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Draco Malfoy drove a Bentley. It was a boat of a car and he was terrible at driving it, swerving in traffic and yelling at pedestrians who crossed his path. He could have had a chauffeur, but he chose to drive it himself, baldly, confidently, the way he did everything else.

He lived in a massive old house in Chelsea that was fully restored, with hardwood floors in a herringbone pattern and a gorgeous kitchen addition on the garden level done in carrera marble. It was the kind of house that was passed down in families or otherwise cost a fortune for some new-money wanker with something to prove. Draco paid for the house in cash. He brought the money to the closing in a valise. The estate agent’s eyes nearly fell out of his head when Draco started counting out the neat bundles of bank notes.

The story made local Muggle news– Eccentric Pop Star ‘Dragon’ Brings Suitcases of Cash to Home Purchase– referring to Draco as a pop star named Dragon, because that’s what he was, or at least what he was trying to be.

He hosted shows at the house, and played clubs and music halls.

“Don’t you think it’s weird,” Harry asked Hermione. “Malfoy pretending to be a musician? He must be using some kind of spell.”

They were standing in a crush of people at Camden Palace while Draco shredded onstage wearing nothing but tight black leather trousers, his chest bare and glistening with sweat.

Hermione shook her head. “I don’t think he’s pretending.” She gestured around the room at all the people dancing and singing along. “He was never so powerful, to be able to convince all these people.”

***

There was an interview in a music magazine where Draco told the reporter that he sang as a boy in the choir at a very posh and ancient boarding school, and had taken music lessons with a private tutor since he was three.

“I’m telling you, something’s off here. There was never a choir at Hogwarts,” Harry told Ron and Hermione over breakfast, tossing the magazine down on the table.

“Fli’ wi’,” Ron said, through a mouthful of sausage.

“What?” Harry tried not to gag.

Ron took a big gulp of coffee. “Flitwick. He was the choir director. They always sang on Halloween.”

“I never heard a choir singing at Hogwarts,” Harry said, feeling betrayed.

“Well, you were often busy,” Ron said kindly, patting Harry’s shoulder with his free hand, and stabbing another sausage with the fork in the other. That was true. Harry had been very busy. But now he wasn’t. Now, three years since the end of the war, he barely had anything on, which was what he preferred.

The days passed Harry by in a slow steady drip. He saw his friends. He played pickup Quidditch and drop-in Gobstones. He went to the pub. Sometimes, he helped Ron and George at Wheezes, stocking things in the back to avoid causing a commotion among the customers. Very occasionally, and only under duress, he went with Hermione to her office in the Ministry where she worked on Kingsley Shacklebolt’s team to shape legislation for the newly re-made wizarding world.

Harry’s days were quiet by design. Not like Draco, who was very busy and had somehow persuaded two Muggles to be in a band with him.

Draco had a band and he had groupies. A gaggle of beautiful women led by a Muggle named Anya who had a tumble of dark curly hair and deep brown eyes, and called everyone Darling.

Harry met Anya the first time he snuck into one of Draco’s house parties. She smeared glitter onto his cheeks and gave him a tab of something that revealed the shape and colour of the music as it floated out from the amplifiers at the edge of the makeshift stage.

He danced with Anya and her friends for hours and then fell asleep on a small settee in Draco’s dining formal room. In the morning, she came to wake him and gently throw him out of the house.

“I’ll figure you out,” Harry called over his shoulder to Draco, who had appeared while he made his way out the door. It was probably the first full sentence Harry had spoken to Draco since the war.

“I’m an open book,” Draco called back, spreading his arms wide. He was shirtless again, wearing only a pair of silky green boxer shorts and a gold lamé robe, which was fully open, the tie dragging through sticky puddles of who-knew-what from the night before.

Maybe Draco didn’t own any shirts.

Old London houses could be dark and miserable, but here the mid-morning light came in nicely through the gap between the open double doors, and it shone on Draco in a way that softened his sharp features, bathing him in warmth. The gold dressing gown was ridiculous but in the light it became buttery and sumptuous, rich against his skin.

Arousal sparked low in Harry’s stomach and heat pooled in his groin, his cock threatening to chub up against his inner thigh. There was glitter on Draco’s chest, and his nipples had hardened in the cool breeze that flowed through the doorway. Harry swallowed. He didn’t know what was happening to him. Draco’s nipples were so pink and small and hard. He wanted–

“We’ll see you soon, Harry darling,” Anya said, popping up from behind Draco, like a chipper pestilence. “Come back any time.” She reached forward and closed the door with a thud.

***

“Who does he think he is?” Harry groused to Neville, as they lay on a sunny patch of grass in the back garden of Grimmauld Place. “Buying mansions with cash and driving that car. I worry about the car. He’ll probably only hurt her in the end.”

“Her?” Neville asked. He sounded sceptical.

Harry paused to take a hit off the joint they were sharing, inhaling deeply. “That car is baby blue and all curves. Definitely a her.”

“Uh, not to be an arse, but you also have a fancy old London house,” Neville said, taking the joint from Harry. “You literally have Malfoy’s ancestral house. And you don’t even live in it.” He gazed up at the dilapidated facade and shivered. “I don’t know why you keep this place.”

Harry shrugged. “Maybe I keep it so you can use the greenhouse.”

Neville smirked and toasted Harry with the end of the joint. “Thanks for that, of course. But, you know I could probably grow this stuff somewhere else.”

“I’m keeping my options open,” Harry said, his mind flooded inexplicably with images of Malfoy holding an electric guitar, looking like a real arsehole per usual, but in a new way, not in his old, Malfoy-ish way. Harry started to giggle, and then Neville joined in without asking why they were laughing. Soon, he would reach a casual hand towards Harry’s flies, which was something new they had been trying out, only when they were stoned, since Ginny had decided she didn’t want either of them after all. Harry quickly forgot what had been so funny with the insistent friction from the rough pad of Neville’s thumb, the calluses on his palm.

***

“Remind me again why you’re going back?” Hermione asked Harry when he left Gryffindor pub night early to Apparate to Chelsea.

“I’ve got to get to the bottom of this,” Harry said, zipping up the leather jacket he’d found in an old cedar chest at Grimmauld Place.

“He’ll get to the bottom, alright,” Seamus muttered, just loud enough for Harry to hear.

Harry flicked him on the ear.

Draco’s party that night was very good. Harry made his way past the bouncer in the invisibility cloak. Malfoy played a long set with his band and then a DJ took over until the wee hours of the morning.

Harry let himself get very drunk on the free-flowing liquor, telling anyone who would listen that he was only there to “investigate” which was definitely a mistake because at least three people asked if he was a cop and one tried to throw him out a French window. He managed to get away, running upstairs and away from the revellers.

Most of the upstairs rooms were locked, but one of the doors gave way and opened into a dim bedroom where a man was on his knees, his face buried in another man’s crotch.

Harry’s body flooded with heat. He was dizzy from all the alcohol and running away but maybe also from something else. The man on his knees let the other’s cock slip out of his mouth, and sat back. The moonlight coming in through the window shade caught his hair, which was blond and fine and–

Harry’s heart thudded, beating a bruise on the inside of his rib cage. The man on his knees was Malfoy, kneeling in front of a Muggle named Eric who hung around with Anya and the other groupies. Eric reached a hand out and cupped Malfoy’s cheek, drawing him forward again.

Harry blinked twice. The scene in front of him did not dissolve like a dream. Malfoy sucked cock. That seemed like something important. Something to commit to memory, even through the very definite possibility that he was going to black out before the morning.

In the morning, Harry woke in a cramped position in an unfamiliar room. His mouth tasted like death and his head was pounding, but he got up quickly so Anya couldn’t find him and throw him out again.

The kitchen was a modern addition to the back of the house, with a ceiling that was really a two story skylight, making the room into a conservatory. The grey light of a cloudy morning made the air soft, like a caress, and Harry wondered briefly if he was still drunk when he sensed it against his face.

He helped himself to a glass of water, opening all the cabinets until he found what he needed, and then turning the carefully patina-d tap at the sink. The taps in Harry’s flat were responsive to magic. He could use a spell to change the temperature of the water and when the magic was working well, there was water hot enough to make tea without a kettle. Sometimes, if the flat was up to it, he could coax fizzy water, scented with cucumber.

Draco’s kitchen was gorgeous, but it was very obviously not magic. The metal of the tap was dead beneath Harry’s fingertips, and all of the appliances hummed with electricity.

“You’re still here.” Draco’s voice floated in from the doorway. He was shirtless again, wearing purple silk boxers that had tiny mother-of-pearl buttons down the fly. He held a mug of coffee that smelled divine.

“You’re still filthy rich,” Harry replied, eyeing those buttons. The marble of the kitchen island was a soft matte finish. He stroked it gently. Forget the obvious lack of magic, it felt like money.

“So?”

Unbidden came an image of Lucius Malfoy, rotting away in Azkaban. “I might have imagined something else.” Harry paused. “If I thought of you at all.”

Draco let out a huff of a laugh. “And you think I spent the last three years wondering what the famous Harry Potter was doing?”

“No, you’ve been too busy tricking Muggles into believing you’re in a band.”

“I am in a band,” Draco said, exasperation creeping into his voice and rounding his shoulders into a tired comma.

“Sure you are,” Harry said, not really wanting a fight when he was so miserably hungover. “Whatever you say.”

Draco glared at him.

Harry could hear the rising hum of voices, people in other parts of the house waking. The sound of Anya wishing someone good morning came in from the hall.

“I’ll just see myself out then,” Harry said, reaching into his pocket for his wand so that he could Apparate home. “Quick and easy before Anya comes to throw me–”

“Don’t,” Draco said loudly, starting forward so quickly that his coffee sloshed over the side of the mug. “Not in here.”

Harry considered Apparating anyway, just to piss him off. Draco must have sensed this and lurched closer still.

“You’re fucking crazy, mate,” Harry said, holding up his hands. Draco’s eyes were huge in his head, and his chest rose and fell rapid fire with his breath.

Harry backed away into the hall and then when Draco didn’t follow, went out the front door alone.

***

The only other person who seemed to agree with Harry that Draco was Up To Something was Narcissa Malfoy. It wasn’t a strong vote of confidence to find himself so firmly on her side of things.

“Have you heard from my son?” Narcissa asked Andromeda. They were having tea in Diagon Alley. She wore large sunglasses indoors, as if that might disguise her, but there was no mistaking a curtain of white blonde hair and a spine so straight it looked like it might crack from the stress of holding her up.

Harry hid behind a display of Rooibos tisane and strained to listen.

“Everyone’s heard from Draco these days,” Andromeda said, breaking off a piece of biscuit and dunking it in her teacup. “He’s a star.”

“Is he?” Narcissa said in a faint voice that was laced with disapproval.

“Your son, a star to the Muggles,” Andromeda said, laughing to herself. “I mean, really, who would have thought?”

Narcissa wasn’t laughing. “He won’t answer my owls. He hasn’t been home in months. I hardly know–” she broke off. Her voice had begun to shake. Harry’s stomach flipped over. He tried to creep out of the shop unnoticed.

***

The next time Harry saw Draco was at a Muggle charity ball. Harry was invited, along with Kingsley, as a thank you for their protection of the Muggle PM during the war. Only the very inner circle of the Muggle government knew who they were and none of them knew what Harry had done or how close things had been to falling apart completely.

Draco was there because he had purchased a table by making some extravagant donation to the charity of honour.

“I’m here to figure you out,” Harry lied when they ran into each other at the edge of the dance floor.

“Please let me know when you do,” Draco replied, waltzing on by with one of the groupies he must’ve brought along to fill the table. He wore a velvet smoking jacket without a shirt on underneath and trousers that flared out wide over his dress shoes, like he’d travelled back to 1968 and stolen them off Ringo Starr.

“Ridiculous, no-shirt pretender,” Harry muttered to himself.

“What was that?” a man with a camera asked, leaning over to take a picture of Draco through a telephoto lens.

Harry stalked off without responding. He spent the rest of the night angrily sipping G&Ts while Draco swanned around the room, making charming small talk and accepting thanks for his generous donation.

There would likely be photos of him the next day in the society papers, which was exactly the sort of thing Draco Malfoy had probably always wanted. They would just be the wrong sort of papers. Muggle papers.

Harry thought back to Naricssa in the tea shop, her lips trembling as she spoke of her son. He swirled his glass, which had been reduced for the fourth time to ice and watery gin. This charity ball was the opposite of Ministry events where no one ever left Harry alone and he had to hide in the coat closet to drink in peace.

He knew that if he had another drink, then he would need a cigarette and then a slice of pizza. His tuxedo shirt itched. Kingsley had abandoned him ages ago to go chat with the Muggle Minister for Transport Systems who was prettier than Harry and in a far better mood.

Harry only needed a few seconds to find his overcoat and leave out the back door of the hall. In the alleyway, the night air was cool and damp. Harry leaned up against the brick wall of the building and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, Draco had appeared, standing just outside the door, his shiny blond head dwarfed by the enormous collar of a fur coat.

“Oh.” Draco’s eyes flicked over Harry. “You’re not here for–” he paused, as though whatever part he was leaving unsaid should be obvious.

“For what?” Harry asked, feeling stupid.

Draco twisted his head around towards the doorway. As if on cue, a tall older man came stumbling out, grinning at Draco.

Harry’s stomach swooped.

“Is he here to watch?” the stranger asked, pointing at Harry. “‘Cos I’m fine with that.” He leaned up against the wall next to Harry and jutted his hips out towards Draco. “Maybe,” he said to Draco, starting to undo his trousers. “You can take care of him next.”

Draco’s nostrils flared and he breathed in deep. Harry’s heart stopped. For all that Draco had become strange and unpredictable, it was unimaginable that Draco would do this, that he would go to his knees on the dirty ground and nuzzle his face against the stranger’s cloth-clad erection, all while Harry stood stock-still, watching him.

“Mmm, that’s nice,” the guy said when Draco took him into his mouth.

Draco’s eyelashes made pretty half-moon shadows against his cheeks as he dutifully sucked the man off. Harry realised he was hard, the arousal coming on sudden and strong; he couldn’t resist pressing the heel of his hand against his cock, the delicious pressure making him weak behind his knees.

The stranger came quickly, tapping Draco on the shoulder as a warning and then spilling over his own hand. “You’re good at that, Dragon,” he said, tucking his limp prick back into his pants. He smiled lazily over at Harry. “You should let him get you off.”

Harry’s fingers were frozen, clutching his erection through his trousers. Draco eyed him narrowly from the ground. The air between them was charged, heavy with implication and history and arousal.

The stranger must not have sensed it. After a moment where no one moved, he pushed off the wall and said, “My wife will be wondering where I’ve got to.” He raised his eyebrows. “You boys have fun.”

Draco’s lips were parted and he was breathing shallowly through them.

When Harry finally spoke, his voice was rough. “That gets you hot? Sucking off married men in a dirty alley?”

Draco swallowed. His adam’s apple bobbed up and down the long, pale column of his throat. “Yeah,” he said. “So? You liked watching it.” He nodded at Harry’s crotch, at the way his trousers were so clearly tented.

Harry could feel the weight of Draco’s gaze on his cock, as though he was really touching him.

“Get your prick out,” Draco said.

“What?”

“Get it out,” Draco repeated. “I want to see it.” He motioned for Harry to come closer.

Harry moved to stand in front of Draco. His fingers shook as he undid his flies.Draco didn’t do anything except watch him at first, rubbing himself gently with his right hand as Harry’s cock slapped against his cummerbund.

Harry’s cock pulsed and pre-come beaded at the tip and he pressed the waistband of his pants down below his balls. Draco took in a sharp breath. He seemed to be waiting for something. For permission, maybe.

Harry nodded in disbelief and said, “Go on, then.” The heat and friction of Draco’s tongue made him light headed with pleasure. Harry knew from watching Draco with the stranger that he could take a cock deep, and he pressed forward, biting back a moan at the wet fluttering of Draco’s throat.

“Fuck, Malfoy,” Harry said. “I’m so fucking close already.” Draco didn’t pull off like he had with the stranger, letting Harry come on his tongue.

Harry slumped against the wall. Draco wiped delicately at his mouth with the back of his hand. He had swallowed. His cheeks were very pink and his forehead shone with sweat. Harry reached for him.

“Do you want me to get you off?” Harry asked. He hauled Draco up to his feet, pulling their bodies together. When he got a hand in Draco’s pants, they were already wet.

“I couldn’t help myself,” Draco said quietly, his mouth very near Harry’s ear. He gasped slightly when Harry fondled him anyway, his softening cock very hot and swollen. They stayed like that for a long minute, leaning all over each other, catching their breath.

Harry couldn’t quite believe what he had just done. He was still tipsy from all the gin and he wanted to laugh or maybe scream, something big and undefinable welling up inside his body. They broke apart. Harry tucked himself away, not bothering with a cleaning charm.

“Bye, then,” Draco said absently, moving towards the door. His face was curiously blank, like he didn’t know who Harry was.

“You should owl your mum,” Harry called over.

Draco’s lips were still shining and red and they turned down into a delicate frown. “I don’t use owls anymore,” he said, which didn’t make any sense. He opened the door, and then hesitated, as though he would say something more. Harry waited. But when Draco finally spoke, all he said was, “The girls will be wondering where I’ve gone.” And then he went back inside.

***

After that, Harry thought maybe he had got Draco out of his system. A weird one-off sparked by too much alcohol and an otherwise boring night. Maybe it didn’t matter if Draco was pulling the wool over thousands of Muggles, posing as a musician. Maybe Harry could just settle back into his own life and carry on as he had been.

“He said that he doesn’t use owls any more,” Harry said to Hermione over fish and chips, a week after he’d been sucked off by Draco in an alley.

“I know,” she said.

“You know?”

“Because you’ve told me seven times already,” Hermione said, leaning over to steal a chip off of Harry’s plate.

He pushed the rest of the plate towards her, hoping that if he gave her the chips, she might let him complain about Malfoy for a bit longer.

“And he wouldn’t let me Apparate inside his kitchen,” Harry continued, even though he knew he’d also said this to Hermione before.

“In a house full of Muggles,” Hermione pointed out, and Harry remembered that she had said that before too. It was a good point.

“He’s not speaking to his mum,” Harry continued.

“Well, maybe there’s a good reason for that,” Hermione said.

Harry sighed and slumped down in his seat. He didn’t think he could say, Also, he sucked me off in an alley, although it might do more to prove his point that something was amiss.

Hermione licked the salt off her fingers and was quiet for a moment. Then, she said the thing that he was dreading. “You know, Harry, you might not be so fixated on this if you had something else to do.”

Harry shook his head. “I’m resting.”

“I know,” Hermione said, soothingly. “And you deserve to rest. But maybe you need to add a little something to your schedule. It doesn’t have to be a lot.”

Harry pressed his forehead to the table. It was a mistake. The table was sticky with some unidentified substance. “I can’t,” he said quietly. “Not yet.”

Hermione reached over and touched his hair very gently, and said, “Alright, Harry. I’m sorry I brought it up.”

***

At the end of the month, wheat paste posters with Draco’s face on them were plastered all around Muggle London. The text across the top advertised an album release and upcoming tour dates. Harry developed an unfortunate stiffy every time he passed one on the street, and then had to go about his day hard, thinking about Draco wearing what must have been wildly expensive trousers, getting his knees dirty on the ground.

“He looks stupid,” Ron said, when they walked past one of the posters by Victoria station. “Growing out his hair like that.” In the photo, Draco’s hair was longer than it ever had been at Hogwarts, almost to his shoulders and parted in the middle.

Harry tried to remember what Draco’s hair had looked like the night they had hooked up and found that he couldn’t. This seemed like progress, to be forgetting things about Draco already.

Eventually, the posters faded and ripped and Harry could walk around again without being shocked by all the blood in his body flowing south. When he had convinced himself that he had got over his encounter with Draco entirely, Lucius Malfoy died in custody.

The Prophet printed a notice at the back of the paper in a small section titled “Notable Deaths.” There was no obituary. It didn’t even say that he was survived by Narcissa and Draco. Just: Lucius Malfoy dead in Azkaban. And then onto the next person.

Like almost everything that Harry did in those days, he didn’t think first. He Apparated to Chelsea and knocked on Draco’s door.

Anya answered. Her bouncy curls had deflated and her normally sunny features were drawn and tired. “Hello Harry,” she said, trying for a smile. “Dragon’s not feeling up to any guests today.”

“He’ll want to see me,” Harry said, even though he absolutely didn’t know that.

“Sorry, darling,” Anya said. “He’s told me to send everyone away.”

“That’s why you should let me in,” Harry argued, nonsensically. “Since when has Draco ever known what was good for him? He’s an idiot. He always has been.”

Anya’s eyes hardened, and her smile froze in place. “I don’t know who you think you are, but it’s time for you to leave.”

She moved to shut the door. Harry stuck his toe in, out of some bizarre misplaced desperation. “Just tell him I’m here,” he shouted through the crack.

Anya wedged his toe out and pushed the door closed. He sat on the stoop for a moment and tried to collect himself. His heart beat rabbit-fast and he didn’t even know why. The curtains by the front windows rustled but nothing else happened.

Eventually, he grew cold and had to move. Down the street there was a pub, and Harry went and ordered a pint at the bar.

“Drinking alone?” a voice asked from behind him. It was Draco, standing a few paces back. “That’s sort of pathetic.”

Harry shrugged. Draco looked very pale. His hair was slightly longer than it had been on the posters and he had scraped it into a tiny bun at the nape of his neck. Some of the front pieces had escaped and fell into his eyes, and across his cheeks, soft, like feathers.

“I heard about your dad,” Harry said finally, after spending a minute just looking at Draco.

“Did you come to gloat?” Draco slid onto the stool next to Harry.

“No,” Harry said. His chest felt strangely tight. “I mean, I’m not sad he’s gone. But I just thought you might want–” he broke off, unsure of what it was he thought Draco would have wanted or needed, much less from him.

“It’s like I told you,” Draco said. “I’ve left all that behind.”

“Yes, I know, you’re not speaking to your mum,” Harry said.

“No.” Draco made a frustrated noise. “Well, yes. I’m not. But it’s not just that. I’ve left it all behind. And they can’t drag me back in.”

Harry wasn’t sure what he meant by ‘it all’. He said, “I think your mum misses you.” Just because he thought Narcissa Malfoy was a bad person didn’t mean that wasn’t true.

Draco sniffed. “She probably does.”

Harry nodded, still confused. Draco called the bartender over and asked for a pint. He drank half of it down before he spoke again.

“I’m off magic forever, Potter,” he said, smacking his lips. “Never again. My life became a thousand times better when I moved on.”

Harry sat unmoving for a moment, his mind agog. “That’s insane. You can’t move on from magic,” he whispered, keeping his voice down in case the bartender was listening in.

“I can do whatever I’d like,” Draco countered. He sat back in his chair and spread his legs, just slightly.

Harry’s mouth became wet with a rush of saliva that felt entirely inappropriate given the circumstances.

Draco’s voice dropped lower and he gazed steadily at Harry. “I really can. You’re into that, aren’t you? It’s driving you mad, that you can’t leave me well alone.”

Harry didn’t want to say yes. He didn’t want to agree with any crazy idea Draco Malfoy had about the world. But some small, inflamed part of him knew that Draco was right. No part of his life resembled what he thought it would look like after the war. He wasn’t an Auror. Ginny Weasley didn’t love him. He didn’t even think he loved her. And then what? What about the two children he was supposed to have, the kids who would call him Dad and go to Hogwarts and have magical adventures of their own?

“Give me ten days,” Draco said. His eyes had taken on a manic quality. “I’m going on tour tomorrow. Come with me.”

Harry realised they weren’t going to talk about the fact that Draco’s father was dead. “For what?” he asked.

“To show you. Ten days without magic. You’ll understand.”

***

Harry went home and pretended to think it over. He knew already what he would do, that he would go back to Chelsea first thing the next morning and see whatever Draco had to show him, but it was nice to act for an evening as if he wasn’t drawn into the strange inexorable magnetism of Draco’s star.

The tour began with two nights in London. In the morning, Draco answered the door in another dressing gown, silver this time, waving away the hulking security guard who was often there for house shows. “Thanks Heinrich, but we won’t need to scare him off anymore.”

“Heinrich never scared me,” Harry muttered, wiping his feet on the mat.

Draco didn’t tell Harry to follow him, but he didn’t tell him not to either. They tramped upstairs to the large bedroom at the front of the house where Draco shed the dressing gown and then shimmied into a pair of tight trousers, which he plucked from the floor.

Harry didn’t watch him change. He had got lots of practice not watching boys change in school. Draco didn’t seem to mind one way or another. He puttered obliviously around the room, finding a brush to yank through his hair and rifling through a large wardrobe on the far wall.

“Alright,” he said, coming up to stand next to Harry by the big bay window. He had put on a shirt, disproving Harry’s theory that he didn’t own any. It was gauzy white and unbuttoned almost to his stomach, open to show a series of silver necklaces that glinted against his skin. Harry shoved his hands in his pockets.

Draco held out a set of keys and said, “You know how to drive, don’t you?”

Harry didn’t. The leather interior of Draco’s Bentley was cream coloured and smooth. The steering wheel was warm beneath his fingertips. Harry had to suppress a moan when he touched it the first time.

“Driving is easy,” Draco said as he climbed into the passenger seat. “And it’s one of the very best things Muggles have developed.”

Harry had promised he wouldn’t use magic, but maybe he could make an exception if he crashed Draco’s car. He knew he shouldn’t drive it, that it might be the Ford Anglia in the Whomping Willow all over again. The gear shift just felt so good under his palm. Like it was made for him.

Draco raised his eyebrows and petted the dashboard. “She’s very nice, isn’t she? Wait ’til you feel how she drives.”

Harry’s prick jumped in his pants. He pictured McGonagall in her nightie, the elderly Muggle Queen. Anything but Draco’s long fingers against that smooth interior.

Draco explained the gas and the brake. He leaned over top of Harry to show him how to roll the windows down. His hair smelled of coconut and tickled Harry’s face.

“Sorry,” Draco murmured when he leand back again, but he didn’t sound it.

Harry put the car in gear and drove slowly around Draco’s block. The accelerator was touchy and each time he pressed a little too hard the car jumped and Draco whooped with delight.

“I think you’ve got it just fine,” Draco said, when they had only been in the car for about seven minutes.

Harry laughed in spite of himself. “Do you? I bet I’m a better driver than you already.”

Draco grinned and raised an eyebrow. “Let’s see then, shall we?” He gave directions from the passenger seat that took Harry out onto a major road, not minding when Harry missed turns or failed to change lanes at the right moment.

“Where are we going?” Harry asked finally, when Draco had him ease the car into a parking spot by a squat brick building.

“Television,” Draco said, like that made any sense. He was up and out of the car before Harry could ask him to explain.

The building was a TV studio. Harry hung around while Draco was whisked away. The halls were nondescript cinder blocks filled with harried looking assistants wearing all black. Nothing glamorous like the stars Aunt Petunia had worshipped back in the day.

Eventually someone noticed him and said, “You with Dragon?”

Harry nodded and was brought to a large room with a stage set for an interview. There was more waiting and Harry wondered twice if he should leave. Then finally, the taping began.

Draco was so charming and lively under the lights. He smiled and joked with the woman who came through to touch up his makeup. He laughed alongside the interviewer, and drank out of the little mug of water when she asked if he was dating anyone.

The leather trousers were narrow and cropped just enough that when he crossed his legs, his ankles were visible. A strip of pale skin between the low socks and hem of the trouser. The knob of bone looked cold and smooth.

Harry stood at the back of the studio among all the rigging, behind the cameras. He couldn’t help bobbing his head along when they played a track from Draco’s new album.

“Are you Dragon’s new manager?” a woman with a clipboard asked Harry.

“Er, no,” Harry said. “We were in school together.” On stage, Draco smiled and fiddled with the silver necklaces.

“How fun!” the woman said. “Old friends.”

“Mmm,” Harry said. “Well, I’m not quite sure about that.”

The woman laughed and gave him directions to Draco’s green room for when the taping was over.

Draco drove them both back to his house. He wasn’t much better at driving than Harry, stomping on the break and leaning his head out the window to signal with his hands. He drove far too fast on the motorway and never held the steering wheel with both hands at the same time, and sometimes used neither. Harry was painfully erect for the entire car ride, hating himself for finding Draco’s terrible fast driving so stupidly sexy.

“What do you think, Potter?” Draco asked breathlessly as he screeched the car around a hairpin turn while six other motorists honked their horns. “Better than flying?”

Harry wet his lips and tried not to shift his hips too much. “I dunno if I’d say that. But it’s something.”

***

Hanging around Draco meant drinking and listening to music and going out dancing with his friends after the show. Draco strictly referred to his friends as Anya and The Girls, although that seemed to include Eric, and some other lads as well. Harry began to doubt that Draco even knew all of their names, which was exactly the kind of prick-ish behaviour he would expect from a Malfoy, only none of the friends in question seemed to mind very much. The bassist and drummer in Draco’s band were both named Christopher, which made it easier to remember, but confusing to discuss them.

“Isn’t he a bit obnoxious?” Harry whispered to one of the groupies, a girl called Julie who often came to the mansion to party wearing tiny outfits and bright red lipstick. It was the afternoon before the first show and Draco was sitting in the middle of the living room on the floor, surrounded by lit candles and expensive flower petals. Every so often, he hit a gong and hummed loudly.

“That’s what makes him so fun though,” Julie said with a giggle. She reached over and tugged at Harry’s collar. “I mean, why else are you here?”

Harry knew he couldn’t explain the real reason: that Draco was supposed to be showing him what a life without magic could look like, only he already wasn’t certain that that was the reason any more.

Draco gave him a mobile phone to use when the band went on the road. His number was the only one saved in the contacts.

“Do you know how to use it?” Draco asked, holding the silver brick just out of reach.

“I grew up Muggle,” Harry said tartly, resisting the urge to lean over and tug the phone out of Draco’s grasp.

“They didn’t have mobiles in the eighties,” Draco said smugly.

“I’m sure it’s similar.”

“Well, feel free to come and ask for assistance.”

“I won’t need it, but thanks for the offer,” Harry said.

“My pleasure.” Draco handed over the phone at last.

***

The London shows were at Ally Pally.

“Big venue,” Harry said when they arrived for Draco’s fitting and sound check.

“Biggest so far,” Draco said. His voice was steady. Casual. Anya came around his other side and squeezed his shoulder, then steered him inside.

Half the clothes for him to try on were ripped denim and the other half were made of Draco-as-Dragon’s signature tight black leather. He stripped unselfconsciously in front of everyone, parading around and striking ridiculous poses in front of the mirror.

“I could mend that big hole for you if you’d like,” Harry said, reaching forward and poking at Draco’s thigh through a large tear in his jeans.

“Not the way I like it, you couldn’t,” Draco said, practically winking as he jogged off to try on the next outfit.

Harry found that he liked to stand in the wings and watch Draco play. He could admit that that was a bit of magic itself, to be still in the cool dark, just out of range of the bright lights, listening to the music swell and crest against the thud of his own beating heart.

All the same, it was sort of difficult to believe that Draco wasn’t using some kind of spell or curse to convince everybody that he was a musician. But given that Harry hadn’t seen Draco so much as touch a wand, let alone cast a spell, the theory seemed impossible to prove. After all, what were the chances that Draco had emerged from the war some kind of genius at extremely powerful wandless magic?

“No magic ever?” Harry asked sceptically while Draco banged around the green room to brew a pot of coffee before the opener was set to go on. Harry pictured his wand, sitting in the bedside table in his flat, which would have got the coffee brewing in half the time it took for Draco to measure out the ridiculous artisanal beans he insisted the venue keep available.

“Never,” Draco said, putting a hand on Harry’s shoulder. His eyes were solemn and wide. “Would I lie to you?”

“Er,” Harry said, having a hard time not focusing on the heat of Draco’s hand through the thin cotton of his t-shirt. “Definitely.”

Draco blinked. “Fair. But I’m not lying now.” He let go of Harry’s shoulder and Harry wished he wouldn’t.

They hadn’t acknowledged what had happened between them in the alleyway on the night of the Muggle gala. Instead, Harry maintained a low, constant buzz of arousal coupled with torturous self-denial while Draco did things like stroke the leather gearshift in the Bentley and touch Harry’s elbow gently each time he wanted his attention.

Harry wished he could say something to someone. But he couldn’t. It had been bad enough trying to explain what he was doing to Ron and Hermione.

“I’m going to be a little busy the next week or so,” he had said over the Floo, without preamble, the night before the whole thing started.

“With…” Hermione had gestured for him to go on.

“A secret project?” Harry’s voice had tilted up, knowing he lacked the confidence to pull off the lie.

Ron had coughed and put out a hand to stop Hermione from going through the fire into Harry’s flat. “Okay, mate. Just tell us if you need help with anything,” he had said, which was truly better than Harry deserved.

“Why let me drive the Bentley?” Harry asked on the second day, when Draco let Harry take the car out for a joy ride during a short break between an elaborate catered lunch at the record label and a pre-show party downtown.

Draco pursed his lips, like he was deciding what he wanted to say. The windows were down and the wind made it so they had to shout a bit to be heard. “You never let me teach you anything, in school,” Draco said finally.

“What?” Harry asked, certain he hadn’t heard correctly.

“I thought–” Draco paused and wrung his hands in his lap. He looked uncharacteristically nervous. “When I was very young, I learned all about you. I knew you had lived with Muggles. I thought I would be the one to teach you everything about magic. About the way the magical world worked.”

Harry gaped at him. “You certainly never gave me that impression.”

Draco turned to face out the window. His neck was very long and tense, the tendons standing out beneath his skin. “Well, it didn’t work out, obviously.”

Harry’s throat itched and he wanted to say something but he didn’t know what. Then, there was the sound of a thousand horns honking at once and he realised he had sailed through a red light and narrowly missed colliding with a taxi.

Draco faced forward again with a wan smile. “See, red lights are for stopping,” he said dryly.

“Thanks, Malfoy,” Harry said. “Very helpful.” His heart was pounding and he stepped on the accelerator again, weaving into the left lane, traffic be damned and let the damp air that rushed in the windows cool him down.

After two sold-out nights at Ally Pally, Dragon was set to hit the road.

“My first tour bus,” Draco said dreamily, patting the side of the shiny black monstrosity, which barely fit on the street outside the Chelsea house.

“Where’s the first stop?” Harry asked. “I can probably meet you there–”

“Oh no you don’t,” Draco said, rounding on him. “You’re travelling on the bus with me. You promised.”

Had Harry promised to do that?

One of the groupies made a jealous sounding cough. Eric maybe. Harry ignored the pleased flush blooming in his chest and shrugged. “If you insist.”

***

The only hard part of the arrangement was Draco’s rule against magic. It wasn’t that Harry found it inconvenient (although he certainly did) or even that he often reached for his wand and found it missing (which also happened quite often). It was the way he could sense magic building up inside of him, pushing at the edges of his body, making him feel blurry and pent up.

On the bus, he tried to make tea with the electric kettle and sparks flew from his fingers at the slightest provocation. He couldn’t twist the radio dial without causing screeching feedback. How did Draco stand it?

They spent the entire day driving to Edinburgh. The band rode on the bus, with Harry and Anya tagging along as well, and a tour manager named Sherry who seemed like she both loved and hated Draco simultaneously– a feeling Harry could relate to quite intimately and so he liked her right away.

When they arrived at last, it was nighttime. Sherry went to get the hotel sorted and everyone else went out.

The group moved to one club and then another, piling into taxis that Draco paid for in cash. Anya produced a handful of pills at the second club, and Harry dutifully opened his mouth.

Out on the floor, Draco was dancing with his head tipped back, the long line of his throat glowing and pale. Harry hadn’t spoken to him since they left the bus.

Whatever Anya had given Harry pulled him along, across the room. Up close, Draco split and fractured into two Dracos. Harry wasn’t sure which was real, or maybe they both were. Both Dracos were better dancers than Harry, laughing when he started to move.

“Still a huge dick, then?” Harry mumbled. He slowed the movement of his hips.

The Dracos nodded and smiled indulgently. “Absolutely gigantic.”

They coalesced into one blurry Draco when Harry came closer and asked, “Why invite me on tour?” even though he knew the answer. Unused magic heated his palms and made them sweat. Or maybe that was the drugs.

Draco draped his long pale arms over Harry’s shoulders. “Why follow me around?”

“You’re acting strange,” Harry said, although it didn’t feel true. He didn’t know how Draco Malfoy acted anymore. “Hanging out with Muggles, never using any magic. Pretending to be a musician.”

“You’ve been to at least three shows now. I’ve seen you watching me,” Draco said. “You still think I’m pretending?”

Draco’s arms were heavy on Harry’s shoulders, trapping him underneath.

“I think all of this is really weird,” Harry said. “And when you act weird…” he trailed off.

Draco sucked on his lower lip, making it shiny and wet and plump. Harry wondered what Anya had given him.

The song changed into something faster, more sparkling. Anya and one of the Christophers were nearby, whirling around in tight circles. Draco finally dropped his arms. “You’re nothing if not consistent, Potter. I’ll give you that.”

***

Draco had a massive suite at the hotel with a living room and kitchenette. Harry was sent to sleep on the pull-out. He lay sweaty and worked up for an hour, sure he could hear Draco next door, shifting against the fancy hotel sheets.

Would it be so insane to go in there and press Draco down against the mattress? They had never kissed, but now Harry was thinking about kissing Draco, about how lovely his mouth had looked all night. Harry’s prick was hard, trapped against the flies of his boxers. He squeezed himself and pictured Draco’s long fingers in his place. It was so easy to do this kind of thing with Neville. Friends getting each other off. Something told Harry that it wouldn’t be so simple with Draco.

In the morning, at the hotel breakfast, Draco said, “Did you sleep well?”

Harry searched his face for any hint that he had heard Harry panting and choking back moans the night before. “Very well, thanks,” Harry lied. After getting off, he had dreamt about Draco fucking him, slow and sure, and woken confused and turned on and unable to sleep again.

The show in Edinburgh went off without a hitch. So did Glasgow, Newcastle and Leeds. Sherry kept everyone on schedule, Anya kept everyone happy and Draco played to screaming crowds of adoring fans. Harry spent an absurd amount of time touching himself on hotel pullout couches. He worried about giving himself a forearm injury.

There was a lot of driving, of napping, of setting up and breaking down stages. Draco made Harry use the mobile phone even though they were rarely actually apart, sending him texts that Harry replied to with few words and terrible spelling, his thumbs clumsy on the small buttons.

At the venues, Harry liked making himself useful. He learned about gaffing and amps and which microphones were intended for Chris the bassist versus Chris the drummer.

“I’m impressed that you picked all this up,” Harry said to Draco while the cables were run for the show in Manchester. He glanced around to make sure no one else was within earshot. “I bet you didn’t even know what electricity was.”

“I didn’t,” Draco said calmly. He had just come from meditating, was still shirtless and barefoot, wearing only soft linen trousers with a drawstring that looked very easy to pull. “In the beginning, I did everything old school. Acoustic and a mic, if the venue had it.”

“Were you er, busking?” Harry had a hard time imagining Draco Malfoy playing music on the street for money. He was so rich, after all. And so… Malfoy.

“Sometimes,” Draco said. “And in coffee shops and at open mic nights. Anyway–” he paused to look Harry up and down. “I’m a quick study.”

Harry’s chest warmed and his head went fuzzy. He longed for his wand. Even just casting a simple summoning charm would make him feel so much better. Draco didn’t look away and Harry decided to take a step forward and say, “In many areas, I can imagine.”

Draco smirked. “Have you been? Imagining?”

Harry’s mouth was very wet and when he tried to speak he started to choke a little, and then Sherry called Draco away to begin soundcheck.

After the show, Harry wished that they could pick up where they had left off but he wasn’t sure how to make that happen. Instead he had too much to drink and then asked Draco, “Are you going to go suck him off in an alley?” when Draco spent more than thirty seconds chatting to the bartender.

“Maybe,” Draco said, knocking his shoulder against Harry’s. He nodded towards the bartender whose back was to them while he fixed someone else’s drink. “Do you think he would go for it?”

“Yeah, probably,” Harry muttered, the liquor making him honest. “Who wouldn’t?”

Draco tipped his head back and laughed, delighted. “Are you upset that we haven’t been messing around?”

Harry grimaced at the dark surface of the bar top. “Upset might be too strong.”

Draco moved closer, his entire body a neat line of heat against Harry’s. He put his mouth very near to Harry’s ear. “For a moment there, I thought you just wanted to fuck my car.”

Harry shuddered, hearing Draco’s posh voice say the word fuck. “I wouldn’t be opposed to that either.”

“You’re a mess, Harry Potter,” Draco said, his breath hot on the side of Harry’s face.

“Yeah, so are you,” Harry countered, although he wasn’t sure that was true.

Draco smiled and hummed. He pushed off the bar like he knew Harry would follow and press him into a dark corner, where they kissed, desperate and open mouthed. Draco wrestled with both of their zippers and then spit in his palm, gripping their cocks together in a tight, wet heat.

“Do you like this?” Draco asked, biting at Harry’s ear.

Harry moaned and said yes.

“Could you come from this?” Draco stroked faster, rougher.

Harry shuddered and bucked his hips and said yes again, his voice wrecked even to his own ears.

***

After Manchester, the band had the day off before the next show in Liverpool. Draco wanted to go see Paul McCartney’s childhood home and no one but Harry was willing to go with him.

The house was owned by the National Trust and had been set up as a museum.

“Do you think humble beginnings make better music?” Draco asked as they stood in the tiny kitchen.

Harry frowned. “Humble beginnings would have probably made you less of a twat.”

“Ouch,” Draco said, clutching dramatically at his heart.

Afterwards, he bought them both ice cream. The sky was grey and oppressive, like there was pavement above and below.

“No one will ever make my childhood home into a museum anyway,” Draco said, licking at the ice cream.

Harry tried to focus on the conversation. “Well, your mum still lives in it for one.” He wasn’t sure that Draco would be willing to talk about this. Whether a strange week spent in close quarters and a handie at a dive bar meant Draco would let Harry in on his private thoughts.

“I wish she wouldn’t,” Draco said, with a dark look at his vanilla swirl.

“No?” Harry said lightly.

“It’s suffocating, being in that house. Nothing good could ever come of living there. Not any more. Some things can’t be fixed.”

“You’re not what I expected,” Harry said, the words bubbling up and out of him before he could stop them.

“Good.” Draco kept his eyes firmly ahead. He stopped walking. They were in front of the hotel. Sherry was visible in the lobby through the windows.

Harry opened the door for Draco and went in behind him. They took the lift together. Inside Harry, there were excess waves of magic crashing and churning. The light above them flickered and sparked. Harry pulled at the strings of magic within him. He could have cast a Lumos Maxima without his wand or the incantation, there was so much of it. Draco seemed agitated, his cheeks flushed with colour.

“Don’t do it,” Draco said. He didn’t have to specify what he meant. It was like he could see inside Harry, into the roiling sea of uncontrolled magic within him. He knew, instinctively, what Harry might do, before Harry had even decided for himself.

“What?” Harry asked obstinately.

“You know,” Draco said, and the strength of his desire for Harry to quell his magic tilted his voice into a whine. The lift dinged and opened. Harry followed Draco down the narrow hall into his room. The door swung open without the key, and a bright light from nowhere cut across the carpet leading to the bed.

Harry held his breath. Draco looked furious, his normally serene features pinched and angry.

“Fine,” Draco said, clearly having some terrible internal debate. He clamped down on Harry’s wrist and dragged him onto the bed.

All of the windows vibrated with accidental magic when Harry got his mouth on the head of Draco’s cock. He took Draco as deep as he could without choking and the sink in the ensuite bathroom began to run, water rushing out clear and strong. After a short while, Draco came with a shout down Harry’s throat, and the bed lifted clear off the floor.

Harry was calmer somehow, on the floating bed. He sat back on his haunches and gazed smugly at Draco, who was laid out against the duvet, his chest heaving as he caught his breath.

“Fuck off.” Draco waved a lazy hand in Harry’s direction.

The smug feeling intensified. “You want me to leave?” Harry asked as he palmed his erection through his jeans.

Draco sighed. “No, I want you to come here.” And he took Harry into his arms.

***

Draco and the Bentley were reunited the next day when the band travelled to Birmingham. Eric drove it up from London on Draco’s request. He looked like a model as he stepped out of the car in front of the hotel, a tight t-shirt clinging to his sculpted chest. As if on cue, the street lamps switched on, bathing him in a puddle of warm light.

“Thanks love,” Draco said, when Eric tossed him the keys.

Something fierce pierced Harry’s stomach. He stalked inside to the hotel bar while everyone else was stood on the pavement, thanking Eric for being so great and bringing the car.

He was nursing his second whisky when Draco dropped lightly into the seat beside him and said, “If you’re drinking, then I’ll drive.”

“Where are we going?” Harry tossed back the rest of his drink and then stood to follow Draco.

“Out.”

“You don’t want to invite Eric?” The words were too revealing and Harry regretted them as soon as he spoke.

Draco turned and raised his eyebrows. “He has other plans tonight.”

In the car, Harry said, “You haven’t exactly convinced me that your life is so amazing without magic.”

Draco squeezed the gearshift. “Haven’t I?” he asked. “Well, you haven’t done anything to convince me that I desperately need to return to the wizarding world.”

Harry leaned back against the supple leather of the seat. “Was I supposed to be doing that?”

Draco’s smile was sharp. “Does this mean I’m winning?”

“Never.” Harry’s blood thrummed and sang. He wanted Draco to pull over so he could go down on him in the car. Maybe the windows would fog up, like in the movies. The air was already humid and heavy against his skin.

“Down boy,” Draco said, sweeping his arm to pull the car messily up against the curb. He was so cocky and so obnoxious. Harry hated himself a little for finding him so irresistible.

They went down a set of narrow stairs and paid a cover charge to a man at the door to a smoky basement, the sound of jazz audible over a murmur of voices and glasses clinking.

“Not your usual type of club,” Harry observed. There was a small band playing on a low stage; saxophone, piano, bass, drums.

“I contain multitudes,” Draco said. “Go get a table, I’ll find us something to drink.”

Harry took an empty booth, brushing his hand on the deep maroon fabric bench seat. On stage, a woman sang beautifully: Don’t you see how hopelessly I’m lost? That’s why I’m following you.

Harry shut his eyes for a moment, then looked over to find Draco at the bar, ordering for them both, like he said he would. Draco liked to do that, to decide what other people would have. But it wasn’t about being bossy or domineering, or maybe not entirely. He wanted to show the lovely life you could have, if you drank the right drinks, wore the right clothes.

“Here you are,” Draco said, sliding a short, sweaty glass across the table to Harry. “Sip slowly, please.”

Harry rolled his eyes and complied. The drink was perfect. Smoky and bittersweet, with a pleasing burn at the back of his throat. He said, “You could make this with firewhisky.” Just to be obstinate.

Draco snorted. “Don’t be daft.”

The band played something faster next, the woman singing lyrics about trains and New York City.

“I might move to New York soon,” Draco said. He crossed one leg over the other. His jeans were ripped artfully at the knee, which was bony and pink. “The music scene there is different. I think it would be good for the band to experience it, good for our sound.”

“I guess it would be easier to hide in New York,” Harry said, mentally calculating how far it would be from London.

“I’m hardly hiding.” Draco flapped a hand. “I’ve been on the cover of Rolling Stone.”

“You haven’t,” Harry said. Surely he would have known–

“No, I haven’t,” Draco agreed with a laugh. “But maybe I will be, and what does that say about the wizarding world that they’re so close minded that no one will see it.”

“You mean your mum won’t see it,” Harry said.

The corners of Draco’s lips turned down in a delicate frown. “I don’t understand why you’re so preoccupied with my parents.”

Harry palmed the back of his neck. “Are you erm, doing alright?” He thought of Draco’s childhood, when he was doted on and cared for like something precious. At least Harry had never experienced that kind of love. He didn’t know what it was like to give it up.

Draco shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Of course I’m doing alright. Leave it to you to be worried about this. You’re unbelievable sometimes. And what about you? I’ve been too polite to say anything but everyone knows you’ve been having a very slow public meltdown for years now, refusing to have a normal job like they want you to, keeping the crumbling old Black house while you live somewhere else.”

Harry began to shred the cocktail napkin in front of him. How did Draco know anything about him? Had he been keeping track of Harry? What did it matter to him if Harry didn’t have a normal job? “I’m resting,” he said. “Haven’t I done enough? Wasn’t it enough to give my life to save the entire world?”

“It was,” Draco said. He rubbed his hand over his mouth. “It definitely was. But are you doing alright?”

Harry didn’t know how to answer that. He tipped his head back against the velvet of the booth and listened to the band play. They had two more cocktails each, and Draco wedged his foot between Harry’s, rubbing his ankle against Harry’s calf.

Since when were ankles sexy, especially bony ones like Draco’s? Harry wondered absently as the sensation sent pleasant sparks of heat down the base of his spine.

Draco withdrew his foot and Harry made an impatient noise at the back of his throat that was horribly embarrassing.

“Do you want to go mess around in the car?” Draco asked. His pupils were enormous, pushing against the grey of his irises.

Harry swallowed hard and said, “Yeah,” his voice low and gravelly. “I want to blow you in the back seat.”

“I think,” Draco said, his face turning a pleasant pink. “That can be arranged.”

They had to origami themselves into a complicated shape that wasn’t very comfortable, but Harry forgot all about that once he got his mouth on Draco. He hadn’t given much head before, only a few times with Ginny and never with Neville, but he was quickly learning that he loved the heavy feeling of Draco’s cock on his tongue, the bitter tang of pre-come making him take Draco harder and deeper, leaving his own mounting arousal trapped and wanting.

He reached down and caressed Draco’s balls, letting a finger wander behind.

“Oh fuck,” Draco said, when Harry’s finger began to make gentle, clumsy circles with just the barest pressure. Pleasure seemed to course from Draco into Harry, or maybe that was magic? Harry didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to stop to try and find out.

He hummed and tongued under the head of Draco’s cock. Draco’s hips bucked and came up off of the leather seat, pushing the very tip of Harry’s finger inside him, and then he moaned and came without warning, striping Harry’s face.

“Shit,” Draco swore. He leaned forward and dragged a finger through the mess on Harry’s cheek. “You look–” He didn’t finish the sentence.

Harry shivered. “Are you going to call me a dirty slut or something?”

Draco slid his pointer finger along Harry’s lower lip and then into his mouth. “Only if you want me to.”

Harry’s heart pounded against the walls of his chest. He did feel dirty, but then so was Draco, lying there in the car with sweat and saliva cooling on his skin. They were always doing these filthy things together. In the alley. At the bar. It made some kind of sick sense. He couldn’t be this way with anyone else he knew.

Harry glanced around. The interior of the car had expanded. Draco could lay back entirely now, his long legs supported by the magically lengthened seat.

“Must have been a good one,” Harry said, nodding at the changed interior. “For someone who has renounced magic entirely, you’re doing some pretty advanced transfigurations. Wandless. Wordless.”

Draco sighed.

“Oh, don’t be cross,” Harry said. He reached down and shimmied out of his trousers and underpants. “Now there’s space for me to do this.” He pushed Draco back and lay on top of him, pressing his erection into the tight space between Draco’s inner thighs. It was something he had seen in pensieve porn. “Is this okay?”

Draco reached back and palmed Harry’s arse, squeezing and then giving it a light smack. “Get on with it, Potter,” he said. Harry began to thrust his hips and was quickly overcome by the heat and the friction, the feeling of being atop Draco, and he came hard and fast, running down between Draco’s thighs and onto the expensive fabric of the seat.

***

The show in Birmingham was the last on the tour. Anya cried a little when the band played their encore, while Harry patted her arm awkwardly and said there, there.

“Back to real life,” she said with a sigh when the lights came on at the end, tinny recorded music floating over the departing crowd from a loudspeaker.

“And, er, what’s that for you?” Harry asked, realising he knew nothing about how Anya spent her days.

“Oh, I’m a barista. Nothing glamorous.” She sniffed. “How about you?”

“Me?” Harry pretended to think for a moment. “I’m, er, between things right now.”

Anya nodded sagely. “Dragon was between things when I met him. Of course, for him, it was more of a spiritual between, rather than financial.” She gave Harry a look. He thought of all the gold sitting in the Potter vaults at Gringotts, accruing vast amounts of interest since his parents’ death in 1981. He briefly imagined saying, yes but unlike Draco, I don’t spend any of it.

Anya must have misinterpreted his expression. She spoke carefully and said, “You know, Harry, darling, Dragon is going to be very busy once the tour is over. Musicians always are. You can’t expect him to be quite so available. I mean, he might be. But. You never know.” Her tone was gentle and practised, delivering what was obviously the regular groupie let-down speech. She was doing her job of getting rid of hangers-on, so that Draco didn’t have to.

“Right,” Harry said. He hadn’t been thinking about what would happen when the tour was over. He had only made plans for the next hour, back at the hotel when Draco would be freshly showered and pink after the show. He had thought about wrapping Draco in one of the enormously fluffy hotel towels and then unwrapping him, like a gift. He wanted to coax as much accidental magic from Draco as possible, to amplify it with his own. Anya was still gazing at Harry expectantly. “That’s alright,” he said. “Thanks for letting me know.”

***

With the tour over, Harry folded himself back into his normal life. He used magic to tie his shoes and brush his teeth. His flat was quiet and stale after ten days spent on the tour bus and in shared hotel suites. In the evening, he put on the Wireless and when that wasn’t enough to fill the emptiness, he cajoled Ron into coming over.

Harry didn’t know if he wanted to go on keeping this thing with Draco a secret. He imagined saying something to Ron like, Isn’t it strange that Draco Malfoy turned out to be kind of sexy now that he’s living as a Muggle? Ron would either be surprised or not surprised at all, and Harry couldn’t decide which would be worse.

“Did you have a nice time on your secret trip?” Ron asked. He had brought a six pack of beer over to Harry’s flat along with Chinese takeaway.

“Er, yes,” Harry said. Ron slurped a noodle and licked his lips. Harry sensed that he was being indulged.

“I think Neville missed you,” Ron said, correctly linking Harry’s absence with his sex life and making Harry regret the time he had confided in Ron about messing around with Nev.

“He said that to you?”

“’Course not,” Ron said peaceably. “But a man knows.”

“Bullshit,” Harry said with a short laugh. “He’s probably already found some recent Hogwarts grad who desperately wants to jerk off a war hero.”

“Hmm,” Ron said. He swiped the container of lo mein from Harry’s lap. “So, what are you, an official groupie for Draco Malfoy’s band now? What would you call yourself? A Dragon-tamer or something?” He laughed at his own bad joke.

Harry aspirated a piece of broccoli, choking exaggeratedly.

“Come on, mate,” Ron said, not unkindly. “Did you think we didn’t know?”

Harry blinked at him.

“Hermione gets all these Muggle magazines. We knew he was on tour, and well, the dates lined up with your little trip, didn’t they?”

Harry nodded. He put his chopsticks down and rubbed his palms against his thighs.

“So are you just doing it for a laugh or what?” Ron asked. “He’s still a rich little shit, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, something like that,” Harry mumbled, uneasy.

“Anyway, we all thought we should go and see him play,” Ron continued. “There are rumours that he’s doing a return to London show at the mansion next Friday.” He said ‘return to London’ with exaggerated air quotes, a bad habit he had picked up from Hermione’s dad.

“We all?” Harry took a long pull of beer.

“Me, Hermione, although she’s been before, everyone from Gryffindor pub night, plus Luna, of course.”

“Of course,” Harry repeated dumbly. His heart beat a little faster at the idea that he would see Draco again so soon.

“You can get us on the list, can’t you?”

“Hmm.” Harry didn’t actually know that he could. Somewhere in his suitcase from the tour was the mobile phone Draco had given him, which was now programmed with Anya’s phone number, Heinrich’s, Sherry’s, the Christophers’ from Draco’s band, and somehow Eric’s, in addition to Draco’s.

***

After mulling it over, Harry found he couldn’t bring himself to call Anya and ask about adding his friends to the guest list for the party, and there was no way he would even broach the topic with Draco. Instead, he snuck past Heinrich at the front door with the invisibility cloak, same as he had done the first time he’d come to the mansion, and then, when the party was really rolling and no one would notice a few more people, he snuck around the back to let everyone else in.

“Nice kitchen,” Ron said with a low whistle as they tramped through, admiring the sleek Muggle appliances and bespoke cabinetry.

“It’s a bit much for one person,” Neville said. “Especially one who probably doesn’t even know how to cook.” Neville lived in a sensible one-bed flat in a wizarding building just off of Diagon Alley, same as everyone Harry hung out with. Everyone but Draco. Although Draco had probably never been sensible about anything a single day in his life, magic or not.

The house was crowded and loud, full of fans and groupies and gawkers. Harry didn’t have to worry about running into Draco with a pack of Gryffindors and Luna Lovegood behind him because Draco was already playing with the band in the large living room on the other side of the house.

“He’s always been quite the musician,” Luna said to Harry in a whisper, when they made their way over.

“How do you know that?” Harry turned in surprise.

“I was in Flitwick’s choir,” Luna said. “Draco was often picked for solos. His voice has dropped now, but he used to sound like one of those Muggle winged children.”

“Do you mean an angel?” Harry asked, but Luna had already wandered away.

The music stopped and then Draco said into the mic, “This is a new one. It’s about good and evil and the transformative power of love.”

Harry’s heart squeezed. Was Draco in love with someone? Had he met someone? Eric was near the front of the room, moving his hips more fluidly than Harry could possibly manage himself. And there must have been other people too, people who Draco hung out with, slept with… Anya had certainly alluded to there being other people. People who Draco would potentially make time for, instead of Harry. Not that Harry needed Draco to make time for him. He just wanted– well he wasn’t sure what he wanted.

Harry chewed on his lower lip. He wanted to find something to drink. He didn’t want to hear the rest of the song. The bar was in the dining room, and he downed three tequila shots in quick succession, each one easier than the previous.

“Harry!” a friendly voice squealed in his ear. It was Anya. “Darling! So glad you made it.”

“Hullo Anya,” Harry said, trying to muster some enthusiasm. The music faded out in the other room and Draco’s voice said, “I’m Dragon, we’re going to take a short break. We’ll be right back.”

He appeared a moment later next to Anya, a red electric guitar slung over his back, the strap cutting across his bare chest.

“The new song sounded so good,” Anya said, reaching over to pat Draco on the cheek.

“What did you think, Potter?” Draco asked. His gaze was intense and inscrutable.

“Er–” Harry didn’t want to admit that he had barely listened to it.

Draco rolled his eyes. “Typical Potter,” he said to Anya. “Never much of a conversationalist, and certainly not about the arts.”

The tequila sloshed in Harry’s stomach. He registered someone placing a hand at the small of his back with the gentlest pressure. It was Neville. He smelled of peppermint and fresh soil. Draco’s expression froze.

“Want to get out of here? No need to hang out with these pricks all night.”

Draco’s face flickered with emotion, his brow knit with confusion for a moment, then smoothed out into placidity.

“Hello, Longbottom. I had no idea it was like that,” Draco said lightly. “How nice.”

Harry’s cheeks warmed. What was there to say? He didn’t owe Draco anything. And there was nothing embarrassing about messing around with Neville. Neville had turned out to be hot. He was a war hero. He was kind and generous.

“Like what?” Neville said from behind Harry, not taking his hand off him. His voice was still low, only now it sounded sort of dangerous.

“Nev,” Harry interjected, not wanting to hear Draco say it for some reason. Because Draco absolutely would. Harry could see the cogs turning in his mind, he wouldn’t hesitate to come out and say Oh just that you and Potter are hooking up, obviously, and then he’d tack on some cutting remark that would probably end in a fist fight.

Neville’s hand pressed harder on the small of Harry’s back. It made Harry’s cock start to swell against his thigh, to be made into a possession like that in front of Draco.

He let Neville frot up against him in the downstairs toilet, crowding their bodies close with Harry’s back to the wall. When Neville tugged at Harry’s hair, he closed his eyes and pictured Draco watching them, dark-eyed, getting himself off. He came hard into his own hand, triggering Neville’s climax as well.

After, Harry drank water directly from the tap.

Neville seemed calmer as he cleaned himself up. “I don’t understand why you hang out with Malfoy all the time.”

Harry shrugged and said, “He’s rich. The music thing. It’s fun. I dunno.”

Neville closed one eye and peered at the curve of the shower head. “He wants you.”

He said it like it was an immutable fact. Harry swallowed. “Maybe so.”

“And you want him,” Neville continued.

“Nev,” Harry said helplessly. “You and I aren’t… I mean, you’re sleeping with like six other people right now. Everyone knows that. You can’t ask me to–”

“Yeah,” Neville said. He shifted his hips against the counter where his body was leaned, hunched over. “But him?”

The sound of his voice was raw and it cracked something open in Harry. Through the crack, there came an ache and a clear knowledge that he was doing something worse than just hanging out with Draco, he was falling for him–had already fallen for him–and there seemed to be no way to have him, not in the way Harry wanted, where his life wouldn’t be fractured, magic and non-magic.

***

Harry forced himself to leave the party and go home to his flat instead of staying over and sleeping on one of the many sofas with Anya and the girls like he might have done before.

He didn’t want to live his life as a Muggle.

“I love magic,” he said pathetically into his mirror. The mirror sighed back at him, but didn’t offer any advice.

He spent the weekend in a deep funk of self-pity that seeped into the nooks and crannies of his flat and made the air feel toxic and inescapable. On Sunday, the evening tabloids had a grainy picture of Draco with Harry, sitting in their booth the week before, at the jazz club in Birmingham. The caption said “Dragon Has Boys Night in Birmingham.”

Ron noticed it on a newsstand outside the Leaky Cauldron on the Muggle side and bought a copy.

“Mate,” he said, popping his head through the Floo and startling Harry, who had spent the afternoon laying on the sofa, staring at the ceiling. “You’ll want to see this.” He tossed the flimsy newsprint through the green flames and it landed in front of the hearth with a soft thwap.

If Harry hadn’t realised that he was falling for Draco before seeing the photograph, the evidence contained within it would have been plenty to tip him off. He was gazing at Draco with a hideously soft expression while Draco took a sip of his drink, looking like his normal self. There was no excuse.

Harry left the paper sitting out on the table, finally going to bed after staring at it for an embarrassingly long time, looking for something that wasn’t there. He would come to regret leaving the picture facing up in the morning, too groggy to even think about shoving it out of sight when Pansy Parkinson turned up at his doorstep, demanding to be let in.

“Where is he?” Pansy asked.

“Parkinson,” Harry said. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

She snatched up the damn tabloid from the table and shook it in front of Harry. “Don’t tell me you’re not close with him.”

“Good grief,” Harry said. “What happened to Hello, how are you? How have you been since I advocated for your murder and the destruction of the world we all hold dear?”

Pansy stiffened. “You’re still angry about that?”

“Are you still a blood supremacist arsehole?” Harry asked, not entirely sure he could trust her answer.

“Did you ask Draco that before you fucked him?” Pansy shot back.

Harry gaped at her. “What gives you the right–”

“He’s my best friend,” Pansy said, and her voice broke into a single ugly sob. She stopped to breathe deeply, glaring at Harry like something was his fault. “He’s my best friend and he stopped responding to my owls and left the Manor, where his mum is worried sick, and hangs out with random Muggles all day, and he told me he would never ever come back, and now I see him with you, looking like this!” She shook the photo again.

Harry thought Draco looked like his normal self in the photo. “You’re upset with him for not wanting to live in the murder capital of the second wizarding war?” When they were in Liverpool, Draco had said that Malfoy Manor was unlivable, which, among all of his anti-magic eccentricities, had not rated in Harry’s mind as unreasonable.

Pansy stamped her foot. “He left me.”

“Have you tried to go see him? And just, you know, not done magic while you’re there?”

“Oh, so you’re telling me you’re perfectly happy knowing that he’ll never come to your flat because it’s in a magic building, never attend the eventual Granger-Weasley nuptials with you, never come to one of your pub nights at the Leaky?”

Pressure built in Harry’s chest. “I think you have the wrong idea,” he said, fighting to keep his voice level. “We’re not er, a couple or anything. We’re just hanging out.”

She brandished the photo at him, a red fingernail pointed right at photo-Harry’s moony expression.

Harry shook his head. He was not going to tell Pansy Parkinson of all people that he thought he liked Draco. “Sorry, you have it wrong. And maybe you should just try talking to Malfoy. If you want to see him so badly.”

“I have tried,” Pansy said. She dropped the tabloid, finally. “He won’t listen to me.”

Harry nodded. “Sorry,” he said, feeling sorry for himself too.

The door to his flat was still wide open. Pansy stared at him for another moment and then turned on her heel and left.

***

Harry threw out the tabloid photo but then he dug the mobile out of the bottom of his suitcase and set it out on the coffee table to taunt him. When he switched the phone on, there was a new text from Draco that said: Did you fuck Neville Longbottom in my downstairs powder room? It was two days old. Harry stared at the text for another two days before responding: A lady never kisses and tells.

He regretted sending the message as soon as he hit the button, but it was too late.

Draco replied later that day with a non-sequitur: Mediterranean yacht trip this weekend with the girls. Want to come?

Harry had never been on a yacht. He’d barely been on any boats at all. He stared at Draco’s contact on the tiny phone screen for a while and then pressed call. The phone rang twice before Draco picked up, a ringing imitation of his voice filling Harry’s ear.

“Hello?”

“Malfoy,” Harry said. He did not, he realised, have a good excuse for calling.

“Yes, Potter.” Draco sounded sort of breathless. Harry pictured him with Eric, having very athletic sex.

“I’m bringing my wand,” Harry said, not bothering to give any context. “You made your point on tour, but I’m not doing that again.”

“So you’ll come?”

“Yeah.” Harry paced in front of the coffee table. They were both silent for a moment.

“Don’t break the statute,” Draco said finally, and then he hung up.

It wasn’t exactly a great note to leave things on, and Harry intermittently fantasised about cancelling, never seeing Draco again, and trying to move on with his life during the intervening days before the trip.

“Brought your speedo?” Draco asked, when he met Harry at the charter in Southern Italy.

“Nah, I thought I’d borrow yours,” Harry said. He was clutching a small overnight bag that held his return Portkey and some clean underwear.

Draco’s gaze flicked lazily over Harry’s body. “Of course.”

The ship was crewed by a team of barefoot, bronzed Australians who wore starched uniforms and appeared out of the ether before you even knew you wanted something.

Champagne was served first, then tiny canapés that only made Harry hungrier. The chief steward took them on a tour of the boat, which was enormous and beautifully appointed with luxury furnishings. Harry sprawled on a white leather sofa while she went over the rules of the charter.

“We’re here to make your every wish come true,” the steward said in closing. This struck Harry as a cheesy line, but she seemed to earnestly mean it, encouraging all of the guests to ask for anything at all.

Everyone changed to swim and Harry didn’t borrow one of Draco’s speedos after all, deciding to just transfigure a pair of boxers into swim trunks.

“What’s the fun in that?” Draco asked with a pout when Harry emerged. He wore a white speedo that left very little to the imagination.

Harry tucked a finger into the side of the tight waistband and snapped it against Draco’s hip. “You look good,” he said in a low voice, hoping that Draco would blush.

Draco blinked twice, rapidly, and said, “What a gentleman,” before laughing and squirming away.

After swimming, where Harry learned what Draco looked like when he emerged from the glittering sea, water streaming in tiny rivulets down his body (good, he looked very good), there was a wine tasting on deck (‘tastes like, er, wine?’), followed by dinner service (‘wrong fork for the salad course, Potter’), and then Draco produced an acoustic guitar from his room and played idly while everyone else lounged under the stars.

When Harry went back to his room to change for bed, it was past midnight. He was already under the covers when he heard a soft knock at the door.

“Hello?” Draco poked his head inside.

Harry tried not to smile at the sight of him wearing only a pair of low-slung plaid pyjama bottoms, his hair hanging soft and feathery after a shower.

“Lumos,” Harry cast, leaning over to gently palm his wand, which sat on the bedside table. The soft glow caught Draco’s expression, a flash of great longing that was over in an instant, replaced by mild irritation.

“Now you’re just trying to piss me off,” Draco said quietly. He entered the room and shut the door behind him.

“Always,” Harry said as he sat up, shoving the blankets off.

Draco moved onto the bed and straddled Harry’s lap, draping his arms over Harry’s shoulders. “Hello,” he said again.

“Hi, Malfoy.” Harry leaned up and kissed him. The soft press of Draco’s lips against his own was almost too tender.

“Did you hook up with Neville Longbottom to make me jealous?”

Harry’s nose bumped Draco’s. Their faces were still very close. “Did it work?”

“No comment,” Draco said. He bit Harry’s chin. “Longbottom doesn’t have a yacht.”

“Neither do you,” Harry pointed out, craning his neck to try and get Draco to kiss him properly again.

“You’re still so deeply annoying,” Draco said, before tilting his face and giving Harry the kiss he was looking for. They necked for ages, their legs tangled together in the sheets. Draco’s cock grew hard and insistent against Harry’s thigh.

“I want,” Harry said, coming up for air. “For you to fuck me.”

Draco went still. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” Harry squirmed underneath him, rutting up against Draco’s erection. “Definitely.”

Draco disentangled them. “I don’t have anything.”

Harry leaned over and picked up his wand and said, “There are spells.” Draco frowned. Harry reached forward and touched the corner of his mouth. “Come on, Draco. Don’t you want to?”

Draco sighed. “Okay. But you have to cast.”

Harry grinned. “You don’t want to use my wand? Turnabout and all that?”

Draco shook his head and said, “Stop it,” but it didn’t seem like Harry had ruined the mood. He shimmied out of his pyjama pants while Harry did the same. He was very careful with Harry, treating him like something precious, taking his time to open him up very slowly, whispering when he wanted Harry to conjure more lube.

“I’m ready,” Harry gasped finally, the insides of his thighs wet with lube and spit. Draco straddled him and pressed slowly inside, and Harry whined at the fullness, twisting forward, wanting more.

“Shh, sweetheart,” Draco murmured, his lips at Harry’s temples. “I’m taking care of you.”

***

In the morning, the captain took them on an excursion to a private beach where the chef catered lunch. Harry drank two cocktails before one pm and swam in the sea. The buoyancy was a relief after the intensity of the night before. He could still feel the ghost of Draco on him, inside him.

For his part, Draco mostly napped in a chaise lounge under a great big sun umbrella, so his face was in shadow. They didn’t speak until later, when the group had returned to the ship to shower and change.

Harry found Draco banging around in one of the large sitting rooms below deck. “I er, had an interesting visitor at my flat the other day,” he said, suddenly remembering his bizarre interaction with Pansy, which he still hadn’t told anyone about.

“Oh?” Draco said, still pacing around, poking into the little cubbyholes and picking up everything that wasn’t bolted to the boat.

“Yeah, Pansy Parkinson came sniffing around, looking for you.”

Draco dropped a decorative glass paperweight with a thud onto the side table. “Pansy Parkinson thought I would be in your flat?”

Harry sighed and dropped onto one of the pristine white sofas, letting his body sink into the cushions. “No, but she, er, had a hunch that I might have been in contact with you. Rumours, if you will.” He didn’t want to bring up the tabloid photo if he didn’t have to.

“Rumours?” Draco repeated delicately. He whistled out a breath. “That’s a great album. Fleetwood Mac.”

“If you would just talk to her–” Harry started to say.

“If you would stop telling everyone and their mum that you’ve ‘found me’ maybe there wouldn’t be rumours for her to follow up on.”

Harry bit his lip. “First of all, I haven’t said anything to anyone. Secondly, I don’t understand why–”

“I would talk to her,” Draco said loudly, interrupting Harry again. “She just needs to agree to meet me in Muggle London, no magic. We did it once and she lasted ten minutes before begging me to return. You can see how unpleasant that was for both of us.”

Harry stayed quiet. The boat moved gently beneath them. One of the stewards popped her head in and offered them each a flute of champagne. Draco waved her off. He went and knelt next to the sofa and took Harry’s arm, kissing his elbow, the crease of his palm, then slipped a pointer finger into his mouth. Harry let out a soft noise.

“Want to fool around before dinner?” Draco asked.

“I want–” Harry said. A wave of misery washed over him. He couldn’t say what he wanted, which was for Draco to love him too, for them to do everything they had been doing, the parties, the shows, the fucking ridiculous yacht charter, but also to spend time with Harry’s friends, to sleep together in Harry’s bed. He’d never been fucked in his own bed. Was that too much to ask? His head swirled and hurt and then Draco climbed onto the sofa and everything went blessedly blank.

***

“Harry?” Anya rested a hand gently on Harry’s shoulder, which was tacky with sweat. He had fallen asleep in a lounge chair, out on the upper deck. “Dragon says you have your own flight back.”

“Er, yeah,” Harry said. There was an old umbrella in his suitcase that was scheduled to become a Portkey to London later that evening.

“We’re all delaying a day so we can go out in Palermo,” she said with a gesture towards the other girls.

“Will Draco be staying?”

She gave a short sigh. “He told me to invite you.” Her sarong flapped gently in the breeze.

Harry couldn’t push down a smile. “I’ll come, then.” He would have to figure out another way home, but that seemed like a very small thing.

The charter dropped them off in Palermo after lunch. Draco called his manager from a pay phone and then checked them all into a resort that must have cost as much per night as Arthur Weasley made in a month. The lobby was full of important-looking oil paintings and ornate antique furniture on white marble floors. It was fancier than anywhere they had stayed on tour. Behind the front desk, the staff wore suits and ties and Harry began to feel woefully underdressed in his flip-flops.

The concierge gave the groupies a hard once-over before sliding across the room keys. Anya just stared back. She was still in her bikini top from the boat, glitter dancing across her cheekbones. The whole interaction made Harry want to hide behind Draco.

In the evening, they ate dinner in the hotel dining room, which was filled with wealthy tourists. Harry used the wrong fork for the salad course, and the wrong spoon for the soup. Draco ordered bottle after bottle of wine, moving down the list without even glancing at the prices. The girls seemed antsy, glancing around the dining room, and it put Draco off too, his mood growing spikier with each glass of pricy Barolo. By the end of the meal, Harry was relieved to escape back up to his room.

He was contemplating smoking the last of Neville’s joints, carefully rolled back in London and packed away in his toiletry case, when there was a soft knock at the door.

“Hello,” Harry said warily, opening the door to see Draco’s pale face in the corridor.

Draco pushed past Harry and into the hotel room, dropping messily down onto the bed. “This place is a bit shit, isn’t it?” Draco said, his voice muffled by the fluffy duvet.

“I mean, it’s a very posh resort,” Harry hedged. He perched himself on the edge of the dresser, still clutching the joint.

Draco rolled onto his back. His cheeks were quite pink and his hair was limp with sweat. It was impossible to know what he was going to do or say next in a mood like this. Harry loved him anyway.

“Just because something is posh doesn’t mean it’s not shit,” Draco said, his face tilted up to the ceiling.

You’re not shit, Harry wanted to say. “Maybe it would be easier for you to work through these feelings if you didn’t run away from your problems all the time.”

Draco sat up suddenly. Harry winced.

“Fuck you,” Draco said, glaring at Harry. “As if you’re not completely fucked up from what happened. Why else would you be following me around? You’re jealous that I’ve come up with a way to be happy.”

“Of course I’m fucked up,” Harry said. He held Draco’s gaze. A storm of magic was brewing inside Draco and between them. “But if your leave it all behind plan worked so well, you wouldn’t want me to tag along on all your little excursions. You need me to be who you really are.”

“Harry Potter, our saviour. You’ve always deluded yourself into thinking everyone needs you.” Draco sneered. The expression was simultaneously familiar and shocking. Harry felt the past like a physical hurt. “You don’t get to decide what makes me whole.”

The room seemed to grow warmer as they argued and the air was thick and humid in Harry’s lungs. He could have sworn that the space around Draco shimmered and moved, heat radiating from his body, converting from pent up magic.

Harry stood to go out onto the balcony. Draco stomped after him. The cool night was a balm against Harry’s flushed skin, and he gulped it in great heaving breaths. Next to him, Draco still crackled with furious energy.

“I don’t think you’ve made yourself whole,” Harry said as he looked out over the glittering dark water of the sea. On the sand, there were workers from the resort cleaning up after tourists and readying the cabanas for the next morning. “You’re still spending Mummy and Daddy’s dirty money, aren’t you? You’ve just taken the parts that were easy and run away from the rest.”

“I’m an artist,” Draco snarled. “My art makes me whole. How dare you–” He lunged for Harry and they grappled for a minute against the railing. Harry shoved Draco off of him and across the small space where they stood, facing each other, panting. “I don’t know why you care so much,” Draco said in a small, petulant voice.

“You don’t know why I care?” Harry’s throat was raw.

“I don’t know why you do anything!” Draco said. He threw up his hands and started to pace back and forth in a tight line. “You’re a total mystery to me. Nothing you do or say is obvious and you disappear for days and weeks at a time, and then you show up and say things like ‘I want you to fuck me, Draco, please be the first,’ and you’re obnoxious and annoying and–”

The frustration seemed to well up inside him and he bit off with an agonised noise, which was Harry’s only warning before there was a great flash of light that seemed to materialise from nowhere.

When Harry’s eyes adjusted, Draco was crumpled on the tile floor.

***

There was a low, medical-sounding hum on the wards at St Mungo’s. Harry thought that over the course of three days, he might get used to it, but he never did. He could hear the buzzing underneath every conversation with the healers, growing louder when they left the room. Harry didn’t leave. He stayed by Draco’s side day and night, waiting for him to open his eyes.

“He’ll be fine,” Ron said, when he and Hermione came to visit on the second day. “The healers say he’s going to be fine.”

“Even if he’s fine, he’s going to kill me for bringing him here,” Harry muttered darkly.

“You had to do something,” Hermione said, putting a consoling hand on Harry’s shoulder. “And it’s not like you’ve told anyone but us that he’s here.”

That was true. Harry had made excuses to Anya, and secreted Draco back into the UK using the Portkey he had planned on skipping that night in Palermo.

“We’ll come back tomorrow,” Ron promised, after shoving a bag of lumpy sandwiches into Harry’s lap.

Harry slept fitfully in the uncomfortable chair by Draco’s bed. He would wake in the night and think he saw Draco moving, but it would only be a trick of shadows in the thin light of the moon.

“He’s tried to expel his own magical core,” the healers had explained after spending hours running diagnostic spells.

“He didn’t even have a wand,” Harry had said. “How could he have done this much damage?”

The healer gave Harry a sharp smile. “Sometimes, when a wizard is overcome with great emotions, they become capable of great magic.”

On the third day, Draco woke up.

“Where am I?” he rasped.

“Er, St Mungo’s.” Harry didn’t see any point in lying.

“Oh Potter, you great lump.” Draco struggled to sit up. Some kind of alarm went off and the healers came rushing in. Harry was sent out to wait in the corridor while they did whatever it was Draco needed doing. When they let him back in, they said Draco would need another night of rest and observation.

“He’s still quite exhausted,” the healer explained.

When Harry was alone in the little room with Draco again, Draco’s eyes slipped shut. “Will you stay?” he asked quietly, before drifting off.

***

The following day, Draco went home to Chelsea. Harry went with him. He stayed in one of the guest rooms. Draco slept a lot, but he also went on short walks and sat in the garden with his guitar. The band came by and so did Anya. Harry would leave Draco when he had visitors, but often they were together, eating meals and watching television. The quiet domesticity suited Harry more than he expected but it also made him sad, knowing that this is what it would be like, in part, to be with Draco. They would live a life separate from the world Harry belonged in.

When none of the others were around, Harry used simple spells and charms, like he would in his own flat. Draco tolerated this with the air of someone long-suffering, always sighing and looking away when Harry reached for his wand.

“Ron and Hermione wondered if they could come by,” Harry asked, when Draco had been home from St Mungo’s for a week.

Draco’s mouth twisted. “Because we were all such great friends?”

“I think you could be,” Harry said, trying to be generous, but also believing it to be true. They were in the small sitting room in early afternoon. Harry glanced over his shoulder and then warmed their tea with a gentle swish of his wand. He could feel the way Draco’s whole body was attuned to the motion, everything in him reaching out to the simplest charm.

Draco picked up his mug and drank a sip. Harry watched his lips against the white porcelain, how they came away damp, soft looking.

Draco raised an eyebrow. “Microwave’s just over there you know,” he said calmly.

A wave of annoyance washed over Harry, sapping whatever good mood he might have recovered since the incident in Palermo. They hadn’t talked about it. Suddenly, he wanted to talk about nothing else.

“So what, you’ll just live forever out here in Muggle London, never using magic again? Never see your Mum again?” Harry asked.

“Fuck off,” Draco said tiredly. He swept over to the armchair and then seemed to think better of it, not sitting down after all. “Go be a miserable cunt somewhere else.”

“I thought we were having a nice time,” Harry said. His fists were clenched by his sides and in that moment he felt as though there was nothing he could do about it. Everything was impulsive and wrong. “Or, I guess, I’ve been having a nice time and I never know what you feel at all.”

Draco licked his lips. “And you’re angry about that?”

“That you’re closed off and ridiculous?”

Draco rolled his eyes. “That too. No, you’re angry about having had ‘a nice time’ with me?” He said the last part with air quotes which made Harry think of Ron, who he hadn’t seen or had time for in ages, because of Draco.

“Who says I’m angry?” Harry said.

Draco reached forward quickly and grabbed one of Harry’s fists. Too fast for Harry to preemptively pull away. His fingers were cold and light against the clammy heat of Harry’s palm.

“If you tell me to relax, I’ll hex you,” Harry said, but his voice had already softened, as if Draco’s fingers were leaching the tension out of him, slow and steady.

“Okay, I won’t tell you to relax,” Draco said. He didn’t let go of Harry’s hand. “You think I’m closed off and ridiculous?” he asked in a light voice. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

Harry made a noise at the back of his throat. “I’ve asked you again about coming back and you’ve called me a miserable cunt.”

Draco’s hand fell away then and he took a step back from Harry. “And you think I want to come and be miserable with you?” The light above them switched on without warning, making the room uncomfortably bright. Harry swallowed. He knew he hadn’t done it.

Draco’s eyes were wide and wild. They flicked upward once. His mouth pressed into a line, and he pushed a hand through his hair, making it stand on end.

“Don’t–” Draco broke off. He seemed to forget he was in his own house, gazing longingly at the door. “I don’t owe you anything, an explanation, anything. Not about this.”

“Okay,” Harry said, the anger returning to him, now compounded by exhaustion. “Only I can feel how much you miss it. Your magic reaches for mine.”

Draco flushed all over his face and neck, down into the deep v of his unbuttoned shirt. His hair was a wreck, fluffy and soft under the overhead light.

“Please leave,” Draco said after a long period where neither of them spoke.

Harry made it as far as the strip of pavement outside the front door of the house. Then he turned around and went back inside.

“I want to be with you,” Harry said loudly, standing in the entryway.

“What?” Draco appeared in the doorway to the front parlour.

“I want to be with you. You said that I never tell you anything and I’m confusing and terrible. Now, I’m telling you. I want us to be together.” Harry’s voice remained steady by some miracle.

Draco opened his mouth and closed it, like a fish. “Why do you seem to believe we can’t have that?”

“What would you do? Would you force me to never use magic again?” Harry put his hands on his hips. “You get pissy when I warm your tea for fuck’s sake, let alone the time I saved your life last week.”

Draco scoffed and said, “As if I could force you to do anything.”

“I want you and I want my life in the magical world. It’s only fair.”

“You’ve made it worse, you know. If I went back, I couldn’t have you, and that would make me insane,” Draco said.

“What do you mean?” Harry didn’t try to keep the upset out of his voice. “You have me. I want you. That’s my whole point.”

“I couldn’t possibly,” Draco said. His face was bright red. “Everyone hates me so much already. If they saw me with their precious hero– good god. I couldn’t do it.”

Harry shook his head. Was this what Draco was worried about? “No one thinks of me like that.” Draco’s eyes bulged and he looked like he might bolt. Harry scrambled to continue. “Or if they did, I don’t care. I don’t care what people would think. I don’t understand why you would either.”

“I built my life so I wouldn’t have to.”

“I’m not asking you to do anything crazy,” Harry insisted. He took two steps towards Draco and grabbed hold of his wrists. “I’m not asking you to go hang around at Hogwarts or in the Ministry or even walk down Diagon Alley on a busy Saturday. I just– magic is who I am. It made me. And it made you too. And I want you. I want all of you, the magic too.”

A single tear had escaped Draco’s right eye and rolled down his cheek. He sniffed. “This is wildly unfair. Making me fall in love with you and then fully upending my life.”

A spark of hope flared in Harry’s chest that was stronger than any urge he had to snuff it out.

“I love you too,” Harry said. His voice was wet.

Draco leaned forward and pressed his mouth to Harry’s temple. They were both crying. It was ridiculous and yet Harry felt hopeful and full and alive in the way that only Draco could make him feel.

“Alright,” Draco said very quietly into Harry’s ear.

“Alright?” Harry croaked.

“Hmmm. I’ll try.”

***

Epilogue

“Twenty minutes until you go on, Dragon.” A woman who worked at the venue poked her head inside the green room.

“Ready?” Harry asked. Draco was sitting on the floor doing some kind of complicated breathing exercise.

“Mmmmm,” Draco hummed. He uncrossed his legs and stood in front of Harry. “I was born ready.”

Harry quirked his right eyebrow.

Draco smiled. “What?”

“Nothing. Are you going to play that song about me?”

“Who says I wrote a song about you?” Draco asked. He smoothed a hand through his hair, which had grown longer, past his shoulders, nearly to his collarbones. When they were in bed, Harry liked to bite at the ends, like a cat.

“That song you wrote about love and good and evil. You played it at a house show once,” Harry said. His cheeks were beginning to heat up. At the time, he had wondered if Draco was in love with someone else. But that obviously hadn’t turned out to be the case.

“Oh, that one,” Draco said. He wrinkled his nose. “That one is about me, sorry. You can’t be the centre of everything. I know it’s difficult.

“But I thought–” Harry stopped, feeling silly. “I mean, good, evil, love, that’s kind of my thing.”

“You don’t own the concepts of good, evil, and love, you absolute berk,” Draco said, his face exasperated and fond. Even under the ugly fluorescent lighting, he was lovely.

“Everyone knows that love is what made me, you know, capable of defeating Voldemort, saving the world–”

Draco took Harry’s hands in his. “Harry, you’re not the only person to experience the transformative power of love.”

“But if the song isn’t about me, then who do you…” Harry trailed off.

“I love you.” Draco squeezed Harry’s hands. “But I also love music, and my band, and the girls and insane Muggle inventions like convertibles and microwaves.”

“You wrote a love song about microwaves?”

“I wrote a song about how weird it is to change, and how nice it is to realise that everything can be different and better,” Draco said. He dropped Harry’s hands. “We are playing it tonight, and this time you can actually listen to it.”

Christopher the bassist swung into the room. “Let’s get backstage, yeah? Chris is waiting with everyone else.”

“You can come,” Draco said, moving to follow Christopher out the door and down the hall.

Harry refrained from pointing out that he always came to hang out backstage for the opening of Draco’s shows, that he didn’t think he needed Draco’s permission at this point. “Pansy is here tonight,” Harry said, sneaking a look at Draco’s face in profile.

“I know, I invited her.”

“But it’s nice that she came,” Harry pressed. “You haven’t seen her in over a year. I doubt that she’s ever been to a Muggle show before.”

Draco’s lips were pressed into a line, a gesture that Harry now understood meant that he was nervous. They reached the cramped backstage. The venue was packed, and the excited buzz of waiting concert-goers filled Harry’s ears. The anticipation was catching, making his heart beat faster.

When the band went on, he would wait a minute and then go out and find Pansy, who was supposed to be with Ron and Hermione and Luna. Draco had waffled on inviting her to the show for weeks, giving in only when Harry asked, “Don’t you want her to hear you play?”

Three months had passed since Draco had wound up at St Mungo’s. On the surface, not much had changed. He still lived in the mansion. He still drove the Bentley everywhere, swerving and cursing and making Harry’s blood run hot. He still spent too much money on dumb, fancy things.

But Draco was different too. The healers had insisted that he start using his wand again to perform at least one spell a day. He did this grudgingly at first, but after a while, Harry overheard him telling Hermione that doing small bits of magic had made his meditation practice better. That was another change. Draco hung out with the Christophers and Anya and the girls all the time, but he saw Harry’s friends too, spending time in Harry’s flat and coming along to the occasional pub night.

He hadn’t seen his mum.

“I don’t know when I’ll be ready,” Draco had said when Harry asked.

“You don’t have to know the future,” Harry had replied. He had been secretly relieved, and then guilty. It wasn’t like he wanted to spend time with Narcissa. He just wanted for Draco to feel like he could see her, if he wanted.

The crowd began to scream when the Christophers made their way onto the stage. The noise turned up to a roar as Draco made his entrance, shirtless and positively glowing under the lights. Harry couldn’t help smiling at the stage. His life had been so quiet and empty before. Like a waiting room, but he hadn’t known what he was waiting for.

Draco played a chord, and then another, the sound swelling and lifting Harry up up up. The Christophers came in underneath. The crowd yelled and whistled and clapped. Draco stepped up to the mic and began to sing, and Harry knew that he had been waiting for this.