This is the Way I Dance

Author's note--YES, the angst is back! And not everything is rosy in paradise...but don't worry...just read! I tried to make the dance descriptions and such as accurate and vivid as possible, so if you don't understand or want me to elaborate, just let me know. (If I've confused you, that's bad and please tell me) I am a ballroom dancer, and I have had the dance experiences that I'm describing for you in this story. Enjoy!

This is the Way I Dance by Graballz

Chapter 4

This is Why We Tango

Two days later, Draco burst into Harry’s office, interrupting his studying, as usual, and announced it was time to go to dance class. Harry blinked owlishly behind his glasses; half of his brain was still trying to comprehend a difficult chapter in his “Psychology of Trauma” textbook, and the other half was confused because they had just gone to the dance lesson a few days earlier. Draco made good use of his preconstructed defensive arguments when he informed Harry of the additional dance practice during the week specifically for the tango demonstration.

The Gryffindor, predictably, protested that he never agreed to do it, while Draco very nearly broke out the tears, complete with a heartbreaking, disappointed tone of voice. Harry was tougher to crack than usual this time, and it wasn’t until Draco had turned and was shuffling out of the room, head hung in an air of such defeat that Harry called him back and agreed to it. Of course, Draco had allowed himself a small smirk of victory before turning around to Harry with a grateful expression and a giant bear hug.

All in all, there were six couples besides Harry, Draco, Stephen, and Carmela. The two fraternity boys, though, were the only male-male pair, and Carmela began to fret in Spanish about having to round up another girl and rechoreograph parts of the routine to fit an extra couple before they even started! Stephen barely managed to get her calmed down enough to point out diplomatically that they could either both learn the guys’ steps and dance alone (which left Draco staring silver daggers at his dance instructor) or one of them could start on the girl’s steps and relearn later. Draco jumped at that, and while Carmela fumed and cursed under her breath every so often, she permitted Draco to dance the girl’s role.

The routine the dance instructors had choreographed started out simple, as all routines generally did, and gradually became more and more complicated until the explosive climax and finale. Stephen and Carmela demonstrated, and even some of the more advanced students began to look nervous as the pair finished and turned to the group, panting and sweating.

“We have to look like that by Saint Valentine’s Day?” Harry hissed incredulously as he and Draco attempted the close-contact tango dance frame. “What do they expect, a miracle?”

“Oh, come on, it’ll be grand!” Draco turned his head so that he was looking over Harry’s shoulder with a picture-perfect look of superior disdain. He nearly broke form and grinned, but that would’ve ruined the ‘haughty tango bitch’ effect he was going for. “And here, I think they just call it ‘Valentine’s Day’. No ‘Saint’.”

“Are you kidding me?” Harry shot back, trying to regain his balance as he had tried to move forward and lead Draco through their first attempt at tango steps. Draco, however, had started on the wrong foot, which led to him tripping and Harry stumbling after, nearly falling. “I’m a saint for putting up with YOU and your hair-brained ideas!”

“Ah, yes, my very own ‘Saint Potter’,” Draco quipped, giving Harry a wink and a smirk before assuming his tango position again. They tried to move again, Draco starting on the wrong side again, and Harry crunched his foot. Hard. “OW! You miserable bastard, what was that for?”

The other couples had been doing slightly better than Harry and Draco, but Draco’s loud exclamation brought the attention to the two of them. Stephen hurried over, abandoning the couple he was working with previously, while Carmela glared at them, sorry she had even agreed to the disaster that was quite obviously waiting to happen.

“Sorry, sorry, just having trouble with the steps,” Harry apologized to the class and to Stephen, not even looking at Draco.

“No worries, buddy,” Stephen said worriedly, looking over to Draco, who was trying to balance on one leg as he rubbed his injured foot and glared maliciously at Harry. “You okay there?”

“NO, I’m not bloody well ‘okay’! The miserable oaf I call a boyfriend nearly crushed my foot!”

“Hey, if YOU hadn’t started out wrong, your foot wouldn’t have been in my way!” Harry protested, and Draco’s expression darkened. It would’ve peeled flesh off of a lesser man—even Stephen swallowed and debated the wisdom of getting in between them—but Harry brought himself to his full height and returned Draco’s glare.

“If I hadn’t…” Draco echoed incredulously. “You’re blaming this on ME?”

“Okay, guys, I think maybe you should take a quick break,” Stephen interrupted hastily. “Draco, why don’t you sit down and rest for a second; Harry, let me see your basic step.”

“I don’t need to rest,” Draco huffed petulantly. “I’m FINE,” he emphasized to Harry.

“Okay, then,” Stephen acquiesced. “Show me what you’re doing.” Draco momentarily pulled himself out of his loathing for his lover to focus on Stephen, and he began to move the way Carmela had showed the girls. “Wait, wait, wait. No, Draco, you step with THIS foot, like this.” Stephen found the problem relatively quickly; Harry had been right. Draco was stepping with the wrong foot, which caused them to collide. Stephen wasn’t exactly sure how Harry had ended up stepping on Draco’s foot, though.

“Much better,” he praised. “Okay, Harry, your turn.” Harry ignored the haughty look on Draco’s face to go through his own steps. “Good, Harry, you’ve got the basic step. Make sure you support your chest and frame from underneath, though. Lift through your ribs.” He put one hand on Harry’s solar plexus, just under his sternum, and the other in the middle of Harry’s back and pushed, making Harry arch more than he had been, sucking in his gut, and lifting his ribcage.

Under normal circumstances, Draco probably would’ve flown into a four-color rage at anyone besides himself touching Harry that way. However, Draco was currently working himself into a full-fledged fit of ire AT Harry for stepping on his foot, apologizing to everyone BUT him, and then blaming it all on Draco! He barely acknowledged as Stephen proclaimed they were ready to try again and moved away.

“What?” Harry growled. “You’re working yourself into some kind of snit—I can tell—so you might as well just say it and have done with it.” He stepped forward viciously, and Draco stepped back accordingly, and they hardly realized that they were doing the steps perfectly now, as they argued. For the first lesson, Stephen and Carmela taught them the basic five-step tango pattern. Slow, slow, tan-go-close was the count they had used, and now that Draco was leading with the correct foot, around the room they went, arguing quietly while keeping the beat perfectly.

“You arrogant, insensitive JERK! You stepped on MY foot! And then you have the gall to blame it on me! I don’t believe you!” Draco’s hand turned into more of a claw on Harry’s shoulder.

“You were doing the steps wrong or has that failed to escape your notice?” Harry snarled. “You’re not perfect, Draco. You make mistakes just like the rest of us. For once, why can’t you admit that you were wrong? Gods, you’re an incurable prat!”

“I’m the prat?! ME?!” Draco was livid. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” He expected Harry to back down, as he normally did, and therefore, Draco was caught completely off guard when Harry stopped dancing in the middle of the step.

“What the fuck is wrong with me? What the fuck is wrong with YOU?” As abruptly as Harry let go of Draco, he stepped close to him, nose-to-nose, so that he wouldn’t shout their personal business in front of the class. “You think you can just throw that stupid nickname back in my face and expect me not to react? You think I LIKED being called ‘Saint Potter’ or the ‘Boy Who Lived’ or the ‘Chosen One’? You know me better than that, Draco. At least, I thought you did.”

Harry’s voice had gone cold and flat, disappointed, and Draco was horrified. He hadn’t even realized how much he hurt Harry by referring to him as ‘Saint Potter’, which reminded Harry of their life before coming to America, the life in which Harry had lived through danger every day of his life until he defeated Voldemort, only to have his entire world ripped out from under him again because of his sexual preferences.

Draco suddenly had a brand new perspective on the move—Harry’s perspective—and Harry had been so upbeat about making a ‘new start’ that Draco had just assumed he was fine. Until now, he hadn’t consciously acknowledged all of the sacrifices Harry had made to bring them here. Leaving hadn’t been nearly as hard for Draco, since he hadn’t really had great or loyal friends in the first place. His parents were both sentenced to Azkaban right after Harry defeated Voldemort and the Kiss soon after, which made Draco the new Lord Malfoy. The only other person he had cared about, and who had cared about him, had been his godfather, Severus Snape, who was killed by the Dark Lord just before the Final Battle.

For Draco, he had resisted leaving, at first. Until the bad publicity started. He didn’t have anything else tying him to England other than his love for his country, but when the British wizarding world made it clear that they didn’t approve of his relationship with Harry, Draco was more than happy to leave. He hadn’t realized how much Harry had been hurt to leave, even though he had suggested it and even though his Gryffindor friends turned out to be worse traitors than even Draco had imagined.

The Slytherin was hit with all of these realizations at once as Harry sagged in front of him, and Draco was horrified and intensely ashamed of his own behavior. He knew that Harry was too good for him and that he didn’t deserve the black haired boy, but it was an admission he only made when drunk enough, until now.

“Harry, I’m sorry,” Draco said quietly, placing one hand on Harry’s chest, partially to stop him from leaving and partially as if touching him could heal the wounds he caused. “I do know you better than that, and I was just joking around. I’m sorry. It’s not something I should joke about, and I won’t, ever again. I know how much you gave up to be with me, and I’m sorry that I’ve ever trivialized it. I don’t deserve you, but I love you, just the same.”

Too choked up to speak and floored that Draco would say something like that without the numbing influence of alcohol, Harry responded in true Hufflepuff fashion and put his arms around Draco, pulling the blonde into a close, full-body embrace with their heads bent together, cheeks touching. Harry’s breath got shorter as he trembled, trying to hold back his emotion, and Draco’s hands were on either side of his neck, comfortingly twisting in the hair at the nape of his neck.

“People! People! Pay attention! THIS is what we want!” Stephen’s triumphant crow broke through the ‘moment’ the two boys were having, and they looked up at him, startled and flushing, but without letting each other go. “Do you SEE the passion? The love? The argument aside, THIS is the kind of emotion that the tango expresses! When you hold your partner, it should be as if you’ll never let them go! When they do slip out of your arms, you need to pull them back against you as if their very absence would cause you to cease to exist! This is why we tango!”

Harry looked around; the entire demonstration team was staring at him holding his boyfriend, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that. On one hand, he was supremely embarrassed to be the center of attention, but on the other hand, Stephen seemed to think that everyone should be learning from them. And the stuff he had said about never letting go and his partner’s absence causing him to no longer exist…Harry knew exactly what he meant because that was how he felt about Draco. As much as Draco whined and complained, Harry also knew that that was how Draco felt about him, in the long run, and that was what mattered most.

Draco had no idea whether the group heard the argument or understood it; in fact, he himself had forgotten that they had an audience at all until Stephen called attention to their embrace. Used to scrutiny, Draco didn’t have the level of need for privacy that Harry did. As he had been accused of being so many times before, Draco really did enjoy the attention that came with the spotlight. Now, though, was one of those times when it was more annoying than helpful, when all he really wanted to do was take Harry home and cuddle with him until he felt better, but Draco was still a Malfoy. He pulled Harry closer, trying as best he could to shield his lover’s face from the staring, while he returned their gazes belligerently, silently daring them to continue looking. Most of them blinked first and went back to doing their own thing after about ten seconds of locking eyes with Draco until no one was blatantly watching them anymore.

“Thanks, Stephen, I think we’re done for tonight,” Draco said quietly to their dance instructor. “See you next time.” He didn’t leave any room for discussion or interpretation, merely pulling his embarrassed Gryffindor out of the room, arms wrapped protectively around him.

Once home, Draco refused to allow Harry out of his sight. He tugged the quiet boy into the bathroom and proceeded to undress him and coax him into a hot shower. Draco shampooed Harry’s hair and gave him a full scalp massage, tipping his head back so that it was supported on Draco’s shoulder as he tried to scrub away Harry’s stress. After the shampoo and conditioner, Draco delighted in taking the loofah to the rest of Harry’s body, effectively making Harry forget about why he was upset in the first place. The Gryffindor relaxed under Draco’s ministrations, allowing the blonde to pamper him and take care of him.

Harry propped his arms on the shower wall and leaned his head against them, sighing. Draco had just pushed him into position, and Harry shivered a bit as he felt his lover’s body pressed flush against him from behind. Draco’s hands caressed Harry’s chest, stomach, and down to his groin area, always soft and coaxing. Draco licked across the tops of Harry’s shoulders, enjoying the way the former Seeker’s muscles rolled under his nips and bites. Draco continued down Harry’s spine, pausing briefly to place a kiss to the top of Harry’s crack before standing up again. His thumbs slid in between Harry’s cheeks and he gently pulled them apart. In their lovemaking, Draco generally wasn’t a top, but every once in a while, he enjoyed it. Now was one such time, and Harry didn’t have any resistance to it.

With the water raining down on them, Draco brushed his thumbs down the inside of Harry’s arse cheeks, feeling the boy’s anal muscles quiver and contract when they came in contact with the tips of his thumbs. Harry pressed his buttocks back into Draco’s hands, his toned back arching slightly. Draco used the water to help ease the friction, gently spearing Harry onto his length until he was seated fully inside. Draco ground his hips against Harry’s, one hand cupping the boy’s erection while the other twined with Harry’s fingers, the palm of Draco’s hand over the back of Harry’s tanned hand, never pulling out completely, as his lips worked over Harry’s neck, ear, and the sensitive spot where Harry’s shoulder and neck met.

He made love to Harry leisurely and tenderly, never allowing his own desire for pleasure to come before his desire to make Harry feel better. Every movement he made was attuned to Harry, and he whispered his declaration of love over and over as Harry’s breath shortened and he gasped a warning to Draco seconds before his arse clenched around Draco’s cock. Harry’s eyes rolled back in his head as he came, not violently but insistently, and he felt more pressure on his prostate as Draco gave a couple more thrusts and, buried deep inside Harry, finished with a pulsing throb in his lover’s arse.

That was the final step in Draco’s plan to help Harry calm down, and it worked like a charm. Harry was sated, tired, and utterly pliant to Draco’s urgings for him to get out of the shower. Draco used one of their fluffiest towels and dried them both off, led Harry to bed, and curled his tamed lion into his arms, repeatedly smoothing the flyaway owl’s nest of ebony hair and kissing the now worry-free forehead until they both slept.

*

For the first time in a long time, Draco opened his eyes before Harry’s alarm went off. They usually fell asleep cuddling, and more often than not, they woke cuddling. This morning, Draco was curled on his side with his back to Harry, and Harry’s hand was on his backside, resting comfortably. Draco flipped over carefully, propping his head up on his elbow to watch his lover in the peacefulness of the early morning. Harry was utterly serene in his sleep—a regular Adonis—and Draco wondered for the millionth time how he had gotten so lucky. He gazed down at Harry adoringly, his mercury eyes soft and loving, and they stayed that way as Harry shifted, opening his eyes sleepily to find that he was being watched.

Draco was quick to notice that Harry’s smile didn’t quite reach his expressive eyes, and something left over from last night still lurked in the emerald depths, haunting Harry. For once, he had woken first and content, while Harry tried to be a good sport, but the brush of Draco’s knuckles across his cheekbone left him with little defenses. Draco’s heart twisted as Harry’s emotions played out over his face, and he dropped his lips to Harry’s forehead, brushing over one eye, then the other, and leaving feather-light kisses on his eyelids before traveling down one cheek, then the other, to end up with a soothing, reassuring kiss to his lips before pulling back to analyze him again.

“Harry, I know you gave up everything to be with me,” he said in a low voice. “You left everything you knew to come here with me; you left much more than I did, and I’m sorry I never acknowledged that until now. No one thought ‘we’ would work or that we’d make it as far as we have, but I love spending every day with you, proving them wrong. I’d go anywhere, do anything, and give up everything for you, and I hope you know that. And I hope that that makes everything you’ve been through worth it…well, maybe not worth it worth it but at least maybe a good substitute…wait, no, that’s not what I meant! Bugger! I mean, I know that I drive you crazy all the time, but I hope you don’t regret choosing me…” Draco’s speech was eloquent and smooth until he started stumbling over himself trying to explain in a way that wasn’t arrogant and presumptuous or insulting, and then his voice broke in his last words, betraying his own insecurity with that particular issue.

Harry didn’t know whether to cry or laugh, so he did a little bit of both. He woke still feeling morose about last night, and he knew Draco could tell. The blonde wasn’t griping like he normally was, nor was he falsely cheerful, and for that, Harry was glad. He didn’t anticipate Draco to calculate exactly what he needed—affection and reassurance—and then give it to him in spades, but Draco did just that. Harry’s heart swelled and he was reminded again of why and how much he loved the boy beside him as Draco began talking. Before he could break into tears, though, Draco did something he did NOT normally do. He tripped over his own glib tongue and was left floundering for words of explanation, which made Harry want to laugh in relief that Draco wasn’t polished, pristine, and perfect ALL of the time, and then he wanted to cry again once Draco recovered himself.

“I have never regretted choosing you,” Harry said seriously, staring up into cloud grey eyes that bored through his soul. “I’m not about to start now. Like it or not, Malfoy, you’re stuck with me.” Draco’s eyes lit up, and Harry knew he had said the right thing, glad he could do that for Draco when Draco had just said all of the right things to him. Harry lifted his head off the pillow, seeking Draco’s lips, and Draco happily indulged him. Their making out was turning more intense when the alarm sounded, making them both jump out of their skin and curse. Draco could not have been more shocked when Harry, instead of immediately jumping out of bed and getting ready for the day, merely whacked the alarm to turn it off and turned his attention back to Draco’s mouth!

“I don’t have psychology until this afternoon,” Harry explained between kisses, his green eyes lighting mischievously. “And you’re much more important than math.” Of course, the implication that Harry’s favorite class WAS more important than his loving, wonderful, sex-god boyfriend touched off a pillow fight of legendary proportions that left a telltale trail of feathers, stuffing, and pillow carcasses all over their apartment and both boys were grinning from ear to ear as they finally parted ways to go to class.

* * * * *

Chapter notes

1. Slow, slow, tan-go-close This really is the count that we use to learn the tango basic. If you've never danced before, it's hard to explain in words (without showing) so I'd recommend Googling it if you're confused. Or let me know if you have specific questions, and I'll do my best to answer them. I end up using more technical dance terms in later chapters, and I'll try to explain them as they come up, but, as always, please don't hesitate to ask questions!!!

Thanks for reading, and THANKS to everyone who reviewed!