Title: Let's Dance To Joy Division 1/2

Pairing: Harry/Draco

Rating: NC-17

Warnings: candle play (for a kink_bingo square \0/)

Word count: ~12,500

Author notes: Yeah, okay, this was supposed to be a short little PWP for Draco's 29th birthday on June 5. Hah. Much love to supergrover24 for her beta. *hearts Jodie* Title shamelessly stolen from The Wombats. Not that Draco would have any clue who they are. Or Joy Division for that matter. :D





Let the love tear us apart, I've found a cure for a broken heart…

--Let's Dance To Joy Division, The Wombats





"Darling, it's really not the end of the world," Pansy says as she pours another glass of wine and hands it to me. She frowns at the empty bottle, then leans over the arm of the sofa to set it on the side table next to the one we've already drained before curling back into the green brocade cushions, her bare feet tucked beneath her. Her toenails are painted an outlandishly glittery dark purple that only Pansy can pull off. The WWN's on somewhere in the background; the not incredibly soothing strains of the London Wizarding Philharmonic's rendition of Travenham's Fifteen Concertos for the Glockenspiel and Tárogató waft through the flat. "I rather enjoyed my last birthday."

"Only because you spent the entirety of it with your legs wrapped around Terry Boot's head," Blaise drawls. He takes a drag from the cigarette in his hand and blows a thin stream of smoke towards her, all while sprawled (artfully, of course, God forbid Blaise arrange himself in any other way even in the privacy of our flat) across his favourite spot in our sitting room, the wide leather club chair that he'd nicked from the Athenaeum during a late-night piss-up a few years back for which I take absolutely no responsibility, thank you very much. It'd taken all of Father's not inconsiderable influence with the wizarding governors to keep us from being banned for life, and even at that Blaise had refused to give up his chair. I don't think Father's ever quite forgiven him that indignity.

I sigh and twist the stem of my wineglass between my fingertips, watching the wine swirl up the sides. Not even the utterly brilliant Viognier Mother had slipped me Sunday last from Father's private stash in the cellars is enough to cheer me. I’m not spending my birthday with any part of me wrapped around anyone else's anatomy. How terribly depressing.

Pansy tilts her head. Her dark hair brushes one cheek; it gleams in the light from the lamp next to her. She smiles. "Dear Boot. He did help. More than once that night, as I recall."

I scowl at her. We all recall, thanks to the noises the both of them made all bloody night. To this day Blaise swears she deliberately used a Sonorous instead of a silencing charm.

Pansy leans over and pats my arm. "Still. There's no need for being so glum. Twenty-nine's the new nineteen, they say."

"They," I mutter into my wineglass, "are utter idiots."

"Oh, do cheer up." Pansy rolls her eyes. Her sympathy with my sulks only extends so far. "You'll end up with wrinkles worse than Professor Snape's if you keep glowering like that."

My hand flies to my forehead in horror. The skin's still smooth, thank God. For now, at least, although I'm all too aware of the backwards march my hair is taking. Damn Grandfather Cygnus and his bald pate. "Today," I moan, slumping against the arm of my chair, wine splashing onto my fingers, "is the end of my youth, Pans. It all goes downhill from here. I found three hairs on my pillow this morning. Three! The next thing you know I'll be sporting Grandfather Abraxas' liver spots." I shudder.

Blaise snorts. "You're not eighty yet, Draco."

I give him a baleful glare over the rim of my glass. "Just wait until August and you realise you've reached the sunset of your glory days."

"Sunset my arse." Blaise stretches lazily, his untucked white shirt riding up to expose a dark swathe of chiseled stomach. Bastard. No one should be allowed to be that ridiculously attractive in such a state of dishabille. Sometimes I wonder why I haven't fucked him yet, given Blaise's penchant for taking anything that walks past into his bed. Pansy's already been there at least twice that I know of. Probably more. Other than Pansy's birthday exploits, neither of them has wanted to rub their sexual adventures in my face all that much lately. I'm a rather vicious bastard after my heart's broken, it seems. Or at least I am when I'm not pathetically depressed. To be honest, I've no idea why I haven't run the both of them off yet.

"I'm think I'm bored," Pansy says suddenly, setting her glass down.

We both look at her in alarm. Pansy's boredom almost always leads to random chaos, destruction of public edifices, or, even worse, our showing up pissed out of our minds on Greg's doorstep, much to the consternation of his far too staid (German, Pansy always sniffs haughtily) wife. Let’s not even mention the annoyed, piercing wails of their son, woken by Pansy pounding on the door at half three in the morning, which does nothing to endear my two raucously drunken flatmates to an already sleep-deprived Greg, to say the least. Still. He's been one of my best friends for twenty years now and that counts for something in this wretched world of ours.

Leave it to Greg to be the first one of us to settle down, as Mother oh so pointedly remarks to me every Sunday over dinner at the Manor before she rattles off the names of any and all eligible young women, as if I'd have any interest and she damn well knows that. I have to bite my tongue every time to keep from reminding her I had been in a relationship, for three bloody years at least, and look at how that had ended. A rain of fire and brimstone in Biblical proportions would have been far preferable to the unbearable onslaught of Rita bloody fucking Skeeter I'd been forced to endure for the past eight months.

I don't bring that up, of course. Mother prefers to think of those three years as an aberration, rather than the norm—now that distasteful fascination's out of my system I can go back to being the dutiful Malfoy heir, she thinks, Skeeter’s frequent snide asides about my romantic entanglements (or, rather, current lack thereof) on page six of the Prophet be damned—and Father refuses to even acknowledge it at all now that he can't use my convenient "friendship" to his advantage.

There are moments when I want nothing more than to stand up just after the elves have cleared the mains at one of my parents' ridiculously dull dinner parties with their ridiculously dull friends—one or more of whose simpering daughters has been invited in the completely vain hope that she'll catch my eye—and scream at my parents are you blind or just deliberately obtuse because even the bloody Prophet knows I'm gay, gay, gay, buggering, cocksucking, arselicking, on my knees with a prick up my bum, wouldn't know what to do with a fanny if it slapped me in the face gay,, but Pansy (and please, if I were to even consider sleeping with a woman—which I wouldn't, thanks every so muchly—it'd be her, not one of those boring milquetoasts Mother keeps throwing at me), dear, droll Pansy insists that would be terribly plebian, and thus far beneath me. Amusing, without doubt, and certain to inflame the gossip circuit for absolutely ages, which has a definite appeal, but still, plebian. Not to mention it'd humiliate my mother, and while I could give a rat's arse about my father's pride, I suppose she's a point about Mother. I'd never do that to her. Not after everything she's been through already.

"I'm bored," Pansy says again, and this time she slides to the edge of the sofa. "We should do something."

"We are." Blaise Summons another bottle of wine from the kitchen. "I for one can think of no better way to celebrate the close of Draco's latest annus horribilis than to get roaringly pissed on his bastard father's wine."

I drain my glass and lift it. "Hear, hear."

Pansy wrinkles her nose. "I think he'd do better getting shagged." She twists a lock of black hair around one finger. "How long has it been, Draco?"

"Shut it," I say tightly, and I set my wineglass down with a clink of crystal against the mahogany of the side table. She knows. They both do. Blaise looks away.

"Eight months, one week and three days," Pansy says quietly. "And you won't even go to dinner with anyone else, much less bring anyone home for a tumble. That's not healthy, darling. You know celibacy just makes you pasty." She lays her hand over mine. "And anyway, it's not going to do you any good at all to sit around here obsessing over him."

I pull my hand away. "I'm not obsessing."

They're both silent, just looking at me. Blaise raises one eyebrow, and for that one moment, I hate him.

All right. Fine. So I obsess over my ex. Who doesn't? "It was three years," I say, and, really, I do hate the plaintive whine in my voice.

"Draco," Pansy says gently. "It's time."

I shake my head. "I'm not ready."

She stands up and holds out her hand. I sigh.

"Blaise?" I turn to him, eyes pleading, but he shrugs and stubs out his cigarette. He flicks it over his shoulder into the hearth.

"She has a point," he says. "For once."

Pansy beams at him, then looks at me. "And I know exactly what we'll do." Her smile is blinding. I'm terrified.

"I despise you both," I say, but I let Pansy pull me to my feet. I only sway slightly, much to my dismay. I grab the bottle of wine from Blaise and lift it to my mouth.

Whatever Pansy's planned is going to require a lot more alcohol in my system, I'm certain.

***

I'm not wrong.

"A Muggle club? Have you lost your mind?" I stare at her.

"No," she says calmly, rummaging through Blaise's wardrobe. "Muggles are horribly easy when they get pissed, and darling, I love you, you know I do, but with all your—" She waves a hand vaguely in the air. "—issues at the moment, I think right now easy would be better for you."

"I don't have issues," I say petulantly. Blaise harrumphs behind me; I ignore him.

Pansy peers at me from around the wardrobe door. "Oh, Draco," she murmurs in that voice that means I've said something utterly stupid. "Of course you do." She throws a silk shirt at me. It's black and fitted and gossamer thin.

I hold it up, looking at Blaise through it. "Really?" I ask him, and he smirks, leaning against one of the bedposts.

"You'd be surprised," he says. "That shirt bagged me a member of the Danish royal family." He twists the neck of the wine bottle between his fingers before lifting it to his mouth. "She could do the most amazing things with her tongue. For a Muggle, at least."

I study the shirt. The jet buttons glitter up at me. "Muggles, honestly, you two—"

Pansy steps up into the wardrobe, pushing aside a rack of trousers. "It's not as if we're marrying them, Draco." Her voice is muffled. "They're perfectly acceptable for a quick fuck or two."

I can feel my mouth purse; I try to stop it before Blaise notices. The last thing I want to listen to is one of his endless lectures about the unnaturalness of monogamy.

At one point I would have agreed with him.

I have no idea how I ended up the prude among us. It's not what anyone would have anticipated ten years ago. I like sex. I like sex a lot. After the war, when no one would even consider hiring a Slytherin, much less one with family ties to the Death Eaters, Blaise and I spent two years wandering the Continent, spending as many nights as we could in as many different beds as was possible. We'd even whored ourselves out for a month, to see what it was like as much as to fill our thinning wallets. It’d been brilliant.

That was all before Harry, though.

Harry. Even thinking his name makes me ache. I loved him, the bastard. I'd given everything up for him. He hadn't even had to ask. That's the curse of the Malfoys, you see. We're arrogant, self-centred bastards, but when we fall…well. Just look at the way my father looks at my mother, even after all these years. And he's the most self-servicing arsehole in the whole damned country, I'd say.

I'm done with love now. Harry broke me of that when I found him in bed with Zacharias sodding Smith. Bloody hysterical, that was. Everyone had expected me not to be able to keep my prick in my pants. Of course, they'd all assumed it was my fault, that I'd done something to force Harry into such a position. Noble Gryffindor that he is, he could never have stooped so low as to cheat, even on a Slytherin, not without provocation. Idiots. God forbid they discover their Golden Boy has feet of clay.

"Wine," I say, tightly, and Blaise hands me the bottle. I take a long swig, then wipe the back of my hand over my mouth before giving it back to him. I look over at Pansy. She raises both eyebrows, a disturbingly small pair of jeans dangling from her fingers. With a sigh, I nod and start unbuttoning my shirt. "All right. But if I'm going to do this, you'd damn well better find me someone appropriately gorgeous to shag."

Pansy smiles at me and Summons her makeup bag from the bath. "Only the best for you, darling. I promise."

I'm not exactly comforted.

***

The club is loud and crowded, one of those purposely rundown gay warehouses tucked away in a Chelsea alley that's become trendy with the straight girls and, on occasion, their adventurous boyfriends. It's hot for June, almost miserably so, and clothes are being stripped off, shirts tied around waists or just left draped over banisters and chair backs. Even I've unbuttoned the top few buttons of mine, much to Blaise's approval. I'm not usually one to show skin in public. Too many scars to explain.

Music pounds through the room, nearly drowning out conversation. A flick of Pansy's wand mutes it enough that we're no longer forced to shout ourselves hoarse over the thudding beat, and while Blaise—ever in need of alcohol—pushes his way through to the bar, Pansy and I watch the masses from an upper-level table, raised enough from the pit of gyrating bodies to enable us a good view.

Pansy lights up a fag and I eye her. "There's a smoking ban, you realise," I say, and she shrugs and casts a Notice-Me-Not charm on the cigarette before settling in her chair, one arm draped over the back, her already minuscule skirt hiking further up her pale thigh as she crosses one leg over the other. Her shoe dangles from her toes, the stiletto bouncing in the air.

She blows smoke towards me. "See anyone interesting yet?"

I look out over the mass of sweat-covered poofs, their skin gleaming under the strobe lights. I drag my tongue across my bottom lip. It tastes of the strawberry gloss Pansy had insisted I wear—to make your mouth fuckable, darling, she'd said, coming at me with a determined look in her eye and a pot of pink lip colour in her hand. After all these years, I knew better than to resist. I was less likely to end up walking out of the house with kohl around my eyes if I gave in to the small things.

Pansy taps her cig against her heel. Ash drifts to the floor. "Well?" Patience isn't exactly one of her virtues.

"No." I take the cigarette from her and lift it to my mouth. My hands sparkle in the light. Pansy again, of course. She'd rubbed the lotion on my hands, muttering something incomprehensible about vampires at dusk. I inhale. The unfiltered tobacco's bitter against my tongue. I don't care. After wine, nicotine is the nectar of the bloody gods, and if I can be frank, it's almost as good as sex. Almost, I said. I've smoked a rather lot of cigs the past eight months, after all.

"Pity." Pansy watches me for a moment. "Draco—"

"I'll find one, Pans." I scan the crowd again. My eyes catch on the curve of a dark cheek, and I lean forward. "Looks like Blaise has got himself distracted."

Pansy follows my gaze. Blaise is moving away from the bar, being pulled into the crush of dancers by a charmingly blue-haired twink. He glances over at us, as if he could feel Pansy’s death glare, which wouldn’t surprise me in the least, and give us both the apologetic half-smile he thinks is so very charming. (As if that will let him off the hook, the idiot. He knows better.) Pansy swears under her breath and stands. "One day, Draco, mark my words, I'm going to smother that bastard in his sleep."

I'm sure she will. Not that I'd ever say it to her (or to him for that matter), but I've suspected for years that Pansy's arse over tit for Blaise. She's just too smart to ever let him know.

"You do that, love," I say encouragingly, taking another drag off the cigarette. Frankly, I think it'd do Blaise good to wake up with a pillow over his face once every so often. Then again, knowing him he'd just discover he got off on suffocation, and I'd walk into his room a week later to find him hanging from the bedpost, cock in his hand. Really. I’d rather not. I know far too much about Blaise’s masturbatory habits as it is. "I support you fully in your homicidal plans. As long as there's no wanking involved."

She blinks down at me. "I'm not even going to ask." A sharp fingernail prods my chest. "You. Stay here. I need some fucking wine."

I don't argue with her. I've no intention of moving, to be honest. Instead, I stretch out in my chair, one foot propped on the railing separating the seating area from the unwashed masses.

Muggles are curious creatures, I've found. When I was a young child, I was terrified of them, certain they meant to slaughter my parents and eat me the way my elf-nurse warned me they would if I wasn't a good boy. I must admit Mellie's threats were, in their own manner, quite effective. At five, I was an absolute angel compared to Vince and Greg. Of course, I woke up screaming every other night, certain that a Muggle was under my bed with a knife and a cook pot. And yet, as I said, an angel. Such a calming influence on the other boys, Mrs Goyle used to say.

I watch them now, these Muggles, caught in their mating dance. I still can't quite see them as equals, despite all of Harry's lectures—and there were oh, Christ, so damn many of those over the years. Even now, they seem strange to me, alien even, as I sit here above them. I can see Blaise in their midst, proud and tall, drawing them to him like flies to honey. Life is easy for Blaise in so many ways. Beautiful, mysterious, sexy as hell…he could have anything or anyone he wants, but I know he's as unhappy as I am, no matter his protests to the contrary.

We're all unhappy, the three of us, caught by our pasts and by those of our families. Sometimes I wonder if it will ever change. I'd thought it had for me. With Harry.

My hand shakes as I stub the cigarette out on the tabletop.

I still miss him, and I hate that.

A flick of my wand banishes the cigarette. I wonder idly where it goes. I can't help but imagine some huge rubbish heap in the sky, filled with the refuse of a millennium of wizards. Perhaps that's the heaven the vicar droned on about when I was younger and Grandmother was alive to insist I be dragged to church every bloody Sunday. Instead of streets of gold, there'd be streets of half-smoked fags. How disappointed he'd be.

And then I freeze.

I'd recognise that shock of black hair anywhere, even before he turns his head towards me, the lights glinting off his glasses. Our eyes meet, and I can barely breathe. He looks out of place among the half-naked crowd, his hands shoved in the pockets of his faded jeans, white t-shirt bright beneath his untucked navy shirt.

I'd bought him that shirt in a shop in Paris two years ago.

The crowd swallows him up again, and I think I must have been hallucinating. Too much wine, too much heat. Too much something. I’ve obviously lost my mind. Blaise has been warning me for weeks now a breakdown was coming. I’d assumed he’d meant himself.

Pansy sets two bottles of wine on the table and drops into her chair with a thump. Her hair catches on her damp cheek and she brushes it away, with an annoyed frown and a jangle of dangling silver earrings. I cast a cooling charm on us both. It won't last long, but it's a welcome swirl of chilling breeze across my skin. Pansy gives me a grateful smile.

"Open it," she says, pushing a bottle towards me as she leans back in her seat, fanning herself. She's stripped off her tiny cardigan, her skin pale against her lacy black camisole. Pity Blaise isn't here to appreciate her tits.

I loosen the cork and pour us both a glass, somehow managing to hide the shaking of my hands. The wine's decent enough—not Manor quality by any extent, but it's drinkable, and that's all I give a damn about at the moment. I don't bother to sip, draining the glass in one gulp. When I lower it, Pansy's staring at me as if I've lost my mind. Perhaps I have.

"Draco," she starts, but I shake my head and pour another glass. She falls silent and looks back out over the crowd.

The music shifts, the throbbing beat resettling into another bouncing rhythm, the barely discernible singing changing from garbled English to muffled French. Two men climb onto the bar, pressed against each other as they dance together, their hands roaming over bare chests, brushing against arses tightly wrapped in denim.

I'm halfway through my wine when I hear him say, "Hi, Pansy." I nearly drop my glass, only to catch it at the last moment. A few drops of wine splash out over the rim, rolling across my knuckles.

Harry's standing next to us, shifting from foot to foot nervously. He doesn't look at me; instead he keeps his gaze fixed on Pansy. He's wearing those ridiculous trainers of his, navy canvas with white laces, and I'd hated stumbling across those bloody things in our flat. He'd never put them in the wardrobe properly.

I wait for Pansy to send him packing, but she just stretches and, with her wineglass, waves him into Blaise's empty seat. "Potter," she says. I give her a horrified glare. She just smiles at me, a feline curve of lips and sharp teeth, and it's then that I realise I've been betrayed.

"You cunt," I say, and Pansy rolls her eyes above her glass.

"I think we've established that yes, I do have one," she says drily. She glances at Harry. "Excuse him. He's still deathly afraid of girl bits."

Harry smiles faintly and looks at me then. "Hey."

"Fuck off and die," I snap.

To my annoyance, he doesn't flinch. Instead, he reaches for the bottle of wine. "May I?" he asks politely.

"No," I say, at the same time Pansy nods. She smacks my arm. Hard. I rub it and glare at her. Bitch. That's going to bruise.

"Help yourself," she says to Harry, ignoring me.

Harry pours a glass and drinks half of it before he looks back over at me. He sets his glass down and rubs his palms over his thighs. "Happy birthday," he says finally.

My only response is a two-fingered one.

Pansy looks between us. "Oh, for God's sake," she says in disgust. "The two of you are pathetic."

"I," I say tightly, "am not the arsehole who cheated on his boyfriend and then had the gall to show up on his birthday."

"Pansy invited me." Harry winces as the pointed toe of Pansy's shoe connects with his shin. "Well, you did."

"That's supposed to be left unsaid, Potter." Pansy curls her lip in disgust. "Honestly. Gryffindors." She points a purple fingernail at me. "And don't you start. You're just as bad. You've been miserable for months."

My mouth thins. "I have not."

That earns me a sharp slap on the back of the head. Pansy frowns at me. "Stop it." She looks at Harry. "Talk to him. Now."

Harry gives Pansy a nervous look. I don't blame him. There are moments she scares the hell out of me too. He turns back to me, twisting his glass between his palms. "I miss you," he says quietly.

My stomach lurches. I laugh, sharp and bitter, and beside me, Pansy winces into her wineglass. "Oh, fuck you." I don't believe him. I don't want to believe him.

Harry just looks at me. There are spots and smudges on his glasses. The sweeping lights catch them. "Are you wearing lip gloss?" he asks suddenly, and that throws me off.

"Yes." I wave a hand towards Pansy. "She insisted."

"Oh." Harry takes a sip of his wine. "It's..." He runs a thumb over the rim of the glass, licks his bottom lip. He doesn't take his eyes off me. "It's hot."

Pansy looks smug. "I told you," she says, and I glare at her, despite the thrill that runs through me at Harry's words. I'm too damned easy, really.

"Why are you here?" I ask Harry abruptly. "Go home to your stupid Zacharias—"

"I'm not with him." Harry runs a hand through his hair, leaving it standing on end. "Christ. How many times do I have to tell you—"

I bare my teeth at him. "The Prophet has pictures of you coming out of his flat, Harry. I've seen them. The whole bloody wizarding world's seen them—"

"Jesus, Draco!" Harry slams his hand against the table, rattling the glasses. Pansy calmly catches one before it topples. He looks away. His cheeks are flushed. "It's not what you think."

"Of course not." I hold my hand out, and Pansy digs in her bag, pulling out another cigarette and dropping it into my palm. I light it, not even bothering with a charm. Fuck the Muggles.

Harry leans forward, elbows on the table, hands clasped. He rubs his thumb over a knuckle. His cuticle is torn; he's in desperate need of a manicure. Obviously Smith has no concept of good grooming nor of how to coax Harry into it. Idiot. It'd taken me a year to talk him into coming to the spa down Knockturn with me. It wasn't manly, he'd said. The Weasel would mock him. Six months later he had Granger booking appointments with us with the Weasel sitting uncomfortably in the waiting room, leafing through Sophie-Marie's copies of the Quibbler.

"I just want to talk to you," Harry says quietly.

Ash drops off the end of my cigarette. I take a drag off it, exhaling. A bouncer's wending his way through the crowd, eyes fixed on me. "And I'd rather see you dead." We all know I don't mean it. I look away.

The three of us sit silent for a moment, then I stand, pushing back my chair as the bouncer starts up the stairs. "I'm not going to do this," I say as calmly as I can. I reach for the unopened bottle of wine. "For all I care, the both of you can fuck off at the moment."

"Draco." Pansy catches my hand. I pull away.

"Don't," I say roughly. I can't believe she's done this to me. On my fucking birthday, of all days.

I don't bother looking back as I walk away.

When I pass the bouncer, I hand him my cigarette without a word.

He lets me pass.

***

I've drunk half the bottle of wine before I find Blaise, tucked away in a dark booth in the corner with his hand down some twink's trousers. I don't bother with politeness; instead I just fling myself into the chair next to them and lift the bottle to my lips again. "I want to go home," I say, the glass clinking against my teeth, and Blaise lifts his head from the twink's neck and blinks lazily at me.

"What?"

The twink makes an annoyed noise and tries to drag Blaise's head back to his throat. I snap my fingers, irritated, and Blaise looks back at me.

"Did you know about Harry?" I ask. I take another swig of wine, licking around the inside of the opening to catch the stray drops as I lower the bottle.

Blaise just raises an eyebrow coolly. Too coolly. "What about Potter?"

I curl my lip. As if he doesn't know. "Pansy arranged for him to stop by tonight."

Blaise sits up. His shirt's askew; he straightens it. The twink is forgotten. "Did she?" He smirks. "The girl always has liked to live dangerously."

"She's begging for a Cruciatus." At Blaise's frown, I sigh. "Or at least a week's silent treatment." I look back at the twink. "Get him out of here."

With a mournful glance towards me that I ignore, Blaise turns to the boy. "Out you go then."

"But—" The twink glares spitefully at me.

"You heard him," I say, bored.

Blaise smacks the boy's arse as he crawls over him on his way back to the dance floor. "Find me later," he murmurs, his fingers dark against the twink's pale cheek, and the boy tosses his hair out of his eyes and smiles.

I pass over the bottle of wine. "A bit young, don't you think?" If the boy's even reached his majority, I'll eat my wand.

"I'm not twenty-nine yet," Blaise says into the bottle. "And it's not a school night." I resist the urge to knock his arm. I need the sweet succor of wine too much to spill it. Now tell me that's not pathetic. Blaise looks over at me. "So. Potter."

"Honestly, I don't know what the fuck she was thinking." I take the bottle back and lift it to my mouth. The wine's sweetly bitter and cool. "He's an arse."

Blaise just hmmms and drums his fingers against the table.

I frown at him and set the wine bottle down with a thump. "What?"

"He came tonight," Blaise says. "He didn't have to."

"So?" My mouth twists to one side. "Pansy put him up to it." I tap a thumbnail against the bottle, scraping the corner of the label. "She wants me to fuck him, you know," I say darkly, brows drawing together.

Blaise leans back in his chair and crosses his ankle over one knee. "It's not like you haven't before."

"Judas." My head's muzzy from wine. I should be thinking more clearly, I know. It's dangerous not to be sober when either of my friends are up to Machiavellian deviousness—and I'm quite certain, Blaise's protests to the contrary, that they're both involved in this bit of treachery. "How much did he pay you?"

"Not a Knut." Blaise smiles. The lights from the dance floor brush across his face before arcing over the crowd. "Pansy, on the other hand…" At my bared teeth, he touches my hand. "She's been worried about you." He gives me an even look. "Eight months, Draco. This isn't like you. It's never been like you."

I pull my hand away. My throat closes, aches. "I don't want to talk about it," I say finally, and Blaise hesitates, then nods.

He stands up. "Then dance with me," he says, palm stretched out to me. "He's watching you. Make him think you don't give a damn, even if you do."

My eyes drift towards the upper level of tables. Harry's still sitting with Pansy, her head tilted towards him as she says something. It's me he's looking at though. I can feel his gaze all the way across the room.

I shiver.

Blaise watches me, a small smile curving his thin lips. I curl my fingers around his. He pulls me to my feet; I take one last swig of wine from the bottle and set it aside. "All right then," I say, wiping my thumb over the corners of my mouth.

We disappear into the press of the crowd.

***

"So why do you do everything Pansy asks you to?" My hands rest lightly on Blaise's hips, keeping my balance as we dance—or grind together, rather, as nothing more graceful can be attempted in this crowd. I can feel Blaise's cock against my hip, and I realise too late that I am far too bloody pissed to be in this position.

Blaise's laugh is a warm huff against my cheek that sends a spike of want through my body. My prick swells, pressing uncomfortably against the denim of my jeans. How the Muggles wear these damned things I'll never know. I know he can feel it; he pulls me closer, his fingers twisting in my belt loops. "I don't do everything she wants," he murmurs against my ear.

I should pull away. Instead I slide my hands up Blaise's side, over his shoulders, lacing my fingers in his hair as I rock my hips against his. I wonder if Harry's watching.

"Do you fancy her?" I ask. Blaise is breathing heavily in my ear. His mouth brushes my jaw. I close my eyes and pretend he's Harry. For a moment it works.

Blaise's fingers rub tiny circles into the small of my back. "Sometimes." He turns his head, presses his mouth against my hair. His thigh slides between mine; my breath catches.

Bad idea, one part of my alcohol-soaked brain is screaming. Pansy is going to kill—

It's drowned out by the pleasant throb in my cock. I haven't done this in months, and it feels so fucking good. I shift; Blaise groans. His fingers press into my skin. When his mouth brushes across mine, I don't pull away.

Until Blaise jerks back, his eyes wide.

"Pansy wants to see you," Harry growls, the collar of Blaise's shirt fisted in one hand. Blaise stumbles as Harry shoves him aside, despite the fact that he has at least five inches height on Harry. As much as I hate it, a thrill runs through me. I can almost feel the crackle of Harry's magic. "Now."

"Don't manhandle me, Potter," Blaise sneers, smoothing his shirt.

Harry's jaw tightens. I can see the muscle in his cheek twitch. "Bugger off, Zabini," he says softly, a dangerous gleam in his eye. He leans forward, tense and taut; his fists clench at his sides.

Blaise glances at me. I'm half-certain he winks, but that has to just be the wine. Blaise would never be so gauche. He shrugs. "I need a smoke, anyway."

I glare at Harry as Blaise pushes through the dancers writhing around us. "What do you think you're doing?"

"If anyone dances with you tonight," Harry says evenly, "it's going to be me."

"And what makes you think I'd even want to?" I toss my hair; a strand catches on my mouth. Fucking stupid lip gloss.

Harry brushes the hair back, tucking it behind my ear. His calloused fingertips are light against my skin. "You want to," he says.

I hate him. I do. But I let his hands settle on my waist. My arms dangle at my sides. Harry just smiles and steps closer. I can smell wine on his breath.

He moves against me, barely, but my skin feels as if it's on fire. "I hate you," I say. My voice is horrifyingly breathless.

"I know." Harry's thumb slips under the waistband of my jeans. "Didn't think I'd ever see you in a pair of these."

I catch his elbow with one hand—to keep my balance, I lie to myself. "They're Blaise's."

Harry tenses. "Are you and he—"

For a moment, I think of saying yes. It would end this once and for all. Harry's thumb strokes my hipbone, rubbing the silk of my shirt across it. "No," I say finally. "Pansy forced them on me." I hesitate, then drape my arm over Harry's shoulder. It moves me almost imperceptibly closer to him. "She must have thought you'd like them."

"I do." Harry's other hand catches mine, lifting it to his mouth. He kisses one knuckle.

"Stop it," I snap, jerking my hand away. It's too intimate, that.

Harry just looks at me for a moment. We're standing still amidst the writhing bodies. The stench of sweat and metallic air cooled by a Muggle machine wafts across us. Music pounds in my ears, a steady, primal throb that seeps into my bones.

I feel as if we're the only two in the universe.

He touches my cheek, drags his thumb across my skin, wiping away a bead of sweat. "You're glittery," he says with a faint smile. "Pansy again?"

"The woman's a complete maniac." I can't take my eyes off him. His hair hangs over the collar of his shirt, curls beneath the curve of his earlobe. He cups my cheek in his palm, and I can't stop the shiver that wracks me. "Never let her come near you with a makeup brush. You're likely to come out looking worse than a hag on a Knockturn corner."

"I rather think I like you tarted up," Harry says just before he kisses me.

His mouth is soft, warm. Everything I remembered it being.

"I hate you, Harry," I say again. His tongue sweeps across my bottom lip, and I grab his arm, fingers twisting in his shirt. "I really—" I press my lips against his; he groans as I open my mouth to him. His glasses dig into my cheek. "Really—" Harry sucks at my tongue, and I thrust back, dragging my teeth over his tongue. He tastes like wine and pear drops. "Really hate you."

Harry just slides behind me, his mouth kissing lightly across the slope of my jaw. When he pulls me against him, I groan. Even through the denim, I can feel his prick pressing against my arse.

"How much do you hate me?" he asks. His breath gusts against the back of my ear. It takes everything I have to suppress my shudder.

"I despise you." I lean back against him, my head falling onto his shoulder. My hair catches on his jaw. He needs to shave. "Loathe you."

Harry's hand curls around my throat, thumb stroking across my skin. I know he can feel the staccato thump of my pulse. I don't care. I swallow beneath his palm.

"I was a fucking idiot." He presses his mouth to my temple, drags his fingers down my chest, making my skin burn beneath them. He stops just above the buckle of my belt, his hand heavy and solid there. My cock aches.

"Yes." I turn my head. His mouth brushes the cheek beneath my eye before he pulls back, resting his forehead against mine. I'm unsettled. Uncertain. "You were. Are."

Harry breathes out, a ragged puff, and my hand settles lightly over his. "Draco," he says.

"Don't think I've forgiven you," I murmur, and I push his hand down just enough.

With a soft groan, Harry slips his fingers into my jeans, pressing the waistband down, and hooks his thumb over my belt. His fingertips work past the elastic of my pants. I reach back, slide my arm around Harry's neck, pulling him into a rough, desperate kiss.

I've missed this, missed his hands on me, his lips moving across mine. I'm angry still—so fucking angry—but I'm pissed enough not to care. I just want him to touch me, Christ, and when his fingers brush against the head of my prick, I gasp against his mouth. Harry chuckles.

"Shut it," I say, and I grind my arse against his hips. Harry moans, and his fingers slip across my cock. I turn my head, press my open mouth to the corner of his jaw. I'm suddenly aware of the people around us, watching, their dancing slowing, and stopping as Harry bites my throat, his hand curling around my prick, barely able to move against the confining denim. "Harry."

He doesn't answer; instead he slips his other hand over my chest, fingers working at the buttons. My head drops back against his shoulder when his palm slips beneath the silk, warm against my skin. He fists my cock, presses the head against the zip of my jeans.

"Harry," I say again, louder. One of the Muggles is staring at me. Harry lifts his head, his eyes glazed, his glasses askew. I bite his earlobe and press against his hand. This calls for words of one syllable and no more. "Take me home and fuck me."

He blinks slowly, just as the Muggle reaches out to touch my arm. With a growl, Harry knocks his hand away, jaw thrust out. The Muggle's face twists. He lurches forward. Harry pulls his hand from my jeans, and his fists clench. My prick protests at the sudden abandonment.

I put my hand on his arm before he steps towards the drunken fool. “Don’t.” Harry looks back at me, mouth mulishly tight. I know that expression all too well from our school days.

"For Christ's sake, don’t be an imbecile," I snap. I can’t tell if I’m furious enough to deck him or if I’m ready to throw him on the floor and shag him right here in front of everyone. A muscle in Harry’s cheek twitches and all I can think about is running my tongue over it, and when he turns those glittering eyes on me…Merlin’s tits. Nothing turns me on like an angry Harry.

Oh, fuck it all. Statute of Secrecy be damned; Blaise and Pansy can deal with the aftermath. They bloody well deserve it tonight.

I tighten my grip on Harry’s arm and Apparate.

Part Two