Seduction in Four Hundred and Twenty Seconds

The butterbeer bottle spun in the middle of the circle, blurring past the faces of Hogwarts' first eighth-year class. Eyes darted between it and Draco Malfoy, its spinner, who was sitting with one leg stretched out in front of him and the other bent up at the knee, leaning back on his arms with his practiced haughty poise.

They were clustered on the floor of the eighth-year common room. Not enough students had returned to justify incorporating them into their former houses, so instead they'd been collected into the house-neutral Room of Requirement, adapted into a makeshift dormitory.

The bottle, which had at first spun with a smooth swiftness akin to the nonchalant elegance of its spinner, now began to slow. With each circuit of the circle it lost speed until it seemed to struggle to complete a revolution. And then, after one last feeble lap during which it fumbled first in front of Susan Bones, then in front of an openly keen Pansy Parkinson, it came to a stop.

In front of Harry Potter.

There was a collective moment of silence as everyone in the assorted group stared at the stalled bottle. White noise buzzed in Harry's ears like the muted roar of air rushing past in the fatal seconds of free-fall between abandoning and rejoining solid ground. He saw the tapered tip of the bottle pointing at him with indisputable accuracy, and he knew that it was Malfoy's turn, yet his mind couldn't connect the two ideas. They were north and south magnets, refusing to meet.

"You know the rules, boys," said Lavender Brown, who had orchestrated the game. "Seven minutes of heaven... or hell." Her laugh delighted in the scandal.

Lavender's statement brought the circle back to life. Everyone had an opinion and they all seized that moment as the opportunity to vocalize it.

"That's disgusting!" Ron's voice was the first to come to Harry's defense. "Malfoy spins again!"

"No way!" Michael Corner, formerly of Ravenclaw, chimed in. "No way, no how. S'not right."

Parvati sided with Lavender. "It's only fair," she said. "We never set any exceptions."

"That's because this one goes without saying," said Hermione testily.

"We wouldn't make Harry do that, would we?" Neville fretted.

"Why not?" Seamus grinned wickedly. "It won't kill them."

"Kinky sod," said Theodore Nott in his scathing Slytherin drawl. "Everyone knows you're half poof yourself, anyway."

"You don't know anything!" countered Dean Thomas, leaping to his best friend's aid.

"Defending your boyfriend's honor?" inquired Pansy, in a provocative voice matched by the rakish arch of her eyebrow.

"Doesn't really matter, does it?" In signature Hufflepuff style, Justin Finch-Fletchley's contribution extinguished the short fuse of the Gryffindor/Slytherin conflict before it could go off. "They're not going to do it, anyway."

In the turmoil of the debate, the group had completely forgotten the two subjects they were ostensibly championing the fate of. However, Draco didn't tolerate being forgotten for long.

"I'll do it," he said.

The evenness of his voice, bereft of inflection, immediately quelled the commotion. But he wasn't paying attention to the others. His attention was focused across the circle, on Harry.

Cool grey eyes bore into Harry's, level and challenging. The instant Harry met them, he knew he was doomed. Unspoken words resonated in Harry's ears with the echoey clarity of the past: "Scared, Potter?" There was no way for him to back out. It was impossible for him to refuse any challenge Draco had accepted.

Harry stood up.

Minute One

"Why did you do that?" Harry demanded when the door closed behind them, trapping them in the dark.

There was a long pause, unnerving because if Harry hadn't seen Draco enter the closet with his own eyes, the silence and absolute darkness would've convinced him he was alone. He strained his eyes to adjust to external blindness and sought the shadows that clung to Draco's form, distinguishing him in some small way from the otherwise impenetrable black of the space between them.

"You didn't exactly speak up for yourself." Draco's voice echoed in the empty closet – created by the Room just for this purpose in response to the group's collective desire for amusement – and betrayed his position. He was standing about two feet from Harry, and off to one side.

Harry frowned. "As if I could have," he said. "You heard them all arguing."

"One word from you would've settled it," said Draco.

"I couldn't have gotten a word in if I'd wanted to." Harry ignored an itch of agitation that he couldn't come up with a better answer.

"If you say so."

Minute Two

"So what, we're going to just stand here?" Harry asked, after a few seconds of silence made so pregnant by the dark that they almost felt tangible.

"I don't know," Draco replied.

"This was your idea!"

"You didn't have to agree, Potter. Like I said, one word from you and the whole thing would've been called off," said Draco, knowing full well that even after eight years Harry had failed to apprehend the subtle and manipulative aspects of power, aspects that Draco had mastered within his first ride on the Hogwarts Express.

"You agreed first," Harry countered artlessly.

"So?" Draco was aware that he was being juvenile and evasive, but since he didn't have an acceptable explanation it was the only recourse he had.

"So," said Harry, "why did you do it?"

Draco pressed his lips together, hoping Harry was unobservant enough to miss his uncertainty, especially in the dark. He felt words welling in him and spilling onto his tongue, words he'd been swallowing and avoiding all term.

"Aren't you curious?"

Minute Three

"Curious?" Harry gaped. "Curious about what?"

"What do you think?" Draco bit.

"You don't mean – not – you? Or – or blokes?" Harry didn't know how to explain the adrenaline igniting in his bloodstream, so he pretended not to notice it.

"Both. Either. I don't know."

"You're my... my... We've hated each other for years," Harry protested, groping for excuses.

"Is that your problem, then? I would've thought it'd be the fact that I'm a bloke."

Harry hesitated a second too long before adding, "That too."

Draco rather nobly refrained from making a 'Potter the Poof' jab in favor of encouraging Harry to keep talking, counting on Harry's miserable self-composure to lead him straight into self-betrayal.

"What, don't you find me attractive, Potter?" Draco inquired, with cocky insouciance.

Harry swallowed. On the one hand, he was grateful for the darkness's aid in hiding his discomposure. On the other hand, he cursed it for the foreign intimacy it lent their exchange and the heightened awareness it gave Harry of Draco's every movement.

"Hardly," Harry managed.

"Really?" said Draco. "Not even the slightest bit," – he leaned forward (Harry must have misjudged his distance) and spoke into Harry's ear in an unfamiliar voice imbued with some electric undercurrent that made tiny hairs stand up all over Harry's body – "irresistible?"

Minute Four

"Have you gone bender?" Harry asked, in a voice throaty with discomfiture. He thought he was being clever, turning the tables, but Draco knew a sidestep when he saw one. The question had been avoided.

"Does it matter?"

"Of course it matters!"

"I don't see why. Even if..." Draco paused for calculation, but carried on again too quickly, before a union of 'Potter' and 'queer thoughts' could be aborted by a mental inequality sign, "I had, it's not like it would make a difference."

Unbeknownst to Draco, Harry's eyebrows furrowed. That was not exactly the scathing rebuttal he had expected from Draco. It was hardly even a rebuttal at all. Harry didn't know what to make of it, and even less of the sense of disappointment Draco's failure aroused in him. He'd wanted Draco to scorn him for proposing the very idea that Draco could be bent.

"You'd still be you," Draco clarified, "and I'd still be me."

"So?" Harry was losing the thread of the conversation. Or perhaps it was tangling too convolutedly for him to follow. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that it would be impossible for us to ever be together! Don't you agree?"

Harry didn't remember proposing that they try. "I don't know. I've never thought about it."

"Haven't you?" Draco's voice went low and quiet in a way that made Harry question himself. Had he? Should he have?

"No. 'Course not," Harry said, and wondered why his words rang so hollow in the dark closet, like there wasn't light enough to prove their veracity or space enough to give them substance.

"Right. Me neither." Draco took a controlled breath and tried to remember what he was trying to extract from this conversation.

The flat edge to Draco's words chafed against Harry and he felt the need to either bury or augment them. His response was a knee-jerk reaction, like reaching to scratch an itch. "You haven't, have you? I mean, you don't think about me, do you?"

"Your face is on about every other issue of the Prophet, Potter. I can hardly help it if you cross my mind every now and again." Draco bristled with an inexplicable defensiveness.

"Deploring the public's taste in choosing me for a hero, I s'pose."

There was a beat of silence which should have contained one of the many insults Draco had on call for use in situations such as these. He was almost as taken aback as Harry when one failed to manifest. And when he did speak, the result was surreal.

"I don't think of you that way anymore," said Draco. "Not since..."

Another beat of silence passed as both Harry and Draco confirmed that Draco had, in fact, just said what he'd said.

Then, "How do you think about me?"

Minute Five

"Lumos," Draco whispered, raising his wand so it illuminated their faces. Harry wasn't the only one who could change the subject.

"Put that out," said Harry irritably.

Draco ignored him and drew the bright end of his wand closer to Harry's face until the tip hovered less than an inch from his skin. Draco angled it aloft so the light didn't antagonize Harry's eyes.

Draco's lips parted and he took a breath as if about to speak, but then did not. Perhaps he lost his nerve. Perhaps no words came to him. Harry didn't know. He was frozen by the absurd novelty of the situation. His instincts hadn't prepared him to react to or interpret this kind of advance, and without them he was helpless.

The wand made contact with Harry's skin, just above his eye. The wood was ever-so-slightly rough, as though it had not been polished for some time. Draco traced Harry's eyebrow with the tip of his wand, following the curve of it down to Harry's cheek and then along the line of his jaw. Draco had taken a step forward at some point and was now close enough that the toes of their shoes touched, but still far enough away that Harry could only hear Draco's exhalations, not feel them.

"Will you – " Harry's voice cracked and made the next word come out with exaggerated emphasis, "stop?"

"Stop what?" Draco's voice was languid as he pushed a rogue lock of Harry's fringe back from his forehead with his wand.

"That," said Harry. "You're – you're much too – close."

The wand froze, intwined in Harry's hair. Harry dared to look up then, and saw Draco's eyes glinting in the wand-light, the rest of his expression unfathomable and cast in shadow.

"Nox." Draco stepped backwards into the fresh darkness.

Minute Six

"Malfoy?" Harry's voice probed into the darkness a few seconds later.

"Yes?"

"Where are you?" Draco's presence in the small closet was responsible for making Harry anxious, yet it was Draco's presence he craved to assuage his anxiety in the abrupt return to black.

"I'm right here." Draco reached out to indicate his proximity and ended up bumping his hand against Harry's. He hesitated a moment before letting it fall back, savoring the brief warmth of Harry's skin.

"Oh," said Harry in a small voice, and Draco wasn't sure whether it was a response to Draco's statement or Draco's accidental touch. "How long do you reckon we've been in here?"

"I dunno. A few minutes."

There was a pause. Then, "Malfoy?"

Draco smirked to himself this time as he replied, "Yes?"

"Do you think..." Harry's voice faded into the darkness. "Do you think you could come closer again?"

Draco's heart gave a thump. He stepped forward, hand held out in front of him to determine when he came into contact with Harry. Feeling his fingers brush against the soft material of Harry's robes, he trailed them upward, using the material as a guide, until he reached Harry's waist. There his hand came to rest, pressed into the slight curve between Harry's side and the small of his back.

"Like this?" Draco whispered. He felt a light pressure on his arm and realized Harry was taking hold of his sleeve.

"I think so," Harry said, sounding utterly unsure of himself. "I just, I can't see anything. I feel lost."

Harry's uncertainty made Draco bold. He used the hand on Harry's waist to pull him closer, and with the other hand continued the trek upwards along Harry's robe until he reached the crest of Harry's shoulder. His fingers sought out the hollow where Harry's neck met his shoulders and molded his hand along it. Harry's skin was hot against Draco's palm, tactile evidence that Harry was blushing. For some reason, this knowledge brought a flush to Draco's own cheeks.

"Is that better?"

"It's... Now I feel..." Anchored, Harry's thoughts filled in the blank. Delirious.But he didn't finish his sentence. Draco's lithe fingers on Harry's neck felt gentle rather than predatory. He found he didn't really mind them there.

Warm air brushed the bottom of Harry's face, and a foreign object that felt suspiciously like a nose bumped against his. The action startled Harry out of the complacence the narcotic darkness had lured him into.

"What are you doing?"

Minute Seven

Draco spat something that sounded vaguely like a muttered, "Damn."

Harry wanted to vocalize the question unfurling inside his mouth – "Were you about to kiss me?" – but was at once both too scared and too unafraid that the answer would be "Yes."

Draco's hand dropped from Harry's face and he was just stepping backward once more when Harry's hand shot out in the darkness to grasp the first bit of Draco it came in contact with – ending up clenching a fistful of Draco's robes.

"Wait," directed Harry. "Don't disappear again."

"Why not?" Draco's mouth was as dry as the words it produced.

"Because. Without you there's nothing to remind me that I'm still alive." Harry had meant it to reference his reaction to the darkness that was more than darkness, a vacuum void of light – an existentialist panic that if he couldn't see the world around him, did it really continue to exist? Did he continue to exist? – realizing only afterward that he hadn't specified so, and that it could just as well apply to the flame of vitality Draco's presence fueled that went out whenever Draco was absent.

Both Draco and Harry's hearts pounded in their chests, the beats marking time in the pause that followed.

"That's..." Draco licked his parched lips, as in invitation of the absentee concluding word.

Harry felt as if his blood was rushing from his extremities in toward the center of his body, in a race to seek safety in – or perhaps lend vigor to – his heart. His fingers tightened in Draco's robes and, without receiving any conscious orders from Harry himself, used their grip to pull him closer.

Slowly, blindly, as if directed by some invisible force made powerful by the very darkness that forced them together, Harry rose onto the balls of his feet, using the grip on Draco's robes as a tangible anchor in the otherwise incorporeal world to guide him forward, onward into this mysterious twilight between action and comprehension.

Before he could think to stop or question himself, Harry's nose bumped into the skin of Draco's cheek and they were right back where they'd been a minute before, when Harry had interrupted them. Harry felt Draco's hands grope for and tighten anxiously around his waist, but Draco didn't say a word. Harry's slow momentum continued propelling him forward, causing his lips to bump into Draco's in a clumsy, improbable kiss.

Self-awareness returned to Harry with the meeting of their mouths, and the one thought monopolizing his mind was, This is odd. Neither of them knew quite what to do. It was as if they'd drifted into a drugged semi-consciousness and woken up with their lips pressed together, unsure why or how they had gotten there. For several seconds they stood unmoving, connected by their grasps on each other's robes and the enigmatic touch of their kiss. Try as he might, Harry couldn't contrive to feel anything other than the chaste smoothness of skin – cheeks, lips – and an awkward bewilderment. How could he have let Draco trick him into thinking he was bent? This encounter was no more sexual than were Draco to be swapped with Hermione.

Then, as he was pulling away, Draco unconsciously pressed his lips together, trapping Harry's bottom lip and tugging it forward with him until it slipped out when the connection between their mouths was broken. And that action – that accident of position and motion – elicited such a tingle of pleasure that an audience of nerves applauded throughout his body, and Harry felt something.

A loud moment followed in which both boys stared wide-eyed and dumbstruck into the dark, and then Harry, with a surge of conviction, pressed his lips back to Draco's, thinking of nothing but the desire to feel that something again.

At first Draco was too surprised to react. He felt Harry's mouth warm and eager against his own, and he felt Harry's hand twisting into a tight grip on the hair at the nape of his neck, and he could do nothing but feel these things without making sense of them. But his body was more prepared for this eventuality than his mind and quickly released him from the paralysis of incomprehension. With a silent moan, he opened his mouth to Harry's advances and walked them forward until Harry's back found the wall of the closet.

Overtime

Less than a minute later, a sudden rapping on the door threatened to disrupt them, but the small sighs of their breath when they came up for air were enough to drown out the distraction, even as it was repeated with increasing agitation.

"Time's up," announced Lavender Brown's voice through the door. "You can come out now!"

Neither Harry nor Draco acknowledged her, other than by Draco breaking the kiss to begin surveying the territory of Harry's jaw with his lips.

They could hear as Lavender reported, muffled and perplexed, "They're not answering."

"Well open the door then," Seamus advised with exasperation. "Here, I'll do it."

In a sudden instance of foresight, Draco pointed his wand at the door and mentally thanked Professor Flitwick for testing them on non-verbal locking spells the week before.

It was quiet outside the closet as Seamus stood up and crossed the room. Inside, however, Harry and Draco's ears were filled with the quietly deafening sounds of lips communicating without words.

"Blimey, it's locked!" Seamus exclaimed after several futile jiggles of the doorknob.

"Locked?" echoed an aghast Ron. "You can't be serious!"

Draco grinned into Harry's neck, nuzzling his nose into Harry's skin and feeling alarmingly close to purring for someone who wasn't an animagus.

"Come see for yourself if you don't believe me," Seamus offered.

"Uh, I think I'd rather not," Ron hastened to decline.

Harry stifled a laugh by pulling Draco's lips back to his and curling his arms around Draco's wiry shoulders. Draco pulled Harry's bottom lip into his mouth – purposefully, this time – and traced it with his tongue. Harry hummed; Draco felt the vibrations enter his lips and fan out across his entire body.

"What do we do?" panicked Neville.

"I don't know." Seamus' nonchalance sounded born of amusement. "Wait for them to come out?"

"But who knows what they could be doing in there? They could be killing each other!"

"If they were, they'd be making a lot more noise."

The other side of the door fell silent, presumably as the group digested this logic. Meanwhile, inside, the soundness of it was proven as Harry's hand snuck into Draco's robes and found them hem of his undershirt. He flattened his palm against Draco's stomach and felt the contraction of muscles tighten in response to Harry's cold hand on Draco's warm skin.

"Well," said Lavender, breaking the silence outside, "that certainly killed the mood. Anyone else up for sneaking into the kitchens for a snack?"

There was a chorus of agreement, followed by the shuffling of standing and the muffled thumping of feet as the group dispersed. After the last footsteps had faded away and Harry and Draco thought themselves alone, someone approached the closet door.

"Kinky sods," Nott scoffed, echoing his earlier jeer. Then his footsteps, too, retreated, punctuated by the distant click of the dorm's outside door shutting behind him.

Draco broke the kiss. "You're all alone with me now, Potter," he whispered provocatively, so that his breath raised the small hairs on Harry's neck. "Scared?"

Harry's voice was steady in spite of the shiver that went through him. "You wish."

Author's Note:

Before those of you who were kind enough to put me on Author Alerts get too excited that I've already posted something new, I should warn you that I'm afraid this is going to need to tide you over for a bit. I'm starting college in two days, and I feel like I need to focus on real life for a while. (Incidentally, if you have any advice...?) In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this one-shot enough to forgive me : ) Also, please cut me some slack on any mistakes; I wrote this quickly because it wouldn't get out of my head until I wrote it all down. Plus I wanted to share it with you before I leave for school and everything hits the fan.