Chapter Text
“Draco?” Harry says, in that way he does now – quiet and fond and a little unsure.
They’re still new at using given names.
Normally the sound of his name in Harry’s mouth tears right through Draco, rips into him like a pencil through soft paper, but he doesn’t hear it at first. He’s buried up to his elbows in rope and leather.
The dragontamers are clearing out, leaving Norway for Wales to track a sudden uptick in the Welsh Green population and bargain with the locals for a solution to coexistence. Draco’s job is to pack up the barns. He’s so caught up in his task, and in the smell of hay and musk and hide, that he doesn’t notice Harry standing in the doorway until his shadow stretches to caress the side of Draco’s face.
“Draco? Vennen?”
Vennen, darling, one word that could pause the ocean, the sun. Or a man, busy at work.
“Ja, min elskling?” Draco asks. And how much easier it is, when they aren’t saying it in English. In Norwegian they’ve learned how to say my love, my darling, and it comes easy. In English, they’re learning to say Draco, to say Harry without pause. “Something wrong?”
“No,” Harry says, crossing the barn to peer over Draco’s shoulder. He watches Draco coil a length of rope around his arm. “No, bare bra.”
“Glad someone’s fine,” Draco mutters. Harry had been tasked with packing up their house, the house they share with Charlie, and Draco’s certain when he goes back for a shower he’ll find one, maybe two boxes packed, and at least one bed in blatant disarray.
Which is fine. It is Charlie’s day to have Harry to himself, after all; Draco hadn’t exactly handed him over in prime working condition, not after they’d found that leather paddle buried in one of the tack rooms.
It’s just that Draco gets lonely and bored when it’s not his turn, when he can’t be with his people. He’s shaped his life into triptychs: him and his parents, him and Crabbe and Goyle, now him and Harry and… well. He’d like to say “and Charlie” but it doesn’t seem to be working that way.
They’re losing him, they can tell, can see it in the way Charlie looks at Gael, the scale rot specialist from São Paulo. Can see it in the way Gael smiles at Charlie, the way Charlie smiles back, the flush behind his freckles when he says in careful Portuguese, Obrigado, meu amigo.
Draco doesn’t care if it’s selfish. He misses being part of a trio. He misses standing in the middle, holding up the centre, protection on both sides.
He wonders if Harry misses it, too. Harry hasn’t seemed to miss much of anything in the year he’s been here — arriving in Norway on a bright Tuesday morning with no notice and deep circles beneath his eyes — but Draco’s talked him through enough drunken nightmares to know Harry’s nonchalance is an illusion. Magic, in its purest form.
“Did you need something?” Draco asks, levitating the length of rope into its waiting satchel. One down, fifty to go.
Harry shrugs. “Jeg vil kysse deg,” he says, a slow grin spreading across his face.
I want to kiss you.
Draco wonders if Harry figured that translation himself, or if he picked it up from one of the local villagers, like he had with the words he’d whispered into Draco’s mouth, several weeks past. It was the summer solstice, and so the midnight sun was reflecting off his glasses when Harry took Draco’s face in his hands and said knull meg — “Fuck me, Draco.”
They normally went the other way, but Harry’d said it so sweetly, and who was Draco to refuse?
Draco turns from the memory, turns to face Harry, eyes drawn to the dark spot blooming on his neck, just below his ear.
“It looks to me,” Draco says, cupping Harry’s chin, moving his head to get a better look at the bite. “Like you’ve had plenty of kysse today. What do you really want?”
Harry rolls his eyes, nipping at Draco’s hand until he pulls away.
“I missed you,” he says, suddenly quiet and blushing, as though he wasn’t aware it was true until he heard himself say it. “And—”
“There it is.” Draco turns back to his work, to the endless pile of rope. The day is getting long, but it’s bright enough in the barn that he knows Harry can see the colour rising up the back of his neck.
“And—” Harry repeats, sidling up behind him, aligning himself with Draco’s hips, fingertips grazing the zip of his jeans. “I was thinking about next week. When we’ll be at the Burrow.”
“Oh?” Draco says lightly, to cover the sinking of his gut. There are roughly one thousand reasons he has to be nervous about going to the Burrow — he knows because lately he counts them instead of sheep before bed — but he has a sneaking suspicion Harry’s ferreted out the one reason he doesn’t want to talk about.
“Your kjæreste will be there.”
And there it is, Draco thinks, bristling internally. His boyfriend.
“Will he?” he says aloud, ignoring the blanched feeling in his mouth, his stomach like a boiled egg.
“Mmm,” Harry hums, lips warm even against the flushed heat of Draco’s skin. “Any thoughts on the matter?”
“Why?” Draco asks. He makes to pull out of the circle of Harry’s embrace, but his arms tighten around Draco’s middle, holding him still.
“I’m just wondering if there’s anything you’d like to share?” Harry asks between kisses placed carefully up the column of Draco’s neck. Draco — sensitive, anxious, turned on despite himself — can feel Harry’s lips curve as he smirks, whispers, “Anything I might find of particular interest?”
“What a leading series of questions, Potter,” Draco says, amusing himself with the sharp downturn of Harry’s lips against his neck, a response to his surname. “So leading, in fact, that one might presume the asker to have the answers already.”
“And what if I did?” Harry asks. His voice is low, gravelly in Draco’s ear now. “What if I just want to hear you say them?”
Draco spins, twisting and pushing at once so that Harry’s caught off guard. He walks them backwards until Harry’s trapped against a partition between the mucked out stalls.
“I’d say Charlie’s fucked a bit of cheek in you, today. A parting gift, perhaps?” Draco snarls, grinning as he watches Harry shiver beneath him. “I’d say you’re begging for another round with that paddle.”
“And I’d say you’re changing the subject.”
Draco moves his hands to Harry’s shoulders, holds him firm, feeling Harry’s muscle twitch beneath his fingers. Harry knows he can leave, if he really wants to.
Draco meets Harry’s eye. He breathes deeply through his nose as he waits out Harry’s resolve. Harry’s pupils constrict.
Charlie tells them all the time how impressed he is that they rarely fight anymore. He’s too distracted to see that the fight never left them at all. It simply transformed, moving inward, swallowed down from their hands to their hearts.
“Fine.” Draco gives in, blinking, looking away. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything,” Harry says, with that bruisingly confident furrow of his brow, the one he used all the time at school, every year when things started to go bad.
“Are you sure?” Draco asks. “It’s not, you know, a thing. If that’s what you’re worried about—”
“I’m not worried—” Harry cuts in, talking over him as Draco says,
“It happened once.”
“Tell me,” Harry says, firm. He takes one of Draco’s hands from his shoulder, pushing it down between them so Draco can feel the hard length of his desire, the reason behind the questioning suddenly as clear as the throaty heat in his voice as Harry says,
“I want to know what it’s like to fuck Ron.”
+++
The dragontamers were in Spain, when it happened. Draco has mixed a lot of memories since then, faces and places swirling together in the fog of drink and repressed trauma and the general passage of time, but it has to have been Spain, that summer spent in the shadow of the Pyrenees, investigating a supposed Catalonian Fireball sighting.
He’s certain that’s where they were, because he’s long since blamed this particularly ginger-hued lapse in judgement on his being still delirious at the time, the reality of his freedom only half set in. Those months when he was still avoiding his reflection: every time he caught a glimpse of himself he’d remember he was nineteen and he wasn’t in Azkaban and his life wasn’t over, and that the only person who’d been willing to give him a second chance was, somehow, inexplicably, Charlie Weasley, via an advert in the Prophet:
DRAGONTAMER RECRUITMENT PROGRAMME
Must have excellent flying skills, love of travel, and a strong sense of adventure
All recruits paid in room and board for six months’ probationary period, following which an additional monthly stipend to be allotted
All backgrounds & blood types considered
Malfoy, the Owl in response to Draco’s application had read. Charlie’s handwriting was short and open.
Thank you for your interest. Your application was extremely interesting and, I presume it won’t offend you to know, rather a surprise. My team is currently running a project to implement taming methodology with a reduced reliance on ropes and other restraining devices. It’s a bit experimental, and is proving tricky. We need fliers who understand agility work. From what I’ve heard, you may be a good candidate. How do you feel about long hours flying in close proximity to claws, horns, and fire? If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, send an Owl back and I’ll coordinate a Portkey.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
C. Weasley
Draco had read the letter five times before grabbing a quill, flipping the parchment over, and writing back,
Dear Mr Weasley,
Thank you most kindly for the opportunity. I’m intrigued by your project and look forward to contributing. Please send Portkey details.
Sincerely,
D. Malfoy
P.S.: no concerns with claws, horns, or fire. Standard Hogwarts fare in my time.
Draco had removed and replaced the ink on his postscript several times, unsure about the appropriateness of his joke, until the owl — a stout tawny — had begun hopping impatiently from foot to foot. After he’d replaced the ink for the sixth time the owl had ripped the note out of his hand and flown away.
Draco had, of course, been lying through his teeth. The idea of flying anywhere near fire made him want to shit himself, cry, and punch something (his own face, perhaps) simultaneously.
If he’d had a choice, he would’ve done anything else. He would have swept the floors at Gringotts, stocked shelves at Zonko’s, washed dishes at The Leaky.
He didn’t have a choice.
So he went to Spain.
Charlie picked him up from the Portkey drop off in a rusted out truck. They drove through winding Muggle towns with names that rolled off the tongue like water over stone: Maripol, Feners, Saldes. Draco sat silently, too afraid to touch anything, his stomach sour, carsick. Charlie sang in cobbled Spanish, off-key.
Draco didn’t speak for ten days. When he did, it was in the aftermath of a coughing fit, as though his words were muck dredged from deep in his chest, something to be spat out, discarded.
“Cut my hair,” he said to Charlie, gasping for breath.
“What?” Charlie asked, swaying as he turned to stare. They were by the Friday-night bonfire, both of them drunker than usual because they had the next morning off on the cleaning rotation.
“Cut. My. Hair,” Draco repeated. He pulled at it fiercely, tearing it from the knot he plaited it up into every morning. “I want it gone. I can’t look at myself. I just see–I see–”
He couldn’t say the name. Could not bring himself to say Lucius. To say father. His head was swimming. His face was wet.
“Are you positive?” Charlie asked several minutes later, over the buzz of the clippers in Draco’s ear. They’d relocated to the mess, and a crowd had gathered. No one was sober enough to do magic, but someone had a Muggle shaving kit, which was sitting open in Draco’s lap.
He tightened his grip on a pair of long silver scissors, felt their points pierce the callousing skin at the tips of his fingers. He nodded.
“All of it,” he said.
Charlie shaved his head.
One of the dragontamers scooped a thick, shiny lock of Draco’s hair from the floor and tied it with a scrap of black velvet ribbon, sticking it up over the commune bar.
“Now we’ll ‘ave summat pretty to look a’ when we drink ourselves sick,” the dragontamer said, patting Draco’s red face. “Nice to meet ye, kid.”
Draco didn’t recall how he got home that night, only that he woke up in Charlie’s tub the next morning, a small mirror at his side so that the first thing he saw upon waking was his own face, exposed and open.
Charlie had shaved him down to the short, dark hairs that sat closest to Draco’s head, the ones near his roots that he’d always hid with a combination of charms and styling. Draco thought if he sat up he might vomit, so he pressed his face further into the cold, hard surface of the tub and — with one eye open — ran his fingers up and down over his scalp.
He’d never had short hair before. It wasn’t the done thing, for Malfoy men. He’d been raised with the understanding that long hair signified vitality, leisure, the luxury of vanity. Short hair belonged on men who prioritised utility, whose work was filthy, who could not afford to keep it up.
Draco grinned against the tub, against the headache barrelling towards him, against the fevered sweat rising from his scalp.
Charlie, for his part, couldn’t — wouldn’t — leave him alone, his fingers constantly drifting to the soft buzz of Draco’s hair. Charlie rubbed his head in the truck, on supply trips to the village, when Draco rolled the windows down so that he could feel the warm breeze on his neck. Charlie rubbed his head as they talked project strategy, tapping Draco’s scalp particularly hard when he didn’t agree with an idea.
Two months into Draco’s apprenticeship, when the fragrant late summer flowers mixed with the tang of ale and the ever-present scorch of ash on the pads of their fingers, Charlie took the clippers out and trimmed Draco short again. When he was finished, Charlie pushed Draco against the back of the dragon egg incubator shed, holding him close and still. Draco nodded, swallowed, and then Charlie’s hands began to move.
A week later, Draco moved out of the apprentice bunk to a chorus of jeers and whistles, all of which were resoundingly forgotten as he stretched his naked body, long limbs scarred and burnt, beneath the hodgepodge of quilts in Charlie’s guest bedroom.
Shortly after, Ron showed up.
Charlie had told Draco to be nice, had said Ron was suffering a heartbreak. Granger threw him over? Draco had asked, Don’t blame her, although my Galleons were on them having squeezed out a few brats before she came to her senses. To which Charlie had said, trying not to laugh, That’s exactly what I mean.
Because of said heartbreak, Ron would be with them for a week. Draco’s new job was to entertain Charlie’s baby brother, his nemesis’ best friend.
“Why are you such a magnet for broken people?” Draco asked Charlie the night Ron arrived, as the three of them stumbled back from their off-commune local, a little Muggle bar in Saldes — hardly more than a shack, really — favoured by hikers and climbers. Draco liked how friendly everyone was, despite just passing through. He found it easy to relax around Muggles, here. None of them stuck around long enough to get to know him.
“Do you like being used as the family tip, Mr Weasley?” Draco asked, rocking ill-advisedly back on his heels while they waited for Ron to finish pissing against the side of a bodega.
“Being used,” Charlie repeated, smacking his lips, tasting the words. “I do like the sound of that.” Ron had caught back up with them, so that Charlie had to lean in close and put his hand on the soft fold of Draco’s elbow when he said, “Although, I’d rather use you. My constitution is too fragile for the rough stuff.”
“Aye, a real hothouse flower, you are,” Draco quipped, and then mercifully blacked out, only coming to in the morning when Ron poked him in the side, mouth of full of bacon butty as he said,
“Budge up.”
“This is my bedroom,” Draco groaned, shoving his head beneath the pillows. “Get the fuck out.”
“I’m aware,” Ron said. “Charlie’s in the kitchen looking very green.” He stuck another sandwich in his mouth and clarified, mid-chew, “‘M hidin’.”
“Why?” Draco asked, his voice hoarse. He lifted the pillow just enough to see the sun had not, as he had hoped it might, exploded in the sky as a matter of courtesy, that it was instead shining bright and hot through the window, illuminating Ron’s hair from behind, framing his long features in red and gold and— “Buughhh,” Draco moaned. With his free hand, he felt around on the dresser for the hangover potion Yesterday Draco had been so kind as to leave by the bed.
“Don’t like vomit, do I?” Ron said. “Not since second year, with the slugs.”
“Ah,” Draco said, voice muffled from beneath the pillows again. He normally took his hangover potion with a glass of water and a bowl of strawberries, for taste, but Yesterday Draco had apparently been otherwise preoccupied — too busy thinking about himself, most likely — and had only left the potion. Draco pinched his nose and tossed back the small vial as well as he could from his prone position. The potion began to kick in as the sour taste faded away and Draco carefully, slowly, pushed himself up to seated. He pressed his hands into his eyes as he said, “And I suppose that’s my fault, is it? Your fear, or whatever?”
“Yes,” Ron said, crunching noisily as he held out the plate for Draco to take a sandwich.
“I disagree, of course,” Draco said, valiantly ignoring the crumbs when Ron snorted. “You cast the spell,” Draco continued. “It would’ve been me with the slugs, and I don’t recall breaking your wand.”
“Fair, but you were still a massive cunt,” Ron replied. Draco couldn’t argue with that.
“Were?” he asked, instead.
Ron chewed. Draco squinted out the window as he forced his butty down, then looked at Ron, an eyebrow raised.
“I’m deciding,” Ron said.
+++
The week passed quickly. Charlie was caught up in work during the day, stuck in meetings with the other senior tamers, coordinating their fast-approaching transition to Horntail territory in Norway. Draco was left to Weasleysit, but was surprised at how easy he found it, this assignment of distracting Ron from his own treacherous heart.
Charlie must have known Draco’d had plenty of practice, himself.
It came easiest to both of them to argue, so instead of talking, they debated the merits of their interpersonal history — slights both perceived and real — arguing gleefully as Draco showed Ron around the commune, to the nesting sites for the mothers and calves they travelled with.
At night, they drank with Charlie and the others at the mess.
On the last day of his trip, Draco took Ron out in the truck, down to the caves where Charlie and the others had fruitlessly searched for the Fireball egg in the months they’d lingered in Spain.
By the time they were crawling out of the caves, hours later, their shirts were sticking between their shoulder blades and Ron was loudly whinging about death.
“I’m weak with starvation,” he moaned. “Can’t possibly take another step. This is where I die. Congratulations, Malfoy.”
“Circe above,” Draco said, rolling his eyes. “No wonder you’re single.”
“Gah!” Ron grabbed his chest, feigning a stab wound. “I already told you, I’m dead. You win. Let me rest in peace.”
“If I go for takeaway, will you get us a pint and shut the fuck up?” Draco asked.
Ron enthusiastically mimed zipping his mouth closed and then set off to the truck, shouting out the window as he drove away that he needed it more, due to his crippling exhaustion.
Draco enthusiastically mimed shoving his fist up Ron’s arse, and then wandered down the mountain, picking his way confidently along the rocky side road. He hummed aloud to himself as he walked, the early evening heat drying the sweat on his back.
He stopped in a small shop Charlie had shown him once, where an old man in the back filled several containers with mongetes and botifarra and cargols a la llauna. He sang along to the tinny radio as he cooked, clapping his weathered hands in joy when Draco said, stumbling over the vowels, Més tomàquets, si us plau?
“White beans,” Draco said, once he’d settled at the table Ron had secured. “Where’s my pint?”
“You said you were getting us takeaway and a pint,” Ron replied, looking innocent as he wiped foam off his lip from his fresh, cold beer.
“I did not,” Draco said. A fat drop of sweat trickled down the back of his neck.
“Ahhh,” Ron said, taking another large sip. “Could’ve sworn you did.”
“Weasley,” Draco started. “I know you’ve both the stature and manners of a third-rate circus clown, but I really must demand a pint be purchased in compensation for my efforts.”
“All right, all right,” Ron laughed, casting a subtle Finite, revealing the second pint he’d hidden on the table. “Keep your hair on. Wait—too late.”
“Ha ha,” Draco said flatly as he sat down, manoeuvring out of the way when Ron tried to ruffle his scalp. “I’ve also got us sausages and tomatoes.” Ron looked sceptical. “You’ve never had tomatoes like these, trust me, Weasley. They’ll make your dick wet.”
Ron looked at him sideways, and Draco couldn’t tell whether he was red from the sun or the phrasing.
“And these?” Ron asked some time later, poking at the container piled high with pungent cargols. They’d since picked their way through the sausages and tomatoes and sunk several rounds of pints.
“Snails.” Draco grinned, pupils expanding in anticipation. Ron frowned. “Trust me. They’re cooked in olive oil and garlic. Try one.”
“No, I’m fine,” Ron said.
“Trust me!” Draco laughed. He picked one up, plucking the meat from its shell with the tine of a fork, waving it in Ron’s face. Tiny droplets of oil spattered the table between them, catching the last moments of the day’s sun.
“I’m not sure we’re there yet,” Ron said, pushing Draco’s hand away, smiling despite himself.
“Come off it,” Draco insisted. “You have to. This is a local delicacy!”
Ron narrowed his eyes.
“Don’t make me shove it in,” Draco said.
“Please don’t shove things in my mouth.”
“Now that’s something you should try,” Draco said, giving up, eating the snail himself. He made a show of closing his eyes in pleasure, so that Ron would understand he was missing out.
“Shoving things in your mouth?” Ron asked. Draco opened his eyes. Ron was red all down his neck.
Draco chewed another snail, considering.
“Not mine, specifically.” He shrugged, decided not to say, Your brother keeps it full enough, cheers. “But someone’s. Seeing as you’re a free man, and all.”
“Merlin,” Ron cursed. He scratched the back of his head, his mouth turned down at the corners.
Draco ate another snail, licked the oil off his lips as he took in the length of Ron’s fingers, the breadth of his pale palm.
“You know,” Ron began. “I did want to shove something in your mouth, once.” Draco coughed on a snail. Ron grinned, continuing, “In fifth year, after that Quidditch match. I was so bloody happy when Harry and George pelted you. Worth the suspension, in my opinion.”
“Have you ever been punched before?” Draco asked, rubbing his stomach at the muscle memory. “It wasn’t pleasant.”
“It wasn’t meant to be,” Ron replied. “And anyway, you provoked them.”
“Yeah, that was sort of my whole deal,” Draco said, rolling his eyes. “Not my fault you lot never got used to it.”
“Why would I get used to someone being awful to me?” Ron asked, pausing with his pint halfway lifted to his lips, which were red from where he’d been rubbing at them while Draco spoke.
“Don’t you have like, ten brothers?” Draco asked. “Surely you’ve been picked on before. I’d expect this weakness of character from Potter, the scrawny self-centred twat, but you, you’re so tall and strong and—”
“I have five brothers,” Ron said, flushing up to his ears as he threw back the rest of his pint, wincing through it as he said, “Or, well. Had. I suppose.”
“Fuck,” Draco groaned, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes.
He heard the scrape of Ron’s chair and footsteps walking away, and decided if he didn’t move his hands, if he didn’t open his eyes, then he could pretend he hadn’t just said the worst imaginable thing without even thinking about it. He could pretend that didn’t mean he’d somehow become a worse person in the time he’d been here, considering he used to have to try when he wanted to hurt people — to hurt Ron, and Potter and Granger, too — that he used to have to spend time crafting this type of pain with intention.
He heard footsteps approaching again, felt the table shift beneath his elbows. Something cold pressed against his elbow, and it was the sharp tang of tequila that finally opened Draco’s eyes. He looked down into the shot, still not able to look Ron in the face as he said,
“Fuck. I’m sorry, Weas—Ronal—Ron. I didn’t—Fuck me. I really didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine—”
“No, it isn’t,” Draco said. “Don’t be brave.”
“I’ve always been brave,” Ron said. Draco’s head snapped up, his mouth open to speak, no words coming. “Or didn’t you notice?”
“I–”
“No, of course,” Ron said, his mouth twisted up into a sour grin. “I did save your life, once, but you probably only remember Harry’s part.”
“I–”
“It’s fine,” Ron repeated, firmly this time. “Take the bloody shot.”
Draco did. As he winced through it, he said, “So have I thoroughly distracted you from your heartbreak, or are there any other dead relatives whose memories need insulting?”
Ron laughed, a vibrant, full sound that rang through the tequila warming in Draco’s belly, shaking him like a bell.
“You’re different,” Ron said once he’d finished laughing. He leaned across the table to peer closely at Draco’s face.
“How do you mean?” Draco asked, not moving backward.
“Your hair, for one,” Ron said.
“It’s short,” Draco said dumbly.
“No shit.” Ron grinned. His hand twitched on the table, and Draco wondered if he’d stopped himself from touching Draco’s head again. Heat spread up the back of his neck at the thought.
“How else?” he asked.
“Your body,” Ron said, voice low, blushing. “You used to be so pointy and pale, like an old haunted doll. But now you look… I’m absolutely only saying this because I’m drunk but, you’ve got all these scars and you’re… you look… cool.”
“Weasley, you dog,” Draco gasped, leaning closer, mouth crooked and wicked as he said, “I’m telling everyone. What’s Potter’s Floo? I’m ringing him first. He’ll be devastated.”
“Maybe he’ll shave his head from grief,” Ron said. “Then how would I choose between you?”
“Make us fight for your affection?” Draco rested his chin on his hand.
“You mean you weren’t fighting over me, this entire time?” Ron asked, all wide eyes and fake concern. “Here I’ve gone thinking I’m the centre of the story.”
“If only you’d known,” Draco said, playing along, drawing circles in the condensation on the side of Ron’s pint glass. “Imagine how different things could have been.”
+++
“I thought I’d hate spending time with you,” Ron said several hours later, as they pushed past the curtain of hanging beads that served as the pub’s door. “I couldn’t believe you were here, when Charlie told me.”
“I can’t believe I’m here, either,” Draco said. “If it helps.”
“I’m glad you are,” Ron replied, so seriously they both had to laugh. Draco kept walking while he laughed, realising too late that his tequila-soaked mind could not accommodate the coordination required to do both activities at once. He tripped over an uneven rock and, without thinking, reached out to steady himself on the nearest solid object. The nearest solid, ginger, infuriatingly tall and broad-shouldered object.
“I think I’m also very drunk,” Draco said, his hand still on Ron’s arm. He watched his thumb press into the firm flesh, mesmerised by the creamy pale of his skin beneath all those freckles.
“I know I am.” Ron nodded. He hadn’t made any attempt to move his arm from beneath Draco’s grasp.
“No,” Draco said, dragging his gaze up Ron’s chest to his face. “I wasn’t finished.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“I think I’m very drunk,” Draco repeated. “Because, and I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud, but look… listen… if you’re open to this sort of thing, which, I dunno if you even are, but if you are… they say the best way to get over a broken heart is to get under someone else.”
Draco watched Ron blink at him.
“That’s what they say, anyway.”
Ron was silent for a moment, standing still in the dark, gaze drifting over Draco’s shoulder.
“Yeah, alright,” he agreed.
“Forget I said—wait, really?” Draco asked, straightening, letting go of Ron’s arm. His voice had gone embarrassingly high with surprise. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What are you agreeing to, exactly?”
“What are you proposing, exactly?” Ron countered.
“Erm.” Draco hadn’t thought that far. His mind was swimming. “Do you… want… no, that’s too much.” He shifted his weight to his other foot. “What if I… were to… suck… your cock?”
Draco watched Ron blink at him again.
“I mean… I’m not gonna say no to that, am I?” Ron said. He frowned, crossing his arms over his chest. “Wait, but aren’t you also…” He gestured, twisting his hand through the air. “You know-ing… my brother?”
“We’re hardly engaged to be wed,” Draco replied, matching Ron’s cross-armed stance. “We’ve only just properly fucked—” Ron made a face “—If that bothers you, we don’t have to do anything.”
“It probably should, shouldn’t it,” Ron said. He bit his lip, looking contemplative.
“But… it doesn’t?”
“Well, no,” Ron admitted. Even in the dark, Draco could see he was blushing, and felt heat spread across his own face, images he couldn’t justify by any reasonable means slipping across his consciousness.
“Fuck it, why not! When in Rome!” Ron laughed, throwing his arms around Draco’s shoulders, gone golden with the memory of a sunburn.
They’d crossed over the line now; wherever this went, there was no turning back from it.
“That’s Italy,” Draco said, watching Ron’s face as it grew closer and closer. “You’re in Spain.”
“Shut the fuck up, Malfoy,” Ron said. His freckles were starting to blur out of focus and then Draco closed his eyes as Ron’s warm, soft mouth covered his.
Ron was kissing him. Ronald Weasley, Potter’s best mate, child of one of the biggest thorns in his father’s side, second in his growing collection of Weasley brothers, was kissing him, had his tongue in Draco’s mouth, tasting warm like light beer and sharp like the tequila they’d been throwing back all night.
Draco was vaguely aware they were making out in the middle of the road, had the idea that they should probably move, an idea that became much more pressing as the headlight off a motorbike swam into view, the heat of it lighting up the side of his face.
The bike swerved around them with an amiable honk, just as Ron pulled Draco against the broad expanse of his chest. Draco could feel the weight of Ron’s hand at the back of his head, holding him, protecting him on instinct.
Draco felt at home with the dragontamers, accepted, in community, and that had healed him in places he hadn’t known were broken. But this was something different. Draco felt safe. He didn’t have to ask or plead or beg his way into protection. He was just a person, and Ron had the ability to protect him, and so he did.
Draco would wonder, in the months to come, if this was what it would’ve felt like to grow up as Weasley’s (and Potter’s and Granger’s) friend, instead of an object of their hatred and scorn. If he would have lived his life being saved at will.
“My hero,” Draco teased, because he was starting to feel emotional and just thirty seconds ago he’d been half-hard, and he wanted to get back there.
“Wrong one,” Ron said. “Harry’s more the heroic sort.”
“What happened to you being the brave one?” Draco asked, running his fingers down Ron’s chest, still engulfed in the circle of his arms. “Potter’s fit and all—“ Ron snorted, and Draco’s eyes snapped back up to his “—come off it. You know he is. It’s those eyes. He’s just so deliciously maudlin.”
“Merlin, you have a crush on Harry!”
“I have no such crush,” Draco insisted, stamping his foot. “I am simply an appreciator of beauty.”
“You think he’s beautiful!” Ron crowed. “Bloody hell, you do have it bad, Malfoy. Maybe I should tell him to come here.”
“I am trying to compliment you,” Draco said. “If you’d let me fucking finish.”
“I’m sorry,” Ron said, laughing. His hands travelled down Draco’s body, fingertips playing in the waistband of his trousers, near the dip at the small of his back. “Please continue.”
“You’ve ruined the moment irreparably,” Draco pouted. He made to pull away, but Ron stopped him, pulling him close again, so that they were pressed together tightly at the thigh, the hip, the firm length of their stomachs.
“I’ve been known to do that,” Ron warned, grinning down at Draco without letting the smile reach his eyes. “Apparently, I have the emotional range of a teaspoon.”
“Luckily,” Draco said, determined to raise the mood, as he had the sense they’d wandered back to ex-girlfriend territory. “Getting your cock sucked requires incredibly little emotional range. I think you’ll find you’ll manage quite well.”
“You know, I’m starting to understand what Charlie sees in you,” Ron grinned, and this time it reached his eyes.
“Oh, these are just the teasers, darling,” Draco said. “Take me home and I’ll give you my full pitch.”
+++
Draco led them back to the house on muscle memory, stumbling gracelessly through the door, all shoulders and elbows and playfighting, which turned to kissing the moment Draco put his fingers in Ron’s hair and pulled.
“You like that,” Draco said. He did it again, grinning as Ron hissed and scrabbled at the collar of Draco’s t-shirt. All the buttons on Ron’s shirt were undone, exposing the tightly curled hair on his chest, and Draco thought if Ron didn’t take off his shirt so that Draco could see just how pink those nipples were, the little hard nubs poking through thin fabric, then he was going to just have to chew his way through.
“If you don’t take this off…” Draco said, pulling Ron’s shirt from his shoulders, gasping at the firm press of Ron’s hand against his head, distracted by Ron’s tongue in his mouth once again.
“Let me see you,” Draco said breathlessly, breaking the kiss. He slid his fingers into the belt loops on Ron’s jeans and pulled him forward, into the low circle of light emanating from the lamp over the kitchen table, the one that swung ominously whenever Draco — who was considerably taller than Charlie — stood up after a meal. The one Ron had already hit his head on three times.
“You want me to take my shirt off?” Ron asked.
“I want you to take off far more than that,” Draco said. “But let’s start with the shirt. Then I can watch your arms when you take off the rest.”
“Oh,” Ron breathed.
“You do know you’re fit, don’t you, Weasley?” Draco asked, suddenly concerned Ron didn’t know.
Draco had never dated a woman before; he wasn’t sure if they were prone to giving compliments. Maybe Granger had never told Weasley how broad his shoulders were, or how lovely the hair under his arms smelled, even after a long day of sunshine and hard liquor. Pansy, the only woman his age Draco regularly spoke to, hardly ever had anything nice to say about anyone. But then that was Pansy, who didn’t count.
“I do now,” Ron said, his voice a low hum against the curve of Draco’s jaw. His hands slid up under Draco’s shirt, pulling it over his head. “What else can you teach me, Malfoy?”
Draco thought himself past the game of denying anyone pleasure, so he cradled Ron’s face in his hands, pushing their mouths together as he guided them back towards his room.
A sound from outside. A loud crash and a laugh.
They froze in place, Draco’s hands on Ron’s bare nipples, Ron’s hands on the back of Draco’s head. Neither of them had considered the fact that Charlie would eventually come home. Charlie wouldn’t care that Draco was with another man, but he might care if that other man was his little brother.
Or maybe he wouldn’t. After all, hadn’t Charlie pushed them together? Hadn’t Charlie told him to take care of Ron? To distract him? To make him feel better? Draco was just doing his job.
For a spoilt rich kid, Draco found he was proving very adept at all sorts of jobs.
“Go on,” Draco said, pushing Ron into his bedroom, hips first. Ron pressed back against him and Draco felt, for the first time, the full, hard length of Ron’s cock straining against the zip of his shorts. “Fuck,” Draco gasped. “Tell me you still want this, Weasley.”
“Ron.”
“Ron,” Draco moaned. “Tell me you want this, Ron.”
“I want this,” Ron replied urgently, mouth open and wet at Draco’s neck. “I want you. I want your mouth on me.”
“Fuck.” Draco’s head fell back against the door. “Thank you. I don’t think I could’ve stopped.”
“Bloody hell,” Ron cursed, rolling his hips against Draco, his breath catching every time their cocks pressed together through their clothes.
“You like that?” Draco asked, one hand snaking up to Ron’s hair again, the other at Ron’s waist, fingertips dipping beneath the band of his pants. “You want me desperate for you?”
“You were always so fucking uptight,” Ron said, speaking the words into Draco’s temple. “I want to make you fall apart.”
“Take your cock out.”
“What?” Ron asked, at the same time as his hands went to his zip, unbuttoning, pushing down.
Draco leaned against the door, hands heavy and lazy on his own cock, palming himself through the fabric of his trousers. His eyes were lidded, his tongue at the back of his teeth as he stared openly at Ron’s hips, at the thick ginger hair — darker and curlier than his brother’s — guiding him lower and lower until finally his clothes were gone.
“Fuck me but you’re beautiful,” Draco said, staring openly at Ron’s cock. He lowered himself to the floor so he could get a closer look at it, sitting with his back against the door, his legs bent in front of him, knees open wide, his whole body loose and weighty as though he’d already come.
“I—”
Draco looked up, saw the flush spreading down Ron’s throat, across his chest.
“You’re beautiful,” Draco repeated, so that Ron would understand he meant it, that he was no longer in the habit of just saying things. “You look so heavy. Can I touch you?”
Ron nodded, his throat working.
Draco smiled and lowered his gaze, focusing on the cock bobbing in front of his face, the red tip shiny with precum. He wrapped his hand around the thick base and then, holding his fingers in a loose circle, gently dragged it up Ron’s length to his head, where he spread Ron’s wetness across his palm.
With a small twist that made them both gasp, he tightened his grip.
Draco jerked him for several long moments, his own cock jumping every time Ron moaned or gasped in response to the twist of his hand, the increase in pressure or speed. With his free hand, Draco found his own zip, released his cock from where it had been straining and leaking, trailed his fingers softly up the ridge of his shaft.
“More,” Ron said, had been saying, except Draco hadn’t registered it, had been too busy admiring the pretty way Ron’s cock curved up, exposing the sensitive skin beneath the head. “More, please.”
“Yes.” Draco nodded, tightening his fist. His mouth filled with spit in anticipation, in greed. “Will you fuck my mouth?”
“Don’t ask for it,” Ron replied and then blushed, surprised with himself.
“Fuck my mouth,” Draco said, following direction. He let go of Ron’s cock and pushed against the back of his thighs, forcing him to step closer so that the wet tip of his cock pressed against Draco’s cheek. If he angled his head up, it would be against his lips.
Draco angled his head up. He exhaled and Ron’s hips stuttered in response, his palms flat against the door.
“Go on,” Draco said, purposefully flicking his tongue out on the ‘n’ sound, tasting the barest hint of smooth skin as Ron’s cockhead bobbed around his lips. “Shove it in, like you wanted.”
“Will that hurt you?” Ron asked, and Draco wanted to smack him.
“Do you care if it does?”
“Do you?”
“Fuck my mouth and find out,” Draco insisted.
He had his hands on Ron’s legs still, and if it had been someone else — someone like Charlie, or one of the other dragontamers, who Draco knew would stick their dicks in any willing hole — he might have forced Ron forward, pushing him past his lips and down his willing throat.
But this was clearly Ron’s first time with another man, and Draco was sober enough to know the complexity of this night, of this week, would follow him for a long time. He was already clearly able to imagine Tomorrow Draco lying awake at night, worrying his lip as he listened for the angry pop of an Apparition, Potter hunting him down for systematically defiling his chosen family. Draco didn’t need to give his busy mind extra fat to chew on.
You don’t have to do anything you aren’t comfortable with, he was going to say, but the moment his mouth rounded around “you” Ron made up his mind, deciding he would, in fact, fuck Draco’s mouth and find out.
Draco coughed and snorted, eyes watering as Ron’s thick cock pressed towards the back of his mouth.
“Oh!” Ron said, and started to retract, but Draco did grab him this time, keeping him in place, glaring up at him, narrowed grey meeting round, bright pools of sparkling blue.
“Hngngnnmm,” Draco said, presuming Ron would translate. “Fnrghfmmngbhn.”
“Ohh,” Ron said, his eyes rolling at the vibration, his muscles unclenching beneath Draco’s hands.
“Mmmm,” Draco agreed. He inhaled deeply, trying to suck the spit back in his mouth from where he’d been starting to drool. Ron was somehow even heavier than he looked.
“I’m going to—” Ron tried, and then he did, pushing himself tentatively forward.
Draco moaned, exhaling through his nose. He moved his hands up to Ron’s arse and squeezed, his eyes fluttering closed as Ron let his head knock forward into the door. He thrust again, and again, each time gaining confidence, each time going deeper, chasing the vibration of Draco’s encouragement. Soon he was in Draco’s mouth to the hilt, his nest of curls rubbing against Draco’s nose, the flat palm of his hand hot on the top of Draco’s head.
“I want to stay here forever,” Ron slurred, his voice thick as he dragged himself lazily back and forth across Draco’s tongue, in and out of his throat.
Draco ran his hands over Ron’s arse, cupping it, then moved down, scratching at his freckled thighs. He desperately needed to come, something he’d not yet been able to do with his throat full like this. He could feel his hot and sticky cock, untouched and needy, throbbing against his stomach as he curled in on himself, letting himself be pressed down by Ron even as his hips bucked up unthinkingly, seeking friction with anything at all.
“More,” Ron said, and Draco complied immediately this time, scratching him harder, pushing him deeper, grabbing at him until Ron gasped, hips jutting forward sharply as he spilled hot and thick down Draco’s throat.
When he pulled out, come and spit were strung between the head of his cock and Draco’s mouth, only breaking when Draco licked his swollen red lips, inhaling deeply.
Ron sunk to his knees, thumbed at the tears streaming down Draco’s face, tears Draco hadn’t noticed. Ron kissed him, saying beautiful, beautiful against Draco’s mouth.
He didn’t stop when Draco came untouched, shooting stripes against both of their chests as his cock throbbed.
He didn’t stop when Draco kept crying after, only moved his lips to Draco’s cheeks, rubbed his big thumbs in circles at Draco’s temples, fingertips pressing protectively at the nape of his neck.
“You’re okay,” Ron whispered into his mouth. “It’s over, you’re okay.”
Draco sighed, shaky, coming back into himself.
“It’s over,” Ron repeated, and Draco no longer trusted himself enough to speak. He wrapped his hands around Ron’s neck and pulled him closer, kissing him deeply, thanking him the only way he knew how.
+++
Draco hadn’t planned on Ron sleeping in his bed, when he’d first propositioned him. To be fair, he hadn’t planned anything, but if he had he definitely would not have planned to find himself the little spoon in his own bed, his back sweating from the heat cascading off Ron in waves.
“Weas—Ron?” Draco asked, whispering into the dark.
“Yeah?” Ron whispered back, his hand stilling. He’d been rubbing aimless circles up and down Draco’s stomach.
Draco pursed his lips together and sighed, rolling onto his back. His right hand, curiously, found itself tangled up with Ron’s left.
“Earlier, when I was… upset,” Draco began.
“Mmm,” Ron said, his grip on Draco’s hand tightening. Draco looked up at the ceiling, his eyes burning again.
“You weren’t too rough,” he said. “Just in case you thought… You weren’t.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not being brave,” Draco whispered.
Ron didn’t reply.
“I’m not,” Draco repeated, stronger this time, louder.
Ron still didn’t reply.
“Can you bloody say something?” Draco snapped, ripping his hand from Ron’s grip.
Ron squirmed, his spent cock warm and soft against the side of Draco’s hip.
“I didn’t think you were being brave,” Ron said, slowly, soft. “I’ve… never thought that about you.”
“Ouch,” Draco said dully.
“Sorry,” Ron said, and the press of his mouth against the curve of Draco’s shoulder was so sweet that he almost believed Ron meant it. “Did you… want to share why?”
“Why what?” Draco asked.
“Why you were crying.”
“Oh.” Draco squirmed, pressing himself further into Ron’s loose embrace. “No. I just didn’t want you leaving tomorrow with the idea that you’d hurt me.”
Ron snorted, a quiet sleepy thing. “Can’t let me have even one fond memory of you, Malfoy?”
Draco smiled into his pillow.
“Do you think we’ll ever see each other again?” he asked, after a long silent moment.
“Like this?”
“Mm.”
“Probably not,” Ron said, which Draco had been expecting, even as his stomach dropped with the hearing of it. “But if you keep shagging my brother, eventually even you could earn an invite to the Burrow.”
“Is there an alternative option?”
“We could meet up in ten years when we’re both with other people, wank in our adjoined rooms, and pretend we can’t hear each other come?”
“That sounds more suitably depressing.”
“Ha!” Ron barked a laugh and Draco winced, rubbing at his ear. “Sorry,” Ron said, kissing him on the shoulder again. “That’s basically what I’ve been doing at Harry’s.”
“What,” Draco said, his heart skipping a beat.
“Yeah, it’s real saddo hours there,” Ron said. “Maybe I should send him here. Tell him what a good host you are.”
“I rescind the offer I forgot to extend to suck your cock again in the morning,” Draco threatened. “And besides, we’re leaving Spain next week.”
“Oh?” Ron raised his eyebrows.
“Norway,” Draco said. “Annual Horntail count, then the winter breeding season.”
“Norway in winter,” Ron said, shivering, twisting in closer to Draco’s body.
“I’m ready for it,” Draco said. He lifted an arm, letting Ron settle against his chest. “The cold weather suits me.”
“Hm,” Ron hummed, his breath a warm skate across Draco’s nipple.
“What?”
“I think summer suits you just fine,” Ron said, his voice slow, sleepy.
“You don’t know anything at all, Ronald Weasley,” Draco said, his eyes closing.
“If you say so,” Ron muttered, and then he was asleep, heavy and warm in Draco’s arms.
+++
By the time Draco finishes his story, the sun has fully set and they’re sitting in the dark barn. Harry is between his legs, back to chest, the side of his face pressed against Draco’s jaw as he listens to Draco speak. At some point their hands found each other in Harry’s lap, and Draco squeezes, signifying he’s done, asking the question he won’t say.
Are you okay?
Harry sighs deeply, not moving otherwise. Draco thinks of the Harry who stormed back into his life a year ago, all of him a knot of grief and fury that couldn’t stop moving, and he wonders — as he often does — if this is any better, this Harry who can sit so still, heavy as a sinking stone.
“That’s not the story I heard,” Harry says eventually. “Do you still have those… feelings… for him?”
“I don’t—no,” Draco lies.
“You don’t know?” Harry asks.
Draco swallows.
“It was only the one night,” he says. “At a very fucked time. It’s… hard to know.”
“I see,” Harry says. Draco lets him think. Stays still until Harry says, “I wonder why Ron lied to me.”
“Ron lied to you?” Draco asks, surprised.
“By omission…” Harry hedges. “He made it sound like a drunken romp. You know, like, a sex story. I didn’t realise there were emotions involved.”
“I see,” Draco says, chewing his lip. “Well… perhaps that’s just what he remembers. We were quite drunk. I doubt it was malicious.”
He ignores the sinking pit in his stomach at the idea. Ignores the anger rising in his gut, the creep of shame, that he himself was so honest in his telling. That he was the only one to have told those parts of the story because he was the only one who felt them.
“I wouldn’t have teased you… I didn’t mean to…” Harry falters, and what Draco hears is, I didn’t mean to know this.
Draco presses Harry’s face with his own, and Harry returns the gesture. This was the first way they ever said I love you, and Draco releases a breath he didn’t realise he was holding.
“Sorry,” Draco murmurs. Harry tilts his head back, angling for a kiss. “Tilgi meg?” Draco says, asking for forgiveness against his lips.
“Okay,” Harry responds. As Draco kisses him, he can feel Harry pushing down, burying whatever emotion is bubbling inside of him, and wants to take it back, wants to force them to talk about it.
Eventually, the space Harry’s been shoving things into is going to crack open. Draco knows from experience. He’s been preparing himself to be strong enough, when it happens to Harry. To not run away.
Harry stretches his legs out, his arms overhead, letting his hands fall to rest in Draco’s hair. There’s just barely enough now for Harry to twirl it around his fingers, giving Draco curls to match his own.
“Let’s go inside, min elskling,” Draco says. “I’ll make us dinner.”
“Eggs and sausages?” Harry asks, brightening.
“And toast with cloudberry jam.”
They’re halfway to the house when Harry stops walking and grabs Draco’s hand, digging in his heels. Draco stops, turns, meets Harry’s piercing gaze. Doesn’t flinch, despite his gut instinct being to divert, to twist and turn and escape.
“You’re always taking care of me,” Harry says. A statement. An accusation. A question.
Draco presses his lips together, heat rising in his stomach, spreading across his face.
“I love you,” he says.
“Don’t stop,” Harry says, stepping closer.
“I won’t.”
“Ever,” Harry says, an unreasonable demand.
“I won’t,” Draco replies, an oath, a midnight vow.