walking past him in the corridor were starting to give him odd looks. "Yes, Mr. Malfoy?" he asked, and hoped that he sounded as if he was normal, not speaking through clenched teeth. "What can I do for you?"

Lucius jerked to a stop, blinking at him. His hair straggled around his face, and Harry had to catch his lip between his teeth as he realized that he'd never seen Lucius less than composed. Well, that was enough of a difference to keep him there for now.

"I—I wanted to thank you for taking the time to speak up for me and my family."

"All I did was speak the truth," Harry muttered. Apologies bothered him, maybe because all his actions felt like too little, too late. He hadn't been able to speak up in time for so many people. Too many had died. At least Snape's portrait in the Headmasters' office was as cranky as ever and dressed Harry down in scathing remarks that made him feel a little more normal.

"But you did it for the right reasons."

"What do you mean?"

"Because it was the truth. Not because—to be frank, not because you were impressed with the Malfoy blood or money."

"Oh." Harry shrugged. "Well, I don't like pure-blood bigotry, so I won't be sympathetic or impressed if you take that nonsense up again. But I don't think pure-bloods are necessarily worse than other people. You're welcome," he added, because Lucius still had his mouth open as if he was going to say something else, and Harry just didn't see what else there could be. "Until later."

He had turned away again when Lucius caught his arm. Harry stiffened and shot him a glare. He wasn't really in the mood right now to have even his closest friends touch him.

Lucius released him, but inclined his head and murmured, "I wish to do something to make it up to you."

Harry looked steadily at him until Lucius's eyes lowered, and then shook his head. "Nothing is going to change the past, Mr. Malfoy. And I don't testify at your trials to make you feel that you owe me a debt. I don't want anything repaid. Just—go out into the future and be better than you were, okay?"

Lucius was still standing there and staring at him as if he was some kind of shining vision. Harry snorted and kept walking. There were times that he wanted to hole up in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place for the rest of his life, and this was one of those times. People who just couldn't grasp what he'd been fighting for were tiresome.

Terce

Lucius groans and spread his legs further. Part of him hums with exhaustion, and he knows it would be far worse without the potions that he took to prepare him for this ritual. But far more of him is paying attention to the handsome young man kneeling on the grass between his legs, carefully licking at his cock.

Harry glances up at him, and grins. His smile flashes light, his eyes blaze with it, his magic shimmers around him like a golden halo as he bends his head to attend to business. Sometimes Lucius wonders how in the world he ever convinced this paragon of light to come into his arms.

But, of course, he's going to see it all again, that process. He turns his head, and the tendrils of fire are already rising, creating a series of flames almost like a ladder that leads him up and up, to those essential truths.

Lucius opened the door and nearly started backwards. "Auror Potter. This is an unexpected surprise."

Potter gave him a faint smile and said, "I think for both of us, but I hope it won't be an unpleasant one. I'm here to conduct the inspection of your house for this week, Mr. Malfoy."

Lucius stepped back slowly, eyes lingering as he watched Potter stride in. The boy was only nineteen, but he was much more powerful than he had been the last time Lucius had seen him: more muscled if not actually taller, his expression more focused, the magic that coalesced around him sharp enough to make the air around his head glitter with spikes like a crown.

"You're still a trainee, aren't you, Auror Potter?" Lucius saw no reason not to be respectful even if Potter was just a trainee.

"That's right, sir. But I have more sensitivity to Dark Arts than a lot of the others due to some—encounters during the war." Lucius thought Potter shifted when he said it, as if to feel something on his shoulder or chest under his shirt.

Perhaps a scar. Lucius nodded and said, "Then let's begin with the cellars. I have nothing to hide."

Potter glanced at him, eyebrows raised, but said nothing, only walking towards the stairs Lucius showed him. He gave no hint of hesitation as he moved into the darkness, although Lucius was already grimacing, remembering what had happened to Potter and his friends the last time he was down here. Potter acted as if he saw nothing wrong at all, instead moving his wand in slow circles, his eyes closed.

Then he opened his eyes and murmured, "There's only a residue of sadness and anger. No Dark artifacts." And he went back up the stairs without even descending further.

Lucius gaped at his back before he shut his mouth. As it happened, that was true and there weren't any Dark artifacts in the cellars. But none of the other Aurors had ever believed that, and had insisted on conducting full investigations.

His wonder increased as he watched Potter pass over the rest of the house. He was able to find a book on Dark Arts on the library shelves, although Lucius hadn't touched it in so long that the house-elves no longer dusted it. He located the place where the Dark Lord had tortured and murdered Lucy Rowle without being told. He even found the hiding place behind a painting of flowers where Lucius had once kept the sorts of things he wanted away from Aurors.

It was impressive. Lucius found himself watching with more and more interest as Potter moved through the Manor, and when Potter nodded and said, "Only residue, Mr. Malfoy," Lucius extended the invitation before he thought about it.

"Perhaps you would care for some tea."

Potter blinked at him, face blank. "But—I know that you haven't invited the others for tea, Mr. Malfoy. And although I testified for you, we were hardly on the best terms for years before that."

"You are more polite and respectful than the other Aurors by orders of magnitude," Lucius said. "Which is—remarkable, given all that I did to you and your friends. And I find myself lonely." The truth he had never intended to tell anyone came easily to his lips. "Draco can no longer bear this place, and Narcissa spends most of her time with him. We are—on the verge of a separation, actually, since neither of them understands how I can still feel a connection to the Manor or at home here."

"Well, it is your home."

Lucius, for his part, didn't understand how he was finding this comprehension from Potter of all people, but he wasn't willing to let it go yet. "It is. I am pleased to find our minds in accord. Please stay."

Potter studied him thoughtfully for a moment, and then murmured, "It's hardly the done thing, for Aurors to take tea with suspects."

Lucius snorted. "In the—old days, I entertained many Aurors. And it's hardly the done thing for Aurors to pull paintings from the walls and grind them underfoot, either, but it's happened." He nodded to the empty spot among the landscapes in the nearest corridor.

Potter straightened. "Tell me who it was."

"If you stay for tea."

"You have a strange system of bribery, Mr. Malfoy."

"I'll do what's necessary."

Potter smiled at the words, and let Lucius guide him to the small study where Lucius liked to take tea while looking out the window at the gardens. Lucius, for his part, admired the way Potter's shoulders shifted under his robes and thought of nothing else but how pleasant it would be to have someone here for tea, for once.

In so many ways, that was the beginning.

Sext

Some time ago, Harry's muscles became a puddle of butter. He can do nothing but lie on the ground with his eyes fluttering, while Lucius sprawls in front of him on the pallet and sucks his cock.

The fire has split into multiple fires now, wreathing around them so that they're on the only patch of cool grass in the middle of so many flames it's as if they're standing on the surface of the sun. Harry feels the pleasure running through him like molten chocolate and tilts his head back so he can look up.

They've made it to noon.

Harry shifts his hips a little and lifts them, making Lucius glare up at him. Harry only smiles back lazily and closes his eyes again, letting his body drift on the waves of warmth.

When he opens them again, the next vision is hovering in front of him, and Harry smiles at it as he comes.

"Mr. Potter. Are you all right?"

Harry lifted his head sharply. The next second, he could feel himself flushing so hard that it made his hands shake. He stumbled back from the gates of Malfoy Manor—which he hadn't even meant to Apparate to, he'd meant to go home—and stuffed his hands in his robe pockets. At least he didn't think he had tears shining on his face. With any luck, Lucius hadn't seen more than a few deep breaths and the way Harry's body trembled as he leaned on the gates.

Which was more than bad enough.

"I'm—not, but I didn't mean to interrupt your day. It's not something you can do anything about." Harry cleared his throat. "Not something anyone can do anything about. I'll see you next week when I come for the inspection, Mr. Malfoy."

He turned away, and heard the gates open. By the time he could turn around, Lucius already had a hand on his shoulder, and was studying him with kind eyes.

"I think we're past the point where we need to maintain such formality if you Apparated to my home as a place of safety," Lucius murmured, which made Harry flush all the harder. How had he known? "Come, Mr. Potter. Let me make you a cup of tea, at least, before you try to Apparate again. You don't have to speak if you don't want to."

And he turned and walked away in a swirl of rich dove-grey robes, not leaving Harry with any other choice but to follow.

"I don't have a future."

Harry hadn't intended to say anything, but it turned out that Lucius was serious about not urging him to talk. He gave Harry a cup of tea, and then the bread and butter that the elves brought, and sat there, sipping his own tea and watching Harry out of the corner of his eye and not speaking. So of course Harry's truths got pulled out of him even though he didn't mean to.

"I find it hard to believe that," Lucius said softly. "Not simply because you are a young wizard in your prime and possessed of incredible magic, but because I once believed the same thing, and it has turned out not to be true."

Harry swallowed and put his cup down. He needed his hands free when he said this, just in case Lucius kicked him out of his home as well. "I figured out something about myself last year. I was hiding it, but—today we had to practice with Veritaserum in Auror training. We were only supposed to ask three questions, all about factual information like our names and jobs, but the bastard who got partnered to me asked what my deepest secret was. And it came out."

"Tell me, Harry."

The first name was a surprise, but Harry still did it. "I'm gay."

He looked up to find Lucius sitting frozen, and nodded gloomily. "I'll see myself out," he said, standing.

"No. Harry. Stay. Please." Lucius took a deep breath and dropped the hand he'd reached towards him, along with the string of monosyllabic sentences. "If you wish to, of course."

Hesitantly, Harry sat back down. Lucius watched him in silence for a few moments, then asked, "Why do you think this means that your future is over?"

"Because the Ministry has regulations that prevent any gay Aurors from working in the Corps," Harry whispered. "They were only passed under Fudge and Umbridge, but no one ever got around to rewriting them, and it's not been shown to be a priority. And I broke up with Ginny Weasley last year, but everyone took it for granted that we would get back together and have children someday."

"You did not."

"No. But—I didn't have the courage to tell her that. She seemed so hopeful. She thought I just needed some time after the war."

Lucius snorted, such an unexpected sound coming from him that Harry stared at him. "Contrary to what the Weasleys think, not everyone is dying to get married and raise an entire brood of children."

"Leave them alone," Harry said, dully. "They're my family."

Lucius nodded, but said nothing. He watched Harry thoughtfully, while Harry stared at his hands and thought of nothing at all. Then Lucius said, "And do you think that your family will turn their backs on you?"

Harry exhaled. "No. But I can't go back to being in the Aurors, and I can't marry Ginny. That's what I thought my future was going to be."

"Then conceive a different one."

Harry jerked his head up to glare at the smug idiot. "You say that like it's so easy."

"Easy? No. But worth doing, rather than giving up. That is what they will want you to do, the ones who will be genuinely shocked by this news and who will assume that this is a devastating blow to you. They'll want you to slink out of public view and give up on finding someone to spend your life with. You want to defy them, don't you?"

Harry sighed. "Yes. And—thank you for putting it into perspective. I suppose this is no different from the kinds of conflicts that I went through with the press before this. I survived it when they thought I was a Dark Lord in training and a delusional liar and a cheating Tri-Wizard Tournament Champion. Thanks, Lucius."

Lucius paused a moment, as if he hadn't anticipated the thanks, and then nodded slowly. "You are welcome, Harry. Most welcome."

If there were nuances to those words that Harry didn't understand at the time, he made up for it by grasping them later, and at least he got sit and talk with Lucius, and laugh when Lucius made up more and more ridiculous suggestions for what he should take up as his career.

None

Lucius groans as he lies back and opens his legs. Harry is stroking in and out between them, panting with the brightness of exhaustion. His eyes are wide open and blazing with magic, more gold than green at the moment, fixed on Lucius.

As long as he continues to look at me, then I can enjoy this.

The knowledge that they are perhaps halfway through makes Lucius dizzy. He thought he would need potions to make it this far, and he did take a Refreshing Draught before they began the first lovemaking. But now it's magic sustaining them, magic brightening and strengthening their bond.

Harry groans and comes inside him. Lucius reaches out to embrace him with his legs, since he can't do it with his arms from here, and Harry shudders and nearly falls on top of him. He manages to support himself with his arms in the end, and gives Lucius a dizzy grin.

Look at him. I don't deserve him.

But Lucius thinks he does deserve to come, and he reaches out and tugs impatiently on Harry's hand when he pauses. Harry gives him a look of bright-eyed mischief and only slowly reaches to wank Lucius.

The fire gives a leap as his pleasure strikes through him, and Lucius turns his head and stares into the gold, dissolving and dropping.

Fire fills the whole world.

Lucius threw the Daily Prophet across the room with a snarl. How dare they say that Harry was prostituting himself to Dark wizards? They saw him going into Knockturn Alley as part of his new business—tracking down kidnapped animals and children and stolen items—and leaped to all the wrong conclusions.

"Lucius? What's wrong?"

Lucius turned around swiftly. He'd arranged to meet Harry in this room above the Leaky Cauldron because he didn't want someone to see Harry coming to the Manor and draw the wrong conclusion. That his instincts had allowed Harry to get this close without alerting him…

It was an excellent demonstration of how much Harry meant to him, of course.

Harry looked from him the paper, and shook his head. "Don't pay attention to that shit. They're always going to print something about me. If it wasn't about this, they'd be recycling the story about me resigning from the Aurors again." He shed his cloak with a rippling shrug and hung it on a hook extending from the wall.

As it had for the past six months, the sight of Harry's shaggy hair and the casual power with which he locked the door dried out Lucius's throat. He cleared it with a jagged cough and muttered, "Am I not allowed to despise them?"

"Oh, no, you are. But then you'd have to despise the whole of the British wizarding public. They wouldn't write it if it didn't sell."

"I do despise them. All of them who would look at your courage and strength and see nothing more than a rising Dark Lord."

Harry glanced at him with a gentle smile. "I know. But I don't want to think about them. I want to think about the lunch we're having as friends." He raised a causal hand, and cups appeared out of nowhere and water poured into them. "Tea?"

"I had ordered tea…"

"Oh, I know, but Tom said something about how it'll probably be a while and honestly, I need it right now." Harry set about preparing it with more apparatus simply leaping to his hand when he reached for it. Lucius watched until at last he had to ask a question.

"Where are you getting the objects? It doesn't look as though you're conjuring them or Transfiguring them."

"I'm not," Harry said, with a small smile in his direction. "I discovered a useful ability—I think of it that way, more than a spell—to make things follow me around, sort of. When I reach out, then they're there."

Lucius coughed again, this time out of sheer surprise. "And you do not know what that ability is called?"

"Why should it be called anything?"

"Because I have read of it." Lucius couldn't help lowering his voice as he watched Harry's hands turn and reach out for a pair of tongs that was suddenly there, darting into his palm. "It's called the Transparent Cabinet. You can put these objects back into the cabinet when you want to?"

"Yes."

"And take them out?"

"Yes. I just told you that. Honestly, Lucius, stop looking at me like it's the same as surviving a Killing Curse. You just told me that you've read about it, so it isn't unprecedented." Harry turned around and handed him the cup.

"Only wizards of great power can do it," Lucius murmured, but the words seemed bland against the pulse of the heartbeat that thundered through him. He reached out and caught Harry's hand before he could pull it back.

"What is it? Did I not put in enough lemon for you?"

Lucius shook his head and leaned forwards, kissing him.

Harry looked stunned for a second. Then he smiled and returned the gesture just as strongly, making Lucius start as Harry's feverish tongue glided alongside his. He pulled back and blinked.

"I am not the only one who's wanted to do that?"

"I saw you wanting, and I thought it would be nice, but I didn't want to make a move where I wasn't sure I was welcome."

Lucius moved the teacups safely out of the way and then grabbed hold of Harry's hand again. "In the future," he breathed out against Harry's lips, "always assume that you are welcome." And he kissed him again hard enough to rattle the bed as they fell onto it.

Vespers

Right now they're lying on the pallet right next to the fire, feeling the warmth dance along their skins. Harry is panting because the flames seem to be blending with the second wind that's roaring through him, making him restless and impatient to get up and move, maybe dance.

But Lucius's hand is slow and insistent, and he's wanking Harry. It's not as though Harry wants to be anywhere else. He channels all his desire for movement into his hand instead, until Lucius laughs under his breath and gently moves it away.

"I would like to have a cock when you're done, Harry."

Harry flushes—not that Lucius will be able to tell with how bright the fire is making his face—and tucks his chin into the crook of Lucius's neck and shoulder. His breath is coming faster and faster, and he rushes into Lucius's embrace with a cry just as the flames weave the next vision.

Harry does smile, so drunk on pleasure that his hand is acceptably slow on Lucius's erection this time. He likes this memory.

"I should be the one going in front of you."

"You'd deny me a chance to play paladin?"

And of course that quieted Lucius, and he walked into the Leaky Cauldron with his hand on Harry's shoulder, safely behind him. Harry's wand was already sparkling with spells, ones that ensured that attempts to touch him would rebound, shielded him and Lucius against curses, blocked certain specific insults from reaching their ears, and surrounded the table with a bubble to deflect thrown food and drinks.

Given the pallor of Ron's face as he stood up from the table, Harry wasn't sure if that bubble would be enough, or if they would need another one, too, this one to protect Lucius from things thrown from inside.

"You're really dating the bastard."

"I'm sorry for what happened to your sister, Mr. Weasley. It was never my intention."

Hermione looked irritated, but Harry thought that was because Lucius and Ron had spoken up before she could get a word in edgewise. She tipped her head at Harry and murmured, "He didn't believe the rumors."

"Or the pictures in the Prophet?" Harry drew out Lucius's chair for him. He got stares from all directions, but the only one that mattered to him was Lucius's sidelong glance. Harry grinned and waited until Lucius was most of the way down before taking his own seat.

"They lie all the time." Ron hadn't moved his stare from Lucius. "None of your apologies can make up for the nightmares she suffered. Or the ones I did."

"Then you don't need to accept my apologies," Lucius said, the napkin settling on him like a fall of snow. "You need only tolerate my presence here at Harry's right hand."

"Why should I? You could have killed my sister! You could have killed lots of people!"

"Because Harry has chosen to date me." Lucius's voice was bored as he checked the handwritten menu as if he didn't already know every single piece of food served there. "You might trust his judgment."

Ron spun on Harry, his hands shaking. Harry waited until a few minutes had passed and some of the people outside their little bubble had begun to relax and look the other way. Then he said, "I'm in love with him, Ron."

Lucius still twitched a little when he said that, which was amusing, but Harry had made sure to tell it to him in private first. He wanted that first revelation to be as quiet and personal as possible. And it had been so.

"Why?"

"Could you explain why you fell in love with Hermione?"

"No!" Ron said, loudly enough to make Hermione frown at him. He frowned back and said, "Well, it's because we were friends first, and we went through lots of things together, and she gives me good advice, and—"

"Exactly," Harry said, and smiled a little as Ron thumped back into his chair.

"You weren't friends with him."

"Yes, I was."

"You didn't go through lots of things together!"

"Believe me, yes we have," Harry said dryly, thinking of the reactions that people had had to him and Lucius walking around together in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade and the just-short-of-an-interrogation that he'd got from some of the people he'd been in Auror training with.

"He didn't give you good advice!"

"He was the one who told me there was life after my forced resignation from the Aurors. And a little about what having my level of magic meant."

"I didn't know that," Hermione said, peering at Lucius with approval. "That was good advice."

Harry grinned and lowered their bubble a little so he could go up and order their food for them. He knew everyone at the table well enough to know exactly what they'd have: shepherd's pie and butterbeer for him and Ron; baked fish and Firewhisky for Hermione; and one of the exquisite sandwiches that Tom would make if you nagged him enough and a white wine that Tom would likewise haul out for Lucius.

Harry returned to find Hermione saying impatiently, "I do forgive him for setting the monster loose that Petrified me, Ron. If only because he's making Harry very happy. You don't have to like him or approve of him. You just have to get along with him for Harry's sake."

"I don't have to like him?" This sounded like a concept Ron would like to turn over with his tongue like a loose tooth.

"No," Lucius said, voice as cool and blank as his napkin. Harry put his food in front of him, floating it over with a wandless gesture, and Lucius smiled at him, a smile that seemed to stupefy Ron. "You don't have to. All I ask is that you refrain from insulting me and Harry."

"What about backhand insults that you can't prove are insults?"

"Ron!"

"If you wish, then you may resort to them. I do enjoy stimulating conversational partners."

Ron perked up. Harry caught Hermione's eye as he floated the rest of the food and the mugs onto the table, and saw a raised eyebrow and a faint smile he knew well.

The rest of the meal consisted of a mostly political conversation between Lucius, Hermione, and Harry, and Ron showing why he was a good strategist with conversation as well as chess moves.

Compline

Lucius pants, his head on a pillow of green grass. His stomach is pressed against the pallet, which has almost been crushed out of existence. The long shadows of a summer evening stretch around him, and all his focus is on Harry rubbing his cock gently against Lucius's arse, not entering.

The fire burns down to embers.

Harry reaches out to stroke his side. Lucius gasps. The magic hovering in the air has primed him until even that touch feels like being soaked in liquid fire.

"Yeah," Harry sighs, and comes, while Lucius lifts his head to watch the final vision weaving itself into being from braids of scarlet and gold.

"You know that wizards can bond with each other," Lucius told Harry that evening as they sat on either side of one of the balconies of Malfoy Manor, Harry slouched so deeply in his chair Lucius thought he would slide out of it at any moment.

"Yeah?" Harry opened his left eye. "Is that different from marrying someone?"

"Bonding is different," Lucius said, watching him. The wind made Harry's hair move only slightly. His arms glistened with a light sheen of sweat; he'd been working out in the gardens, keeping up the exercises the Aurors had taught him, because they were useful in his new job. Lucius was hardly one to discourage him when it made him take off his robes and shirt on a regular basis.

"How?"

"It creates a link between the two wizards who complete it that makes them able to sense each other's thoughts and emotions when they wish. Feed each other strength and magic. See through each other's eyes." Lucius could feel his voice roughening. It was rare that bonds got as far as that; most of the time, emotions and a vague sense of important thoughts were all bonded wizards shared.

But it depended on the power of the participants, and Lucius had no doubt that he and Harry would manage to achieve the heights.

"Yeah?" Harry cocked his head at him. "You—you're looking at me as if it's a stronger commitment than a marriage."

"It is." Lucius wiped his hands on his robes, and waited.

"Then why don't all wizards bond? The only ones I know are ones who got married, like Bill and Fleur and Ron and Hermione."

"Some couples value their privacy. Others don't have the power to make the bond worth it. The stronger you are, the more you can sense. And still others—consider what it means that you are bonded to someone, Harry. You cannot leave them. Not mentally or emotionally. You would have that link between you until the day you die."

"You want to bond with me."

"I do."

"You—don't want me to leave?"

"That, and I don't want to leave you." Lucius lifted his head and waited. He had thought that someday he and Narcissa would bond, but his choice to be a Death Eater during the first war and all the things he'd had to do in Voldemort's service had put paid to that chance. He was glad now, since the second war would have strained any bond irreparably. "Stay with me, Harry."

"Phrase it another way, Lucius."

And although he would have preferred it if Harry had asked him, Lucius understood why it had to be this way. He knew what a true bond entailed, and Harry did not; besides, Harry had considerably less experience of someone desiring his attention or even his presence. "Bond with me, Harry."

Harry crossed the distance between them fast enough to make Lucius gasp, and then he was kissing him fiercely. Lucius reached up to cradle his cheeks, basking in the strength of the magic around him, and the tender way Harry held him.

"What does a bonding entail?" Harry asked, pulling back.

"You want to be with me permanently?" Lucius had to ask.

"You ask stupid questions sometimes, you really do." Harry smiled. "Fortunately, after we're bonded, you'll be able to tell exactly what I'm feeling and then you won't ask them anymore."

"Not about that," Lucius said, and nipped the side of Harry's jaw before he forced himself to calm down and answer Harry's question. "We need a day of magical power, seasonal power. One of the solstices or equinoxes. Then we need to make sure that we have sex during all the hours of daylight, while the fire we'll light will give us visions of the past that brought us together. There is magic that the ritual will give us to strengthen us."

"Well, the next one up is the summer solstice, right? How soon can we have things ready to bond?"

Lucius's breath stuttered. "Litha is the longest day of the year, Harry. It's the hardest seasonal ritual to conduct."

"Don't care." Harry leaned into him, his eyes wild and bright. "I trust you. You're my friend. You've done everything I ask of you, and you're so—Lucius. Bond with me."

And there it was, the question he had desired, after all. Lucius held Harry close, and kissed him senseless and silly before he began to explain.

Matins

Harry collapses face-down in the grass, and breathes. Lucius, inside him, exhales hard and comes once more, and the flood of burning in his arse makes Harry smile a little. It echoes the burn of visions from before and the tremor of exhaustion in his limbs and—

And the sudden burning in the back of his mind.

Harry gasps, and rolls over. Lucius catches him close in his arms and looks deep into his eyes, and Harry is flooded with the indescribable tenderness that Lucius is feeling for him right at this moment.

Lucius?

It's comical, to watch Lucius's eyes widen in wonder when he's the one who knew all about this bond and told Harry about it, but not when he reaches out with a shaking hand and catches Harry's chin. I can hear you. The bond—worked.

Harry kisses Lucius's knuckles as he feels a different kind of tremor flood him. Lucius honestly didn't know if their bonding would work, if they would be able to make one even if they kept up having sex all the way through the day of the Solstice. He has a tendency to doubt things going right in his life by now.

I'm here. I promise. And Harry pushes his own tenderness down the bond, as strong as Lucius's but differently-colored, differently fragrant.

Lucius leans in to kiss him so hard that Harry doesn't give a fuck about his swollen lips and sensitive tongue. The bond buzzes between them just as the fire collapses into embers, and Lucius withdraws carefully from Harry's entrance.

You—didn't come yet.

Harry snorts. It's all right. I'm so sensitive right now…

Lucius gathers him in, arms wrapped comfortably around him, the soft darkness of a summer night lingering in all directions outside their small cove full of light. When he kisses him again, there is no pain.

Harry leans on him, and the past and the present blend, and when they say I love you, he cannot tell their voices apart.

The End.