sex in wartime is sweeter than peace

This and that, and recs of fic.

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:32:14 GMT

I am evidently ridonkulously homesick because I have the University of Florida/University of South Carolina football game on the TV and I hate football, whether college or NFL. But it's a South Carolina home game and (despite the fact that I am highly ambivalent about USC and its athletics program) I'm all HOME! WOOBIES! *sniffles*

Anyway. I caught up on two Spooks episodes today while procrastinating from writing and was going to rant about a certain plot development that occurred at the end of 8x03, but then reserve distracted me this awesome photo and I really think someone should write Harry/Draco fic based on it. *eyes certain segments of my flist speculatively* I am willing to beg, trust me.

Two fic recs! One's Snape/Draco, one's Harry/Draco.

The first is Clean and Filthy by entrenous88. It's a 5,000 word post-HBP Snaco written for the daily_deviant kink costumes. It's got Spinner's End, power plays and Draco dressed as a French maid. Oh, and there may be a scorching hot boot. It's gorgeous and oh, it makes me miss Snape/Draco so much. I think once I finish some of these fics I'm working on at the moment, I might reward myself with a wee bit of Snaco writing.

The second is Cornbread and Sweet Tea by sor_bet and it's the prompt I chose to have written for me for the ownficfest. It's a Harry/Draco AU that takes place in the American South, and I adore how sor_bet weaves actual canon into the story while picking the characters up and making them truly Southern--and yet keeping them totally in character. It's a wonderful read and take it from this Southerner, it's spot-on. \0/

Have realized that it's six-thirty and I haven't eaten yet today. Hm. Probably should remedy that...

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FIC: Black Coffee On A Lonely Night (HP, Harry/Draco, NC-17)

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:26:10 GMT

Reveals have gone up for the ownficfest, so I can now take responsibility for inflicting a non-magical Parliament/cricket/coffeshop fic on fandom. \0/

A huge, huge, huge thank you to those of you on my flist who pointed me in the right direction for cricket info. I ran up against the deadline in writing this fic, so I actually snipped the plot I'd developed in half at an appropriate point, which means for the couple of you who've poked me, yes, there will be a sequel at some not-so-distant point down the road and (in response to cursive's insistence that she wanted more cricket, dammit) I can say definitively that cricket will become even more of a plot point. *g*

Title: Black Coffee on a Lonely Night
Pairing: Harry/Draco, past Draco/Astoria
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: non-magical AU, bisexuality
Word Count: ~21,600
Summary: Draco owns a café in the city. Harry's a MP who comes in every morning, newspapers in one hand, BlackBerry in the other, and orders a triple espresso macchiato.
Author's Notes: Written for the 2009 ownficfest. Much love to cursive and noeon for their support and their suggestions. Many thanks also to my flist for advice regarding cricket and to the highly informative UK Parliament website, and a huge thank you to tray_la_la for the opportunity to write this.

( The day my wife dies, I'm half a world away, having my cock sucked in the filthy loo of a Brisbane pub. )

This fic is also archived on my Dreamwidth fic journal, An Archive of Our Own, and Skyehawke.

Download a PDF version of this fic.

Addendum: When I started writing this fic, I commissioned glockgal for art to accompany it. She came up with the following gorgeous picture that proved to be the inspirational push I needed to finish the story. \0/

Click to embiggen. :)

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This entry was originally posted at http://femmequixotic.dreamwidth.org/435491.html. You can comment here or there using OpenID.

Fic rec liek woah.

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:36:51 GMT

Drop everything and go read this fic.

I don't care if you hate Harry/Draco. Drop everything and go read this fic.

Blood and Brimstone is the latest offering in hd_career_fair. It's a fusion fic, a melding of the Potterverse with the world of Wicked Gentlemen, and it is phenomenal.

It had me at inventor!Draco.

You don't have to have read Wicked Gentlemen to understand this fic (though if you have, you'll love the side appearances by various WG characters); the author weaves the worlds together seamlessly, explaining what you need to know along the way.

This story goes beyond fanfic. It's a masterful, amazing, incredible tale that reads like something you'd pick up in Barnes & Noble. It's breathtaking. It's gorgeous. It's the kind of story that makes me wish I could write this well and that makes me so grateful that I had an opportunity to read something so beautiful.

If you love a good story, if your idea of an amazing night is curling up on the couch with a novel that captivates you and draws you into an entirely different world, read this fic. You won't be sorry.

It's 42,000 words of utter brilliance.

Blood and Brimstone by Anonymous

Quick pimp post...

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:29:16 GMT

Running off to work shortly--I've a long day today as I've Russian class tonight--but I wanted to take a moment to pimp the hp_nextgen_fest. Signups open today at 4pm EDT/8pm UTC and run through Oct. 31. And fics aren't due until January 31, 2010, so you've lots of time post-holiday fests to start thinking about how to get Scorpius Malfoy laid. :D

(Come on. You know you want to.)

From what I understand, cross-gen is quite welcome, as are all forms of strictly next-gen pairings. (Anybody want to write me Albus Severus/Viktor?) Het, slash, femmeslash and gen are also being encouraged.

artwork by _aurora_sky_

Sign ups for hp_nextgen_fest: October 20-31, 2009!

Off to work. Hoping it doesn't suck eggs. :/

Two H/D recs

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:49:55 GMT

Work continues to be ridiculous this week--lots of stress, lots of exhaustion, and I've been getting in to work an hour early every day. Blech. Will be glad when it settles; I'm behind on RL and fandom again, dammit. :/

But I've two fics I've read that have been highlights of the past few days, and I don't want anyone on my flist to miss them because they're delightful.

Rec the first: I was having a significantly crappy day last week and noeon wrote me a little pick-me-up Harry/Draco porn that utterly and completely made my day. In just a few thousand words we have brutally hot cigarette smoking, an angry, possessive Harry, a snarky, turned-on Draco, anal beads, and…well, I can't say the rest because it'll spoil it. It's delicious and sexy and if it doesn't make your toes curl, I don't know what will. It's just gorgeous. And will leave you incoherent. :D

If you're in the mood for a bit of brilliantly sexy, scorchingly hot, beautifully written smut, you must read this.

Yielding to Uncertainty by noeon

Rec the second: Let me say up front that this is not your usual Harry/Draco fic. The language is dense and tersely descriptive all at once, and it's very, very, very British, which is something I adore and crave in this fandom and surprisingly (and sadly) do not get enough of.

It is not an easy fic to read, and it's long--40,000 words long. You can't just fly through it. And if you're not British, some of the references will go over your head no matter how well-steeped you are in the culture--do not be afraid of this. Seriously.

Because it is so very, very, very, very worth the effort. Not to mention, meant to be savoured.

This fic is amazingly, beautifully, incredibly written, it's funny as hell, and it reminds me of those deliciously charming novels about the lower gentry living in rural English villages. Reading it made me ache to live in one, to be honest, as those sorts of novels always do. I adore this Harry and this Draco--and don't even get me started on how fantastic the supporting cast is. If you don't walk away loving Narcissa and Pansy and Blaise and Scorpius and Albus Severus, you…well, you need to go back and read the damn fic again, that's for certain. And then there are the OCs. I am in love with Dr. Vickers like you wouldn't believe, and would be more than happy for him to be my Rector. (Also, I'm entirely thrilled that the author chose to make Harry and Draco bisexual and to have them sincerely have been in love with their wives. That's a die-hard kink for me in H/D fic. I. Love. That.)

I cannot stress enough how amazing this fic is. It goes beyond fanfic and into the realm of literature, to be bluntly honest--it made me remember why I chose to focus on British authors when I was in grad school. If you have any love at all for Britain and its culture, you must read this fic.

It's witty, it's sharp, it's complex, it's wound through-and-through with legend and history and Anglicanism, it's shot up to the top of my all-time favourite HP fics list, and I suspect it will stay there for a very, very, very long time. (And I desperately want to know who wrote this because I want to give them a mad fangirling. The author of this fic gave me everything--and I do mean everything--that I've been gagging for in a H/D fic. Brava, whomever you are, and thank you. I'm awed and delighted by your work.)

Drink Up Thy Zider: A South Hams Pomona by Anonymous (for now)

Off now to work on my ownficfest fic, which yes, is late. Sigh. One day. One day I'll turn a damn fic in on time. Today is not that day. :/

So sleeeeeepy....

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 05:55:37 GMT

Work = ridiculously busy for the foreseeable future

Writing = ridiculously busy for the foreseeable future

I'll probably be around and about as I have time, but my to-do list in RL and fandom is extremely long for the next few weeks. However, I'm going to see Nick Hornby speak on Wednesday night with noeon and her S.O. and I am soooo excited. After Neil Gaiman, Hornby's my next favourite modern writer. This would be me at the moment: \0/!!!\0/!!!\0/!!!

Before I toddle off to bed, I thought I'd post a few of the answers to the top 5 meme I asked for last week or so. (Yes, it's taken me this long to do them. /0\) I've only got ten done; I have another seven to finish up...I'm doing them during breaks from work. However I feel accomplished that I'm more than halfway through them as of tonight, and I'm halfway through answering comments on my snarry_games fic. I take my little victories as I can lately. *g*

The top five fics you would like to write, but haven't - yet for accioslash

Okay, I'm ignoring the three fics that are on my list to finish by Dec. 31 this year. :D These are the other fics I want to write at some point down the road.

1. A modern Harry/Draco version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

2. A sequel to my Snape/Draco fic Illuminations de Noël .

3. A Roman-era Snape/Draco fic based on this pic and the Severan dynasty of Roman emperors.

4. A Harry/Draco time travel back to Hogwarts fic

5. An Albus Severus/Viktor fic involving the lost Amber Room from Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo neaer St Petersburg.

Top 5 things you (secretly) love that no one would suspect of you for drusillas_rain

LOL, I don't know if anyone would consider these secrets 'cause if you know me well enough or long enough I share all my guilty pleasures, but...

1. Mpreg (I have a huge, huge, huge love for mpreg. Even bad mpreg. And I have since I saw Junior when I was in college. Shut up. I heart men with babies.)

2. Cheesy 70s music such as ABBA, Barry Manilow and the BeeGees. (They're awesome, and I will stop in public and sing Mandy if it comes on. Fair warning to anyone around me.)

3. Doris Day movies. I do not care if they're ridiculously improbable, I love them, preciooooooouuuus.

4. English Premiere League Football. I follow Tottenham.

5. Sophie Kinsella books. I cannot help myself. I read them all.

Top five places you'd like Draco and Chekov to have sex for lesyeuxverts00

Should anyone want to write these, I'd be A-okay with that. :D

1. Snape's bed (with or without Snape present)

2. Kirk's chair on the bridge

3. Spock's bed (with or without Spock present)

4. A deserted hallway in Starfleet Academy

5. Lucius's library in the Manor using the pimp cane as a sexual aid of some sort.

Top five favorite websites for book_wyrm

1. Lifehacker.com (because I always wish I could be organized and productive and yet fail, fail, fail at doing so)

2. Salon (Especially the Broadsheet blog)

3. NY Times (I get pretty much all my news from here and Salon)

4. The Dungeons comm on IJ (I spend a ridiculous amount of time RPing here....no, seriously, a ridiculous amount of time *g*)

5. Netflix.com (I will gladly, gladly, gladly pay $17 a month just for the streaming movies/TV shows.)

Top five favourite moments from the HP books for wenelda

1. Snape and Draco at Slughorn's party from Half-Blood Prince (Wall sex! Look, in my head it happened, okay? Harry just forgot to tell us about it.)

2. The Sectumsempra scene from Half-Blood Prince…er, but mainly for the Snape-healing-Draco part. (And then the infirmary!sex that Harry didn't see.)

3. The Harry/Draco nod in the epilogue.

4. The first time we meet Tonks in Order of the Phoenix

5. Draco covering for Harry in the Manor in Deathly Hallows

Top five best gifts you've received for djin7

1. An actual coin from the reign of the Roman emperor Septimus Severus that has Severus imprinted on it. cursve gave it to me for Christmas two years ago.

2. A bright red tote bag from luciamad that has Emma Goldman, Lenin and Marx on it and that says Anti-Capitalists Have More Fun. I like carrying it to work with me and freaking out the Republicans.

3. An Old 97s Rock Obama poster signed by all the band members that djinnj gave ze_dragon and me as an apartment warming gift last year.

4. A set of gorgeous matryoshkas from ze_dragon.

5. My baby sister

Top five HP het pairings for ncp

1. Snape/Narcissa

2. Snape/Tonks

3. Snape/Pansy (um, I'm seeing a pattern here…)

4. Blaise/Pansy

5. Goyle/Millicent (I like Millicent. I like Goyle. I want them to have chubby, sweet babies together.)

Top five characters you like to write for goseaward

1. Draco Malfoy

2. Severus Snape

3. Harry Potter

4. Pansy Parkinson

5. Viktor Krum

Top five Adrien Brody movies for a_belladonna

1. The Brothers Bloom

2. Liberty Heights

3. Dummy

4. The Pianist

5. The Darjeeling Limited

Top five happy images from HP (canon, fanon, whatever--just whatever visual you really like) for goseaward

These are all from my own personal canon in my head because, honestly, it's what makes me happiest...

1. Draco laughing on a cold winter day, his cheeks pink and the wind whipping through his hair.

2. Snape sitting in an armchair in front of a fireplace, a book in one hand, whisky in the other, looking up to glance over at Draco, curled up on the sofa next to him, reading and drinking wine.

3. Harry and Draco's first kiss, against a wall, slow and sweet, with Draco's fingers tangled in Harry's shirt and Harry's hands resting lightly on Draco's hips

4. Draco's face softening when he holds Scorpius in his arms for the very first time.

5. Harry and Draco dancing together in an empty room to Ella Fitzgerald's Cheek to Cheek

So don't tell me to mind the gap, I want my f***ing money back...

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:47:54 GMT

So this weekend is the last chance to vote for fics in the snarry_games! If you haven't gotten around to reading and voting on some of the fics yet, now's your chance...and hey, I'm not above bribing or begging people to read my Sing A Mad Rebellion. :D (Seriously, though, I am pretty proud of this fic; I really think it's the best one I've written so far in my fanfic career.) Anyway, Snarry fen, go read and go vote--for Team Cauldron, of course. :)

Also, glockgal posted a piece of Harry/Draco art I commissioned from her (look, look, see my icon?) and it's gorgeous. *squees and hugs it tight* Mine all mine all mine!!! \0/ \0/ It's actually an illustration from a fic that I'm currently working on and it's providing a great deal of inspiration for me to get to that particular scene, which happens to involve Harry and Draco kissing on the Albert Embankment in the rain. \0/ I am absolutely delighted with what Glock did--especially with Draco's clothes. *bounces up and down* Go look and tell her she's absolutely brilliant. :D

Draco and Harry on the Albert Embankment by glockgal (ETA: Glock's art comm is flocked, but I've uploaded my copy here, if you want to see it...)

Oh and noeon just made me listen to this absolutely hysterical ditty about the London Underground and OMG THIS IS NOW MY COMMUTE SONG EVERY DAY because it is exactly how I feel most days about taking the T to work. :D Anyone who has to take public transportation daily will so relate, omg.

</a>

Okay, off to do some Dungeons with noeon and ze_dragon, and hopefully get some comment answering completed before bed.

YAY IT'S THE WEEKEND. *collapses on the chaise in relief*

FIC: Sing A Mad Rebellion (Snape/Harry, NC-17)

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 02:01:34 GMT

So my snarry_games fic was posted last night. I'm going to admit that I'm really a lot more nervous than I usually am upon fic-posting and have been since I turned this fic in. It took me until this afternoon to figure out why: I approached writing this story as if it were a novel, and the result is the closest I've come to writing such a creature. Eep. /0\

Anyway, should you like to read 56,000 words (give or take a few) of somewhat dystopic Snape/Harry, here you go. :)

Title: Sing A Mad Rebellion
Genre: Alive and Kicking
Prompts: Secrets and Lies, Assassination
Rating/Warnings/Kinks: NC-17, Highlight if you wish to know: *Non-Snarry pairing (non-explicit), het mentions, bisexuality, minor character death, politics, semi-epilogue compliance, violence*
Word Count: 55,991
Author Notes/Disclaimers/Betas: A huge thank you to my betas noeon and goseaward, and much gratitude to Noe for coaxing this story into being. Massive thanks also to the mods for their patience.

This fic owes a great debt to such works as Orwell's 1984, Alan Moore's V for Vendetta, the film The Manchurian Candidate and the works of John LeCarre, all of which in some manner provided inspiration for the conception and writing of the story. Danny Foster (and his wife Kirsty) are taken from the BBC series Party Animals which revolves around the lives of young Labour and Conservative political researchers and lobbyists. Nemworth Interrogation Unit and various other MI5-related elements are taken from or influenced by the BBC series Spooks. In addition, I must give major props to the highly informative and incredibly helpful factsheets hosted on the website of the United Kingdom Parliament, which, when printed, fill two reams of paper and a four-inch binder. The title is a nod toward a fragment of verse by John Taylor.

Summary: The State Security Forces come not in the middle of a dark night as one might expect, but on a bright, sunshiny Sunday morning just after the sausages are set on the kitchen table.

Sing A Mad Rebellion (link goes to the fic post on snarry_games)

And Puff, that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:33:01 GMT

Mary of Peter, Paul and Mary died. This makes me ridiculously sad...my dad had all their albums and I grew up on them. He even used to sing Puff the Magic Dragon to me as a lullaby when I was little. Anyway. For Mary.
If you like Snarry and you've a love for Regency romances (and come on, how can you not?), then you should immediately hie yourself over to today's snarry_games postings and read ze_dragon's charming, hysterical, deliciously filled with cross-dressing Harry and Draco and Snape in a cravat fic, The Unexpected Bride. While betaing it, I laughed my head off at the machinations of Lord Snape. \0/ It's a fantastic, delightful story, and if Harry Potter wandering around in an Empire-waist dress being pursued by a rakish Snape doesn't charm your socks off, I don't know what will. :D Go. Read. For realz.
Work sucks. Writing sucks. Bah. Double bah. Must sleep soon.

Recs, and can someone please tell Kanye to stop dropping his drawers in public?

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 03:26:13 GMT

Kanye West, you're an asshole. And I don't even know Taylor Swift's music, but I'm about to go download her album from iTunes whether I like it or not just so she'll get some money. It's the least I can do as a protest for such douchebaggery. Somebody needs to get that man into therapy or rehab. Fast.

I've been really tired for about a week or so now; I think I've got some sort of low-grade virus that isn't bad enough to cause me to feel okay with staying home from work, but which is just draining enough to make me fatigued and brain-dead for most of the day. :/ It's been fun, let me tell you. I meant to spend all weekend writing. Instead I spent most of it sleeping, and I'm still ridiculously tired. Very annoying, let me tell you. Particularly when one has deadlines which one is not going to meet because one is so zonked one cannot think, much less write coherently. *sadface*

Anyway. Two recs for my flist....

There's an H/D fic in hp_summersmut that I got to beta and it's fantastic and I think everyone should read it. Voices From The Fog by noeon. It's a smidge under 14,000 words, it's set in Amsterdam, it has cigartette smoking (shut up, it's a kink for me), it has a Harry that I adore and a Draco who is deliciously standoffish and snarky, and I love it so much I've forced Noe into writing me a sequel. Srlsy, go read it.

And for those Snarry fen on my flist, you should run now to the snarry_games and check out bethbethbeth's Everything He Ever Wanted, which I also got to beta. It's one of the most original takes on the epilogue I've seen, and it's charming and chilling and has the best ending ever. \0/ Although I'd kill for a sequel to it as well. *eyes Beth* So go read it too.

FIC: Reefer Madness (Snape/Draco, NC-17)

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 02:45:35 GMT

I wrote this for bethbethbeth's birthday a few weeks ago and just realized I hadn't posted it anywhere outside of her birthday comm since.

So since there are a few people on my flist who might like a wee bit of Snaco porn, here you go. :) Do note the warnings and the title--there is definitely pot smoking involved. *g*

Off to watch an episode of Leverage and then maybe go to bed early....

Title: Reefer Madness
Author: Femme
Pairing: Snape/Draco
Rating: NC-17
Word count: ~ 3,500
Warnings: Um...Draco (that warning would be for Cordelia *g*), semi-epilogue compliance (in other words, Snape aten't dead \0/), established relationship, slightly pervy portraits, the humiliation of teenagers, and unabashed pot smoking.
Author's notes: A huge thank you to supergrover24 for beta services, and a happy, happy birthday to Beth. *hugs*

"I found this in Scorpius's room."

Severus blinks as a linen bag is dropped on his desk, half-covering the manuscript on the use of aconite in talisman curses he's been working on all morning. He settles his glasses on the bridge of his nose and lays his quill aside.

"Breathe, Draco," he says in the most soothing tone he can muster. His husband is high-strung at the best of times, and when his stepson has done something uncharacteristically foolish, Severus has learned to tread warily.

Or to Firecall Astoria.

"Do you know what that is?" Draco demands. He leans over the desk, both hands planted firmly on either side of Severus's desk blotter, face twisted in fury.

Severus nudges the bag open with one finger. A bit of plant material spills out; he leans forward and sniffs it, then snorts, relieved. "Cannabis."

"Exactly." Draco folds his arms across his chest. "And I'm quite certain he got it from Potter's whelp—"

"That whelp is, albeit to my chagrin, my godson," Severus says mildly. "And it's only cannabis, Draco. It's not as if the boy is attempting to resurrect the Dark Lord."

Draco glares at him. "He's sixteen years old!"

"And at sixteen you were attempting to murder the Headmaster." Severus picks up the bag and stirs the contents with one finger. A sweet, dry scent drifts up. "I rather think," he says, pulling out the rolling papers he's just found on the bag's bottom, "that outweighs Scorpius seeking to—I believe it was turn on, tune in and drop out, my Aunt Edie used to say."

"Oh, for God's sake, that makes entirely no sense; what are you on about?" Draco snaps. "Not to mention your Aunt Edie was barking mad like the rest of your Muggle relatives, I might point out, and how many times have I told you, Severus, not to bring up the whole murder thing? It's really quite rude."

Severus just grunts and smoothes his thumb across one of the rolling papers before picking through the buds and leaves in the bag, selecting the right amount to roll. Pulling a packet of cigarettes from his desk drawer he taps one out onto his palm, then peels it open, sprinkling some of the tobacco on top of the cannabis before he sets it aside.

The furrow between Draco's eyebrows deepens dangerously. "Severus."

"I assume," Severus says calmly as he rolls the paper and twists one end tight, "that you plan to incinerate this before he comes home." At Draco's nod, he reaches for his wand. "Then I intend to assist you." He lifts the spliff to his mouth and lights it, inhaling deeply.

Draco sighs in exasperation. "I can't believe you—"

Severus blows fragrant smoke into Draco's face. "You fret far too much about the boy. And I'm quite aware you and Zabini nicked some of the cannabis from my storeroom during your fifth year."

Draco gives him a baleful look. "That was Goyle."

"Bollocks." Severus inhales again, holds his breath before coughing slightly, puffs of smoke filling the air in front of him. It's been some years since he's indulged in this manner. "I'm fairly certain I remember coming upon the both of you on top of the Astronomy Tower, giggling like fools. Or at least you were giggling. As I recall Zabini had your prick in his mouth." He scowls at the memory. "Little slag."

"Jealous?" A small smirk curls the corner of Draco's mouth.

Yes. "Not any more than you are of your father." Severus lifts the spliff to his mouth again. The narrowing of Draco's eyes pleases him. Draco had been horrified to find out Severus had a six month fling with Lucius two years before Draco had entered Hogwarts. He's never quite been able to forgive his father for that. Severus doesn't blame him. Every time Zabini comes over for dinner, Severus has the distinct urge to hex the brat's bollocks off, a fact which amuses Astoria to no end.

One should never overindulge in drink with one's husband's ex-wife, Severus has discovered. Particularly if said ex-wife can drink an Irishman under the table and still wake up the next morning with full memory of the night before.

"That wasn't cannabis we nicked." Draco smiles faintly. "It was Euphoria Elixir. I've never—" He snaps his fingers, frowning as he searches for the phrase. "—smoked up? I left that to Vince and Greg."

"And suddenly so much about those two is explained," Severus says under his breath. He takes another drag off the spliff, holding the smoke in his lungs for a long moment, before breathing out. He can feel a familiar faint buzz in his head that reminds him of long, lazy afternoons lying out by the Hogwarts lake with Mulciber and Avery during seventh year. It's one of the few pleasant memories of his adolescence.

Draco walks around the corner of the desk and holds his hand out. "I'll admit to being curious though. Share."

Severus eyes him suspiciously. "No binning it."

His husband rolls his eyes. "Just hand over the damn spliff, Severus."

With reluctance, Severus does, and he settles back in his chair, hands folded over his stomach. He watches Draco take a slow toke, then burst into coughing, his face reddening as he splays his hand against his chest.

"It tastes like Hippogriff shit," Draco chokes out.

"Breathe it out," Severus says, in his lecturing voice, "then inhale again immediately. That will draw the smoke into your lungs. Then hold it before you exhale again."

Draco nods, his eyes watering as he tries again. He coughs again, though not as badly, and when he speaks small puffs of smoke drift from his lips. "Better?"

Severus smiles.

***

They lie on the floor of Severus's study two hours later, their feet bare, their robes off, staring up at the ceiling as they pass another spliff—their second—between them.

"I think that cherub is winking at me," Draco says, frowning at one of the paintings on the wall.

Severus coughs out a stream of smoke. "That's your Great-Uncle Maximus, not a cherub, and he's a pervy old sod who likes to wank himself when he thinks no one's looking." He ignores Maximus's sputtering. "He rather horrifies your Cousin Althea's portrait from what I can tell." He pauses, considering. "Then again, most everything horrifies Althea."

Draco rolls over onto his side and props himself up on one elbow. "Does he horrify you?"

"As much as one can." Severus takes one last toke off the spliff before banishing it with a flick of his wand. He drags the tip lazily through the dissipating smoke, sending it curling towards Maximus.

This is the one room in the Manor that he's laid full claim on since he'd moved in ten years before. It was small by Manor standards (which meant it was larger than Severus's quarters at Hogwarts had been) and lined with dark walnut bookcases and portraits of the less illustrious and more infamous members of the Malfoy clan.

Severus rather enjoys the company of the masturbating Maximus (a more recent addition to the study discovered when Severus had the paneling removed last winter) and the tart-tongued, if prudish, Althea, a grand old spinster who'd been pushed down the back hall stairs on her ninety-third birthday by an annoyed nephew—and before cake at that, she makes sure to inform Severus with a highly irritated sniff at least twice a week.

Draco smiles at him, a slow, sleepy curve of his mouth. Forty-two years old and Draco's still beautiful, despite the faint wrinkles at the corner of his eyes and the slow, backward march of his hairline. He takes Severus's wand from him and drops it. It rolls off the Aubusson, stopping at the foot of the desk. "I like lying here with you," Draco says, stretching, then curling against Severus's side, his head on Severus's shoulder.

Severus brushes his knuckles against Draco's cheek, his faint stubble rough against Severus's skin. He smoothes his fingers back, tracing the curve of Draco's ear, brushing his silky blond hair back from his temple. Draco presses his mouth against Severus's wrist; his tongue flicks lightly beneath the edge of his cuff. Severus shivers.

"I love the way you taste," Draco murmurs, and the warmth in his eyes makes Severus's breath catch and his cock stiffen. After all these years, just a touch, a look can still make Severus ache for him.

A bottle of Felix Felicis had brought them together.

It had arrived in the post the day after his fiftieth birthday—celebrated once again, alone. He hadn't minded; he preferred his peace and a bottle of Firewhisky, and after all, there were very few people he kept in contact with after the war ended. Minerva. Horace. Potter, surprisingly enough, though not out of any effort of his if he was honest.

The note with the bottle had been in Potter's near-illegible scrawl. It was little more than yet another admonishment for turning down the invitation to dinner the night before with Potter and his ridiculous brood, but at the end Potter had written I hope this helps you find what you're looking for, Severus.

He'd just snorted and tossed the package aside, potion and all. Potter was a maudlin fool; that much had been proven over the years.

It'd taken a week before he'd discovered the phial again, lying beneath a stack of notes on the properties of fluxweed. He'd turned it in his hand, watching it glitter gold against his palm, then set it aside, losing himself in the new potions text he was writing. He'd forgotten it until teatime, when he bumped the phial with his hand as he set his quill down.

Severus tells himself even now he only took the potion so as to avoid Potter's incessant pestering the next time he found himself coerced into dining with the brat and his wife. He'd never expected to find Draco an hour later in the newt's eyes and frog toes aisle of Slug and Jiggers. Or to sit together at a table in Vinalia's just off Knockturn thirty minutes after that, discussing Draco's recent divorce over a bottle of red wine and plates of linguini with clam sauce, light from the restaurant's wall sconces glittering in Draco's hair.

He'd certainly never expected to fuck Lucius Malfoy's son for the first time just inside the door of his tiny flat, two creaky staircases up from Diagon Alley, their bodies moving together desperately in the moonlight, hands and mouths rough, eager. They hadn't even fully undressed.

Severus drags his fingertips over the sharp angle of Draco's jaw. It's softened some since he was a boy; Draco's face has filled out more over the years. There's a faint white scar along his throat. It disappears beneath the collar of his white shirt, and Severus knows how it spiders out across Draco's chest, remnants of a schoolboy fight that nearly left him dead.

He's never thanked Potter for this, not directly. That's not Severus's way. Instead he took his godson under his wing, reluctantly allowing a connection to form between them over the years. Potter had understood.

Draco's fingers brush Severus's. "I like the way this feels," he says dreamily, his eyes closed. "It's like floating."

Severus kisses him, a slow, lazy press of their mouths together. Draco's lips are soft and warm, and he opens up to Severus, his tongue sliding against the back of Severus's teeth. He moans softly, and Severus runs his palm over Draco's cheek, tangling his fingers in Draco's hair.

"Severus," Draco murmurs into the kiss. He rolls backwards, pulling Severus with him. They kiss again, lips and teeth and tongue, and it's not urgent, not desperate. Not yet.

Draco's sharp teeth catch on Severus's bottom lip, and he sucks it lightly, licks away the sting. "I do like the way you taste," he says again. Severus laughs softly and shifts over him, leaning down for another kiss.

His hair swings forward, thick and lank, brushing against their cheeks. It's streaked salt-and-pepper now, greyer at his temples, and Draco rakes it back from his forehead, his fingers twisting in it as their kisses grow more heated.

Severus turns his head, bites down Draco's throat. His hands catch Draco's hips, holding him still. He can feel Draco's prick hot and heavy against his stomach. He pulls back slightly, looking down at his husband.

They'd married five years ago, after the laws had changed. Severus hadn't wanted to; he'd said bluntly that it was ridiculous to think some piece of paper signed by a bloody Ministry clerk was going to change anything about their relationship. It was legitimate enough as it was and they didn't need anyone else validating it for them, thank you very damn much. Draco had merely looked at him with narrowed eyes and informed him that Malfoys married their partners. Two weeks later he'd found himself signing for a marriage license.

That was, after all, a rather ridiculously long time to go without sex.

Severus drags his thumb over Draco's swollen mouth. Draco bites the tip, smiling. His hands slide over Severus's back, pulling at his shirt, tugging it from his trousers until Draco can press his palms against Severus's bare skin.

"Do you know what I want?" he asks, and he ruts up against Severus's hip.

Severus breathes in sharply. His cock aches. "What?"

Draco leans in, his mouth brushing Severus's ear. His breath is warm and wet against Severus's skin. "Wank for me," he whispers.

A shudder ripples through Severus. Suddenly there's nothing he wants more. He pushes himself up, straddling Draco's hips, and his hands slip up Draco's chest, fingers pulling at the buttons of his shirt. "Is that all?" He raises an eyebrow in amusement.

"For now." Draco stretches beneath him, raising his arms up over his head. He watches Severus through lidded eyes.

Severus pulls Draco's shirt open and scrapes his fingertips over Draco's skin. His nipples are hard and pink, and Draco hisses as Severus's hands brush over them. "You're beautiful," Severus says, his fingers tracing the web of scars.

"And you're not wanking," Draco says tartly. He licks his bottom lip and arches into Severus's touch. He catches Severus's wrist and drags it down to the buttons on Severus's trousers. "I want to watch you."

"Bossy little prat," Severus says, but his voice shakes. He leans back, fingers working at his belt. His prick aches.

Draco just smiles. He traces circles lightly on Severus's thigh. "I'm forty-two years old and you're still calling me little?"

Tugging at his trouser buttons, Severus leans forward and captures Draco's mouth in a rough kiss. "I'm an old man."

"Bollocks." Draco licks the corner of Severus's mouth. "Sixty-two's the new forty, haven't you heard?"

Severus snorts. He slides his hand into his pants—proper black silk as Draco insists upon purchasing for him—and fists his cock. Draco breathes out when he leans back, his hand moving slowly beneath the silk, the head of his prick barely peeking out from behind the waistband. Severus presses his hips down; he can feel the heat of Draco's cock against his arse.

Draco gasps, and his fingers tighten on Severus's thighs. "Do that again."

A faint smirk twists Severus's mouth. He tucks a stray lock of greying hair behind one ear and rocks back again. "This?"

"It's a start." Draco presses his feet into the floor and pushes up against him. "Wank, Severus."

Severus groans, and his fingers slide down his shaft, lifting it from his pants. He rubs his thumb along the thick vein on the underside, breathing hard. Everything feels, all over his skin, and he knows it's the drug tingling through his nervous system, making each light stroke languorous and intense.

Draco watches him, eyes bright and steady, and his hands slide up Severus's legs to clutch his hips as Severus twists his palm over the head of his prick.

"You like this," Severus says, and Draco nods. He curls his fingers around Severus's wrist and pulls Severus's hand to his mouth. His tongue drags across Severus's palm, wet and hot, over and over, dipping between his fingers, licking across fingertips before he sucks each one in turn into his mouth.

Severus's cock throbs, and he groans as he watches his fingers slide between Draco's damp lips. "Fuck," he whispers, because there's nothing else to say. He shudders, catches himself with one hand before he falls forward, and his prick slides against Draco's stomach, leaving a slick trail.

Draco groans, his teeth scraping against Severus's thumb, and Severus is breathing hard as he pulls his wet hand away. Draco swallows; the pulse in his throat flutters. "Come on me," he says, voice thick and raw with want, and Severus needs to.

His fingers curl around his cock, tight and hot and slick with Draco's spit. He fists himself quickly, roughly, holding himself up over Draco as he jerks his prick. He can't breathe, can't suck enough air into his lungs, can't stop, oh, Christ—and when Draco shoves his hips up, twisting against him, his fingers digging into Severus's skin, his nipples pink and hard, Severus gasps.

It seems to take forever, their groans and ragged breaths echoing in the silent room along with the wet, quick slap of Severus's fingers over his skin. Draco rolls his hips up, a flush spreading across his chest, highlighting his pale scars.

"Severus," he chokes out, and then he arches up with a soft shout, his shoulders off the floor, his fingers scrabbling, twisting in Severus's trousers. He falls back, still trembling, his mouth a soft o as he breathes out. His hair catches on his damp cheek, shining silver-gilt against his pinkened skin. His fingers flex lightly against Severus's hip. "Oh," he says, shakily.

Sliding forward, his knees on either side of Draco's chest, Severus pulls harder, rougher, the red head of his cock slipping quickly between his clenched fingers. He's close, so fucking close and he watches Draco watch him, eyes soft and bright. He loves him. Needs him. Wants him—

Severus cries out, come splattering over his fingers, over Draco's throat and jaw. He squeezes his prick, tight and hard, sliding his foreskin back and forth over the slick, flushed head. Draco's hands are on his chest, touching him, stroking him through the cotton of his shirt, and he can barely breathe, can barely hold himself up. He rubs his prick against Draco's jaw, smearing come over his skin before he presses it to Draco's mouth. Draco sucks him in, his tongue flicking lightly at the still sensitive head, and Severus groans and lurches forward.

He falls to Draco's side, breathing hard, his toes flexing and curling against the Aubusson.

They lie there for a moment, legs still twined, their breath coming in sharp, short gasps.

"Oh, lovely, my dear boys," a voice says above them, and Severus glances over to see Maximus beaming at them from his portrait, his trousers hanging open and his hand slick. His prick hangs limp and pink from his fingers.

Draco throws his arm over his face with a muffled—and horrified—laugh. Severus scowls at the damned portrait. "Out," he demands, mouth tight and browns drawn down, and with a huff, Maximus pulls his trousers together and stomps out of his frame, passing through Althea's empty portrait before disappearing all together.

"I do loathe your ancestors, you know," Severus mutters, and Draco rolls against him, laughing and kissing his throat.

"It might have been Grandfather Abraxas," Draco says against his skin.

Severus shudders. "I would never be able to get hard again."

"I highly doubt that." Draco's fingers ghost over Severus's cock. "I rather think I could coax you into it."

They smile at each other.

The pounding of footsteps down the hallway is the only warning they get before the door slams open. It's just enough time for Severus to pull his flies together and grab his robe to throw over them both.

"Oh, God," Scorpius says in a horrified voice, staring at them from the doorway. Albus—Severus refuses to use that ridiculous nickname his idiot father has bestowed upon him—peers over Scorpius's shoulder. His black hair begs for a combing. Scorpius buries his face in his hands. "My eyes. My eyes, Al. I'm going to have burn them out now."

"Knocking," Severus says calmly, "is courteous."

Draco snorts. "And there's no need to be dramatic. Nobby brought me those magazines you've been keeping underneath your mattress."

"Magazines?" Severus eyes his husband curiously.

"I'll show them to you later," Draco says, and beneath the cloak he squeezes Severus's prick. "You'll rather like PotionsWiz. Evidently they disrobe if you brew their potion correctly."

"Hmm," Severus says. "Entirely nude?"

Draco nods, his hair falling into his eyes. Severus wants to kiss him again. "I think the June centerfold's the best. Very nice cock."

Scorpius makes a strangled noise, his fists still pressed to his face, and Albus pats him on the back. "Your parents are weird," he says, choking back a laugh.

"I hate you all," Scorpius mumbles.

With a snort, Severus grabs his wand from where it'd rolled earlier and flicks it at the door, slamming it shut on them both. The lock clicks into place. He looks back at Draco. "We're keeping the cannabis."

"Obviously," Draco says and he slides over Severus, pushing the robe away. He looks down at him and grins. "Want to go again?"

Severus laughs and pulls Draco into a kiss.

Love can cure your problems, you're so lucky I'm around

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 07:13:58 GMT

It's 3 am and I have finally, finally, after about 14 combined hours of toil, beat the damn CSS code for my LJ into submission.

This redesign was a bear--I went with more CSS graphics than I usually do which required math to lay them out so they all matched up. But. Vini, vidi, vici! And it's been tested in Firefox and Safari on the Mac by me and ze_dragon, and I pestered the hell out of noeon and cursive tonight, too, to test it in Firefox and IE on PCs. Everything seems to be working so far. *knock wood*

I like it the more I look at it; it's different than what I usually design and that pleases me muchly. Although there's a part of me that feels slightly guilty because this is the first time in three years I haven't had a Rhett-centric design, but I wanted Harry/Draco this go around, dammit. I still love you, Rhett, and I'm going to make a mood theme for you, okay? Okay.

I now have the most awesomest of awesome LJ headers, if I do say so meself. I commissioned draykonis to draw Harry and Draco for me. All I told her was that I wanted them both smoking and drinking at a bar, and then I pointed her to a promo photo from Mad Men and said, these clothes are cool, and she came up with the most spectacular artwork. Go here and tell her how fantastic it is. :D I may have made a complete idiot of myself at work, squeeing into my fist, when she sent it to me Thursday.

Also, OMG, draykonis is really an amazing artist. Her style is gorgeous, and she has a wonderful eye for detail. Just take a look at her art tag. I could lose myself in there--I don't even have to know the fandoms she's drawing in, the art's just that beautiful,and her original stuff is delicious. I think everyone should go fangirl her right now. God knows I am. *g*

I have smacked this art all over my journal. Header, userinfo, default icon...ZOMG, I HEART IT SO MUCH. I mean, seriously, you guys. Harry and Draco sitting around in a bar, smoking and getting drunk together. IT'S LIKE MY DREAM COME TRUE. \0/\0/\0/ I'll be over in the corner, nursing a vodka gimlet and waiting for them to make out with each other.

Come on. You know it'll happen eventually. (Yes, Cordelia, it will. In my head. It will. *g*)

Off to bed shortly, then up in a few hours to spend the weekend writing Snarry. This damn fic is going to kill me before it's finished. Sigh.

ZOMG. Snaco Art. \0/

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 03:35:06 GMT

I came home tonight to the most fantastic surprise in my inbox... xxaphaniax had read my fic The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, which I wrote, OMG, back in 2004, and she drew art for it. \0/ And it's GORGEOUS. \0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/\0/

Go look at it here and tell her how absolutely amazing it is because OMG, it takes my breath away. Look at them lying there in the rain. OMG. My heart. *adores Snape and Draco* I could look at this forever, I think. THE RAIN, YOU GUYS. I have such a thing for rain. (The fullsize version is here but do make sure you go back here to squee at xxaphaniax. *g*)

And then after flailing at xxaphaniax for that gorgeous bit of art, everyone who has even the slightest interest in Snape/Draco should go immediately over to her journal and flail over this adorable Snaco chibi. Draco's little naked chest! \0/ Snape's crossed arms! \0/ Draco's smirk! \0/

ETA: And for you Harry/Draco peeps on my flist, you may be interested in these portraits of Harry and Draco. :D

*squees gleefully and with great abandon*

Pinch-hit Drabblethon, um, still-not-drabble.

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 01:18:15 GMT

OMG, I suck. I can't even write a proper drabble for a pinch-hit Drabblethon entry. /0\ Ah well. Fuck it. :D

This one's for Noe. *hugs*

Title: Fairy Cakes
Recipient: noeon
Prompt: Draco cupcakes "Potter" sticky
Word count: 893. Okay, really. Even when pinch-hitting, I fail at drabbling. /0\
Rating: PG-13ish?

Harry’s tired when he Floos into the flat.

-----

My previous Drabblethon entry is here. And let's face it, this is me. They're both Harry/Draco. :D

Drabblethon, um, drabble... (AHAHAHAHAHAH...right.)

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 21:25:54 GMT

Okay, so I just posted my "drabble" for the Cats' Birthday Drabblethon. Let's just all accept the fact that when it comes to drabbling I FAIL LIKE A FAILING THING, okay? This puppy ended up being 1,664 words. We'll just say it's 16.5 drabbles. *nodnodnodnod*

Anyway. Should you care to read it.... (Also note that it's in three consecutive comments, so make sure you read all three or you might be confused at the end of the second one. *cough*)

Title: Drunkenness Is Nothing But Voluntary Madness
Recipient: stormwynd
Prompt: Draco sleeps with either Ron or Harry but can't remember which one.
Word count: 1,664. I am so damn glad the cats can’t count because I FAIL at drabbling.
Rating: NC-17
A/N: Title from a quote by Seneca.

I’ve lost track of how many drinks I’ve had.

------
Also while you're there, read the one written for me by cheshyre! It's an actual, you know, drabble and it's AWESOME. *hearts Slytherin Pansy* \0/

I'm too tired to think of anything interesting to put here.

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:28:07 GMT

Con crud has reached the point that I gave up this morning, miserable, and called in sick to work. Blech. I hate calling in sick. I always feel guilty for doing it.

I am now ensconced on the couch, wrapped in a blanket,coughing my lungs up and sneezing like mad. However, I have discovered Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is on TV. OMG, I love this movie more than I can even say. It's just brilliantly cheesy. \0/

Also for some weird reason Dick Van Dyke at the moment is reminding me of adult!Harry with his kids. Yeah, I don't even know. I blame the fever. Or something.

I can has Draco/Chekov! \0/

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 22:21:26 GMT

So, on our last night at Azkatraz, Beth, Cordelia, Dragon, leela_cat and lesyeuxverts00 and I ended up at a showing of Star Trek because Dragon hadn't seen it yet. And on the way back, the suggestion of Draco/Chekov as a pairing may have been made and I may have had an entire brain meltdown on the San Francisco sidewalks at the ABSOLUTE HAWTNESS of the thought. (Don't look at me that way. There is nothing hotter than two twinky seventeen-year-olds, and you know it. *g*)

I came home tonight to find that Lyv had written me a Draco/Chekov drabble and it is AWESOME. \0/\0/\0/\0/\0/ I need more. And I might actually be considering throwing the wee HP/Star Trek crossover fest Lyv's trying to talk me into ~~just to get more Draco/Chekov smut~~ if there'd be any interest in it... *eyes flist*

Dammit, I need a Chekov icon.

Also, there is an Azkatraz friending meme going on now...go forth and find peeps. \0/

Must take a little nap now...con crud has most definitely set in. Alas. Woe. I think I've coughed up a lung today. Ew.

home again, home again

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 23:59:24 GMT

Back from Azkatraz and SO not looking forward to going in to work tomorrow. Although I have brought Ghirardelli chocolate back with which to bribe coworkers.

Con report later when I have a time to recuperate from a cross-country flight, but briefly for now:

a) San Francisco is awesome and I love it and I want to go back NOW;

b) my love for Snape/Draco burns bright again post-HBP (you guys, that scene--you know the one, omg) and as for my love for Harry/Draco...well, let's just say I now have around thirty Harry/Draco stories on my to-write list after this con, dammit, people, stop bunnying me;

c) the H/D panel was made of win and I was and am in awe of my fellow panelists, who all completely rock \0/;

d) after five cons, I finally caved and bought a Slytherin robe and prefect pin so I can cosplay Pansy (oh, hush);

e) I've been sunburned like crazy since I went on a bay cruise with a lovely group of slashers on Saturday afternoon; and

f) the top non-Azkatraz-related memory of San Francisco I will take with me to my grave is standing up in a packed and predominately gay piano bar down Market Street, cordelia_v and the pianist having coerced me, geoviki and noeon into singing backup for Cordelia on Dancing Queen. Yes. Dancing Queen karoke. In a gay piano bar. I'd had five Cherry Blossom cocktails by then; I was weak and susceptible and duly (and rightly so) teased mercilessly by bethbethbeth and ze_dragon for giving in. *g* And yet...I'm so glad I did it. :D

I now have to go coax my cat into loving me again. I'm currently being Shunned, though I think I saw a little pink nose poke around the corner of my bedroom door a moment ago.

Also, I think con crud is starting to strike... :(

Birthday wishes and HBP comment \0/

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:51:23 GMT

Today is ze_dragon's birthday and she wanted glitter text. SO GLITTER TEXT SHE GETS. *hearts* Everyone tell her happy birthday! :D

ZOMG YOU GUYS. HBP is the BEST. OTP. MOVIE. EVER.

Really. No lie. It was like David Yates went, hm, how can I make a Snape/Draco movie for Femme? \0/

:D

Bar a few WTF, that wasn't in the book, you idiot scenes, IT IS AWESOME. And can I just say I will be writing the continuation of Harry overhearing the Wall Sex scene after Sluggy's party, oh yes I will. OMG. GAH. THE WAY SNAPE THREW DRACO UP AGAINST THE WALL, YOU GUYS. I THINK MY HEART STOPPED.

That was seriously the sexiest thing ever, dear God in heaven. I am not joking. I just about died.

I also may have spent half the movie bouncing up and down in my seat over my woobies. Oh, Draco. Oh, Snape. I HEART YOU, BBS. I missed you. Now go kiss Harry and end up tangled together in one Giant Pile O' OTP/OTP²/OT3 bodies.

I am one happy, happy, happy Snaco shipper right now, and I cannot ZOMG wait to see it again tonight at 7:45. \0/\0/\0/\0/

In summary: I LOVE MY OTP SOMETHING OMG FIERCE. \0/

Must now get dressed in order to, you know, see San Fran. :D

A friend in need's a friend indeed, a friend with weed is better

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:32:51 GMT

Slept through a good chunk of today and yesterday due to feeling like crap physically, so I'm just getting around to comments and flisting and posting of fic on various comms (yeah, er, sorry to anyone who gets hit by crossposting /0\). Also, I do not want to go back to work tomorrow. *cries* However, I have managed to get a bit of my Snarry Games fic done between naps, although I have a long way to go before I'm finished. Um. You may see me writing frantically at Azkatraz... *looks shifty*

Okay about this picture of Tom Felton that he tweeted today? Jesus Christ. And for the love of all that is holy do not get me started on this one. I can't even. Seriously. I can't. Gott im Himmel. Can Kai Z Feng take all of his pictures now because he makes the boy look like sex on a stick. I keep looking at them, going, good Lord, boy, when did you grow up and can you please stop making me feel like a perv because I remember when you were in Anna and the King, my God. And then I stop and think that maybe that's how I make Snape feel when I force him to perv on Draco, and you know, I'm really kind of okay with that.

I am going through a massive Brian Molko/Placebo love phase at the moment. Be afraid. There is a pimp post of doom coming whenever I can be arsed to code it up. This may very well trace back to a recent viewing of Velvet Goldmine which threw me into a glam rock/early punk rock kick that I'm still wallowing about in cheerfully, which of course then traces directly down to Brian. And seriously, fandom, where the hell is the Placebo love? I mean good God, you have a band with an openly admitted bisexual (and as an aside I have post percolating in my head about bisexuality and fic) and an uncloseted homosexual and yet I have found only one members-locked fic community (which of course I immediately joined)? This grievous lack must be fixed. I've already managed to slide past Brian/Draco into one fic I'm working on. Of course I've also managed to slip in Harry/Simon Amstell too--shut up, I've been watching a lot of Never Mind the Buzzcocks this week and I'm a little enamoured with Simon at the moment. Plus the idea of him dating Harry amuses me to no end.

Also, for some reason Brian Molko (*points to icon*) is a grown-up Albus Severus in my head. I don't even know, but there you go. He's my Al, cocky little Slytherin bastard attitude and all. \0/

Anyway. I now have lo mein from the Chinese restaurant down the street and a cat who's eyeing it a little too closely for my comfort. Must go rescue it, I think. Back soon...

FIC: Cigarettes Will Kill You, NC-17, Harry/Draco

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:39:31 GMT

I have committed pornage. I have committed pornage that is under 4,000 words. !!!! (No really! I wrote a short PWP! I'm just as stunned as you are.) I have also committed pornage that involves adultery. Don't look at me like that; I'm evidently in a Harry-as-cheating-bastard mood lately. \0/ I can't help myself. I don't even know.

Anyway. Should you feel the urge to indulge in a little adulterous porn, I'm your girl today. Clicketh below. :D And now I go back to writing Snarry for the rest of today.

Title: Cigarettes Will Kill You
Summary: He lights a cigarette across the pub, his hand cupped to his mouth as the tip sparks to life in a faint orange flare, and my breath catches.
Pairing: Harry/Draco, mentions of Harry/Ginny
Rating: NC-17
Warning: adultery
Word count: ~3800
Author's Notes: Written for in two hours for bryoneybrynn's Speed Pronz challenge using this picture prompt. Title cheerfully stolen from Ben Lee. Many thanks to noeon for her quick beta/readthrough.

He lights a cigarette across the pub, his hand cupped to his mouth as the tip sparks to life in a faint orange flare, and my breath catches.

I try to cover by ordering another whisky—Macallan, eighteen year, neat the way Severus had taught me to drink it nearly half a decade ago, and it's taken this long for that particular loss to fade from a twisting pain to a slow, bittersweet ache.

Pansy sees though, with those narrowed eyes of hers that take in everything, and she looks between me and Potter, her suspicions written across her face. If she hadn't guessed before tonight, she knows now, but she won't say anything, I'm certain of that. Instead she kisses my cheek and whispers in my ear that she's found a possible conquest for the evening before she saunters into the throng of Gryffindors and Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs gathered to celebrate Potter's twenty-second year.

We're the only Slytherins present, she and I, and we've drawn curious glances all evening. I wonder what they'd all say if they knew my invitation came not by owl post as theirs had, but gasped against my throat as Potter and I lay sprawled stickily, breathlessly across the foot of my bed at half two this afternoon, our cocks spent and aching.

Potter laughs at something the Weasel next to him says, and he takes a drag from his cigarette, turning his head just enough for our eyes to meet. He exhales slowly, watching me, his eyes dark, and the smoke curls around the black hood of his Muggle jacket before it dissipates in the shadows above.

I love to watch him smoke. His hands, normally so rough and stubby and awkward, turn graceful with a fag nestled between two fingers. It's a habit of his that his wife hates, he tells me with a grimace and a roll of his eyes, which means I encourage it, obsess over it even. Anything to drive a wedge between the two of them. Not that I should care. Potter and I have no future, I'm fully aware. He has a wife and a home he's all too eager to avoid, and Father's made arrangements for me with a suitable girl—the youngest and least objectionable Greengrass—whom I'll wed next spring at St. Stephen's in Avebury as every generation of Malfoys has for the past four hundred years. I'm fond enough in my own way of Astoria, I suppose. We'll do well by each other. We both know our duty—an heir for both families—and then we can settle into a comfortable existence of companionable friendship and discreetly conducted side affairs as have our parents and their parents before them. Marriage the way it was intended to be.

Potter, however, has an utterly plebian notion of romance, the fool. Two years into his marriage, and they're both miserable. I almost feel sorry at moments for Ginevra, given the number of times in the past six months her husband has slipped away to join me in my bed, and the idiot has no idea he's cuckolding her. Gryffindors. For all their claims of nobility and honour, they're nothing more than liars and cheats, willfully turning an oblivious eye to anything they'd rather ignore. At least Slytherins have the decency to be honest about our liaisons.

Not to mention our sexuality, but that's an entirely different matter.

Still, my sympathy for the bint goes only so far. I want her husband's prick inside of me as many times as I can have him before his conscience belatedly kicks in. And it will. I'm not so much of a fool to think my arse, lovely though it is, will hold Potter's interest for much longer. Sooner or later he'll get Weasley up the duff, if he hasn't already, and that will be that. Not even my sexual wiles will be able to withstand the onslaught of delayed remorse that fatherhood will bring.

For the moment, however, I fully intend to enjoy my power over Potter.

I drain my whisky and set the glass on the bar. Potter's still watching me, and he lifts his cigarette to his mouth and puffs a faint ring of smoke towards me. I snort. Child's play, that. Severus used to curl smoke dragons around my wrists as we lay naked, tangled together on the floor of his quarters during my seventh year. My throat tightens slightly, and I lift my chin as I push my way through the crowd.

"Potter," I say, stopping in front of him, and the Weasel scowls at me.

"What are you doing here?" he asks. None of the Weasleys, might I point out, have ever been known for their percipience. The Weasel still hasn't managed to realise his brother-in-law is fucking my arse raw on a regular basis.

I ignore him. "I suppose," I say to Potter with an appropriately snide curl of my lip, "that I'm forced to wish you a happy birthday."

Potter shrugs and flicks ash off the end of his cigarette before he takes another drag. My belly tightens. "If you want."

"Consider it done." I tilt my head just enough to be polite, then I reach for his cigarette, taking it from him. His eyebrow arches in surprise. "Filthy habit," I say softly, my eyes fixed on him, and my hand barely trembles as I lift the cigarette to my mouth. I can taste him, I'm certain, as I inhale the acrid smoke, then breathe it back out into his stunned face. I drop the cigarette to the floor and grind it out with the toe of my boot.

I can feel his eyes on me as I sidle through the crowd. Pansy's in the corner with Lovegood, a bottle of wine on the table between them, and Luna's round face is pink and rapt as Pansy brushes her fingertips across her wrist. I won't be worrying about how she'll get home now, I suppose.

I push open the pub's back door and step outside.

The air in the alley is warm and damp. It's been raining for days now, and the puddles against the brick wall reek of piss and mildew. I don't care.

I only wait a few minutes before I hear the door click shut behind me, and then he's there, pressing me against the wall as he kisses me desperately. My hair catches on the rough brick. Potter tastes of cheap tobacco and bittersweet beer, and I can't get enough of the soft dryness of his lips, the sour sweep of his tongue against mine.

"I want you," I say into the kiss, breathless and eager, "I want you here, with all of your bastard friends inside wondering where you've gone off—"

Potter grabs my hips and groans. "I can't," he whispers. "Ginny—"

I turn my head, bite his jaw, hard. Potter arches against me with a gasp. He likes it when I get angry. "I really don't give a damn," I say viciously, "if your fucking wife walks through that door and sees me on my knees with you bent over my back and your prick pounding my arse."

He shivers, and I slide my hands up his chest. I pull at the zip of his jacket; the hood falls back. His hair is ridiculously unkempt. I run one hand through it, pushing it off his forehead, before I kiss him again. This is dangerous, I know. Anyone can stumble out at any moment. We've never been this indiscreet.

I've never been this fucking hard.

My hand slips beneath his t-shirt, slides over his taut stomach. I love Potter's body, so lithe and lean from hours of Auror field work. Not that I'd ever tell him, of course. The last thing I need is for Potter to know how much I want him. Still. I flatten my palm against his warm skin and breathe out. I can feel my heart thudding, my blood pooling in the heated stiffness of my prick.

"I shouldn't," Potter says, and then he trails off, his eyes fixed on me. He licks his bottom lip.

"No." My fingers curl around his wrist. I pull his hand to the fly of my trousers. I know he can feel my cock beneath his palm. "You really shouldn't."

I rock my hips forward and he draws in a ragged breath. His thumb smoothes the wool of my trousers against the underside of my prick, pulling the fabric tight against my balls. Christ, I need him to touch me, need his skin against mine.

"Please," I say, and I hate myself for the weakness.

With a groan, Potter catches my mouth with his again, and his glasses press into my cheek as his fingers work open the buttons of my trousers. When his callused hand curls around me, I gasp and grab his hip.

I want them to see us like this, want them all to come pouring out of that battered door covered with graffiti endorsements for Quidditch teams and sexual partners, want them to stop short in shock at the sight of Harry fucking Potter rutting against me, our eager kisses loud in the silent alley.

"Lube," Pottter says, his mouth wet against my jaw. "I know you have--"

I cut him off with another kiss. "Pocket." I arch against him as he shoves a hand into my left pocket, digging for the tiny phial of oil I'd made sure to bring. I'm not a fool, after all.

Potter pulls back, turns me around, and my trousers slip down my thighs, falling to pool in the puddle at my feet. He tugs my pants below the curve of my arse, his fingers warm against my skin. I can barely breathe as I hear him swear softly before the wax seal on the phial pops, and then his finger is in me, blunt and thick and slick, and I cant my hips with a groan.

With a quick sweep of headlights, a Muggle lorry rolls past the alley entrance, its wheels sloshing wetly against the street. Despite the Notice-Me-Not spells around the pub, we still for a moment until the shadows return, tinged only by the damp orange glow of the streetlamps. Potter's breath is a warm huff against the back of my neck when he laughs.

"Shut it," I say crossly, and I press my hips back.

"Bossy prat." Potter nips at my earlobe, but he pushes his finger in me again and twists just the way he knows I like. I grunt, and he kisses the curve of my jaw. "Like that?"

My fingers flex against the wall. "Well enough."

I feel oil trickle warmly down the crease of my arse. Potter whispers a spell against my hair, and a tingle spreads through the oil across my skin. I groan and jerk in his hands; my cock bobs thick and hard against my stomach. The head catches on my shirt. A button slides over my stretched foreskin and I shudder.

"Bastard," I snap, a flush warming my cheeks at my obvious reaction. Potter just laughs and presses another finger into me and drags his open mouth over the stretch of my throat. I let my head fall back; he laps lightly at my skin.

"Tell me you want my prick in you."

I turn my head and catch his mouth, kissing him slowly, deeply. "Don't be vulgar," I murmur after a moment, and I bite his bottom lip.

Potter pulls back. "Tell me." His breath gusts lightly against my ear.

"No." I'm nothing if not perverse, I'm afraid.

His fingers twist deeper into me. He slides his other hand across my stomach, ruching up my shirt and holding me still as he finger-fucks my arse, his fingertips just barely brushing over my prostate. I'm shaking, as much as I'm trying not to, and my pulse is drumming in staccato beats against my throat. My cock aches. My own mother could walk out right now and I'd beg Potter not to stop.

Potter pulls his hand away and I cry out in protest. My head falls forward. I'm breathing hard. I stare down at my feet, my hair hanging in my eyes. My prick bobs in front of me, red and hard and sticky-damp.

And then Potter's fingers brush against it and I groan his name as they skim along its length before sliding beneath to cup my balls. I close my eyes, almost overcome. I'm throbbing. Aching. Desperate.

"Tell me," he says again against the nape of my neck.

It takes a moment before I can speak. I open my mouth, close it again, swallowing. "Please," I say finally, and my voice is thick and raw. "Please, Harry."

Potter swears behind me, a sotto voce fucking hell that sends a shudder of want down my spine, and I can hear him as he jerks at the zip of his jeans. He nudges my legs wider, tilts my hips further back. The blunt head of his cock is hot against my arse, and I can barely keep myself from trembling.

It hurts when he pushes into me, a quick flare of pain and tension that fades slowly. Potter's arm is around my waist, holding me up, and I press my palms against the brick wall in front of me, not caring that my skin will be roughened and scraped.

We hold still for a moment, the only sounds in the alley the sharp pants of our breath, and then Potter moves, carefully at first, pressing deeper into my arse. I can feel his balls brush my skin, feel the scratch of his jeans against the backs of my thighs.

"More," I say, and then he's thrusting into me, his dull fingernails scraping my hips. I can hear him gasping behind me and I reach down to pull my shirt higher, to give him a better view of my arse and his cock sliding into it.

"Oh, fuck," Potter chokes out. He grabs my hips, jerks me back into his next thrust and it burns, Christ, but I don't care because Potter's fucking me in quick, rough strokes just the way I like. I arch my back, pressing my arse against his cock, tightening myself around him until he groans. He slides one hand up my spine, and his fingers are gentle on my skin as he pushes the bunched cotton of my shirt up to my shoulder blades.

Potter's grunting, and I know his teeth are clenched; I can feel the flex of his stomach as he bends over my arse to press his mouth against my shoulder, just beneath my shirt. He's so fucking deep in me, and I don't give a fuck how much it aches being stretched like this because Potter's hand slips down to my cock and strokes it lightly and God, I could fucking come right here. Right now.

It takes every bit of control I have not to.

Instead I hold still, my fingers twisted in my shirt, one hand splayed against the wall. I watch his hand on my prick, moving slowly, barely touching me, and I only shudder when his thumb sweeps over the wet head, rubs across the slit.

Potter rocks into me; he presses his mouth against my hair. "So tight," he murmurs, and his fingers slide down my cock, brush over the furred skin of my balls, then back up again. I can't breathe. All I want is the steady press of his cock in my arse. I shift, spread my legs wider, eliciting a ragged fuck yes from Potter as his hand smoothes over my hip. The button on the waistband of his jeans scrapes my thigh with his next thrust, which is hard enough to lift me onto the balls of my feet. The head of my cock bumps the brick, and I hiss.

"Sorry," Potter says, but he doesn't sound contrite, and I don't fucking care. I reach back, letting my shirt drop, and I grab his hip, pressing harder against his prick. Potter groans.

He's bent over my back now, chin on my shoulder, and we must look ridiculous moving together in the shadows like this but it doesn't matter because Potter's hand is tight on my cock, pulling roughly, and my thighs clench as I shove back against him, meeting each thrust with a gasp and a moan.

And then his palm curls over the head of my prick, hot and tight, and I can't stop myself. I come with a cry, shaking, strings of ropy white splattering across the wet brick, dripping onto a pile of rotting potato peelings and soaked Prophets. I slump against the wall, my forehead resting against it, breathing hard. I barely notice Potter's pulled back until his cock slides free of my arse.

"No," I say, voice weak, and I reach for him to pull him back, but Potter turns me around, presses me against the wall, kissing me roughly, eagerly. His prick rubs against my hip and it's sticky and hot on my skin. My hands are on his cheeks, holding him as my tongue mashes against his, desperate, hungry. He sucks my lip, his fingers are tangled in my hair, pushing it back from my face. I need this, need him. It's more than want, I know, as much as I loathe that realisation.

I can never have Potter. I'm a fool for loving him.

"On your knees, baby," Potter whispers against my mouth, and I don't hesitate. The alley is wet and uneven beneath my knees, the pavement slimy on my skin. I can smell the stench of rats and piss. Potter's hand is on his prick, stroking it hard and fast. I want to taste him, want to suck him, but when I lean forward he catches my shoulder, pushes me back. "No."

I look up at him. He's beautiful, leaning over me like this, one hand on his cock, one hand on the wall behind me. "Harry," I say, and he shudders, his fingers faltering for the briefest moment.

"I want," he says breathlessly, and his palm curls over the head of his prick, smoothing back the foreskin in one quick sweep. "I want to come on you…"

Christ. I lean back, staring up at him. I swallow. He tugs hard on his cock, and it slides red and thick and slick through his fingers. One of his balls hangs over the scrunched waistband of his pants and jeans, and I touch it lightly.

"Fuck," Potter chokes out. His hand moves faster. His hips jerk. I cup his ball in my palm, rub my thumb across the soft skin. Potter's shaking. The muscles in his stomach clench. "I—"

He breaks off in a muffled groan, and come hits my cheek. I close my eyes, turning towards his prick as he spurts across my face. He's mine now, for this moment at least, and it's my name he's whispering as he shudders over me.

I open my eyes and look up at him. Potter's mouth is open, pink, and his cock hangs free. He's holding himself up with both hands against the wall. I lean in and suck the head of his prick into my mouth, lapping at the smeared stickiness on his skin. He tastes salty-sweet-sour, and he gasps as my tongue slides beneath his foreskin.

"Draco," he murmurs.

I pull back. I drag my fingers through the come on my cheek and lift them to my mouth. Potter draws in a ragged breath as I lick them clean.

He wants me. He needs me. Perhaps he even loves me in some foolishly stupid Gryffindor way.

He'll never leave her for me, though. He's too much to lose. Family. Friends. The safety of a settled, miserable life.

One day he'll walk away, and I'll be alone, lost in my own civil, proper marriage. It's only at moments like this when Potter—when Harry's looking down at me like this, eyes bright and soft and gentle, that I let myself admit how much that will hurt. How much it hurts every time he leaves my bed to return to hers. It shouldn't. I knew from the beginning what I was agreeing to. I seduced him, after all. No sense playing the wounded other woman.

"We should go back in," Potter says quietly. I nod and he helps me to my feet. It takes a moment for us to gather ourselves, to spell our clothes and our skin clean.

He hesitates at the door. I shrug. "You first," I say, then I stop him just before he turns the handle. I kiss him slowly, lingeringly. "Light me a fag."

Potter smiles faintly and digs into his pocket for the packet of cigarettes. He holds it out; I pull one free and lift it to my mouth. He lights it wordlessly, his fingers barely hovering over the tip before a curl of smoke rises from the rolled paper. I inhale, holding the bitter smoke in for a moment before sending it out in a perfectly curled dragon that wraps around Potter's shoulders before drifting away.

He touches my mouth with his blunt fingertips. "I'll firecall," he says softly, and then, with a gentle kiss that's nearly my undoing, he's gone, back to the wife who probably hasn't even noticed his absence.

And I'm alone.

I lean against the wall, smoke curling from my cigarette, and close my eyes, hating myself for what I've become. Hating myself for not walking away.

Hating myself for falling in love.

I can't go back in. Can't watch him with her. Can't see her touch him, see him smile down at her. Can't endure it. Not any longer.

And yet when he firecalls—and he will, I'm certain—I'll answer. I'll meet him again, for a beer or for wine in a Muggle place tucked away in some godforsaken corner of London no wizard or witch would ever find, and we'll kiss in the shadows and fall into my bed for an hour or two or three, however long he can sneak away. And I'll tell myself it means nothing, that it's only sex. And I'll know I'm lying.

I always lie.

I take another ragged drag, opening my eyes and staring dully into the shadows, watching the smoke dissipate into the darkness before I drop the cigarette and grind it out with my boot.

He's in my blood, as much as I hate the fact. I need him. I want him. I love him. But for tonight, I'm done. I can't bear anymore. I wonder if he'll even care that I'm missing. I know he will.

I don't look back at the door as I Apparate away.

I heart my OTP of OTPs.

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:43:48 GMT

I just found this via torenheksje and I do not care if all the rest of you have already seen it because you guys. It's ~~Snape and Draco's post-HBP love nest~~ Spinner's End. *squee*

YOU GUYS THE KITCHEN. I JUST DON'T EVEN HAVE WORDS. Also I am not pointing out that Snape has his legs conveniently spread for Draco. BUT HE SO DOES. You see, he's actually staring in shock at Draco undressing just off screen, and Draco's about to walk over and grab that newspaper out of his hands and toss it aside as he slides down, one hand on each of Severus's thighs...I COULD GO ON.

Seriously, I really feel bad for any of y'all at Azkatraz who I drag to see multiple showing of HBP with me (no, seriously, I'm so not joking) since I don't have a ticket to the huge group showing, because I will be FLAILING LIKE CRAZY with OTP love. No seriously. You don't even know. I'm already squeeing into my pillow right now, and I just. This movie. I don't care if it absolutely sucks eggs--IT WILL BE A SNAPE/DRACO ORGASM OF LOVE, IT WILL.

\0/

OMG, I really don't know how y'all are going to deal with me, seriously. Bouncing. Off. Walls. Already.

*grabs Snape and Draco and shoves them together, making kissy-kissy noises*

\0/ \0/ \0/ \0/ \0/ \0/ \0/ \0/ \0/ \0/ \0/ \0/ \0/ \0/ \0/ \0/

ETA: AHAHAHA, thanks to noeon, I already have a ticket to the 7:45 showing on Thursday night at the Loew's across from the Parc 55. \0/

Oh, yeah, it's so clear, all the bad things are gone, all the good things are here

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:47:52 GMT

I just walked in the door from a weekend down in NJ, seeing the Old 97's at Maxwell's. Am trying to catch up this evening, especially on comments for my club!fic (oh, hey, did you know I posted that damn 12,500 word H/D club!fic Friday? *G*) but for now a quick update before I attempt to find some sort of food...

Bandom Fic Rec - supergrover24 has posted her bandombigbang fic and anyone with any interest in Panic At The Disco should read it. It's a Jon/Ryan Bewitched AU and it's really, seriously fantastic. Let me put it this way. I'm not a huge PATD girl, and I usually don't like Ryan Ross. Jodie made me love him in this fic. So yeah. You should definitely read this one. Also, Jodie writes seriously excellent pr0n, even when it's not explicit. I'm just saying. *g* You can find it here: Sing To Him, Each Spring

Old 97's - What can I say other than they were absolutely fantastic? Both Murry and Rhett did opening sets of their solo work before the whole band took the stage. And they played Weightless! I've wanted them to play that song for years and I'm not joking. They never have at any concert I've been at until last night, which made me ridonkuloulsy happy. Also, djinnj, ze_dragon and I decided to go to Maxwell's early to grab dinner before the doors opened. The waitress seated us, and we looked over and the whole damn band was at the table next to ours. Seriously. There was massive, albeit quiet, flailing over that. TRUST ME. (The four of them appear to have excellent table manners and a great love of alcohol and French fries. *g*)

Knitting - I appear to have been sucked into the knitting vortex this weekend. I have about eight inches of a garter stich scarf done already. Dammit. *eyes djinnj, ze_dragon balefully* Also I may have spent four hours today on a bus knitting. And another half hour on the T. /0\

Food now. BBS. *g*

FIC: Let's Dance To Joy Division 1/2 (Harry/Draco, NC-17)

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:43:20 GMT

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

FIC: Let's Dance To Joy Division 2/2 (Harry/Draco, NC-17)

quixotic.femme@gmail.com — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:41:45 GMT

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

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

Part One

"Must you always be such a Neanderthal?" I ask, annoyed and still breathless from Apparation. Harry pushes me up against the door of my flat. My cock throbs. I want these fucking jeans off. Now. "I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself, you realise."

"He touched you," he says, and I shiver at the vibration of his lips against my skin. He nips at my jaw. My fingers twist in his hair, and his mouth drags up the side of my cheek, stopping at my temple. The doorknob digs into the small of my back. I wonder what our neighbour across the hall must be thinking. Or if he even cares. Usually it’s Blaise in this position; he must be used to it by now.

Harry shifts against me. "Open the fucking door." I groan. I loathe being ordered about, but there’s something about Harry’s demanding tone that just makes me want to wrap my legs around his waist and grind up against him until he comes. Somehow, I think this realisation should be more disturbing to me than it is.

It takes me a moment to push through the wards. I'm not at my best, magically speaking; I'm fairly certain the majority of my mental processes are focused in the general area of my prick right now. I reach behind me, groping for the knob as Harry kisses me again, his tongue sliding over mine. My toes curl in my loafers, and I groan. "Harry," I whisper against the corner of his mouth.

The door finally flies open and we stumble forward into the flat, hitting the floor two seconds later. I pull Harry over on top of me; he kicks the door shut. I can feel the knots of the Aubusson's fringe pressing into my shoulder blade. "Lumos," I say. The lamps on the side tables light, sending flickering shadows across the floor.

"Hey." Harry smiles down at me. I can hear the soft thump of his trainers hitting the floor as he toes them off, shifting over me. His hair hangs forward, catches on the rims of his glasses. His mouth is pinkly swollen and wet, his bottom lip chapped at the corner, most likely from chewing on it when he's lost in thought.

I brush one finger against it. He catches the tip with his sharp, white teeth. The bite almost hurts. "You're a bastard," I murmur, and he licks across my fingernail. I pull his glasses off and toss them aside. They skitter across the floor, disappearing beneath the sofa. Neither of us really cares. I’ll Summon them later. Perhaps when I’m ready to send him packing.

He's hard against my hip, heavy and hot. I know he wants me. Harry's always wanted me, even when we were younger. Sometimes I wonder if my school days would have been a hell of a lot less angst-ridden if we'd just given in and shagged the fuck out of each other back then.

Harry smoothes one hand up my chest. He shifts his hips, pressing down against my cock, and I hiss and spread my thighs wider. He settles between them. His eyes are so fucking green.

"I have a bedroom, you know," I say between kisses. Harry doesn’t bother to answer; he doesn’t need to. He just catches my mouth again, his fingers working at the buttons of my shirt until he pushes it aside, and when his thumbnail scrapes across my nipple, I moan and grab his hips, arching up against him. My hands slip beneath the untucked tail of his shirt, pushing it and the t-shirt beneath it up enough for me to feel the skin of his back, soft and warm beneath my palms.

We kiss desperately, all tongues and teeth, and then Harry pulls back, rising up onto his knees over me as he jerks at his shirt. I grab at the dark cotton, eager to feel him against me. Three buttons fly off; Harry swears and pulls it and the t-shirt over his head.

In the faint lamplight, his skin gleams golden down to the waistband of his jeans where it begins to pale slightly. His nipples are brown and hard and when I touch them, he gasps. I sit up, my legs still spread on either side of Harry's knees, and I lick one nipple. It's salty-sweet against my tongue, the skin rough and pebbled. I can feel the steady thud of Harry's heart beneath my cheek and I lick again, this time sucking his nipple into my mouth. His hands tangle in my hair, holding me pressed against him. I bite him gently. He groans.

We've always been good together like this, Harry and I. From the first time we stumbled into bed together, pissed out of our minds after a Ministry gala celebrating, much to his chagrin, Harry's twenty-fifth birthday. We hadn't gone out of his flat for the next two days. Hadn't put on any bloody clothes, for that matter. We'd fucked on every possible surface in his tiny flat—my arse had been so sore I hadn't been able to sit properly for the rest of the week, and he'd sworn I'd chafed his prick.

"Draco," Harry says, his eyes half-closed, his head thrown back. My hands slide down his chest. I can feel his ribs beneath his muscles. He's too thin again; the idiot never eats properly unless I make him. Much as he may think differently, man cannot live on crisps and beer alone. I press my mouth to the dip of his sternum as my fingers tug at the buttons of his jeans, pulling the denim open. The cotton of his y-fronts is soft against my fingertips.

I want him. After everything, after all he's done, I still want him. I hate that.

Anger surges through me, and I push him roughly. Harry falls to his side, sprawled across the floor, blinking up at me. I move over him on my hands and knees. We'll do this on my terms. "Hands on the floor."

Harry lets his arms fall back. He takes a breath.

"Shut up," I say before he can speak, and he closes his mouth. I jerk his jeans off. His pants follow. I don't bother to be careful; he winces as the elastic catches on the head of his cock. I look at him, stretched out beneath me. The last time I saw Harry naked he'd had his prick stuffed up Smith's arse. My fingers tighten on his hips, and he shifts beneath me. He doesn't speak. He just watches me. It infuriates me that he understands.

Rolling to the side, I slide my shoes off, then push my jeans down, kicking them off with my pants. The air is cool against my aching prick, and when I crawl back over Harry, straddling his waist, my balls drag across his flushed skin. Harry licks his bottom lip, but he doesn't touch me. He knows. He waits, the head of his cock barely brushing the back of my thigh.

I rock forward, just enough to press my prick against his belly. Harry's breath catches. He doesn't move, but his fingers flex against the floor. "Why?" I murmur. My hair falls forward across my cheek. Harry stays silent. The wood of the floor is slick and cool against my palms as I lean over him, one hand on either side of his shoulders, the edge of the Aubusson at my fingertips. His hair is dark against the brown and beige swirls of hand-tufted wool. "Why that little arselicking fuckwit when you had me?"

Harry's chest presses against my thighs as he breathes in, long, ragged. He exhales slowly, his eyes fixed on me.

"Why?" I ask again, my mouth hovering over his, my voice soft. Harry's thick, black eyelashes flutter shut for a moment, and then he's looking back up at me again.

"Because you scare the shit out of me," he whispers. His words are a soft huff against my lips. "You always have."

I freeze. Harry stares up at me, eyes soft and dark in the shadows. "That's not an excuse," I say roughly after a moment.

Harry's knuckles brush my hip before his hand drops back to the floor. "It's not meant to be."

I close my eyes against the swoop of headlights through the sheers hanging over the bay window. Brakes squeak, an engine rumbles, drowning out the drunken shouts of disembarking Muggles, and the N31 bus continues down Kensington Church Street towards Notting Hill Gate.

"Draco," Harry says hesitantly. I open my eyes.

"I truly hate you sometimes," I say, and I despise the crack in my voice. Before he can answer, I'm kissing him again, angry and quick, and then I pull away, shifting so my knees are at his shoulders. I sit back on my thighs, holding my cock in one hand, the other resting on the side table. I press forward, rubbing the head of my prick against Harry's mouth.

Harry licks the tip, then sucks at it with an eager groan. My fingers clench at the base. He's good at this, knows exactly how to lap at the underside, how to slide my foreskin back with his tongue, how to press my prick to the ridged palate behind his teeth, making my thighs tremble as I push in further before pulling back, my cock slipping slick and red between his lips.

He's always liked the way I taste, always been eager for my cock in his mouth. He sucked me off once in the toilets at the Leaky Cauldron, on his knees on the filthy floor, his tongue lapping at my slit. I can still feel the cold tile against my back, the slick porcelain of the urinal under my palm. Finch-Fletchley had walked in on us and Harry hadn't stopped; he'd just sucked harder, pressing my hips against the wall and swallowing me so far down my knees had nearly buckled. I'd come hard, bent over him, my hands twisted in his shirt, and fast enough that he'd not been able to choke it all down and my prick had been smeared with come as it'd slid in and out of those perfect lips.

I moan softly at the memory, barely holding myself up as I fuck his throat. His mouth is wet; I can hear him gag when I press in too far, but when I shift, he catches my hips, holding me still, buried deep inside of his mouth. A shudder runs through me, and I can almost smell the stench of flat beer and old piss again. I run my fingers through his damp fringe, pushing it back from his forehead. His scar catches the lamplight, a pink-white flash on his golden skin.

When I pull away, my cock bobs wetly in front of Harry's face. "Don't," he protests, voice raw, leaning forward to catch it in his mouth again. I hush him, my fingers against his lips. He nips at them. "Christ, you're beautiful."

The compliment—or perhaps the sheer lust with which he's looking at me—makes my cheeks warm. I still won't forgive him though. Not yet.

A whispered spell, taught to me by my great-grandmother on a stormy night in my childhood, produces a fat paraffin candle, the kind we'd light at church to pray for my grandfather's soul. It smells faintly of sandalwood and rose attar, wick flickering orange-blue as it hovers beside us. Harry glances at it, then back at me. A small smile curves his mouth, and I frown at him as I slide off him. I sit cross-legged by his hip, my cock jutting up, my balls resting on one foot.

I fish my wand from the pocket of my discarded jeans and point it at Harry. "Incarcerous." Thin silver ropes catch his hands, binding them to the floor. "No touching until I say so."

"Kinky," Harry says. I pinch his thigh. Hard. It only makes his prick jump. Bastard. Another flick of my wand and a blindfold wraps around his eyes.

I drag the blunt curve of a fingernail over Harry's hipbone. "Any objections?"

Harry tests the ropes. He can move his wrists an inch or two. "No." He flattens his palms against the floor, expectantly.

I hesitate. My hand rests lightly on Harry’s stomach. “You do remember your safeword, yes?” I feel foolish asking. Still. It has been nearly a year. For me at least.

“Patronus,” Harry says and he smiles again, softly this time, and I know he’s given me control of this. Of us. A shiver runs through me. It’s been too damn long. My anger fades, for a moment at least, and I’m stunned to realise I’m suddenly fucking terrified.

I raise my hand. It only trembles for a moment before I steady myself. I want to do this. I need to do this. I close my eyes and think of Harry in our bed with that sniveling cretin. My chest tightens. Bastard. With a twitch of my finger, the candle tips. A tiny amount of clear wax splatters across one of Harry's nipples and he hisses.

The wax cools on his skin, clouding and thickening, before I reach over and flick it off with a thumbnail. Faint pink blotches the brown aureole. I stroke it gently. "Does it hurt?"

Harry arches against the feather-light touch. "A little."

"Good." I pluck the candle from the air and run my palm over the small flame. It heats my skin for a moment, sends tingles sparking across my fingertips.

Harry tenses as I straddle his knees. I run one hand up his thigh, stopping to cup his balls. They're firm and tight in my fingers, the skin softly furred and dimpled against my thumb. His breath comes in sharp, short gasps. "I'm angry with you," I say quietly. I let a few drops of wax hit Harry's inner thigh. He bites his bottom lip as they roll across his skin, but he doesn't move.

"You should be," he says. "I was a fucking shit."

My fingers slide up the underside of his prick, nails light against the vein. His skin is hot and slick. "Tell me why you did it."

Harry hesitates. I grip his prick harder, tighter. His forehead furrows over the blindfold and his jaw tightens.

"Tell me," I say sharply. I tip the candle again, and a thick stream of wax strikes the skin above Harry's hipbone. He jerks beneath me and I move my hand from his cock. He groans and presses his shoulders into the floor. His cock bobs hard against his belly.

Harry breathes out. "We'd been arguing, you and me. You know that. Jesus, you can be such a shit when you want to be. And he was there. And he—" Harry rolls his head back, his jaw jutting up, his throat stretched long and gold in the flickering light. Shadows pool in the sharp angles of his clavicles. I can see him swallow. "He wanted me," he says finally.

My fingers tighten on the candle. "I wanted you."

"You weren't acting like it." Harry turns his head away from me. His mouth trembles, then twists.

I know he's right. We'd been arguing so much. He'd wanted more from me. Wanted things I couldn't give him. A family. A home. I had my duty, one I'd been raised to accept. I'm the last Malfoy. The line can't die out with me. I'd never let it. I can't.

Harry'd never been able to fathom that. It didn't matter to him that he was the last of the Potters. That's not what family was, he'd insisted. Names don't matter. Lineage doesn't matter. He'd never quite understood that for me it all does.

I drag my fingertips through the cooling wax on his hip, smearing it across his stomach. It's thick and greasy and warm, and I can see the pink of Harry's skin as I leave fingerprints in the creamy, slick indents. The wax covers my hand, slips beneath my nails. I smooth my fingers down over the base of Harry's cock, and stroke my thumb up his shaft, pulling it back from his belly. It's heavy in my palm. Harry stills beneath me, then his legs shift, his breathing catches. I lower the candle, let a few more clear drops spatter just above the crisp tight curls. They roll into the dark hair. Harry's hips arch up as he groans.

"Please," he whispers, and he catches his lip between his teeth. His nipples are hard and pebbled; a faint sheen of sweat covers his chest and shoulders. He splays his fingers against the floor, pushing himself up ever so slightly. The silver chains bite into the skin at his wrists.

I peel away the wax on his hip; he gasps. It stings just a bit, I know, and I lean down and lick lightly at the pink skin. It tastes acrid, greasy. Harry shivers as the tip of my tongue traces along his hip. My hair catches on the head of his cock, and he bucks up, slamming into my teeth.

"Please," he says again, almost brokenly, and that's my undoing.

I blow out the candle and set it aside, hand trembling. A curl of smoke drifts up from the black wick, disappearing into the darkness above us; wax drips, pooling on the floor. I don't care. Instead, I Summon a phial of oil from the bath, grateful when my voice barely shakes, although I very nearly don't catch it as it zips past. I pour a small amount over my fingers, then reach behind me.

"We're going to fuck now, Harry," I choke out. I slide one finger into myself, and it's all I can do to keep from coming right then.

Harry presses a foot into the floor. His knee bumps my hand. "Christ, yes," he says. I ride my hand, pressing another finger in, then another, and Harry breathes out. "Let me see you."

It takes a moment for me to remember the spell, but the blindfold finally slithers off into the shadows beneath the sofa and Harry blinks up at me. His mouth parts; his tongue sweeps over his lip as he watches me with my fingers up my arse, stretching myself, my stiff cock bobbing against my belly. His fingers, hands still held back by the chains, brush against my knees. I groan and spread my thighs wider. I want him to see this. I need him to see this.

When I pull my hand away, we're both gasping for breath.

Harry's eyes are dark and bright. He presses one knee against my arse, shifting me closer. "Fuck my cock, Draco."

It's not a request I want to refuse.

I hold his prick, my eyes fixed on his as I slowly, carefully press back onto it. I slide slowly down, taking him into me, and I can see the flutter of his pulse in his throat. His lip trembles; his fingernails dig into the floor, leaving faint indentations in the gleaming beeswax over the worn planks. I barely have the head of his cock in me and already I'm stretched. I've missed this, missed having him inside of me, missed watching the want and need and lust flit across his face as I press further down.

And then he rocks up, lifts his hips off the floor, and to hell with taking care. I slam down, crying out as his cock fills my arse. I need this. I want this. Want him.

I catch myself on his stomach, one hand over the other, and we move together, pressing against each other roughly. My cock bounces between us; my balls slide over his skin. I spread my knees as wide as I can, not caring that they ache on the hard floor. All I want is to feel Harry inside of me, thrusting, fucking, taking me—

With one rough jerk, Harry rips free of the chains constraining his wrists. His hands catch my arse, dig into my skin, rubbing, pulling, tugging me into each quick shove of his cock.

"Oh, God," I moan, turned on by the magic it takes to break that binding spell, and I lean down to kiss him eagerly. I love Harry’s magic. I’ve always loved it, nearly as much as I loved him. It’s primal. Uncontrollable, almost. No one in the wizarding world is as powerful as Harry Potter, and the very fact that he would choose me—Merlin. How can I resist that?

Harry chuckles, deep, and in a moment I'm on my back and he's over me, his fringe in his eyes, a bead of sweat rolling down his temple. I can't stop myself from licking it away. It's salty and musky and I brush my mouth against his damp hair, drag my fingertips over the slick, hot skin of his shoulders. Another rough thrust and I arch against him, flexing my toes, then digging my heel against the floor, the better to roll my hips into Harry's next press.

Our gasps fill the room. My arse aches, burns and there's nothing better than that, nothing I want more than to feel Harry, to move against him, my flushed skin sliding over his, my cock pressed between us until there's nothing else in this world but him and me, and God, faster please, Christ—

Harry grabs my leg, pulls it over his hip and I cry out, a sharp keen as my head falls back, my throat exposed, and Harry's teeth scrape across my skin there as he slams into me again, lifting me off the floor with each quick shove of his hips.

I'm close, so close, and I want—oh, God, I don't know what I want. To touch him, to have him touch me. For this never to end. For everything to be the way it was, before. To come. I flail out with one hand, slapping my palm against the floor, and I barely notice the sting or the twist in my shoulder as Harry rocks into me again. The muscles in his arm clench and release; his eyes are glazed; his breath comes in short gasps.

"Harry," I say. "Harry, oh Harry—" My hand slides between us. My fingers curl around my prick. I jerk, roughly, matching his strokes, and all I can see are his eyes—God, so green, so green, so very Slytherin green—and the shock of messy black hair that falls into them. "My Harry—"

I tense and groan and catch his arm with one hand, digging my nails into his skin as my other hand tugs at my cock, and with a cry, toes curled into the fringe of the rug, I come hot and sticky over my fingers.

My heart thuds. I gasp raggedly, sucking in air that burns my lungs. My hand slows, smears come over heated, stretched foreskin. I can still feel Harry in me, his thrusts erratic as he groans against my cheek. He turns his head, and our mouths meet again. Desperate. Hungry.

"Come on me," I whisper against his lips, and Harry shudders, his shoulders tensing. He pulls out of me; I feel bereft until he straddles my hips, his cock in one hand, and I grab his thighs. "Yes." I smooth my palms over his skin. "Yes, like that, Harry. Please."

Harry's head falls back. His fingers pull his prick. I love the way they move across his reddened skin, love the way they pull back his foreskin so I can see his slick knob, wet with lube and pre-come. His thumb sweeps over the head and comes away damp.

"Please." I tug at his hips. I do this to him. Me. I’m the one he wants, the one who has in thrall the Boy Who Lived. There’s no magic, no power quite like this. It takes my breath away. "Please, Harry. Now."

He groans and twists his palm down his shaft. "Draco—" He lurches forward, catches himself with one hand next to my shoulder. His cock slaps against my stomach. "Oh, Christ. Christ." One more quick tug and he comes, splattering over my belly, my chest, mixing with my own spunk. I tangle my fingers in his hair and pull him into a long, deep kiss.

"Draco," Harry says, and he's collapsed on me now. I can barely breathe. He bites my lip, sucks it for a moment before he slides off me and pulls me up against his side as he grabs the nearest bit of clothing and wipes it haphazardly over my stomach. The gesture pleases me until I realise he's used Blaise's shirt. I've no idea how well a cleaning charm will work on silk. Brilliant. I suppose I'll have to twist one of the Manor elves' ears next Sunday dinner.

Harry tosses the shirt aside--silk, you Philistine, I want to cry but I know him well enough to recognise it's a lost cause that will earn me nothing but a blank stare—and he wraps his arms around me; I press my face into the curve of his neck. We lie silent for a long moment.

"I still haven't forgiven you," I murmur into his skin. "Just so you know."

Harry laughs softly and his fingertips trail down my spine. "I wouldn't ever assume." He flattens his palm against the small of my back. He'd held me this way nearly every night before we'd fallen apart, except when we'd fought, and even then I'd wake up to him tangled around me half the time. It'd disturbed me at first, Harry's need to touch and to be touched. Malfoys are not exactly demonstrative in a physical manner.

I brush his fringe out of his eyes and trace a knuckle across one brow. Harry closes his eyes as I drag my finger down the bridge of his nose and over his lip. He smiles against my fingertip, kisses it before turning his head to look at me. "I'm sorry. Zacharias...." He sighs. "Horrible mistake. Even Ron told me off for that. He said Zacharias was only interested in what I was, not who I am."

"Did he?" I raise up on one elbow. "For once the Weasel shows a modicum of sense."

Harry settles his hand on my hip. His thumb strokes tiny circles across my skin. "He thought I cocked up with you."

I press my lips together. "Now you're just tweaking me."

"No, really," Harry says, an amused lilt in his voice. "Ron made it rather clear I'd been a right shit to you and that you weren't—and I quote—a completely awful sod of a nancy ponce, even if he still thinks you'll probably try to hex me in my sleep one night."

"That sounds more like him." I slide my leg over Harry's. "I could, you realise. Hex you."

Harry snorts. "I fully expect you to."

I let him kiss me before I pull back. I sit up, wrapping my arms around my knees. "We're not just falling back into this," I say finally. "Not after..." I look away and rub my palm over my kneecap.

"Yeah." Harry pushes himself up. He leans against the back of the armchair, cross-legged, his teeth worrying his bottom lip. His shoulder gleams in the lamplight. "I'd like another chance though."

It takes me a moment to answer. My chest is tight, my throat dry. "Why?"

Harry reaches out, but he drops his hand before he touches my face. I'm disappointed. "Why do you think?"

"I don't know." I can't look at him. I don't want to look at him.

"Come on, Draco," Harry says quietly. He pushes himself across the floor towards me, his thighs on either side of mine, and presses a knuckle to my chin, lifting it. Our eyes meet.

There's a rattle at the door, and it flies open with a crash, bouncing off the wall. Pansy stumbles in, Blaise draped over her shoulder. He's kissing the nape of her neck; they both laugh as she swats his hand away from her breast. And then Pansy draws up short, her eyes narrowing. She raises an eyebrow at me. "Well, well," she says, and Blaise lolls his head in our direction.

"Nice prick, Potter."

"Fuck off, Zabini," Harry says with a faint smile, and Blaise smirks at us both before Pansy tugs him towards the stairs. His hand slides up the back of her skirt, ruching it up. I catch a glimpse of lace knickers and pale white arse. Pansy's good night, darling drifts back from the upstairs hall, suddenly cut off by a thud and a low, gasping moan. I roll my eyes and look back at Harry.

"That's what you'll have to put up with, you realise," I say.

His mouth twitches. "I think it's worth it." He curls his fingers around mine. They're thick and blunt at the tips. Very Harry. I stroke my thumb over his knuckle. "Draco," he says in a rush, "I love—"

I stop him with a kiss. "Don't." I'm not ready to hear that again. I can't. Not yet.

Harry nods. His hair falls into his eyes. "All right."

"One day, then another." I press my forehead to his. My fingers skim his jaw. I wonder what I'm letting myself into, wonder if I'll be hurt again, wonder if it matters. Harry's breath is warm against my mouth and I shiver. After all this, I still want him.

Harry cups my face in his hands. "All right," he says again, and my heart flips. I don't care if this is a horrible idea. I've missed him.

I swallow and touch his wrist, pulling his hand away, pressing my mouth to his palm. "Upstairs." The floor's hard and cold and I want my bed. I scoop up my wand and Summon Harry's glasses. He slips them on, blinking, and we stagger to our feet. Harry catches me as I sway forward.

"Careful," he says. His hands steady me, linger on my arms. I close my eyes and lean against him for a moment. He's solid. Harry. He'd always made me feel safe, until...

I look at him. "Fuck up this time," I say quietly, "and I'll saw your prick off with Pansy's nail file."

He nods, hiding a smile.

"I mean that," I snap.

Harry holds out his hand. "I know."

I curl my fingers around his. "You're still a bastard."

"Yes, I know." He starts up the stairs. "Is it too late to say happy birthday?"

"It'd be très gauche." I glance back at the clothes scattered across the floor. Sod it. They can wait until morning.

Harry stops and turns. Even though he's a step above me, we're still on eye level. He brushes my hair back from my cheek. Honestly, he's so bloody maudlin at times. "I hope it ended better than it started," he says softly.

"Somewhat." I turn my head into his touch. "Although I suppose you'll take credit for that too, yes?" At Harry's raised eyebrow, I snort. "Really, I'd say Pansy's more responsi—"

Harry shuts me up with a kiss. I grab his arms to keep from falling down the steps like a fool. When he pulls back, I'm breathless and he's a ridiculously smug expression on his face. Arsehole. We stumble down the hall, stopping every few feet to kiss against the wall. I can't seem to get enough of the way he tastes.

"I think I want to fuck you against the headboard." Harry drags his mouth over my shoulder. He ponders, his hand sliding down to cup my cock. I can't bite back my moan.

Part of me suspects I've lost my mind. Again. I've no idea if this is going to work. I'm still not certain we want the same things, Harry and I. I don't really care at the moment, not when Harry has me pressed against my bedroom door, kissing me until I rut up against him, hard as a fucking rock. This? This part of a relationship we've always been bloody brilliant at.

And that, I think, scrabbling desperately behind me for the doorknob as Harry's fingers wrap around me, is more than enough.

For now, at least.

I close the door behind us with a laugh.