Memory\'s Ghost

“All right, concentrate.”

“Harry, I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Of course you can. You’ve been doing really well.”

“But only when you’re around.”

Harry looked up at the reluctant young man and smiled. “That’s not true. Students have been spreading rumors of a new ghost, and we both know you’re the one they keep seeing.”

For a few weeks now, they’d been working on making Tom less of a phantom by trying to find ways to increase his solidity as well as his abilities to affect the things around him. So far, the rewards had been minor and their progress slow, but Harry refused to lose hope. Tom, on the other hand, was a different story.

“Harry, why are we bothering?” Tom said with a dejected sigh. “The only thing we both know is that we don’t know what I am.”

Walking over to him, Harry wrapped his arms around the slight frame with a comforting hug. “‘What’ isn’t important. I know who you are, and that’s all that matters to me.”

“You mean it?”

He placed a hand against Tom’s cheek, caressing the soft skin with his thumb. “You know I do.”

Still smiling, Harry eliminated the distance between them and pressed his lips to Tom’s. Since their first kiss on the night they’d been interrupted by Malfoy, they’d become more familiar with each other’s mouths than they were with their own. Kissing Tom had become such a distraction for Harry that he spent every spare minute, and usually several minutes he couldn’t spare, daydreaming about the feel of those full, pink lips.

And from the enthusiasm with which the ghost greeted him every day, Harry suspected Tom felt the same. Either that, or the ghost was seriously fucking bored and starved for entertainment.

“Your confidence all nice and bolstered now?” Harry grinned as ended the kiss and Tom granted him a goofy smile.

“All right, have it your way,” the ghost said, stepping back. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Again, Tom stretched forth his hand and reached for the wand sitting on the boulder. Again, he couldn’t seem to break through the barrier the wand had created around itself. Harry had just wanted to find out if Tom, in his current state, would be able to do magic. It seemed only natural that he would be able to use Harry’s wand, but so far, the experiment had failed. Tom couldn’t touch it.

“Maybe we should try a different wand,” Harry said thoughtfully and Tom gave the wand a dirty look.

“Maybe I’m not capable of using magic.”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t think that’s it. Of everyone on these grounds, the two of us are the two most likely to use magic.”

“Maybe that was true while I was alive, but just because I am whatever I am, it doesn’t mean I’ll be able to have anything to do with magic.”

“And I think it does, and that you will. We’ll try another wand.”

“Harry, why is this so important to you?”

“If you can use magic, you can protect yourself.”

Tom gave him a wry smile. “Just exactly how am I in danger? Look--I’m here.” The young man vanished into thin air. “And now I’m not.” He reappeared. “I’m here.” He vanished again. “And now I’m not.” He reappeared, and Harry started to laugh.

“All right, all right. I get the idea. But that won’t stop me from worrying. If anyone finds out about you. . .” Harry trailed off before he could say anything else. He had yet to inform Tom of his rather nefarious past, but he knew that if anyone found out that even the slightest remnant of Voldemort was still around, they’d do whatever they could to destroy it.

“I love that you worry,” Tom said, wrapping his arms around Harry’s waist and giving him a kiss. “I love that there’s someone out there who cares about me. And if I vanish one day, it’s nice to know that there’s someone out there who will miss me.”

“You’re not going to vanish!” Harry said, his voice hard as he grabbed onto Tom’s shoulders. “I’m not going to let you.”

The blue eyes widened, shocked at Harry’s vehemence as he looked up into the other man’s green gaze. “You really do care about me, don’t you?”

Harry stared at him, studying the fine features, the elegant cheekbones, the kissable mouth. Tom was beautiful, there was no denying it, but Harry saw more than just his physical beauty. He saw someone who was a lot like him, someone unsure of himself, unable to believe in his own abilities, someone who only wanted to be loved for who he was, not for the person everyone wanted him to be.

Maybe he was just transferring too much of his own desires on Tom, but that was something else he loved about the ghost. He never demanded anything from Harry except affection, letting Harry mold him as the wizard saw fit. But in return for his generous nature, Harry would do anything for Tom, and they both knew it.

“Of course I care for you,” he answered softly. “You mean everything to me.”

Tom kissed him hard, letting the kiss grow into a demanding passion they’d only teased each other with, but had never allowed to move beyond their mouths. Now, Harry could sense the desperation behind the kiss and wasn’t surprised when Tom whispered between them, “I want you, Harry.”

“I want you, too,” he said, a little sadly, “but how. . . ?”

“Just let me,” Tom said, his voice filled with assurance as he gently lowered Harry onto the soft grass. Covering his body with loving kisses, Tom began removing Harry’s robes, exposing his skin to the cool night air. The wizard shivered a little as his chest and arms were freed from his clothes and Tom looked up at him with concern.

“It’s chilly,” he grinned, and the ghost chuckled.

“You’ll warm up soon enough,” Tom replied, reaching for the button of Harry’s pants, and Harry didn’t have the heart to tell him it wasn’t just the night that drew the warmth from his body. Tom’s light touches carried with them the cold of the otherworldly, of something that wasn’t meant to be but existed nonetheless. That was nearly as exciting to Harry as the ghost’s caresses.

When his swelling cock was released to meet with the surrounding chilling factors, Harry’s mind flashed to a moment of such heat that he had to bite down to keep from crying out. He closed his eyes, seeing a wave of silver-gold hair fall over him as a body thrust into his, a silver gaze flashing with supreme self-satisfaction and pleasure. This body knew his, as he knew it.

And it was near.

Harry forced his eyes open to see a lithe figure standing over him with an expression of intrigued contempt.

“Why, Potter, you look thoroughly debauched, and yet there is no one around to do the debauching. Couldn’t find anyone willing enough to be your partner? Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”

Unseen by the Slytherin, Tom pulled back, and for a second, it almost looked as if the blue eyes were burning red. Sending his lover an apologetic glance, Harry quickly tried to get his clothes back into some semblance of order, but Tom was having none of that. Growling low in his throat, he leapt at the intruder, hands outstretched as he reached for Draco’s neck.

“Why won’t you leave us alone?!” he shouted, the sound turning into a yelp of surprise when, instead of passing right through Malfoy, his hands seemed to be absorbed into the Slytherin’s body. “Harry!” Tom cried with alarm as the rest of him soon followed until not even a wisp remained of the ghost.

“Tom!” Harry scrambled to reach for him, but was met by only Malfoy. “What have you done to him?!” he demanded, shaking Malfoy by the shoulders.

“Harry! Harry, stop!”

Hearing his name from those sneering lips made him pause and he realized that blue eyes were staring at him from Malfoy’s face, blue eyes he knew all too well.

“Tom? Is that you?”

Tom nodded, looking down at himself, running his hands over his arms, his chest, his hips. “Harry, what’s happened to me?”

“You. . . you’ve possessed Malfoy!”

For a moment, he was too stunned to react, then Tom’s absconded face twisted with anger. “You mean I’m stuck inside that obnoxious little prat?!”

“No! No, we’ll get you out of there. I am not leaving you in there! And Malfoy. . . gods, he’s going to be furious!”

“Malfoy! What about me? Harry, I don’t want to be trapped in here!”

“Shh. . .” he said, taking the panicked face between his hands. “I don’t want you to be trapped there either. I want. . . I want. . .” Harry’s words trailed off as he realized that he was touching Tom and even though he was stuck in Malfoy’s body, it meant that Tom could feel his touches.

“You’re real.”

The blue eyes widened and Tom quickly moved to place his hands over Harry’s. “We’re both real. Harry. . .”

The blue eyes darkened with hunger as the young man launched himself at the wizard. The two kissed frantically, tearing at each other’s clothes.

“I want to feel you, Harry,” Tom gasped as they tumbled to the ground. “I want to feel you on top of me, inside of me, all over me.”

“I can’t. . . oh, gods, I want to, but I can’t do that to Malfoy,” Harry said, his voice laced with regret, his body throbbing with the impulse to throw the pale legs over his shoulders and fuck the living daylights out of him. “I couldn’t do that to his body without his consent.”

And yet he could call up a perfect picture of what Malfoy looked like on all fours begging to be taken.

Tom paused, arching a characteristically Draco-esqe eyebrow at him. “Could the prat do that to you?”

Harry didn’t even have to think about an answer as he grinned. “Oh, hell yes. It would make his day to be the one who buggered Gryffindor’s Golden Boy.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m the one doing the buggering, because he’ll never touch you,” Tom said, his voice husky as he leaned down to capture Harry’s mouth with a kiss.

Harry had to admit that for a not quite alive/not quite dead man, Tom certainly knew what he was doing. The solid hands ghosted across his body as if that was what they were created for, finding and abusing every sensitive spot until his cock was dripping and he was panting for more. He writhed beneath Malfoy’s touch as fingers tweaked his nipples, as a hot wet tongue impaled his navel, as lips surrounded and sucked on his balls. He never knew Draco was so talented--no, not Draco--Tom. He may have been in Draco’s body, but it was still Tom drawing these reactions from him. He couldn’t forget.

But at the same time, he was positive Draco was the single soul out there who knew the only way to get him to whimper with such abandon was to nibble on that tiny spot just under the left side of his ribcage. But how would Draco know? Draco--Malfoy, damnit! he reminded himself--knew nothing about him, and that’s the way he wanted to keep it.

The phantom, sensing his companion wasn’t quite with him, was quick and sure as he prepared Harry and instantly garnered his attention. He stretched and nudged him in places Harry hadn’t had stretched or nudged for far too long. The wizard moaned and begged, Malfoy’s blond hair and pale skin swimming before his eyes as the first inch penetrated his entrance.

Tom pushed deeper, his forward motion relentless now that he’d gotten started, and Harry pushed back, wanting to feel everything faster. He wanted the confusion to end. He wanted Tom and Tom alone to occupy his mind, his body, his heart. Closing his eyes, he forced the image of Malfoy from his head and pictured Tom leaning over him. In his mind’s eye, the beautiful face softened with pleasure, the lean body thrusting into him with a desperate grace Malfoy would never admit to, the slender cock aiming for his prostate every time.

“More, Tom! Don’t stop!”

“Never, Harry. Not so long as you want me.”

“You’re the only one I want,” he groaned, hands pulling at cool strands of grass as the knot twisted inside of him. “Luv, I’m going to. . .”

“Come for me, Harry,” Tom whispered and the wizard had to bit his lips to keep from crying out because in the moment that his orgasm struck, he couldn’t be certain of what words might pass though his mouth.

Mind and body were still pulsing as he felt a liquid heat fill him from the inside. Tom collapsed on top of him, both trembling with the aftershocks. It wasn’t until several minutes passed that Harry suspected something might be wrong.

“Tom,” he said softly, shaking the young man’s shoulder. “Tom!”

Tom took a deep breath and a few seconds later, the pale head rose till their eyes met.

“Potter?!”

The eyes were silver once more. “Malfoy!”

The Slytherin scrambled away and Harry bit back another cry as Malfoy pulled out of him.

“FUCK!” he shouted once Draco was no longer within striking distance. “Could you please be a little more careful next time! That bloody well hurt!”

But Draco wasn’t listening as he gathered the remnants of his clothes, dressing as fast as he could. “Next time? There won’t be a next time, Potter,” he spat, sending an evil glare in Harry’s direction. “What’d you do? Slip a lust potion in my pumpkin juice? This was highly illegal, Potter. As soon as I tell Dumbledore what you’ve done, you’re as good as gone.”

“Oh, Malfoy, relax. There’s no use trying to deny you enjoyed it,” Harry said, attempting to keep the panic from his voice. If he could convince Malfoy that this was consensual, he might be able to salvage things, though he didn’t know how he’d be able to explain the missing moment’s of his memory.

“Enjoyed it?!” the Slytherin screeched. “I did no such thing!”

“Really? Come on, Malfoy,” Harry said, crawling over to the blond, “you’re actually going to tell me you didn’t enjoy having your dick up my arse and me begging you for more?”

Draco seemed to consider this for a moment, then shook his head. “No. No! You did something to me, I know it. Otherwise I’d remember you begging.” He met Harry’s eyes for the first time since he’d regained consciousness. “Trust me.”

“You sure you don’t remember?” Harry asked softly, raising his mouth towards Draco’s, his body, his manner completely submissive, and he could see Draco reconsidering.

“Maybe I need a reminder,” he whispered, tilting his head as if to meet Harry’s lips.

“Kiss me, Draco. Please.”

“You call that begging?” Malfoy asked snidely, but kissed him anyway.

True, he’d only been putting on this act in order to keep from getting in trouble and having to reveal the truth about Tom, but once Draco’s mouth connected with his, Harry couldn’t say he was repulsed. In fact, he was the furthest thing from repulsed. He didn’t even consider stopping Draco when the Slytherin pushed him roughly to the ground.

“Beg some more, Potter,” he commanded, mouth traveling down Harry’s body, leaving tiny bite marks in his wake. The teeth automatically moved to nip at the spot beneath the left side of his ribcage and Harry arched into him, begging for Draco to stop.

“Anything, you bastard! I’ll give you anything! I’ll do anything! Please, stop torturing me.”

“Amazing how quickly your begging skills improved,” Malfoy smirked, then jumped to his feet. Harry stared up at him in shock and the pale lips smugly smiled down at him. “You now owe me anything I want. I don’t know exactly what happened here tonight, Potter, but believe me, I will collect.”

Turning on his heel, Malfoy stalked away leaving Harry annoyed and aroused. But mainly aroused.

He spent a minute cursing Malfoy, all his relations, Slytherins, and irritating blonds in general before he ran out of steam. Slowly, he got himself under control, threw on his clothes, and went in search of Tom. He’d deal with Malfoy later.

[Chapter 4 completed September 22, 2004]