Harry followed Draco willingly down the stairs and through the hallways, at
first recognising their path then becoming more and more lost in the
disused, dusty passageways Draco led him along. Finally Draco paused at an
ancient wooden door. Most of his mind and body was alive with Draco's
presence, but Harry spared a tiny part of himself to wonder both where this
passageway led ultimately and how Draco had found this place anyway. He'd
never noticed it on the Marauder's Map.
Before he knew it they were inside the room and the door was closed behind them...Draco leaned against it while casting a locking spell.
For a long, long moment nothing happened. Harry looked at Draco's feet, or rather his toes, peeking from under his robes. Draco made no movement, no sound, hands flattened against the door and wand stuffed back in a pocket.
All at once Harry moved, trapping Draco against the door with his own body— exactly what both of them had wanted. He teased Draco for a moment, brushing lips against lips, nose against nose, pelvis insisting contact then rolling away, before pressing himself fully against Draco and engaging him in a kiss as deep as either of them had dreamed. Tongues twined, teeth pressed against each other in a dance primal and mindless. Draco moaned softly as Harry faintly traced his tongue along Draco's lower lip.
Hands wandered, sliding up sleeves, down collars, unfastening clasps and pulling up shirts. They were both in a state of semi-undress when Harry broke off the kiss, gasping, to look for someplace to lie down. He turned, and found that the room was what looked to be an unimaginably old guest bedroom; long since used for storage, heaps of stacked chairs and desks and dusty textbooks along the walls…but the bed was still there, pristine and untouched under the layer of dust, as was a basin and pitcher set that any antiquarian would pay through the nose for. A large, filthy window cast moonlight on the floor before the bed across the room to glance up along the upturned spidery legs of a student's desk. He seized Draco's hand and pulled him unresisting toward the bed. It was so old that there was a carved set of steps to climb up to it; fashions had *long* since made beds a reasonable height. The age of the bed, the dust on it, was unspeakably sweet to Harry, infinitely perfect. To consummate something newborn and valuable in something ancient and valuable, both untouched for time out of mind…yes, too perfect. He turned halfway up the steps and smiled sweetly down at Draco, who closed his eyes and lifted his face for a kiss. Harry indulged them both and gently caressed Draco's mouth with his in a silken, liquid kiss.
Draco reached up and brushed the half-open robe off of Harry's shoulders, stopping the kiss long enough to pull off the tee-shirt Harry wore underneath. Harry hadn't even realised that somewhen he'd managed to take off his glasses and stuff them in a pocket until he didn't have to take them off to let Draco undress him. Draco brushed his fingertips down over the curve of Harry's shoulders, then in and ever so lightly over Harry's nipples, making Harry gasp and shudder and Draco bury his face in Harry's neck again.
Harry raised unfocussed, half-lidded eyes to the ceiling, then tugged Draco's turtleneck off of him, Draco raising his arms and head helpfully. They gazed at each other for a moment, then came to the same tacit understanding and both slipped off their shoes and socks, jeans, and boxers.
Then they were both naked, aroused, gleaming like chilled cream in the moonlight. Soft curves and subtle planes of muscle, the faint shimmer of skin stretched over hipbones; neither of them could quite bring themselves to touch what they saw, despite the cool air pressing on them both. Both their bodies were smooth and slim and faintly muscled from Quidditch, shining and graceful in the light; Harry noticed with a tiny part of his mind that Draco had faint silvery scars and half-healed slices running in parallel lines all down his arms, across his belly, along his thighs, but none of these detracted in the least from the utter gut-wrenching beauty of his body, so slender, so pale, so…perfect.
…So beautiful, so completely beautiful, they both thought, each gazing at the other's body.
Finally Harry broke the crystalline moment, seizing Draco by the arm and pulling him up the steps to stand beside him with one hand while with the other he yanked back the covers on the bed. A cloud of dust filled the room, illuminating the broad shaft of moonlight with a hundred thousand points of glittering white. The sheets, however, were soft as a thought with time and as clean as the day they were made.
"Come to bed, love," Harry whispered, and tumbled them both onto the sheets.
***
Harry traced a random pattern on Draco's moist shoulder with his fingertip. He smiled briefly, enjoying the feel of heated, damp skin against heated, damp skin before saying, "Thank you, Draco."
Draco sighed, deep and long, and stared at the ceiling. "You do realise that my father would completely approve of this, don't you, Harry?" His voice was slow and heavy with satiation despite the content of the words.
"No, I'd have to say I certainly don't realise anything of the sort. Why on earth would your father approve of us snogging, you bedding me?" In fact, the thought of Lucius heartily congratulating Draco on his conquest made Harry slightly nauseous.
"Harry. My father has been encouraging me to seduce you for years now." Draco tightened his arms around Harry. "He wants me to crawl into your bed, then have you fall desperately in love with me. And then he thinks he'll have a perfect source of information and a potential knife at your throat either as long as our relationship continues, or a way to neutralise you permanently if such presents itself." He sighed again. "And if I didn't care for you, he'd be right."
Harry was shocked for a split second; first because it was horrifying that someone could callously force their own child into something so calculating and cold, then at Draco's honesty in revealing the plot to him. Then he registered the last bit.
"You…care for me?" Harry pulled away from Draco to look into his eyes, a liquid, bottomless silver. "Tell me the truth, Draco. Tell me how you feel about me." He searched those eyes, that lovely, pointed face, for the faintest sign of dishonesty, of secrets.
There were none.
"I'm in love with you, Harry. I have been for a long time." Draco met his eyes easily, guilelessly. "How else could I have been so horrid to you for so long? I think, I think I've loved you since I first met you. Not before then; I read everything in the Daily Prophet and all those damned books and I hated you; I hated everything about you. I resented your very existence. I hated that you had ended the glorious reign of everything my family wanted, that you were famous for it, that everyone loved you and you were so fucking special. And then I saw you and I knew who you were, of course; I'd read a thousand descriptions, hadn't I?…and I found that for some reason all the things I'd always MEANT to do when I first saw you were useless, and I pretended to not know you so I could meet you for the first time and talk to you and forget everything I'd ever known about you for just a bit." Draco took a deep breath. "And I approached you with everything I knew of, everything I knew how to be, and you rejected me there on the train, and it *hurt* Harry, it hurt. It was a slap in the face, when I'd only just decided to allow myself to be vulnerable to you. So I added that to all the nastiness I'd been raised to have towards you, and I ran with it. I was as unpleasant as the depth of my feeling allowed.'
Draco untwined himself from Harry and sat up, legs hanging off of the side of the bed, staring at the dusty stone floor; he ran a hand through his damp hair and sat for a long moment. Harry didn't move. He knew this was infinitely hard for Draco and he was terrified of breaking the spell, of silencing him when he was working so hard to bare his heart. And if he ruined this, there would never be another chance.
"My father had always wanted me to make friends with you. I paid for you turning me down, paid for it in blood, over and over again. And nothing my father did, nothing I could do to myself, hurt as much as just the simple fact that then, there, at that moment, I had *wanted* it so badly, had wanted to see what could happen to my world with you in it. And you had denied me that. So I was horrible to you. I was as nasty and superior and arrogant a bastard as I knew how to be. Despite that, I wanted nothing more than your acceptance."
Draco was trembling; Harry noticed, and hoped that it wasn't from chill, because he was trying very hard not to breathe audibly, let alone be so distracting as to put a blanket round Draco's shoulders.
"I didn't care so much about my father's disapproval; it's nothing new, really. But there was always this current between us, you and I, I mean, and my father picked up on that. And he thought of another way that I could be useful. And I defied it, I worked twice as hard to be your enemy, so that he couldn't use me to hurt you; I hurt you on my own to keep you safe from him, because believe me Harry, there is nothing that I could do to you that would come close to what my father might do. Never underestimate him."
Draco finally turned back towards Harry, and reached out a shaking hand to brush hair from Harry's eyes. "I have loved you for a very, very long time, Harry Potter. And I have hidden it for a very, very long time. And then you stopped being hostile. Do you know how hard it's been to try to continue to pick and prate and snipe at you? Even your damned friends, who under normal circumstances I wouldn't think twice about, but because you care for them and not me, I've had to examine ruthlessly and relentlessly for value? Then be nasty to them anyway, and the whole time knowing they're better than me, you took them and not me? Do you know how difficult and painful this whole charade has been?"
He took a long breath.
"It was never so hard before, when you responded properly." Draco looked away again, clasped fine, slim hands and studied them intently. "You always had what I wanted. From the moment we met. You always won, some way or another. You always beat me. And I—" He shuddered. "—I truly *hate* to be beaten. At anything. Accept it gracefully— right. Whatever. Not possible. Before I met you, I was always the best at everything— everything, Potter." The formality helped a little, helped ease the agony of tearing these bleeding truths out of his gut.
"And you…you've always turned me down, turned me aside, taken that place I'd been raised to think was mine. You rejected me. Absolutely. And I hated you for it. And I…I envied you for it. So I tried to hurt you. And you even turned that aside most times. You responded, but I could never beat you, I could never be the WINNER. Do you see? I could never regain that…I was always inferior after I met you. Inferior. Not quite good enough. There was never any possibility of us being anything but friends or enemies, Potter, two alphas can't meet and be indifferent to each other, and you decided which when we first met; and I'll admit that I was a bit of an ass, but gods, I'd never known how to be anything else, I'd never been allowed to think of it as a possibility…always had to be the fucking superior being. Once when I was very little I made friends with a house elf. My father found out…the bruises didn't fade for weeks…and the house elf died. Died, Potter, do you understand that? My father killed him. Every time I try to think of behaving in some way outside of what's been proven to be acceptable, I remember that…I feel that, I feel sick, I feel like I'm four years old and my best friend has been murdered and his bloody broken limp body shoved into my face while my father shouts at me and whips me. Do you understand that? Do you have any idea what that's like?"
Draco paused for a long moment and wiped tears from his cheeks; Harry was frozen in uncertainty, wanting to console him, wanting to answer, but still afraid that speaking now would shatter Draco like a struck icicle. He waited. Eventually Draco went on.
"Anyway…all this time I hated you, I envied you, you'd turned me down, rejected me, and then kept you compounding the insult and I was responding as best I could, this whole time…in the back of my head I was admiring you. You were the only person I'd ever known that I could consider an equal…or could maybe strive to be an equal with…I've known inferiors, and superiors, but never an equal. And you were *beating* me, *beating* me all the *time* and yet, and yet, you were my age and mostly on my level and sometimes I thought maybe *this* time I could actually *win* for once, I thought if I just pushed a little harder… And then you'd look at me and think that maybe here was someone you could respect, something unusual, someone who was your equal."
The words were ripping out of him like flung stones, hard and fierce, a violent torrent of pain and desolation. His body seemed too frail to vocalise them.
"I wanted you and I hated you and I loved what you were and hated you for what you stood against all at once, and no matter what I really felt I had to be nasty to you, because the alternative was to break like I have now and fall before you: and I have. I have. Do you see? Do you see what I've done? I've given you everything, you can take me apart now and I have no defence. I fought you as long as I could and then *DAMMIT* you stopped fighting back, you stopped fighting me! What the hell can you expect, I'm not made of stone no matter how much I wish I was, I can only last through so much for so many years!"
He sat silent again for what felt like hours, gasping. Finally a faintly bitter smile twisted his mouth.
"I blame you entirely for this." His gesture encompassed the room, the trail of discarded clothing between the door and the bed, the tangled sheets.
Harry smiled sweetly. "I've never been so glad to be at fault, then." He reached up and seized Draco's wrist. "I can't control what happened in the past; all I can say is that I saw my side and an infinitely limited part of your side, and I reacted as best I could. I never knew you felt like this. I knew what I felt, I thought there was more to you, but I never knew all of you, just what I saw. But yesterdays don't matter right now. Right now is what is, and that's what's most important. I'm sorry for yesterday. …But I'll never be sorry for now."
He pulled Draco back down beside him; Draco came willingly and they curled together in a tangle of warm limbs and comfort. "I love you, Draco. It'll all be okay. We'll figure out a way."
In the utter relaxed pleasure of touching each other there was a long silence.
"…You just said you loved me."
"Yes, I did. And I do."
"….But…why?" There was an anguish, a desperate hope in Draco's voice that Harry couldn't deny. It cut to the quick, revealing an old, old insecurity, a lack of self-worth that Harry knew intimately.
"Oh, beloved." Harry kissed Draco's eyelids, his nose, his forehead, his cheeks. He stopped before he lost the moment, and he knew, oh, he knew how important the answer was to Draco, the bleeding he could stop now or deepen to an eventually fatal wound. He was careful with his answer, but delivered before the silence grew painfully long.
"I love you because you're brilliant, capable, because there's more to you than one can fathom in shallow interactions; because there's a pain in you, a capacity for feeling in you, that I've never known in anyone else; because in spite of the fact that you've been my rival and enemy, you are the only peer I know that I can consider my true equal in capacity for feeling, for depth, capability. I *have* noticed that, love. I love your beauty, and the liquid grace with which you move, and the gleam of your silver eyes as you glance up from your schoolwork; I love the very creativity with which you've tried to insult and hurt me. I see you, I see this great potential in you for vast understanding and enjoyment, and I want to fulfil that. I *see* you, love, behind the animosity you put up as a mask. I love you. I want to know you better. I want to know what makes you smile on a warm sunny day. I want to know you to the bottom of your soul. Because I know you're worth knowing. Even if I don't like much of what you've done in the past. Does that explain it adequately, beloved?"
Draco had started leaking tears silently somewhere in the middle of this speech. By the time Harry was done he was sobbing softly into Harry's shoulder. Harry held him, hoping, praying that what he had been able to vocalise was enough to stanch the bleeding, was enough to bring Draco back from that chasm. He knew that many, if not all, of the cuts on Draco's body were self-inflicted. He knew the emptiness and pain of self-hatred. He only hoped he could say the right things to draw Draco back from that edge.
Draco cried for a very long time. Harry didn't interrupt him, but stroked his neck, his back, his arms, his hair, occasionally murmuring sweet loving things. He soothed Draco as best he could, and waited. Eventually Draco's sobs slowed, then stopped, and a while after his breathing returned to normal, Harry stopped feeling hot tears drip onto his skin. He closed his eyes and relaxed, completely willing to go to sleep trustingly, make love again, or continue the conversation, whichever Draco needed.
***
Much later, as Harry picked up his robes to put them on, he felt a forgotten weight in the left pocket. He paused for all of a second, then said, "Draco. Come here."
Draco was folding down the collar of his turtleneck; as soon as he was done, he came willingly. "Yes, Harry? What is it?"
Harry pulled down the collar that he'd just folded so precisely, crushing it down to a mess around the base of Draco's neck. He pulled the choker from his pocket and fastened it around Draco's neck. It fit, just as perfectly as he'd imagined. He allowed a small portion of his mind to wonder how he'd estimated its length so accurately. The rest of his mind was absorbed in seeing the object embodying his fantasies wrapped round the throat of the object of his fantasies.
It was, in all ways, sublime. Draco stood silently, smiling softly, and the choker curved round his throat beautifully, exactly as Harry had imagined. The silverwork vied for favour with Draco's beauty; the moonstones fought for prominence with Draco's eyes. Each enhanced the other. It was a perfect match.
Draco reached up, ran his fingers lightly across the cool, round stones. "Giving me jewellery already, Harry?" He smiled and feather-light stroked Harry's cheek.
"You don't mind? …That it's not…not some other kind of jewellery?" Harry held his breath against Draco's reply.
"While I haven't looked at it personally, I know you well enough to know that you wouldn't be putting any old piece of junk on me…you thought of me enough to give me this. It could be pig iron and I'd treasure it." Harry found the softness in Draco's eyes almost unbearable. He didn't think he deserved that amount of trust, in this respect anyway; he'd known, told himself firmly for so long that it was wrong, embarrassing…
"It's entirely insignificant, as far as I know, except that I first saw a moonstone and thought of your eyes; then I saw this and bought it because it made me think of you. I've kept it with me since, thinking of you and whether it would flatter you, what you would think of it…incessantly, I must admit. I'm sorry. I'm sorry it's not something else, something better. …Are you disgusted?" Harry felt his cheeks burning and tried not to sound like an utter fool.
"Harry, love, as I said, I am fully aware that this thing has immense value simply inasmuch as you've acquired it and thought of me…I haven't had the chance yet to look at it, but I also trust your judgment enough that I suspect I'll find it beautiful in and of itself, and henceforth will wear it joyously. What are you looking at me like that for? I'm overwhelmed that you would think of me enough to give me this. Why would I want it to be something else? What's the trouble, Harry?"
Harry blushed uncomfortably and tried not to look Draco in the eyes. "Nothing, Draco…except I've been wanting to give this to you for months, and I haven't, because I thought you'd laugh at me and on top of that I've never seen a man wear something like it, it's an unusual type of jewellery to give a man; I thought you'd be offended. But…every time I touched it in my pocket, I thought of you; every time I thought of it, from the moment I bought it, I thought of you. So I gave it to you just now. Hoping that you wouldn't hate it." He closed his eyes, hoping desperately that Draco wouldn't disdain his gift; he'd accepted so much, allowed Harry so much, how could he expect everything to go right? Surely this must go wrong. Something always did. Didn't it?
Draco bit his lip, touched the choker again. "Harry, you've thought about this for far longer than a moment. Find me a mirror. I want to see it before I answer you."
Harry cast around the room abstractly, the rational part of him (not always indulged, but hey, he was post-orgasmic and tired here) ordering that he check his immediate area before running off elsewhere— and there, there it was, in a corner, covered by a sheet rendered semi-translucent with age. He knew the shape under it was a mirror. HAD to be a mirror. He moved towards it with knees still shaking with tension and nerves. This whole thing HAD to go wrong. Eventually. Somehow.
The sheet tore as he touched it and drifted into a pile of dusty, used-to- be-white shreds at the base of the carved wooden stand. A distant part of his mind pointed out that no matter the cost, he'd like to buy the furniture in this room from Dumbledore; the logical part of him (equally distant, and shoved back into a corner of his mind, along with his rationale and good common sense), the development of which he blamed on Hermione, wondered where in hell he'd manage to put the furniture if purchased. But he forgot all of this when Draco brushed him aside to stand before the mirror and pulled his turtleneck off and dropped it in one fluid motion. He spent several seconds staring at Draco's reflection, resplendent in his own skin and the healed/healing rents in it, then moved upwards hesitantly to see the choker living on his throat like a previously unknown part of his body, glowing and gleaming with far more allure than it had ever had on its own.
"…It's…exquisite, Harry. It's…if I could have picked something out for myself, I'd have picked this…except I couldn't have; I don't know myself this well. It's utterly…perfect. Right. …How did you do this? How did you know?" Draco obviously wanted to touch the choker, his hands kept fluttering between his chest and hips; but he never quite managed to reach up far enough to make contact with it, or down far enough to let his hands settle at his sides.
"It was purely instinct, love. I don't know myself how it worked so exactly. I saw it; I bought it; I yearned for an opportunity to see it on you. I'm marvelling myself at how well it fits you, in all senses…and I'm…overwhelmed…to see…the realisation of a long-harboured dream."
Draco turned back to him, heart shown naked in his eyes and stance, and Harry had already spent all his self-control earlier in the evening; he took him in his arms and kissed him with all the repressed longing and love and desire left in him.
Eventually, they returned to the bed, the choker shining out in unexpected moments with multiple tantalising, electrifying bursts of colour…in the middle of their love, in the moonlight.
On the inside, one word engraved on the backing of each stone, it said:
I am the realisation of what you've hidden. I reveal you. I complete you.
Before he knew it they were inside the room and the door was closed behind them...Draco leaned against it while casting a locking spell.
For a long, long moment nothing happened. Harry looked at Draco's feet, or rather his toes, peeking from under his robes. Draco made no movement, no sound, hands flattened against the door and wand stuffed back in a pocket.
All at once Harry moved, trapping Draco against the door with his own body— exactly what both of them had wanted. He teased Draco for a moment, brushing lips against lips, nose against nose, pelvis insisting contact then rolling away, before pressing himself fully against Draco and engaging him in a kiss as deep as either of them had dreamed. Tongues twined, teeth pressed against each other in a dance primal and mindless. Draco moaned softly as Harry faintly traced his tongue along Draco's lower lip.
Hands wandered, sliding up sleeves, down collars, unfastening clasps and pulling up shirts. They were both in a state of semi-undress when Harry broke off the kiss, gasping, to look for someplace to lie down. He turned, and found that the room was what looked to be an unimaginably old guest bedroom; long since used for storage, heaps of stacked chairs and desks and dusty textbooks along the walls…but the bed was still there, pristine and untouched under the layer of dust, as was a basin and pitcher set that any antiquarian would pay through the nose for. A large, filthy window cast moonlight on the floor before the bed across the room to glance up along the upturned spidery legs of a student's desk. He seized Draco's hand and pulled him unresisting toward the bed. It was so old that there was a carved set of steps to climb up to it; fashions had *long* since made beds a reasonable height. The age of the bed, the dust on it, was unspeakably sweet to Harry, infinitely perfect. To consummate something newborn and valuable in something ancient and valuable, both untouched for time out of mind…yes, too perfect. He turned halfway up the steps and smiled sweetly down at Draco, who closed his eyes and lifted his face for a kiss. Harry indulged them both and gently caressed Draco's mouth with his in a silken, liquid kiss.
Draco reached up and brushed the half-open robe off of Harry's shoulders, stopping the kiss long enough to pull off the tee-shirt Harry wore underneath. Harry hadn't even realised that somewhen he'd managed to take off his glasses and stuff them in a pocket until he didn't have to take them off to let Draco undress him. Draco brushed his fingertips down over the curve of Harry's shoulders, then in and ever so lightly over Harry's nipples, making Harry gasp and shudder and Draco bury his face in Harry's neck again.
Harry raised unfocussed, half-lidded eyes to the ceiling, then tugged Draco's turtleneck off of him, Draco raising his arms and head helpfully. They gazed at each other for a moment, then came to the same tacit understanding and both slipped off their shoes and socks, jeans, and boxers.
Then they were both naked, aroused, gleaming like chilled cream in the moonlight. Soft curves and subtle planes of muscle, the faint shimmer of skin stretched over hipbones; neither of them could quite bring themselves to touch what they saw, despite the cool air pressing on them both. Both their bodies were smooth and slim and faintly muscled from Quidditch, shining and graceful in the light; Harry noticed with a tiny part of his mind that Draco had faint silvery scars and half-healed slices running in parallel lines all down his arms, across his belly, along his thighs, but none of these detracted in the least from the utter gut-wrenching beauty of his body, so slender, so pale, so…perfect.
…So beautiful, so completely beautiful, they both thought, each gazing at the other's body.
Finally Harry broke the crystalline moment, seizing Draco by the arm and pulling him up the steps to stand beside him with one hand while with the other he yanked back the covers on the bed. A cloud of dust filled the room, illuminating the broad shaft of moonlight with a hundred thousand points of glittering white. The sheets, however, were soft as a thought with time and as clean as the day they were made.
"Come to bed, love," Harry whispered, and tumbled them both onto the sheets.
***
Harry traced a random pattern on Draco's moist shoulder with his fingertip. He smiled briefly, enjoying the feel of heated, damp skin against heated, damp skin before saying, "Thank you, Draco."
Draco sighed, deep and long, and stared at the ceiling. "You do realise that my father would completely approve of this, don't you, Harry?" His voice was slow and heavy with satiation despite the content of the words.
"No, I'd have to say I certainly don't realise anything of the sort. Why on earth would your father approve of us snogging, you bedding me?" In fact, the thought of Lucius heartily congratulating Draco on his conquest made Harry slightly nauseous.
"Harry. My father has been encouraging me to seduce you for years now." Draco tightened his arms around Harry. "He wants me to crawl into your bed, then have you fall desperately in love with me. And then he thinks he'll have a perfect source of information and a potential knife at your throat either as long as our relationship continues, or a way to neutralise you permanently if such presents itself." He sighed again. "And if I didn't care for you, he'd be right."
Harry was shocked for a split second; first because it was horrifying that someone could callously force their own child into something so calculating and cold, then at Draco's honesty in revealing the plot to him. Then he registered the last bit.
"You…care for me?" Harry pulled away from Draco to look into his eyes, a liquid, bottomless silver. "Tell me the truth, Draco. Tell me how you feel about me." He searched those eyes, that lovely, pointed face, for the faintest sign of dishonesty, of secrets.
There were none.
"I'm in love with you, Harry. I have been for a long time." Draco met his eyes easily, guilelessly. "How else could I have been so horrid to you for so long? I think, I think I've loved you since I first met you. Not before then; I read everything in the Daily Prophet and all those damned books and I hated you; I hated everything about you. I resented your very existence. I hated that you had ended the glorious reign of everything my family wanted, that you were famous for it, that everyone loved you and you were so fucking special. And then I saw you and I knew who you were, of course; I'd read a thousand descriptions, hadn't I?…and I found that for some reason all the things I'd always MEANT to do when I first saw you were useless, and I pretended to not know you so I could meet you for the first time and talk to you and forget everything I'd ever known about you for just a bit." Draco took a deep breath. "And I approached you with everything I knew of, everything I knew how to be, and you rejected me there on the train, and it *hurt* Harry, it hurt. It was a slap in the face, when I'd only just decided to allow myself to be vulnerable to you. So I added that to all the nastiness I'd been raised to have towards you, and I ran with it. I was as unpleasant as the depth of my feeling allowed.'
Draco untwined himself from Harry and sat up, legs hanging off of the side of the bed, staring at the dusty stone floor; he ran a hand through his damp hair and sat for a long moment. Harry didn't move. He knew this was infinitely hard for Draco and he was terrified of breaking the spell, of silencing him when he was working so hard to bare his heart. And if he ruined this, there would never be another chance.
"My father had always wanted me to make friends with you. I paid for you turning me down, paid for it in blood, over and over again. And nothing my father did, nothing I could do to myself, hurt as much as just the simple fact that then, there, at that moment, I had *wanted* it so badly, had wanted to see what could happen to my world with you in it. And you had denied me that. So I was horrible to you. I was as nasty and superior and arrogant a bastard as I knew how to be. Despite that, I wanted nothing more than your acceptance."
Draco was trembling; Harry noticed, and hoped that it wasn't from chill, because he was trying very hard not to breathe audibly, let alone be so distracting as to put a blanket round Draco's shoulders.
"I didn't care so much about my father's disapproval; it's nothing new, really. But there was always this current between us, you and I, I mean, and my father picked up on that. And he thought of another way that I could be useful. And I defied it, I worked twice as hard to be your enemy, so that he couldn't use me to hurt you; I hurt you on my own to keep you safe from him, because believe me Harry, there is nothing that I could do to you that would come close to what my father might do. Never underestimate him."
Draco finally turned back towards Harry, and reached out a shaking hand to brush hair from Harry's eyes. "I have loved you for a very, very long time, Harry Potter. And I have hidden it for a very, very long time. And then you stopped being hostile. Do you know how hard it's been to try to continue to pick and prate and snipe at you? Even your damned friends, who under normal circumstances I wouldn't think twice about, but because you care for them and not me, I've had to examine ruthlessly and relentlessly for value? Then be nasty to them anyway, and the whole time knowing they're better than me, you took them and not me? Do you know how difficult and painful this whole charade has been?"
He took a long breath.
"It was never so hard before, when you responded properly." Draco looked away again, clasped fine, slim hands and studied them intently. "You always had what I wanted. From the moment we met. You always won, some way or another. You always beat me. And I—" He shuddered. "—I truly *hate* to be beaten. At anything. Accept it gracefully— right. Whatever. Not possible. Before I met you, I was always the best at everything— everything, Potter." The formality helped a little, helped ease the agony of tearing these bleeding truths out of his gut.
"And you…you've always turned me down, turned me aside, taken that place I'd been raised to think was mine. You rejected me. Absolutely. And I hated you for it. And I…I envied you for it. So I tried to hurt you. And you even turned that aside most times. You responded, but I could never beat you, I could never be the WINNER. Do you see? I could never regain that…I was always inferior after I met you. Inferior. Not quite good enough. There was never any possibility of us being anything but friends or enemies, Potter, two alphas can't meet and be indifferent to each other, and you decided which when we first met; and I'll admit that I was a bit of an ass, but gods, I'd never known how to be anything else, I'd never been allowed to think of it as a possibility…always had to be the fucking superior being. Once when I was very little I made friends with a house elf. My father found out…the bruises didn't fade for weeks…and the house elf died. Died, Potter, do you understand that? My father killed him. Every time I try to think of behaving in some way outside of what's been proven to be acceptable, I remember that…I feel that, I feel sick, I feel like I'm four years old and my best friend has been murdered and his bloody broken limp body shoved into my face while my father shouts at me and whips me. Do you understand that? Do you have any idea what that's like?"
Draco paused for a long moment and wiped tears from his cheeks; Harry was frozen in uncertainty, wanting to console him, wanting to answer, but still afraid that speaking now would shatter Draco like a struck icicle. He waited. Eventually Draco went on.
"Anyway…all this time I hated you, I envied you, you'd turned me down, rejected me, and then kept you compounding the insult and I was responding as best I could, this whole time…in the back of my head I was admiring you. You were the only person I'd ever known that I could consider an equal…or could maybe strive to be an equal with…I've known inferiors, and superiors, but never an equal. And you were *beating* me, *beating* me all the *time* and yet, and yet, you were my age and mostly on my level and sometimes I thought maybe *this* time I could actually *win* for once, I thought if I just pushed a little harder… And then you'd look at me and think that maybe here was someone you could respect, something unusual, someone who was your equal."
The words were ripping out of him like flung stones, hard and fierce, a violent torrent of pain and desolation. His body seemed too frail to vocalise them.
"I wanted you and I hated you and I loved what you were and hated you for what you stood against all at once, and no matter what I really felt I had to be nasty to you, because the alternative was to break like I have now and fall before you: and I have. I have. Do you see? Do you see what I've done? I've given you everything, you can take me apart now and I have no defence. I fought you as long as I could and then *DAMMIT* you stopped fighting back, you stopped fighting me! What the hell can you expect, I'm not made of stone no matter how much I wish I was, I can only last through so much for so many years!"
He sat silent again for what felt like hours, gasping. Finally a faintly bitter smile twisted his mouth.
"I blame you entirely for this." His gesture encompassed the room, the trail of discarded clothing between the door and the bed, the tangled sheets.
Harry smiled sweetly. "I've never been so glad to be at fault, then." He reached up and seized Draco's wrist. "I can't control what happened in the past; all I can say is that I saw my side and an infinitely limited part of your side, and I reacted as best I could. I never knew you felt like this. I knew what I felt, I thought there was more to you, but I never knew all of you, just what I saw. But yesterdays don't matter right now. Right now is what is, and that's what's most important. I'm sorry for yesterday. …But I'll never be sorry for now."
He pulled Draco back down beside him; Draco came willingly and they curled together in a tangle of warm limbs and comfort. "I love you, Draco. It'll all be okay. We'll figure out a way."
In the utter relaxed pleasure of touching each other there was a long silence.
"…You just said you loved me."
"Yes, I did. And I do."
"….But…why?" There was an anguish, a desperate hope in Draco's voice that Harry couldn't deny. It cut to the quick, revealing an old, old insecurity, a lack of self-worth that Harry knew intimately.
"Oh, beloved." Harry kissed Draco's eyelids, his nose, his forehead, his cheeks. He stopped before he lost the moment, and he knew, oh, he knew how important the answer was to Draco, the bleeding he could stop now or deepen to an eventually fatal wound. He was careful with his answer, but delivered before the silence grew painfully long.
"I love you because you're brilliant, capable, because there's more to you than one can fathom in shallow interactions; because there's a pain in you, a capacity for feeling in you, that I've never known in anyone else; because in spite of the fact that you've been my rival and enemy, you are the only peer I know that I can consider my true equal in capacity for feeling, for depth, capability. I *have* noticed that, love. I love your beauty, and the liquid grace with which you move, and the gleam of your silver eyes as you glance up from your schoolwork; I love the very creativity with which you've tried to insult and hurt me. I see you, I see this great potential in you for vast understanding and enjoyment, and I want to fulfil that. I *see* you, love, behind the animosity you put up as a mask. I love you. I want to know you better. I want to know what makes you smile on a warm sunny day. I want to know you to the bottom of your soul. Because I know you're worth knowing. Even if I don't like much of what you've done in the past. Does that explain it adequately, beloved?"
Draco had started leaking tears silently somewhere in the middle of this speech. By the time Harry was done he was sobbing softly into Harry's shoulder. Harry held him, hoping, praying that what he had been able to vocalise was enough to stanch the bleeding, was enough to bring Draco back from that chasm. He knew that many, if not all, of the cuts on Draco's body were self-inflicted. He knew the emptiness and pain of self-hatred. He only hoped he could say the right things to draw Draco back from that edge.
Draco cried for a very long time. Harry didn't interrupt him, but stroked his neck, his back, his arms, his hair, occasionally murmuring sweet loving things. He soothed Draco as best he could, and waited. Eventually Draco's sobs slowed, then stopped, and a while after his breathing returned to normal, Harry stopped feeling hot tears drip onto his skin. He closed his eyes and relaxed, completely willing to go to sleep trustingly, make love again, or continue the conversation, whichever Draco needed.
***
Much later, as Harry picked up his robes to put them on, he felt a forgotten weight in the left pocket. He paused for all of a second, then said, "Draco. Come here."
Draco was folding down the collar of his turtleneck; as soon as he was done, he came willingly. "Yes, Harry? What is it?"
Harry pulled down the collar that he'd just folded so precisely, crushing it down to a mess around the base of Draco's neck. He pulled the choker from his pocket and fastened it around Draco's neck. It fit, just as perfectly as he'd imagined. He allowed a small portion of his mind to wonder how he'd estimated its length so accurately. The rest of his mind was absorbed in seeing the object embodying his fantasies wrapped round the throat of the object of his fantasies.
It was, in all ways, sublime. Draco stood silently, smiling softly, and the choker curved round his throat beautifully, exactly as Harry had imagined. The silverwork vied for favour with Draco's beauty; the moonstones fought for prominence with Draco's eyes. Each enhanced the other. It was a perfect match.
Draco reached up, ran his fingers lightly across the cool, round stones. "Giving me jewellery already, Harry?" He smiled and feather-light stroked Harry's cheek.
"You don't mind? …That it's not…not some other kind of jewellery?" Harry held his breath against Draco's reply.
"While I haven't looked at it personally, I know you well enough to know that you wouldn't be putting any old piece of junk on me…you thought of me enough to give me this. It could be pig iron and I'd treasure it." Harry found the softness in Draco's eyes almost unbearable. He didn't think he deserved that amount of trust, in this respect anyway; he'd known, told himself firmly for so long that it was wrong, embarrassing…
"It's entirely insignificant, as far as I know, except that I first saw a moonstone and thought of your eyes; then I saw this and bought it because it made me think of you. I've kept it with me since, thinking of you and whether it would flatter you, what you would think of it…incessantly, I must admit. I'm sorry. I'm sorry it's not something else, something better. …Are you disgusted?" Harry felt his cheeks burning and tried not to sound like an utter fool.
"Harry, love, as I said, I am fully aware that this thing has immense value simply inasmuch as you've acquired it and thought of me…I haven't had the chance yet to look at it, but I also trust your judgment enough that I suspect I'll find it beautiful in and of itself, and henceforth will wear it joyously. What are you looking at me like that for? I'm overwhelmed that you would think of me enough to give me this. Why would I want it to be something else? What's the trouble, Harry?"
Harry blushed uncomfortably and tried not to look Draco in the eyes. "Nothing, Draco…except I've been wanting to give this to you for months, and I haven't, because I thought you'd laugh at me and on top of that I've never seen a man wear something like it, it's an unusual type of jewellery to give a man; I thought you'd be offended. But…every time I touched it in my pocket, I thought of you; every time I thought of it, from the moment I bought it, I thought of you. So I gave it to you just now. Hoping that you wouldn't hate it." He closed his eyes, hoping desperately that Draco wouldn't disdain his gift; he'd accepted so much, allowed Harry so much, how could he expect everything to go right? Surely this must go wrong. Something always did. Didn't it?
Draco bit his lip, touched the choker again. "Harry, you've thought about this for far longer than a moment. Find me a mirror. I want to see it before I answer you."
Harry cast around the room abstractly, the rational part of him (not always indulged, but hey, he was post-orgasmic and tired here) ordering that he check his immediate area before running off elsewhere— and there, there it was, in a corner, covered by a sheet rendered semi-translucent with age. He knew the shape under it was a mirror. HAD to be a mirror. He moved towards it with knees still shaking with tension and nerves. This whole thing HAD to go wrong. Eventually. Somehow.
The sheet tore as he touched it and drifted into a pile of dusty, used-to- be-white shreds at the base of the carved wooden stand. A distant part of his mind pointed out that no matter the cost, he'd like to buy the furniture in this room from Dumbledore; the logical part of him (equally distant, and shoved back into a corner of his mind, along with his rationale and good common sense), the development of which he blamed on Hermione, wondered where in hell he'd manage to put the furniture if purchased. But he forgot all of this when Draco brushed him aside to stand before the mirror and pulled his turtleneck off and dropped it in one fluid motion. He spent several seconds staring at Draco's reflection, resplendent in his own skin and the healed/healing rents in it, then moved upwards hesitantly to see the choker living on his throat like a previously unknown part of his body, glowing and gleaming with far more allure than it had ever had on its own.
"…It's…exquisite, Harry. It's…if I could have picked something out for myself, I'd have picked this…except I couldn't have; I don't know myself this well. It's utterly…perfect. Right. …How did you do this? How did you know?" Draco obviously wanted to touch the choker, his hands kept fluttering between his chest and hips; but he never quite managed to reach up far enough to make contact with it, or down far enough to let his hands settle at his sides.
"It was purely instinct, love. I don't know myself how it worked so exactly. I saw it; I bought it; I yearned for an opportunity to see it on you. I'm marvelling myself at how well it fits you, in all senses…and I'm…overwhelmed…to see…the realisation of a long-harboured dream."
Draco turned back to him, heart shown naked in his eyes and stance, and Harry had already spent all his self-control earlier in the evening; he took him in his arms and kissed him with all the repressed longing and love and desire left in him.
Eventually, they returned to the bed, the choker shining out in unexpected moments with multiple tantalising, electrifying bursts of colour…in the middle of their love, in the moonlight.
On the inside, one word engraved on the backing of each stone, it said:
I am the realisation of what you've hidden. I reveal you. I complete you.