For the Worst

Author’s Note: Thanks to Kasey for the beta work on this chapter and thanks to all who have reviewed so far. There should only be one part left unless things get out of hand when I’m writing part 4…which I won’t rule out when it comes to this pair.

Part 3

Harry was thankfully asleep by the time I got back to the room, and we avoided the conversation about what relationship – or lack thereof – Potter would be willing to accept from me after that. I’d gladly meet his physical needs, but I wasn’t willing to go beyond that. I wasn’t a hearts and flowers type of bloke, and he would never get that from me, but I’d drop to my knees and suck him off any time he liked.

A week passed where Potter and I tiptoed around the subject but remained amicable - in private at least. In public we were just as stormy as ever. It was amusing to see his personality shift the moment we walked into the training room, and the dedication he put into his act to show Weasley that nothing was going on between us. It was extra funny because at the time, nothing was.

The following Saturday brought turmoil though, a stinging sensation that went straight to my heart and one I had not anticipated.

I strolled into our room after lunch and halted in the doorway, barely mustering the coordination to shut the door behind me. “You look,” I stammered, unable to take my eyes off his form long enough to speak coherently. Harry was standing by the desk, bending over to scribble a note, but his eyes met mine across the room the moment I opened my mouth.

His arse was clad in the most delicious denim I’d ever seen, the color a deep gray with a wash that emphasized his muscular legs and pert backside. His trainers were plain and black, but I paid very little attention to his feet when his shirt fit him so amazingly well, and the emerald green color of it made his eyes glisten. “Good,” I finished with a thick swallow as I imagined peeling those jeans off his lithe body as he moaned and writhed at my touch. I’d always known Potter was attractive, but in the frumpy robes he often wore, he never showed off quite how handsome he truly was. I was instantly hard at the sight and stalked over to him, pressing my body into his without thinking.

He gasped and rutted against me, his own erection matching mine within moments. When I grabbed his jaw, angling for a kiss, he stopped me and stepped back, panting heavily. “I can’t right now,” he rasped, his eyes flicking to the note on the desk. “I’m supposed to be meeting with Gin.”

“Ah,” I breathed, nodding casually while something vicious and unnamed gnawed away at my gut. “I remember now, date night.”

He nodded, looking almost guilty. I liked that he did, even though I knew I shouldn’t be concerned one way or another. What did I care if he ran off and shagged the Weasley girl? It wasn’t as if Potter belonged to me, but I realized in that moment that I wanted him to. I wanted him to dash everything aside and stay there with me instead of running off to be with her.

“Later?” he offered and I waved my hand in a blasé movement before turning my head so I could hide the shame I felt at wanting more from Harry, more than he could give and more than I could rightly expect.

“Perhaps,” I answered noncommittally and gestured that he should just leave. He hesitated, rocking between the foot that would carry him to the door and the one that would plant him closer to me, but I only rolled my eyes at him.

“Get going, or else you’ll have to make up a story as to why you’re late, and I don’t think you’d fancy having to explain my teeth marks all over your body,” I purred, leaning in with my threat.

He shuddered, his eyes fluttering into a half-lidded state, but he shook himself out of his daze and nodded curtly before walking to the door and leaving me alone in the room. My gaze went instantly to the scrap of parchment on the desk and a smile came unbidden to my lips.

‘Draco’, it said and I couldn’t banish the glee I felt at him calling me by my given name even though I knew how ridiculous and un-Malfoy-like the emotion was. ‘I’ll be at the Burrow, probably late. I want to talk to you tomorrow though, so could you wait for me before you go to breakfast? I just want to clear up a few….’

The note ended abruptly, probably because I entered the room and thoroughly distracted him as much as the sight of him had distracted me. It frightened me how attractive I had found him in that moment, and it angered me that he was making himself so delicious looking for the Weasel-ette. I had no reason to be jealous, and my logical Slytherin mind reminded me that I had even pointed out to him that I wouldn’t get emotionally attached. But here I was, doing just that. I wanted to drive hot pokers into my eyes for my own idiocy, but that wouldn’t have done much good in the long run – or the short run for that matter.

I would use this evening apart to remind myself who I was. I was a Malfoy, and we didn’t get attached to other people through base carnal pleasures. I could do what I wanted with Potter, I could even fuck him, and still I would remain impassive and emotionless. I would.

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That night I was awoken by a peculiar sound. I chastised myself for not having woken up when Potter got back, a fine Auror I was turning out to be, but it was too late to do anything about that now. The fact remained that he had come back and now he was in the bunk above me making harried, grunting sounds. It took me a moment to emerge enough from my sleepy fog to realize what was going on.

Potter was pulling himself off in the bed just above me.

The idea thrilled me until I remembered where he’d just been. Apparently the Weasel-ette wasn’t giving her freckled body up to Potter just yet and now he was likely wanking to the image of her. As much as I loathed the idea of seeing any of the Weasleys nude, I was curious as to what exactly Potter fantasized about, so I sent softly probing mental fingers out, catching onto the thought that was foremost in Potter’s mind and nearly gasped.

It was me Potter was thinking about as his fist worked his cock furiously. He was imagining me down on my knees, kissing and licking and sucking on his engorged prick, and I felt my own arousal stir at the intoxicating daydream.

Throwing caution to the wind, I sprung quietly out of bed and glanced up at him. His eyes were pressed shut, his breathing so heavy he didn’t hear me as I crept into bed with him. At least I wasn’t alone at being a shoddy Auror. It wasn’t until my own hand replaced his that he half-shouted his surprise.

I smirked at him, picking up the rhythm of his strokes with my hand and his fell away, his head lolling back without a word. When my hand moved away, he whimpered in protest, but his whines soon turned into keening gasps as I took him in my mouth. Potter was thick and velvety on my tongue and I put my best effort into making him scream his orgasm. It wasn’t much of a challenge as it turned out. As I swallowed down the last drops of him, his fingers found their way into my hair and he tugged, making me moan around his softening cock.

He was suddenly frantic, pulling my face up to his, and he kissed me as if my lips were the key to eternal life. He plunged his tongue into my mouth, tasting his own flavors mingled with mine and he groaned as he devoured me. When those lips shifted to my neck, I gave him an appreciative purr, and then they shifted again, to my chest this time.

Potter worked his way slowly down my bare torso until he reached the straining hem of my pajama bottoms. His tongue ran tentatively underneath, pulling back slightly as he tasted the accumulated pre-come that had leaked from my pulsing cock. He stared up at me from his position, his sated flush turning to slight embarrassment. I was going to laugh at my own poor luck if he happened to find semen distasteful, but he smiled shyly and ran a tongue over his bottom lip. “It’s sort of salty,” he commented and I smiled, nodding in approval.

“Bitter as well,” I added, trying to give him an out, though Merlin only knew why I was being so generous. The Slytherin in me should have been demanding an eye for an eye.

“Not too bitter,” he replied and yanked down my trousers to keep me from replying. It worked. The sight of Harry Potter hovering over my cock with his lips red and parted nearly made me come on the spot, but then those lips descended and kissed the throbbing vein that ran the length of my prick and I hissed at the heady sensation.

Then a tongue slid along my shaft, followed by those luscious lips taking the head into his mouth. I moaned, low and thick and all for Harry and he seemed to respond to the sound and it spurred him on. He sucked me, his cheeks hollowing out with the effort and my hands scrambled for something to grip. I didn’t want to grab hold of his hair, or else then I’d have no reason to keep myself from thrusting into his willing mouth. This was presumably Potter’s first blowjob. I didn’t want to scare him off so soon.

I hissed sharply when teeth grazed me, and his eyes popped open in surprise, guilt written clearly in those luminescent eyes. “Sorry,” he whispered in apology, pulling off of me, but that was worse than the slight pain from his teeth, so I shook my head.

“There’s a learning curve is all,” I told him breathily. “You just need more practice,” I teased, my eyebrow raised in challenge.

“I suppose you’d be the willing recipient of said practice?” he asked me cheekily and I leveled him with a possessive glare, but couldn’t bring myself to erase it.

“Is there someone else’s cock you plan to be sucking, Potter?” I demanded and he shook his head, a knowing smile tinting his lips a darker red.

“Only you, Malfoy, only you,” he assured and went back to work with such fervor that I began to wonder if this was indeed his first time.

I screamed his name when I came, and not the surname I should have shouted. The word ‘Harry’ still tingled on my lips for several minutes after he sputtered and swallowed down my ejaculation, grinning proudly when he didn’t cough it back up. I wasted no time pulling him against me and kissing him once more. I adored the taste of Potter, and the fact that those lips had just been wrapped around my erection made the kiss that much sweeter.

“You called me Harry,” he commented, purring it against my ear in a lover’s whisper. He was my lover now, I had laid claim to his mouth and his cock, even if I would never lay claim to his heart.

“It was a fluke, I assure you,” I told him blandly, not letting him shift away in indignation like he wanted to. “Don’t get so moody.” I held him tightly to me and shifted so that I could smooth away the sweaty hair pressed to his forehead and I kissed him again. “You’re beautiful and I want you, but I told you that I’m not going to fall in love with you.”

“I know that,” he snapped, somewhat defensively, but my previous words seemed to have soothed him somewhat. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t call me Harry.”

“That’s exactly what it means,” I replied, not understanding why he didn’t get it.

He shook his head, obviously growing frustrated, but I kissed him and it stilled his movements until I parted slightly so that we could breathe. “But my name is Harry,” he persisted, as if we’d never kissed at all.

I closed my eyes and saw his sweet face there, even in the whirling blackness of my thoughts. When I opened them again he had the most adorable pout that I just wanted to eat up, but I held firm. “What would Weasley say if we went into training tomorrow and I called you Harry?”

I knew my voice sounded deep and full of lust when I pronounced the name, because that was the way it made me feel, and his glazed over vision seemed to indicate that he’d noticed.

“If you say it like that I’m sure he’ll be suspicious,” Harry sighed at last, snuggling into my side as if he were already willing to give up the fight.

“You and I both know he’d be suspicious either way. Do you want to lose your girl? Do you want the entire Auror department to look at you like you’re diseased for lying with a Death Eater?” I pressed. His body tensed beside me once more, but he didn’t open his eyes and he didn’t otherwise move.

“You’re not a Death Eater anymore,” he argued, but it sounded halfhearted even in my own ears.

“You’re the only one here that thinks that,” I pointed out.

“That’ll change,” he promised. “I’ll make it change.”

I sighed and wrapped myself in his warm embrace, noticing how perfectly his head fit in the space between my chest and chin. “You’re too kind for your own good, Potter.”

He didn’t answer me with anything besides the low and level sound of his breathing as he drifted off to sleep, his head on my chest and his arms around my waist. I felt more at home there in his arms than I had ever felt in the manor, or even at Hogwarts, and I knew then that I was doomed, but I didn’t give it much thought as I allowed myself to succumb to sleep in Harry’s bed.

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I expected to wake up in his arms, but morning found me waking up alone. I heard the shower running and again cursed myself for not having heard him stir and slip out of bed. I was only lucky that Cockburn wasn’t there to see me so lax in my constant vigilance. I wobbled out of bed, unsure how Harry managed to climb down a ladder every morning, and got ready for the day, though I couldn’t seem to rid myself of the constant niggling in the back of my mind that something had shifted between Harry and I and was irreparably changed forever.

After that night we were virtually inseparable. We kept up the stormy façade in training, but none of our insults and jabs carried weight any longer. It was hard to make them stick when Harry would attack me with his lips the moment we got back to our room, or sometimes we couldn’t even get beyond a deserted corridor before he was putting his newest talent of sucking cock into practice.

It was nice to feel wanted and even nicer to feel close to someone as intriguing and powerful as Harry. By day we were still sworn enemies, but by night we were lovers, caught up in a secret affair that neither of us could put a stop to. I knew I should. Even as I stared at him as he drifted off to sleep every night, I knew I should stop this farce before it got out of hand, but it was already too late for that and part of me knew it. I was growing attached to him, falling in love even though I had vowed not to. I was a terrible Slytherin, and an unworthy Malfoy for allowing it to happen, but I couldn’t seem to switch it off. Something about Harry pulled me to him like a magnet, made me drown in him and before I realized it, we’d been at our peculiar arrangement for an entire year.

Just when I thought I could come to terms with what Harry and I were, and maybe even work up to making us into something more, I got a summons from my mother.

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It was late August and the trees were already crimson when I went to the manor. I hadn’t been back there since I started training, and I wasn’t looking forward to it now. I knew what was ahead of me; I knew why she had Owled to have me visit. Mother was dying and I didn’t know how to handle it.

A trim blonde woman met me at the door, but it wasn’t Narcissa. In fact, I only vaguely recalled seeing this woman at a handful of social events, which seemed like a distant life for me now. I nodded curtly and wondered what this woman was doing in my home, answering my door, and then it occurred to me that she might be attending to my mother. I assumed she was a Medi-witch, and I softened to her slightly.

“Draco Malfoy,” I announced, holding out my hand for her to take.

“I know,” she replied with a shy smile and turned away without grasping my offered hand. I followed her up the stairs to my mother’s room, and nearly gasped at the sight. There, bundled up in several thick layers of blankets, was my mother, looking frailer than I’d ever seen her look before. I couldn’t take my eyes away from her sunken cheeks and her graying hair. How did she go from the stunning and powerful woman I grew up with to this barely living corpse in just a few months?

The moment her haunted gaze met mine, I knew the answer. Her soul had left her body to join my father’s, wherever it had gone, and left my mother a hollowed out shell. If I’d been paying closer attention, I would have seen it before I left for training. I would have known why she appeared so distant and ill. She held no more love now that Lucius had parted from her. He’d taken it all with him when the Dementors descended with their Kiss.

“Mother,” I greeted as coolly as possible and went at once to her side. She hated it when I displayed any hint of true emotion, chastising it as weakness just as my father had always done. “I see your condition has deteriorated since last we spoke.” It was an understatement if ever I uttered one. In truth, I was afraid she wouldn’t be able to last through an entire conversation with me before she passed away.

“I’m dying, Draco,” she rasped, pointing out the obvious, and I sat down on the edge of her bed to better hear her. “But before I go, I needed to take care of some loose ends.” It was always about business with her, always about the Malfoy name and fortune. I nodded; I shouldn’t have been expecting warm sentiment from her now. “The deeds to the manor and the information on all our vaults are in the safe in your father’s study. You know the one?”

I remembered the safe well. “The one hidden inside the bust of Artimus Malfoy,” I confirmed and she nodded.

“The password is Honor,” she informed me and I was a little surprised at that. I would have expected something more elaborate and overdramatic from my father. “I’ve already granted you full access to the vaults and the Goblins are expecting your visit to finalize the paperwork and seal you as the sole beneficiary.”

Every word she uttered was like a stab in my heart, but I couldn’t tell her that, she wouldn’t approve of my childish sentimentality. “I understand,” I told her instead.

“There is one last thing,” she whispered, and gestured to a scroll beside the bed. I grabbed it and opened it, scanning the document before leveling her with a dangerous gaze. It was an official intent for marriage between myself and a girl named Astoria Greengrass, whom I realized too late was the woman hovering out in the corridor.

“You can’t be serious,” I exclaimed. “You’ll give me no say in who I marry? Even now?”

“I’m dying, Draco. I have no time to debate this. I have thoroughly checked her pedigree. Her blood is pure and she’s fertile and ready to bear you a son. She’s a strong woman, kind and obedient. She’ll make a perfect wife, Draco,” she replied, as if she’d been selecting a dog and not a bride. “I’ll have no arguments on this, Son. Sign the papers now, and I’ll have them Owled to our lawyers right away.”

“Mother, I-”

“No arguments. You’re a Malfoy, you know what that means,” she replied, and looked away. “You can wait until after your silly Auror training to have the wedding, but the engagement will be sealed right this moment. I must witness it before I pass beyond the veil.”

My hands were tied. I knew this day would come, but I hadn’t prepared myself for what it would mean: the cancellation of all my choices, the disappearance of my freewill, and the end of my relationship with Harry. The name brought his face unbidden to my mind and I gave a strangled gasp as I stared down at the paper that would seal my fate. As much as I talked about being unaffected and detached, I felt connected to Harry, and he most certainly affected me to my very core. Despite everything I did, I had fallen in love with him, and now I was to marry another.

What would he say? Would he care? Would he congratulate me? Would he banish me from his bed? He had Ginevra after all, though they weren’t engaged despite the persistence of Molly Weasley.

It only occurred to me briefly to refuse her wishes. She was my mother, she was my blood, and she was dying. How could I not sign? Besides, I needed an heir. My gaze drifted back to the woman in the doorway, and seeming to sense my attention, she turned and met my gaze. I let myself picture her wandering the halls of the manor, I tried to imagine her naked, I tried to see her pregnant with my child. All those things I could see in my mind, but I couldn’t see myself at her side. She was lovely of course, my mother knew better than to pair me with someone like Bulstrode, but she wasn’t Harry.

In that moment I realized it didn’t matter. Harry was a fantasy, I’d told him myself that he and I would never work as a couple. He’d agreed with me, he’d confirmed my beliefs that he would be too ashamed to go public with our relationship, whatever it was, and he’d even discussed his guilt at stringing along his girlfriend, even though he refused to break things off with her. He knew this thing between us was only temporary.

The woman standing at my mother’s bedroom door was permanent; she was my future.

I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again the world seemed to right itself. I signed my name to the bottom of the page and passed it to my mother who smiled weakly at me and patted my hand. “That’s a good lad.”

It was as if my signature on that damning document was the final obligation binding her to this world. The moment the words left her mouth, the last of her breath left with it, and moments later her body was slack with death.

I stared wide-eyed for a moment, her body seemed younger, happier than it had when I’d walked in moments ago, as if the last bit of her soul had found father and she was finally content. I balled up my fists and fought back a scream. She hadn’t said good-bye, she hadn’t told me she loved me, and she hadn’t given me the time to say anything either.

Before I could grab the parchment from her already cooling hand, Astoria was behind me, her warm arms folding around me. “She loved you very much,” she said, as if she knew those were the words I’d been waiting for.

“I suppose she told you this before I arrived,” I muttered sarcastically, my voice a cold, distant whisper.

“No,” she replied easily. “Narcissa wasn’t one for overt fondness, but I could tell by the way she spoke of you.”

“How long have you known?” I asked, and surprisingly she understood my meaning.

“She came to me three months ago. My father wanted to pawn you off on Daphne, but your mother wouldn’t hear of it,” she replied, a reluctant smile on her beautiful face.

“Rightly so,” I sneered, thinking of the simpering girl I’d gone to Hogwarts with. I worried that this woman was much of the same, but she seemed calm and levelheaded so far. It didn’t matter though. She could turn into a troll at night and she would still be my wife one day.

“Can I visit you while you train at the Ministry?” she asked and I imagined introducing her to Harry and cringed.

“I’m not sure that would be best,” I told her, “but perhaps I can visit you on the weekends.” It might pose a nice distraction for the times Harry left me to be with the Weasleys, I added silently.

“You…are you dating someone?” she asked and I didn’t know if it was perceptiveness or just curiosity that spurred it, but I shook my head.

“Not in the traditional sense, no,” I told her, because it was the truth. Any fantasy I’d been clutching that involved having a life with Harry was strictly out of reach now.

“Okay,” she whispered, seemingly satisfied with my vague answer, and got up. “I look forward to getting to know you, Draco,” she told me and before I could answer, she left the room, leaving me alone with my dearly departed mother.

“I love you, even though you’ve ruined my life,” I told her, squeezing her limp hand in mine before I too left the room.

I summoned the coroner before going back to the Ministry training facilities. Harry had left a note to tell me he was spending the entire weekend at the Burrow. I couldn’t even explain to myself how bereft I felt with that knowledge. I needed him, I needed to hold him, to touch him, to clutch his body tightly to mine and never let go, but instead I curled up in the emptiness of my own bed and I fell into a deep, tormented sleep, clutching my pillow instead.

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When Harry returned Sunday evening, he could tell at once that something was amiss. He dropped his bags and rushed to my side, only to be shoved away. “Malfoy, what’s wrong?” he asked, looking thoroughly dejected by my refusal to let him touch me.

“My mother died,” I told him blandly, turning back over in my bed. My eyes were red because I’d been fighting with tears all day, but I didn’t want Harry’s comfort, not now, not like this. He wasn’t back for me, he was back for training in the morning.

“When?” Harry gasped, making another failed attempt to grab my hand.

“Yesterday,” I told him sharply. “Yesterday morning.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded. “You could have sent for me at the Burrow. I would have come right back.”

His words softened something deep inside of me and sharpened something else. I was always so conflicted in my emotions when it came to Harry. He caused me both pleasure and pain in every minute we spent together. “Yes, that would have been easy to explain to the missus,” I snapped.

“The missus,” he repeated, the words rolling oddly from his mouth. “Are you…are you jealous of Ginny?” he asked softly, and I was a fool to have heard hope in that voice.

“That would be ridiculous,” I pointed out. “Especially since I’m now engaged.”

“You- wait, what?” Harry shouted, standing up so quickly he stumbled backwards. “You’re engaged? To who? I didn’t even know you were dating someone.”

“I wasn’t,” I replied acidly. “It was part of my mother’s last wishes to choose my bride. I met her yesterday.”

“I…I don’t know what to say,” he replied, looking completely dumbfounded. “What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know!” I screamed, letting my frustration out at last. I wanted him to be angry, to forbid me, to shout and yell and tell me that he didn’t want anyone else to have me, but how could I ask that of him now, after all this time, after everything I’ve told him to the contrary?

“Is this what you want? To marry this woman, this stranger?” he asked, and I could tell he was angry and confused, and at least that was something.

“No,” I told him honestly. “But I have to, don’t I?”

Harry lunged at me then, toppling us both back into the mattress. He kissed me brutally, as if claiming his territory, and what I might have teased him for another day, I sank into and enjoyed that very moment. I needed to feel like I belonged to him, even though we both knew I didn’t. Even though he would move into his own bed in the middle of the night, and I would be cold and alone. Even though he would still go to his Weasley girl next weekend, and I would probably visit with Astoria. Even though our lives were set on two very different paths that were veering further apart and would continue to do so forever.

“I want you,” he whispered hungrily against the shell of my ear and I knew what he meant. Harry wanted to own a part of me forever, something my fiancé would never get.

“What about Ginevra?” I asked. The subject of sex, true sex, had come up on a few occasions before, and every time we had decided to wait for some reason or another. I wasn’t willing to pressure him; I was perfectly satisfied with our encounters as they were, but Harry was hesitant to move forward because he was still dating the Weasel girl. Apparently, in his twisted mind, he wasn’t cheating on her unless we had sex, or at least that’s what he’d convinced himself of to allow him to sleep guilt free in my arms while his girlfriend slept alone somewhere else.

“I’m here with you right now, not her,” he whispered, and latched on to that spot along my collarbone that he knew made me give into his every demand.

I was quickly lost in the lusty haze created by Harry’s lips and tongue, but I drew myself to the surface before I let him drown me. “Why? Why now?”

He stopped, and stared up at me for a moment, his eyes blinking away his own intoxicated daze. “Your mother just died, you’re about to marry someone else,” he began and I cut him off by sitting up and shoving him away from me.

“Harry James Potter, if you think you can just mend my life with a pity fuck, you’re vastly mistaken,” I growled, but he just grinned at me cutely, making my snarl seem inappropriate and out of place in our intimate stance.

“You’re adorable when you’re angry, did I ever tell you that?” he asked, and stalked back toward me on his hands and knees. I rolled my eyes but let him come. I couldn’t refuse him anything when it came down to it.

“I won’t allow you to lose your virginity for the wrong reasons,” I pressed, but he was still moving toward me.

“What are the right reasons?” he asked and I frowned at him. Love. It was the first and only thing that came to mind as the answer to that question, but I didn’t voice it. I couldn’t.

So, I ignored it. “Do you even know what you’re doing?” I asked instead, an implied sneer in my voice.

“I think I can figure it out,” he told me, his own voice reflecting a confidence that his eyes did not.

I sighed and fell back to the mattress, acting for all the world as if he was putting me out with his attentions, even though it was quite the opposite. Every graze of his fingertips, every caress of his tongue, every nip of his teeth erased the world around us, and all that was left was Harry and I, and a tangle of sweaty limbs.

I would have liked to say that the first time we made love was perfect, but at best it was awkward and painful. Still, we laughed together at our nervous floundering, and my entire heart filled to bursting with love and adoration for the man who stole my virginity. With Harry inside of me, I felt right, I felt whole, I felt like I could take on the world and no one could stop me. For those brief moments, the fact that we could never be a true couple was the furthest thing from my mind, because whether he knew it or not, Harry owned me completely.

When I came, it wasn’t ‘Potter’ that I screamed out, it was ‘Harry’. Just Harry, and he spared no thought before shouting my name as he filled me with his own release, washing away the pain of my mother’s death, the distress of promising myself to another, and the heartbreak from knowing that Harry only belonged to me for the moment.

“You’re perfect,” he whispered as his head fell against my chest. His arms wrapped instantly around me, tightening as if I would try to squirm away. I wasn’t going anywhere.

“I know,” I told him and he bit me playfully on the neck before ravaging my mouth. He was as possessive of me with his lips as he’d been when he’d taken me, and I allowed my mouth to be plundered by his urgent tongue. If he wanted to forget the outside world, I would help him do that. It should have only been the two of us from the start, but fate and obligations had complicated things to the point where I don’t think either of us knew how to unravel the web we’d been trapped in.

It didn’t matter though. Our arrangement had always been tenuous, always poised on the edge of a steep cliff. A little push from any direction could send it toppling over into the dark abyss. I messed up in that moment, and I breathed a little too heavy, causing it to shake and then to plummet.

“Do you ever think this could be more?” he asked, mirroring my thoughts from just moments ago.

“More than great sex and easy companionship?” I asked, and he smirked, a look that seemed so out of place on his Gryffindor face.

“Yes, more than that,” he clarified.

“Like what?” I prodded, wanting to know exactly what he was thinking.

“Like, exclusive,” he whispered.

“Exclusively secret?” I pondered aloud and he laughed against the shell of my ear.

“No, not secret at all,” he said. He hid his eyes from me, because I had told him once that they showed me everything, but I heard his voice waver and his confidence along with it.

“Why are you asking now?” I couldn’t shake the feeling that none of this would have happened had I not just gotten myself engaged.

“Draco, I-” he began, but then quickly shook it off. “Forget it. I’m just being an emotional Gryffindor,” he huffed, as if I were the one to have said it.

Harry, I love you.

It would have been as easy as that and he would have been mine. I know that now, but it’s too late. I didn’t say those three, simple words; I didn’t say anything at all. I just held him, breathed in his scent and let our already tenuous relationship fall into the deep, dark chasm below us.

Author’s Note: Well, my beta had to go read the sequel to this story once she finished this, and can you believe it’s going to get sadder than this?! lol