Chapter Text
Galanthus: Snowdrop
Snowdrops are used to express both sympathy or celebration. During happy times it is thought to provide optimism and hope, but following a death or misfortune, it symbolises compassion.
i.
It was funny, Harry thought deliriously, how things worked out. Years of deep-rooted hatred and jealousy slowly being picked apart, the strands untangled and laid out bare and then plaited together to create something unexpectedly new.
The room was hot. Condensation clouded the windows, a laudable opponent against the frost clawing its way up the pane of glass, spreading out its icy fingers. Sweat beaded on Harry’s brow, dripping down onto the pale skin grasped in his hand, fingers biting into supple flesh.
‘You bruise so beautifully,’ Harry panted harshly as he snapped his hips, forcing the pliant body beneath him further up the bed. ‘I can’t get enough of how it looks.’ He pulled at Draco’s hips, lifting him upwards so he could sink his teeth into the purple-blue blossoms littering his shoulders, sucking hard until Draco was writhing and pleading with him to stop.
‘You’re doing so well, love.’ Harry told him over the slick sounds of skin on skin. The noise was obscene, and Harry wanted more. He draped his body over the expanse of Draco’s back, stilling his hips a moment as he pressed a kiss to his cheek.
Draco tipped his head back, his neck twisted awkwardly, as he crushed their mouths together, biting savagely at Harry’s lips.
‘Don’t fucking stop, don’t fucking stop,’ Draco spoke into his mouth. It was an order, not a request. ‘I’m so fucking close.’
‘Oh Draco, you don't tell me what to do.'
Draco bit him. Teeth crunching through salted flesh of his neck, making Harry shout out in pain. He grabbed at the roots of Draco’s hair, spun gold, and yanked, tipping his head back, and watched as Draco licked the blood from his lips and gave him a small, sinister smile that made Harry’s cock throb inside him.
They both stilled for a moment; Draco’s hair still grasped in Harry’s hand, Harry’s cock still buried inside Draco’s arse. They breathed together, loud and unashamed, and Harry watched as Draco dipped his hand between his legs and ran a palm over his own cock, pre-cum smearing over clammy skin. Harry groaned as Draco brought his hand up to his mouth and licked it clean.
‘Fuck.’ Harry let go of Draco’s hair, and a moan spilled out of him like water, and he dug his fingers into the meat of Draco’s arse. ‘Fuck yourself on me.’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
‘No!’
‘I can wait all night,’ Harry licked a hot stripe along the top notches of Draco’s spine and chuckled lowly as Draco’s hips rocked minutely. ‘Come on, baby.’ Two blunt fingernails followed the tongue’s path, raw red lines cracking Draco’s resolve.
The moan that spilled from Draco's mouth was glorious as he slammed his hips back onto Harry’s cock over and over and over. Harry let him, his head clouding as pleasure threatened to flood his brain, synapses sparking and flickering all down his body. He was on fire.
‘Harry!’
‘I know, Draco, I know. It’s okay, you’re okay.’ The words came unbidden, untrue, and this thought cut through the pleasure, his heart beating a syncopated rhythm. At that moment, he felt untethered.
‘Please!’ Draco shouted out, and Harry could feel his legs trembling, ‘Harry, I need it. Please.’
‘Draco,’ Harry started, but Draco didn’t stop, a litany of please falling from his lips, delirious and choked. Harry knew he’d be unable to deny him. He met him thrust for thrust and leaned forward, pressing hard kisses across pale, scarred shoulders. And once again, two blunt fingernails followed but this time raw red lines gave way to tiny beads of blood.
Draco screamed, his back arching, and came, writhing in ecstasy. Harry had no choice but to follow, pulling his cock free and watching as the white-hot ropes hit Draco’s back.
Colour exploded across the sky outside of the frosted windows, arcing fireworks painting rainbows in the dark. As the chant of 3-2-1 echoed across the city, Harry’s vision blurred as he fell forward, lost to the screaming inside his own head.
ii.
It was funny, Draco thought feverishly, how things worked out. Years of discordant dreaming, black nightmares, and hours wandering the darkness as sleep evaded even the heaviest bodies. But now, as Draco ran his fingers through Harry’s damp and matted hair, his head heavy on Draco’s chest, that darkness didn’t seem so bleak. The fractures of the past slowly began knitting themselves back together as the skin on Draco’s back prickled and itched, doing the same.
‘I think it’s midnight.’ Draco said hoarsely as he looked at the fireworks bursting into life outside the window. ‘Happy New Year, Harry.’
Harry just hummed, shaking his head as if trying to get rid of something buzzing around him. He shifted slightly to press his face into Draco’s neck. Draco felt him inhale deeply and then blow out a slow breath. The sweat on both their bodies was drying rapidly, and the cool air made Draco shiver involuntarily. Harry laughed.
‘You okay?’ Harry asked him eventually, rolling onto his back and throwing an arm above his head. ‘You were pretty out of it.’
‘Didn’t think you cared,’ Draco joked.
Harry didn’t smile; he didn’t even look at Draco at all.
‘Yes, I’m fine, Harry. Nothing a hot bath won’t fix. You fancy it?’
‘Yeah, maybe.’
Harry sat up, finally looking at Draco and reaching over to tuck his hair behind an ear, giving him a rare, unguarded smile. Just for a second.
Warmth bubbled in Draco’s belly, rising up until it was swirling rapidly in his chest. He realised he was starring.
Harry cocked his head to one side. ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ Draco propped himself up on his elbows so their shoulders were pressed together.
‘Bollocks.’
‘I was just thinking about the New Year, that’s all,’ he lied, tamping down on the words threatening to spill forth.
‘What about it?’
‘Just, you know, the usual.’
Harry snorted, collapsing back and stretching luxuriously, his lean, muscled body branding an image in Draco’s memory. ‘New year, new you?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Well, you know what they say.’ Harry's voice turned dirty as he rolled onto his side and hooked a strong calf over Draco’s thigh. ‘Whatever you’re doing at midnight, you’ll spend the rest of the year doing.’ He bent and took one of Draco’s nipples between his teeth, bit down just the right side of hard and then lapped at it, soothing the already reddening skin.
Draco’s body twitched, an uncontrolled physical reaction, and he let himself sink into the feeling, just for a moment while he collected the thoughts whirring so loudly he worried they might deafen him.
And suddenly he had to say it. It felt inevitable and perhaps, he thought fleetingly, this was what it had all been about, all this time.
‘I thought,’ he began slowly, but had to stop as a hot tongue ran its way down his chest and into the fine trail of blonde hair on his stomach. ‘Harry, stop.’
‘Hmm?’ Harry looked up at him, and Draco gripped his jaw, tugging him gently back towards him.
‘I thought,’ he said again, ‘I thought the superstition was that if you kiss someone you love as the clock strikes midnight, those sentiments will continue for the next year.’
Harry scoffed. ‘I’d rather be fucking you than loving you.’
And with that, Draco felt the pieces of his soul, the pieces that had broken and shattered and that he’d spent the past ten months letting Harry carefully piece back together, crack beneath him. Replaced with an icy fire that burned away any hope that had been silently flickering. There were no charred remains, nothing was left. Which meant that there was nothing left to lose.
‘Harry, I love you.’
And he watched as the playful look on Harry’s face was washed away and replaced with something hard and strange.
‘Don’t be stupid. No you don’t.’
Draco didn’t say anything. Couldn't say anything.
‘We’re barely even friends, Malfoy,’ Harry said, determined. ‘How could you possibly be in love with me?’
‘I just am,’ Draco whispered, horrified as he felt something hot trickle down his cheek.
‘No, you’re not,’
Draco didn’t bother letting himself pretend he was trying to convince himself otherwise.
‘Fuck, why’re you crying?!’
‘I just am!’ Draco said again, but this time he was shouting, despair morphing into anger. ‘It’s not what I would have chosen, believe me. Things would be much simpler if I wasn’t, but I had to, Harry. I had to let myself feel it.’
‘Why?!’ Harry stood up and started pacing the room, both arms behind his head, gripping his hair. ‘What the fuck, Draco? You can’t just fall in love with someone! It doesn’t work like that!’
‘What?’ Draco sat up on his knees, ‘What do you mean it doesn’t work like that? How the hell do you think it works?’
‘I don’t know!’ Harry spun to face him, breathing hard. ‘We agreed when we started this. Fucking. That’s it.’
‘I know, Harry! But that was ten months ago! Ten! And can you honestly say that after all that time, after all the nights we’ve spent together, you feel nothing for me?’
‘No! I mean yes! I don’t! Feel anything I mean. Shit, Draco.’
He dropped heavily onto the bed, facing away, and Draco pulled the blankets over his legs and pulled his knees up to his chest, an empty comfort.
‘I’ll go.’ Draco said finally.
Harry gave no response; gave no indication he even knew Draco was still in the room.
Slowly, feeling as though he was wading through mud, Draco gathered up his clothing, dressing clumsily. He winced as he pulled his shirt over his head, the stiff fabric catching on the carved-out skin of his back. Usually, he relished the pain. A pain he’d only ever allowed Harry to be part of. Today though, he despised it.
Finally, shoving his feet into his shoes, he turned back to Harry, who hadn’t moved. In the semi-darkness, it looked as though he was a moulded bronze, a sculptor's masterpiece. He really was beautiful.
‘I’m not sorry,’ he said in place of goodbye as he reached the bedroom door. ‘I’ll never be sorry for letting myself feel, rather than denying myself.’
There came no response, but Draco hadn’t been expecting one.
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And Harry watched Draco leave. His mind and body were wrung out and exhausted, but one thought stood out brighter than the rest as the bedroom door closed with a quiet click: despite everything, he desperately wanted to reach out and tell him to stay until morning. And he didn’t know why.
