Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the fourth and last part of the fic.

Part Four

"Have you made your decision?"

Theo took a long swallow of his hot tea and glanced across the table. Harry sat in his usual seat, but with his arms folded on the table in front of him and his eyes dark and challenging. As Theo watched, he touched the side of his mouth with his tongue in what Theo was sure was a deliberate gesture. At least, he couldn't remember Harry doing it in any of the previous times they'd eaten breakfast together.

Isn't it sad, that you already know him so intimately after a few days?

Not when it means that I get what I want, Theo answered himself, and set the teacup down. "Yes. I want us to remain together. To date in public, and share a bed in private. And perhaps to—associate together permanently someday, if you are willing."

Harry's eyes were dark enough now to make it look as if he was drowning. Theo averted his gaze. Perhaps it was embarrassing that Theo couldn't speak the name of that last step, but for now, he couldn't.

There was no doubt that Harry understood him, however, as was evident in the low rumble of his voice when he spoke. "I want the same thing."

"Good," Theo whispered back, and then cleared his throat as their breakfast popped into being. "But that will have to wait until the end of today, you know."

"Why?" Harry's voice was thick, and he looked as though he was about to stand and round the table, reaching out his hand to Theo. Theo spoke rapidly, since otherwise that would happen and Theo would take his hand and they would spend the day in bed.

"We have that charity luncheon that you wanted to attend this afternoon. And I've ordered you another robe from Jardinier that the owls delivered this morning. I want you to at least model it for me before we go out."

Harry paused, then drew back. "I suppose that they will expect to see us at that luncheon, since it's to establish a magical orphanage with a certain standard of care."

"I know," Theo said, and picked up a piece of sausage with his fork so that he would sound more casual and be able to focus on something else as he asked the question. "Is it a cause dear to your heart because you were an orphan yourself?"

Harry was silent for long seconds. Theo glanced at him, and found Harry looking at his plate.

"Yes," Harry said at last. "And because if there had been a place like that when I was a kid and I knew about it, I would have begged to go there."

He drank some tea then without looking at Theo again, while Theo considered several responses and decided against all of them. He didn't think Harry wanted vengeance on the Muggles who had mistreated him, or he would have taken it already. He couldn't change the past, because he didn't have a Time-Turner. Apologizing seemed strange when Theo had had nothing to do with it and Harry had already admonished him not to take so much guilt on himself.

So, for the moment, Theo said, "I'll make sure that you never feel uncared for again."

Harry's head jerked a little, but he continued to study his food. When he looked up again, his face had settled into the gentle expression that Theo was rapidly becoming familiar with.

"Thank you," Harry whispered. "There's nothing else I would want from someone who wanted to date me."

Theo chose a frown of confusion. "Nothing?"

"Well." Harry grinned at him. "Nothing that's an appropriate thing to think about when we're preparing for that charity luncheon and have to be out of the house for several hours." He drank the rest of his tea and stood up. "Where is this robe? And what kind of color is it? I can't be seen wearing aqua so soon after the last set of robes, you know. It won't do."

"It was aquamarine," Theo began, and then shook his head and finished his own breakfast instead of answering. It seemed he wasn't the only one who had to offer some emotional clarity and then retreat.

But he did promise himself that he would do his best to be worthy of what Harry had offered, always.

"Potter. You look—pure-blood."

Harry offered a bland smile to the woman who had bustled up to him. It had taken him a moment to recognize her as Pansy Parkinson. She wore pink robes that were flattering, in a way, and she had her dark hair neatly combed back and styled. "I'll take that in the spirit in which it was intended."

Parkinson stared at him. Harry gave a small nod and shot a glance over her shoulder to where Theo was standing, conversing with Draco Malfoy and someone who was probably Blaise Zabini, near the head of the table. He would sit on Harry's right hand, since the organizers of the luncheon had insisted on Harry taking the head.

Harry would have rolled his eyes if he could, but it would look good for Theo. That was the only reason he hadn't objected more strongly.

"Rumor has it that you're escorting our darling Theodore," Parkinson said abruptly. "Is it true?"

"Oh, no," Harry said, and watched as Parkinson seemed unable to decide between confusion and glee before he added, "Theo is escorting me." Then he stepped past her and made his way towards Theo.

Theo's eyes raked over him, and that look that was nearly ownership appeared in his eyes. Harry couldn't imagine himself tolerating it well from many people, but Theo had to be an exception for nearly everything. He let his hand rest on Theo's elbow and nodded at Zabini and Malfoy.

"So you and Theo are really dating." Zabini had no expression on his face, which Harry thought must have been useful if Slytherin was really occupied by as many pricks as it sounded like.

"Yes, we are," Harry said. He felt Theo's free hand move to touch his shoulder. Harry let himself relax into that, and watched for Zabini's and Malfoy's reactions.

Malfoy stared in what seemed like big-eyed confusion. Zabini just nodded and said, "Congratulations," then turned away to speak to a witch in Ministry robes who Harry assumed was one of the organizers of the event.

"Did you not hear what I said about being cautious?" Malfoy hissed.

"I couldn't even tell who you were talking to at the time, me or Harry," Theo said, with a slight shrug. "So of course I ignored you."

"You shouldn't take someone who isn't a pure-blood as your consort, not if you want real political power," Malfoy said. He had evidently decided that Harry's ears didn't work. He leaned towards Theo, and his face was pale and sweating. "Potter is fine as an establishing stage, but you'll want to leave your options open for an alliance marriage after you get your name accepted again."

"Harry is my permanent choice."

Harry raised an eyebrow. That was more emotion than he had heard out of Theo any time they were in public, and Theo was leaning forwards slightly as if to emphasize the height difference between Malfoy and himself. Against what seemed to be the purposely dim lighting of the luncheon event—which was taking place in one of the "normal" rooms off the Department of Mysteries—he loomed like a shadow.

Malfoy gave an irritated sigh, but from the way his eyes darted about, Harry thought "nervous" would be the more accurate label. "Fine, but don't say that I didn't warn you, that's all." He turned and bustled over to Parkinson. Watching in interest, Harry noted that he didn't stretch out his arm to accept her hand the way he would if he was escorting her as Theo escorted Harry.

"So they aren't dating?" he murmured, and led Theo's gaze to the two of them.

Theo shook his head. "Draco is waiting for a witch who's a few years younger than us and doesn't want to get married so soon out of Hogwarts. Pansy needs someone who has more political cachet than the Malfoys do after the war to drag her own name out of the muck."

"Why would she need to do that?" Harry started to step away from Theo as a small bell rang and signaled the beginning of the luncheon, but Theo touched his arm and drew out the chair for him instead.

Harry met Theo's eyes. Theo only went on looking at him as though he was the center of the universe. Harry felt his face flush, and quickly sat down and let Theo push the chair in for him.

It wasn't that he really minded being looked at that way. But he didn't want Theo to expose himself to staring eyes unless it was for some better reason than this.

"You don't read the papers at all, do you?" Theo asked in an undertone as he took his own seat and then reached out to pick up a dish of flatbread covered with spices and emanating shimmers of heat. He handed it to Harry. "Or listen to gossip, which is how I know this. I didn't read the papers either, after all."

"Well, no. I didn't. I wasn't part of pure-blood society until now." Harry used a fork to pick up a piece of flatbread and then handed it on, shaking his head when Theo promptly reached for another dish. Theo rolled his eyes back, but nodded in understanding, and settled back to let other people have a chance at the food.

"Of course pure-blood society turned against her because she suggested throwing you to the Dark Lord." Theo's face was flat and his voice casual, as if he was discussing a not-particularly-interesting fashion idea.

"But—no one could know that I would win at the time! She shouldn't be penalized for that." Harry scanned the table for Parkinson. Yes, there she was, sitting next to Malfoy. Someone handed a dish past her. Her wineglass was still empty. She flushed and poked at the small lump of potatoes that was the only food on her plate right now.

"But that's the way we are." Theo shrugged a little and apparently decided he could go back to handing the dishes to Harry, as he snagged a huge bowl of salad and placed it firmly in front of Harry's plate. "Of course blood matters, but so do magical and political power, and the winds blew due Harry Potter after the war."

Harry winced a little. He didn't like the thought that had been the case for Parkinson regarding him no matter what she'd said, and he didn't like that he had caused it and never known about it.

"Shit," he muttered under his breath as he took the salad and reluctantly picked up a strip of some kind of magical beef at Theo's iron-eyed insistence. "I wonder if I should tell someone—I mean, would announcing in public that I forgive her be enough?"

Theo interrupted his thoughts by reaching out and clamping his fingers over Harry's. "I forbid you to do that."

"And why?" Harry let a little coolness slip into his voice. Yes, he liked Theo a lot and he was willing to be guided by him when it came to some of the ways that they had to act among pure-bloods, but that didn't mean he would just hand over control of his world or his life.

Theo leaned in close enough that his lips brushed Harry's ear. Harry shivered, and forced himself to ignore that.

"Because it would come across as a sign of weakness," Theo murmured. "You could forgive her if she had made some gesture of restitution and an apology. For you to offer acceptance before she does any of that…it would make others think that you have a soft heart and no political sense."

"I've weathered those accusations before."

"Not when you were with me."

"So you're concerned about how my weakness would reflect on you?" Harry winced a little, but, well, he'd known Theo wasn't perfect. He supposed it was better to discover the truth like this rather than in some context where it mattered so much.

"In part." Theo tightened his hand over Harry's. Harry started. He hadn't even noticed Theo was still holding it. That was how comfortable he had become in such a short time with Theo touching him. "But in truth? I know that Parkinson would take advantage of you. It wouldn't be long before she insulted you. And others would think they could get away with it, as well. I don't want to have to fight duels for your honor, or for you to do so constantly. Wait for her to make the apology. She knows full well what she has to do. Her pride is just getting in the way."

Harry eyed him. "I would win the duels. You probably would, too."

"But it's tiresome, when we could be doing other things. And I don't like watching you in danger, or having to curse someone to teach them a lesson."

Harry nodded slowly and returned to his meal. It was true that he hadn't considered the ramifications of Parkinson not choosing to apologize to him. She could have written him an owl, and he would have received that, even if he hadn't been reading the Prophet.

Theo attended him throughout the rest of the meal, but not outrageously so; he called softly for a house-elf to fill Harry's glass of water when it emptied, and he did insist on passing Harry the salad again, because he must have noted how much Harry enjoyed it. Harry caught Theo's eyes at one point, and saw them shining.

Harry was used to stares, including ones of open affection and admiration.

They were still nothing like the look on Theo's face.

Harry ducked his head, his own cheeks flushing violently, and got on with eating.

"So you admit that the dark blue robes I chose for you are just as good as the aquamarine ones?" Theo admired the sweep of the cloth as Harry walked past him, and Peony popped up to shut the door of the sitting room.

"Of course," Harry said, with a faint surprised tone in his voice as he looked over his shoulder. "I mean, if I have to wear robes this fancy at all." He tugged at the collar as he sat down in the warm dark-red chair, the color of embers flaring, that they'd bought to replace the dull black one that had been there the first day he visited.

Well, at least he didn't do the tugging when we were in public, Theo thought. It was the best compromise he could ask for. "Do you want to wear it all day?"

"No," Harry drawled, with a raised eyebrow that questioned Theo's intelligence. "I planned to change into Muggle clothes in a few hours."

"Or," Theo said, "you could come into my bed with nothing but your bare skin."

Harry's face blazed up again the way it had more than once at the charity luncheon, but he didn't drop his eyes. Instead, he smiled, and the sight of that smile moved through Theo like a wave, smashing some barriers he hadn't realized still existed.

And inspiring the thought, I'm in so much trouble.

"I'd like that," Harry said, his voice a whisper that might have disappeared under the crackling of the fire if Theo had been standing only a little further from him. And this time, when Harry stood and tugged at his robe collar, it became obvious that collar wasn't long for this world.

Theo cast a hasty Divesting Charm on the buttons. The robe was too fine to ruin with that kind of haste.

Then he wished that he'd let Harry alone, as the blue robes swung briefly open, then shut again, and he caught a glimpse of scarred, tanned, taut skin. Theo found himself standing still, swallowing, his gaze locked on Harry's chest for a long minute before he managed to lift it.

And now, of course, Harry had chosen to go slowly.

There was a smile on his face as lazy as summer sunshine while he pretended to fumble with the collar again, and then shed the robes from the top as if the buttons still mattered. He stepped out of them, and Theo caught his breath at how well he moved, and the thick burn mark on his chest. It looked as if something round and searing had caught him there.

But Harry had survived it. He had survived, and now he was standing in Theo's sitting room, only clad in socks and pants, and tilting his hand.

He studied Theo, and Theo braced himself for a Divesting Charm of his own. But Harry shook his head and made a little move with his hand.

Take them off. Hurry up.

Theo might have given Harry the same teasing show he'd given in another time and place, but now and here, he simply couldn't. His fingers dived into motion, and he only nearly popped three buttons as he got the dark green robes open. When he'd shed them, Harry smiled and took his time considering Theo's body.

Theo had once expected to stand naked before a pure-blood bride, although not until the wedding night, of course. And he had expected to be nervous, especially when that imaginary bride's eyes lingered on his erection.

Harry's attention burned his nervousness to ash. Harry considered the line of Theo's cock in his pants, heavy and beginning to tingle in a pleasant way, and only smiled. Then his eyes came back to Theo's face.

"I suppose we should try to make it to the bedroom, lest we scandalize Peony," he murmured.

"She would just make comparisons I don't want to hear," Theo muttered, and escorted Harry up to his bedroom as he laughed.

Theo's bedroom still had far too much black, in Harry's opinion, but it didn't matter that much. Besides, there were some encouraging signs, like grey pillowcases.

And it wasn't the black canopy or the heavy shutters across the window that Harry wanted to look at. It was Theo, turning to him with eyes as hungry as though they hadn't had a very expensive lunch.

"Take off the rest," Theo breathed.

The tone of command in his voice might have irritated Harry, but he accepted it more as longing and intent than an order. And he did enjoy the way that Theo's face grew more and more flushed as he stripped off his socks and slid his pants down his legs, until he might have passed as pink and healthy by anyone's standards.

Not that Harry wanted him to look different, or better by other people's standards. They had their own, he and Theo.

"Very nice," Theo said in a shaking voice, and reached out a hand.

Harry felt his legs nearly dump him on the floor at the first stroke to his cock, but he swayed into Theo, and Theo wrapped an arm around his shoulders and kept him upright. Harry pressed his forehead into Theo's shoulder and enjoyed the near-drunken pleasure that rippled through him.

"You haven't done this before, have you?"

Theo's voice had dropped into a dark register that made more than Harry's legs weak. He shook his head without looking up. But he knew Theo wouldn't judge him. He knew he didn't need to flush in shame.

And he knew that, when Theo stopped stroking him, he would reach out and bring his hand back.

"Ah," Theo sighed against his ear, and kept talking in a tone like running water that mingled with the ecstasy of being touched. "I'm not the best person in the world, Harry. I shouldn't be so glad that you've never known anyone's touch but mine."

For a moment, his hand did stop moving, and Harry glared up. Theo kissed the tip of his ear, then his forehead.

"But I am glad," Theo breathed. "That I'll be the first one to bring you off and the first one in your bed and the first one sharing your body."

He didn't say anything else for the moment, only watching Harry avidly as he touched him, but Harry could hear the other words that hovered, unspoken, in the air.

And the last one.

"I suppose if I ask you the same question, you'll tell me that you've been seducing pure-blood virgins all throughout your years in Slytherin," Harry murmured. His own voice had gone throaty, husky, in a way he'd never heard. "Not that I care, because I'll be the one who's there now, whether or not I'm the first."

He felt Theo smile against his neck. "No. My father was rather insistent that I sire no bastards." He drew back, and although Harry reached out and put his hand on Theo's wrist when the stroking stopped, he ended up opening his eyes when Theo cleared his throat, too.

Theo was gazing into his face with that light behind his grey eyes that made them appear translucent.

"We're equals here," Theo whispered. "Both equally strange, and both equally at the mercy of the other." He took Harry's hand in his and flicked his tongue out. The touch on Harry's fingers was like an electric shock, and he moaned aloud. "Are you ready?"

Harry nodded, entranced, and Theo guided him gently to the bed. His eyes were everywhere, moving over Harry's hands, neck, scars, and cock, and making everywhere feel equally touched.

This is where I'm meant to be.

Harry had never really thought that much about having sex with a specific person before. He'd known it would happen someday, that he would want it, but he had been content to wait. Why not? He would find that person, and he would have sex, and it would be good. In the meantime, he'd wanted to sort his life out.

And now, now was the moment, he thought, pulse pounding in his throat as he spread his legs and let Theo look his fill.

Theo felt as though he had just broken the surface of water he had been swimming under for far too long.

Yes, his father had insisted that he sire no bastards. He had spoken of sex to Theo exactly as he'd spoken of everything else: as a topic to be guided and ruled and set down at his order. He would choose Theo's bride when it was time. He had offered several possibilities, simply because chance and time would sometimes get in the way, but Theo had never entertained the notion that he would be able to choose for himself, or that his wife would be someone who wasn't on the list.

So, honestly, he hadn't considered sex often. It would happen when it happened, and that was enough. And in the frozen chaos that had followed his father's death, sex hadn't been something he singled out.

Now, here he was, about to have sex with the man of his desiring.

A sharp smile curled his lips up, and he saw Harry's eyes focus on it. Theo leaned over and nudged Harry's legs a bit further apart with nothing more than a tap on his thigh. Harry obeyed, to his delight. And Theo watched as Harry, without prompting, picked up his own legs, cradling them in his hands, and extended them up and to the sides.

Theo had never thought another man's arse and bollocks would be a particularly fascinating sight. But when it was the arse and bollocks of the man who belonged to him…

Yes. Harry was his.

Theo shuddered and dropped some of the safeguards he'd been keeping in place, just in case Harry became cautious or was shy. His magic rippled out from his skin, for a moment seeming to fill the room with soft grey mist.

Harry's eyebrows flew up. Then he relaxed in response, and Theo saw the small, leaping blue lightning bolts that he'd noticed more than once now when Harry gathered up his magic around him.

Theo bent over and kissed him, sure that neither of their magic would harm the other's. And sure enough, the power rose and mingled around them, murmuring in his ears as the song of waves and waters and storms.

Harry reached up and hooked his hands around Theo's neck. "Theo?" he breathed. Theo opened eyes he hadn't even realized he'd closed, and met Harry's blurry, brilliant gaze.

"I don't want to wait, and you're still wearing your pants."

"How remiss of me," Theo drawled, and reached down to remove them. Then he reached for his wand.

Harry hadn't realized he could feel like this. If he'd known, he would have sought out Theo years ago and insisted that they get together right now, and touch each other, and mingle their magic.

But, of course, it wouldn't have been like this then. He and Theo hadn't known each other. Theo's father had still been alive. They had been at least technically on opposite sides of a war.

They'd had too much else to care about.

Now, Harry enjoyed supporting his legs, and watching Theo's cock emerge from his pants—long and slim and bright red—and Theo's wand swishing, and then he shuddered at the sudden surge of coolness in his arse and the sensation of something he hadn't realized was tight carefully loosening.

"There will be other times when we can go slower," Theo said, breathless, putting his wand aside.

"That's fine. There will be so many other times," Harry said, and lifted his legs higher, although his arms were beginning to ache in a way that reminded him of heavy labor. "Get over here and do some fucking, won't you?"

Theo's hands were trembling as he reached out and dragged one of the pillows from the top of the bed down. Harry didn't mind about that. It wasn't like his own weren't, as he finally let his legs fall and his hips rest on the pillow.

Theo's eyes were full of awe as he eased his own slick cock towards Harry, barely testing with his fingers. The spell must have taken care of that, Harry thought, blinking a little, and suspecting that he was learning some very important things about sex backwards instead of the way most people would learn them.

But when he felt Theo inside him for the first time, he decided he didn't care about that. He tilted his head back and snarled in ecstasy as he clenched down, and new pleasure tore and spiraled through him.

"Move."

Theo didn't actually understand the hissed word that escaped Harry's lips, but he doubted it mattered. He was only holding so still in the first place so that he didn't come and embarrass himself.

Biting his lip fiercely, he reached out and smoothed Harry's hair back from his forehead. The scar his father had tried to teach him to hate looked like a badge of triumph now, and Harry's eyes were as fierce and bright as his.

"Move," Harry said, this time in English.

Theo nodded, and began cautiously to thrust. Pulling out and sliding back in made his breath stutter. No, he'd never thought enough about sex. He'd never known it would feel this bloody good.

"That's too shallow," Harry said. "Come on, faster. Really act like you want to fuck me, Theo."

"I want to make love to you, come to that," Theo said, but the words tumbled out of his lips in a helpless mush when Harry clamped down and thrust himself back on Theo's cock at the same time.

The pleasure that swept over him was unreal, and Theo could barely manage to reach down and touch Harry's cock. He tried to direct some of his magic through his grasp, because he wanted to share this.

From Harry's shaky breath, he might have succeeded. And then Theo surrendered himself to his own stroking, with both his cock and his hand, and external reality lost its grip on him.

Harry felt as though he had started falling a long time ago and couldn't see the bottom of the abyss yet.

But it didn't matter, because Theo was there with him. Theo, with his tumbled dark hair and luminescent eyes. Theo, with his fervent gasps and talented hands and the cock that was introducing Harry to new ways to feel.

And Harry reached out for what he knew was coming. He locked his fingers with Theo's somehow. The distant thought flashed into him that maybe he was clasping the hand that Theo had been using to touch his cock, and that meant he probably wouldn't be able to touch Harry again.

It didn't matter. Harry was certain he would come.

Theo stroked with his cock one more time, and yes.

Harry hit the bottom.

He cried out sharply as the pleasure surged through him and out of him, and he felt Theo following, without a pause, without an end. It seemed as though Harry's orgasm grew keener, longer, because of Theo's, but that might have been his imagination.

He really wasn't thinking very clearly, even when it ended and he found himself panting up at Theo, blinking slowly. He reached out for Theo and drew him down, ignoring the wet feeling that happened as they parted.

This was what he wanted.

This was what he had.

It had been one of the best decisions of his life to Apparate to the gates of Nott House that day, Harry was convinced.

Theo ran his hand down Harry's forehead, and felt the roughness of his scar. He wondered if anyone had ever touched it and told Harry he was beautiful at the same time.

He had no way of knowing, and he didn't want to ask right now. But he could do something he was fairly certain no one had ever done, and he did it now, leaning over and pressing his lips to Harry's scar.

Harry froze and blinked at him. His lips parted, and then he reached up and linked his fingers around Theo's wrist like a cuff as he leaned in to kiss his lips.

He didn't have to say that what Theo had done to his scar was indeed a unique gesture. His reaction said everything.

"I hope this isn't too forward of me," Harry whispered, when the silence had lingered for long sweet moments and Theo had been content just to watch him. "But I do intend to marry the man I slept with tonight."

Theo froze. The words he hadn't been able to speak earlier were suddenly there, and had emerged almost casually from Harry's mouth.

Except, from the way Harry tightened his hold on Theo's wrist in the next instant, he was anything but casual. Yet he didn't push Theo on to respond, either. He lay there, watching him, as if he knew it would take a few moments for Theo's brain to uncongeal.

Theo took a deep breath and said, "And I intend to marry you. If you're forward, so am I."

Harry smiled back at him, brilliant as the sun he had brought so unexpectedly storming into Theo's life, and drew him down for another kiss without once releasing the hand locked around his wrist. Theo could feel captured by that if he let himself. Detained.

But instead he felt wanted. Clasped. Held.

He wrapped his hand around Harry's wrist in the same place, imitating the wedding cuff that the Nott family used in place of the more common ring, and said into Harry's ear, "I couldn't say it before when I wasn't sure, but I love you."

"I love you," Harry breathed back, like an echo.

It wasn't an echo. It was a promise, and Theo felt the warmth of that deep into his bones.

There was no pain now. This was the good kind of coming alive.

The End.