starfire

It wasn’t their first evening together, Harry knew better than to have a first or second or even third date in a public place. Unlike Draco, he was used to the papers sticking their long, unwanted beaks into his personal affairs. But it was their first outing together, and though he’d warned him, he saw the impact the article had on Draco the next morning, saw his beautiful, pale eyes follow the shit it spouted across the front page and tense up.

He sighed, leaning against Draco’s side, his naked chest brushing against Draco’s work shirt, and read over his shoulder. Rubbish, speculation about the nature of their outing, but nothing incriminating. Not really. He kissed Draco’s shoulder, nuzzled it.

“I’m sorry it has to be like this,” he murmured against his skin.

“Nonsense,” Draco replied, sounding as though he was trying to convince himself. “It’s not your fault, and it doesn’t even say anything of substance either way.”

With a flick of his wand, the paper went up in flames.

The second time was no different. A blurry picture of them having coffee, Harry nodding, tipping his cup into his mouth, Draco gesturing with his hands as he recounted something or other.

Harry Potter sharing coffee with ex-convict Draco Malfoy, read the headline.

“I was never convicted,” Draco muttered over breakfast the next morning, his tea gone cold from how long he’d spent reading and rereading the bullshit article. It wasn’t funny, but Harry huffed a laugh anyway. After a beat, Draco joined in. It was ridiculous, after all.

“They have no clue what they’re on about, as usual.”

He transfigured the paper into a napkin, used it to dab his mouth and threw it away, after. Draco smiled.

The third time, having caught them leaving Gringotts together, the paper ventured a guess.

Potter and Malfoy to become business associates, details on page 9.

This time, Draco laughed first.

“Did you know,” he asked against Harry’s lips after their good morning kiss, “we are to open a bar together?”

It became a thing. Every single morning after they went out, without fail, there would be something, Harry’s blurry profile, Draco’s fringe just about visible through a window, both of them caught mid-argument in Harry’s box at the Quidditch stadium, getting into Ron’s car together, walking Diagon with the back of their hands brushing. All full of wrong speculations, making up alleged business ventures, or implying Draco was broke and in need of Harry’s charity, or once, famously, suggesting Harry was to marry Draco’s distant cousin, which required them to draw up a marriage contract. They had a field day with that one.

The final time, nearing Christmas time, Harry spotted the reporter right as they were about to set up a camera, so he drew Draco in by the lapels of his jacket and kissed him right where they stood, outside Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, leaned heavily into him, palming his side.

The next day, the article was only half coherent and had a lot of exclamation marks. Draco laughed so hard he had to clutch his stomach, wipe tears out of the corner of his eyes.

“You’ve put history behind you,” was what a reporter said to Harry when he found him walking his crup the next morning, shoving his wand-turned-microphone into Harry’s face. “Aren’t you worried about public outrage? What people might think about this relationship?”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said around his cigarette, barely glancing at the camera. “I think you’re mistaking me for someone who gives a fuck.”

He can count on one hand the amount of things he owns now, ever since the trials left him pretty much on the street, couch-surfing amongst his friends, passed around like a strange, prickly artifact none of them know what to do with. He’s never quite figured out how to be nice, how to sand down his cutting edges — never known how to be bearable, even, never had to. All of his life, he relied on external factors to make people like him, and now they’re all gone, all his things are gone and he’s too much. Too much to deal with, even when he’s trying not to be.

Too much at Pansy’s, when he’s trying to make breakfast and nearly burns down her kitchen, too much when he’s shopping for groceries and the mothers at the market cover their children’s eyes so they won’t catch a look at his branded arm, too much when he’s working his disgusting job cleaning a withering pub, which earns him barely enough to feed himself. Definitely not enough to buy anything to add to his astounding collection of belongings.

In truth, he owns five things. The first one is the ugliest cat in the world, which saw him once in the back alley of the fucking pub he cleans and plastered itself to his leg, refused to let go. His most prized possession. The second are the clothes on his back, the nice trousers and shirt he’d been wearing the day of the trials, before losing everything. The third is his one other change of clothes, his work uniform. The fourth is his mother’s emerald locket, kept safely underneath one of Pansy’s sofa cushions, for when Draco is forced to sell it.

The fifth is a napkin. Not even a nice one, just a regular paper napkin, nearly torn, creased from the countless nights Draco has spent folding and unfolding it.

Inside the napkin, in smudged black ink, is Harry’s number.

And perhaps it’s worth it, the whole thing, the having-nothing thing. The day Harry walked into Draco’s godforsaken pub and sat at a table to plan his lessons, the world shifted on its axis, rearranged itself a few degrees to the right, and Draco honestly started thinking perhaps it’s worth it.

When Harry saw him, that first time, his green eyes opened wide like saucers. Surprised, not displeased. “Malfoy, you work here?”

Draco thought to deny it but, right then, one of his hands held a mop, and the other a bucket. His cheeks burned with shame. “Yes.”

They talked. Nothing much — an update. Harry was working at a primary school, he said, teaching children how to control their accidental magic. And, “I’m just here,” Draco said, when Harry asked him what he did with his time.

There was a smile there somewhere, in the beautiful tanned face. Before leaving, Harry grabbed a napkin and wrote down his number. “If you ever need me, or ... or maybe just want to chat. You can call.”

Draco owns five things, and none of them is a cell phone. He said as much when Harry returned a week later and asked, half hurt, half joking, why Draco hadn’t called.

“Oh,” Harry replied, perplexed.

He returned the next day.

Now they talk, most Wednesdays. Harry shows up and talks, and in between sweeping the disgusting floor and wiping down the equally disgusting tables, Draco talks too. He’s still too much, still as unbearable as he always has been, but it almost seems to be the thing that makes Harry like him. It certainly appears that way, when he doubles over, a hand to his belly, a boisterous, carefree laugh flying out of him after Draco makes a sarcastic comment. It’s odd. It’s nice. Draco is not nice, but this is.

He can count his belongings on one hand. He changes houses every couple of weeks, moves from Pansy’s to Greg’s to Blaise’s and back again. He works in a shithole. His parents are dead.

He’s happier than he’s been in years.

There’s a can of coke he keeps next to the locket, now, with the top cut out. In it, there’s a roll of 5 pound notes that he’s been saving. He thinks he might have enough to buy a cell phone in a few more weeks, or a meal for two, and a bus fare to the local primary school.

Harry. Love. Dearest.

I once believed you were flawless, free of sorrow and vices. That was a version of you I thought I knew: a mountain of a man whose nearness I could only crave and never have. I’ve seen over the years that the truth looks a little more like this: flaws aplenty flaws aplenty — your true vice is goodness.

You have been proving me wrong since the very day I met you, but I was right about one thing: your nearness does make me feel like I’m flying. (Too cliché? It’s the truth though)

I’m a coward. I’ve never been brave. When I’m with you, it almost truly feels like that doesn’t matter.

I’m always barefoot and unbalanced, and yet I’m staying, with all my doubts, and leaping. (Does this metaphor make sense? It does to me)

I remember you asking after that first night who the fuck I was trying to fool by pretending we were going to be casual, and the fear and elation that ran through me in equal measure (doesn’t quite feel like we’re in the anecdotic portion of this speech yet)

If I had to find a reason why you’re the one for me, I would say

Sometimes there isn’t a reason, things simply are. The way water flows and spring spreads its arms to become summer, there is no other place where I belong. The space between your open arms is home.

You make me feel real.

I remember you asking after that first night who I was trying to fool by pretending we were going to be casual, as though you and I could ever be anything but entirely serious about each other, in any capacity. (Much better here)

We’ve inhabited this desire for years, side by side. Let’s make it our permanent home.

You already are my permanent home. (Expand)

I want you. I want you while I’m having you. There’s not been a single day in the past fifteen years in which I’ve not thought about how much I want you. (Too transparent maybe. Or not. He’ll love it.)

I love you. I’ve loved you since before I even understood the meaning of that word.

I love you. And unlike you, I don’t love every damn thing on the planet.

“What was going through your mind when you spotted the Snitch?”

Two camera shutters go off like lighting, but Draco doesn’t blink. It’s almost the end of the season, and he’s done a press conference every week. He’s used to them.

“Fucking finally,” he answers, and the journalists all laugh. They think he’s joking, and he can already imagine the articles they’ll publish tomorrow pronouncing him cheeky and funny, but he means it wholeheartedly. Six hours in the sky, drenched all the way through his pants in rainwater, and facing the very best player in the league? He had half a mind to jump off his broom if only to have the game end somehow.

“This is the second time you face PU and well, Harry Potter, this season,” says another reporter, a young, pretty woman with her hair pinned up and a reverent tone when she speaks Potter’s name. Like everyone. “Are you expecting to encounter him at this year’s Cup? And if so, how does that make you feel?”

Draco breathes out hard through his nose. Across the room from him, sitting at his own table against the wall opposite, Potter’s doing his own press conference. He’s wearing a hat backwards, the light blue of his team hoodie contrasting with his golden-warm skin tone. He has a hand to his chin, rubbing his short beard in thought at some question he’s being asked. Probably about just how sweet it had been to snatch that Snitch right from under Draco’s nose. He’s earnest and so gorgeous Draco can’t stand the sight of him.

“The game is the game,” Harry’s voice carries, clear and chesty, deeply masculine as he says his favorite little quote that means absolutely nothing and that fans have been yelling and tattooing on their bodies the whole season. “We don’t take any victory for granted. Coach has been running us to the ground, she won’t stop until we have that trophy in Puddlemere, and we’re doing our best to make her proud.”

“Oh, I’m certain we’ll face them at the Cup,” is what Draco answers at last. “Honestly? I think no other team comes even close. We’ll face them, and then we’ll bring the Cup home to Appleby. As Potter himself likes to say, the game is the game.”

All the cameras around him go off, the sound of Quick-Quills scrabbling and the reporters’ scandalized gasps at his use of Potter’s quote. He grins, puts his olive green Arrows cap on and stands to leave. He needs a fucking shower.

Later on, he’s sprawled on his hotel room couch, drying his hair with a towel and watching a replay of the game on the enormous television, making mental notes about his own flying, his mistakes, the times he dove too soon or hovered too low. When the screen follows the blue jersey with POTTER 7 emblazoned across the back, he looks closely, trying to spot mistakes but knowing he won’t find any. Potter’s probably the best flier of the century, and Draco loves Quidditch too much to lie to himself about that.

He’s admiring one of Potter’s physics-defying feints when there’s a knock on his door. Immediately, his heart takes up a gallop, and he has to press a hand to the center of his chest with a frown.

“Calm the fuck down, Malfoy,” he mutters. It’s a disproportionate reaction and he’s irritated with himself for it. It’s not as though it’s the first time. Or the tenth.

He pauses the game with a flick of his wand and makes his way to the door, through the archway that separates the TV room from the kitchenette. A quick look at the archway across the suite to make sure the bedroom is as he left it, and he’s at the door, taking a deep breath.

Potter’s grin is huge when Draco opens. He’s foregone all his team outwear, and is now in a familiar, worn leather jacket and a black sweater. His hair is wet, as though he rushed after his shower so he could get here quicker. Draco opens his mouth to say something, but before he figures out what, Harry pushes inside, turns around and presses him against the door, big hands gentle on Draco’s waist. Draco’s heart hasn’t gotten the “this isn’t the first or tenth time this happens,” memo, and is still running a marathon inside his chest, so he says nothing.

There’s a plastic bag in Potter’s hands. Dinner, probably, he usually brings dinner when they meet after a game. His wide smile reveals white teeth, a crooked canine that Draco knows is a baby tooth that never loosened. Round, stylish glasses cover the most intoxicating green eyes Draco has ever seen, and they’re shining with tonight’s victory. And Draco might be — definitely is — the world’s sorest loser, but he’s also the world’s biggest slut for Quidditch excellence, and he has it right here, holding him against his hotel room door.

“The game is the game?” Harry asks, amused, already leaning in, the hand on Draco’s waist moving to wrap the whole way around him and pull him close.

“Just some stupid phrase I’ve heard from a dickhead,” Draco answers, but the words hold the shape of a smile and are uttered right into a kiss there at the end.

It’s always a race at the start. They're both high from the game, still in that mindset, and it’s a competition to see who can undress quicker, who can make the other harder, who can earn the first moan and coax the first orgasm of the night. But after that first one, after Draco’s jaw aches dully and Potter is softening between his legs, everything slows down a little. Potter helps him up and they share the tacos Potter brought, watching the last minutes of the game they played earlier with Draco’s legs up on Potter’s lap, where he’s massaging his knees, his quads, making sure he’s not achy from kneeling for him.

“I really fucked that one up,” Potter comments. His tiny self on the screen just pulled out of an impossible dive at what looks like a 90 degree angle. He sounds earnest, which is the only reason Draco isn’t kicking him right in his beautiful face.

“I hate you so much. Only you would call that a fuck up.”

Potter hums, his massaging hands moving from Draco’s calf to his heel, his thumb pressing into his sole. On the screen, tiny Draco swerves a Bludger aimed to his head, and his teammate Owen is flying to him to make sure he’s alright.

“That guy is so into you,” Potter points out.

“I know. We fucked all through rookie year.”

Potter turns to look at him so fast it must hurt his neck. Draco raises an eyebrow, confused at the strong reaction.

“What?”

“I — I don’t know,” Potter says, suddenly sheepish. His hands haven’t stopped moving over Draco’s foot. Potter’s skin is dark, but Draco can still make out the blush spreading across his cheekbones. “Isn’t it weird? He’s a teammate.”

There’s something he’s not saying. It’s evident in the way he bites his bottom lip, in the way he obviously wants to look away but is too ridiculously brave to actually do it. Draco’s heart thumps inside his chest, so hard he’s sure it must be audible to Harry too.

They’ve never named this thing between them. The first time they did it, after the quarter finals one year before, with Potter’s ill advised kiss that ended with them fucking in the showers of the stadium after Potter had wiped the damn dust with Draco on the pitch, they agreed to keep it quiet, and that was the last they discussed of it. It’s going on fourteen months since then, and they’ve done it at least once a month, when the league brings them to nearby towns, and sometimes when it doesn’t and they take a quick midnight Portkey to each other to blow off some steam.

Draco had never in his life been as well-fucked as he’s been this past year, and he definitely doesn’t want to lose it. Potter’s always been honest and open with him, vocal in bed about how much he wants him, filthy in his occasional text messages when they’re apart, but he’s never given any indication that he wants anything other than exactly what they have.

“It’s not weird,” Draco says slowly, unsure of what to think of this exchange. “We stopped a while ago. I was clear that I didn’t want — that I’d rather we stayed friends and teammates, without any complications.”

“Right,” Potter says. He sounds relieved, and Draco feels like he’s three steps behind the conversation they’re having. He’s about to ask, but Potter’s fingers on his calf smooth over an old knot and he groans instead, letting his head fall back onto the couch cushion.

“That feels great,” he says, and Potter repeats the motion.

“Yeah. I think you pulled it when you made that X turn.”

The turn he made to try to beat him to the Snitch, he doesn’t say. How he had enough awareness to know Draco attempted it while diving for the Snitch himself is beyond comprehension, but Draco has long accepted that Potter is simply insane about the game. He notices everything, considers everything, takes every risk. If he weren’t a player himself, Draco knows he would be following Puddlemere and Harry wherever they played for the entire season, wearing a pale blue jersey with the number 7 on it.

“Probably,” Draco says, closing his eyes and groaning again when Harry keeps pressing the same point. After a moment, he feels something softer brushing his calf, and opens his eyes to find Harry bent over his leg, kissing a path up towards his knee. He can’t help the embarrassing little sound he makes, and Harry’s laugh is a puff against his skin as he keeps moving up, breath warm on the wet trail of his kisses up Draco’s thigh. In the background, the presenters are going crazy over a feint Harry pulled, the sound of the audience carrying all through the stadium and out of the TV speakers.

Harry has made his way high up and is kissing Draco’s birthmark, a brown, apple-sized beauty mark an inch below his groin when he lifts his head to ask, “Why didn’t you want to?”

Draco can’t believe he’s using his mouth to speak at that moment. He licks his lips, trying to make sense of the question.

“What? What are you even — ?” He tries to sit up a little, but Harry moves over him instead so they’re eye-level without Draco having to move at all.

“With Caddell. Why didn’t you want to keep seeing him?”

“Owen? Why the fuck are we talking about —,” Draco lets his head drop down onto the cushions again, a sigh punched out of him. Harry takes pity and leans forward to kiss him, lips soft over Draco’s, knowing exactly how to coax his kisses out of him the way he likes best.

“I just want to know,” Harry whispers against his lips. He’s breathless just from touching Draco, from rubbing his legs, from kissing him. Fuck, this is insane.

“I like him, but it wasn’t very exciting.” Draco says. He closes his eyes as Harry begins to kiss down his neck, and tries to really think about it, because he’s not even sure himself. “I wasn’t willing to risk our teamwork when what we had wasn’t even that … electric. I don’t know. This sounds insane.”

Harry shakes his head, his beard rubbing against Draco’s collarbone. “It doesn’t. I get it.” He bites on the delicate skin connecting neck and shoulder, licks a path down his chest. “I get electric.”

“Fuck yes you do,” Draco says, nonsensical, but he feels he can’t be blamed when Harry is brushing his lips over his nipples, broad hands moving around Draco’s body to secure a grip over his ass.

“Is this?” Harry asks, mouth nearing the V of Draco’s hips, the edge of the trail of hair leading to his crotch. “Electric?”

Draco swears, fingers running through Harry’s hair and finding a grip, hard. “If you don’t put your mouth on me right now I swear I — yes.”

He spreads his thighs to accommodate Harry between them, one hand gripping Harry’s hair and the other curled around the cushion over his head. It is electric, the way Harry knows exactly which buttons to push, sliding a finger inside him while keeping him on his tongue. He’s a prodigy in this too, the star player who knows every move in the playbook that is Draco’s body.

It feels like no time at all, no effort at all before Harry is pulling back, dragging Draco closer by the waist and working himself inside. The feel of it, the sound of them together, the look into Harry’s open gaze, his sweat dripping onto Draco’s chest and his hands underneath Draco’s back, holding him, pulling him onto him, have Draco nearing release almost too fast for his liking, but the night is young and it’s been so long that he lets himself go, a cord snapping in his core, eyes open as he watches Harry watch him come apart.

“Come on,” he says once he’s come down, lifting his hips, shifting his weight onto his shoulders. “Show me what you got, Potter.”

Harry groans and leans forward, kisses Draco’s jaw and his neck, and drives his hips faster. Draco wraps his arms around Harry’s back, moves with him as much as he can in the tight embrace, and remains close as Harry meets his own peak and tumbles down the edge.

They lie together for a couple minutes afterwards, panting into each other’s skins, basking in the afterglow.

“Some pro-athletes. We have the stamina of two eighteen year old virgins,” Draco mutters into Harry’s hair after a while, and feels Harry’s chest rumble with his laughter. The room is cast in the warm glow of the foot-lamp that stands beside the sofa they just fucked in, exactly like two eighteen year old virgins having the chance to touch for the first time in their lives.

Harry always goes boneless and slow after a good lay, so Draco eases him off his body with tenderness, a gentle hand to Harry’s chest, followed by a kiss.

“Let's go to bed, yeah?” He whispers.

Harry groans. “I don’t want to move.”

“That’s too bad, because I’m exhausted and I’m going to bed. Some idiot drove me to the ground on the pitch today.”

He stands up and shakes out his legs, testing the soreness of his muscles. There’ll be an ache tomorrow, but nothing he can’t handle.

Despite his complaint, Harry is already standing up too, coming up behind Draco, a hand finding its way to the flat of his belly, his forehead on Draco’s shoulder as though he can’t bear not to touch him for even a second.

“Bed it is,” he declares against the skin of Draco’s shoulder, sounding halfway asleep already. Draco huffs a laugh and pulls him towards the bedroom, pausing at the kitchenette to grab two glasses of water that he watches Harry drink in three gulps, a couple drops sliding down the sides of his mouth, into his beard and down his neck, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“What?” He asks when he catches Draco watching him, and Draco shakes his head and pulls him to bed. He’s so handsome it’s genuinely upsetting sometimes. Draco thinks he’d throw a tantrum about it daily if it weren’t for the fact that he gets to touch him.

They try their best, but they don’t manage a second round before their eyes fall shut, tucked into each other like two hands cupped under a stream of water, tumbling into a satisfied, exhausted sleep.

Harry wakes him with a kiss before daybreak, the last of the night chilling the room and puckering Draco’s skin.

“Do you have to go already?” Draco asks, one eye still closed and a hand curled possessively around Harry’s bicep, not entirely on purpose.

Harry shakes his head, kisses him again with a gentleness that is meant to go nowhere but extend this kiss, warm and sweet.

“I thought we could talk.”

Draco is nodding before fully grasping the meaning, but even once he does he’s not tempted to back away. Must be the night, still cocooning them, must be Harry’s arms around him that are making him brave, but he’s not nervous anymore, not now that he’s remembered what they’re like, together.

“It is electric,” he says, suspecting that’s what Harry wants to talk about. “It’s always electric with you.”

The smile blooms slowly, lighting up Harry’s face from within, his beautiful eyes, unhidden this early in the morning, his glasses still on the bedside table. Harry sits up a little, clears his throat. It seems like he’s been gearing up for this, he’s squaring his shoulders the way he does before trying a dangerous feint, before performing a play that will have Draco biting dust. This insane, wonder of an athlete. Draco forces himself to shake the last of the sleep away, to focus on him, on what he wants to say.

“I know that … so many of us want you,” Harry starts. “On your team, on mine, the whole league, actually. But I —”

He looks like he’s stating an absolute truth, like he has irrefutable proof, and Draco is taken aback. He knows some of the guys find him attractive, but that’s not the same as being wanted. He shakes his head. “What? Where did you get that?”

“I’ve talked about it with the guys, but that’s not the point,” he adds hurriedly when he sees his eyes widen. Draco hasn’t said a word to anyone, not out of shame, but out of sureness that they were sneaking around, that they were making it a point to hide. Apparently, he was wrong. Harry continues, “What I want to say is … I know we’ve not agreed on anything, that you’re free to want others, be with whoever you want to be with. I thought that you knew where I stood, that if you weren’t saying anything it was because you didn’t want the same thing I did, but it’s been brought to my attention that if I’ve not made an honest offer, I can’t assume you’re saying no.”

Draco’s heart is hammering inside his chest, inside his throat. He doesn’t want to jump to conclusions, but if he’s right, it seems Harry is saying …

“I don’t want this to be a once a month thing. I want to bring you home, I want you to meet my family, and I want the guys to know that I’m saying no to all the people they set me up with because I’m taken and completely uninterested in anyone else. Are you … is that something you want, too? I know you might have better offers, but I – ”

The covers crinkle under Draco’s knees as he sits up, throws a leg over Harry’s body so he can fully sit on his lap and brings him forward by the neck.

“You beautiful idiot. What could be a better offer? Why would I care about any other offers when I have the best one right here?”

They’re kissing, and Harry’s gasping, and Draco’s frenzied heart pounds against his sternum. He nods into the kiss, feels dizzy with how much he wants what’s being offered. Fuck. There’s nothing he wants more.

Harry pulls back a little, whispers: “Does this mean we’re — ?”

“Yes, fuck. It’s — The game’s the game.”

“What — That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Shut up. It’s your quote.”

Then they’re laughing into a new kiss, and it’s not the first, or even the tenth time they’re together like this, but Draco’s heart still goes crazy for this man, for his unlimited talent, his openness, his electric company. Quarter finals are coming up, then semis, then they might meet again on the pitch and Draco might lose and throw a strop and want to tear the hair out of his head over the beautiful Quidditch Harry plays, and then they’ll get to go home and celebrate a victory. No matter who takes the trophy. That’ll be the game.

Which one’s your favorite Draco?

along each garden wall, a harry/draco fic by oflights, COMPLETE.

Summary: Draco has to have a baby (or have one on the way) at the time of his fast-approaching 35th birthday, or he's going to lose his home to his vile cousin. Harry offers to help, but their complex past—even beyond Hogwarts—prompts Draco to set out on a long journey of friendship, kittens, gardens, motorbike rides, and more.

Featuring: mpreg (rather a large theme), friends to lovers, draco in denial, harry very obviously in love, extremely pro-abortion sentiments and discussions, portkeys to paris, an extended malfoy family i had a blast making up, a full cast of animal characters, kiki's delivery service references, demon spawn, gratuitous descriptions of harry being a thirst trap on a motorcycle, ginger kittens, a house-elf who only cooks weird pregnancy cravings, a fake art thief, extensive discussions of sperm, perhaps an unsurprising breeding kink, and buttons.

Word Count: ~61k. 🙅🏻‍♀️

Notes: i'm beyond explaining my word counts lol, they are ridiculous. but i had lots of fun with this one, and i'm so excited for you guys to read it! thanks to everyone for cheering along as i've posted snippets 💚🌳

“I always thought they were grey,” Harry whispers, propped up on his elbow, one hand holding himself up, the other with a thumb to Draco’s cheekbone, to the corner of his eye. His palm is warm on Draco’s jaw, matching the heat coming in through the balcony, warm with what they’ve just done.

Draco hums, shakes his head. Noses Harry’s palm. “I don’t think grey eyes exist.”

“I mean, if you’d asked me this morning I’d’ve said yes.” His voice hasn’t quite shaken the gravel it gained in the last half hour, and a small laugh bubbles up in Draco’s chest at it, puffs out against Harry’s hand.

“Should I be offended you’ve not paid as much attention to me as I have you? I could pinpoint the exact color of your eyes in one of those palette guides, and be right.”

Harry leans closer, hums a small, pleased sound against the curve of Draco’s jaw. “Mmm, you’re obsessed with me.”

“Yes, surely I am alone in my obsession. Surely it wasn’t you who came up to me and —“

“Okay! Okay, fine.” He laughs, a rich, lovely sound that drowns out the melody of the night outside Draco’s window, the song of the crickets, the low hum of the wards — that swells, extends over itself before cutting off entirely when Draco closes his eyes to savor it. “No, open them. I want to look.”

He opens them. Harry’s eyes on his feel like something physical, a caress that lights up a path down Draco’s spine. He feels himself blush hotly, crimson up his neck, up the apples of his cheeks, can’t do a thing to stop it.

“Well?” He asks, embarrassed.

“Blue,” Harry whispers. “They’re light blue.”

“Hmm. Like ice.”

Harry shakes his head, earnest, blinking slowly, as though tired, as though aroused. “Like the sky, when you fly so high you forget how it feels to touch ground. Pale blue, bleached out by sunlight.”

The blankets over them feel like too much all of a sudden, and Draco shakes them off with a swift jostle of his legs, looks at the ceiling, at Harry’s throat, anywhere but his eyes. When he replies, it’s quiet, small into the space between them. “Okay.”

“You’re blue here, too,” Harry continues in a whisper, the hand cupping Draco’s face moving, the tip of his pointer finger tracing a soft, crescent path underneath his eyes. “You’ve been working too hard.”

“Crimes won’t solve themselves.” He protests, feebly. Harry doesn’t seem to hear him. Instead, his gaze is fixed on his own hand traveling lower, two fingers grazing Draco’s Adam’s apple, his clavicle, the point where it meets his biceps, and down, down, down his arm. They come to rest at the crook of his elbow.

“And here,” he says, watching with rapt attention, fingers to his pulse point, the blue veins visible through pale skin. Then, he looks up at him, searches his gaze. “You’re blue here, too.”

Draco’s breath is high on his throat. “Yes?” He asks, just something to say.

Harry smiles. “I like blue.”

And for all their touches, for all their banter, for the year of mean flirting that’s gotten them here, it’s as much of a confession as if he were saying the real thing.

i stay 

Drarry - 9k - The darkening sky is dangerous for the shape of Harry’s desire, it makes it seem reasonable, as though it were a natural conclusion of having Draco once again within reach, rather than the mirage it actually is.

Hi, I wrote this for @tackytigerfic for the Wheel Of Drarry Mini Exchange. It’s a fic about reunions, about coming from entirely different backgrounds and it not mattering one bit when gravity itself brings you together, about building. The whole time I was writing it I kept having flashes of it in this cinematic way (with bloom by the paper kites playing in the background) and I decided to make that the graphic theme for it. Hopefully this looks a little bit like how the fic feels. 

If it sounds like your thing, I’d appreciate it if you gave it a shot. Love you all.