Dream Lover

A huge thanks, big hug, and sloppy kisses for my beautiful betas, knightmare (with help from Firedancer) and jynx. I couldn’t have made this chapter happen without you ladies.

Disclaimer: Everyone belongs to JKR and her companies.


At breakfast, a student chewed their bottom lip, hoping to not screw up the complicated spell. With a subtle gesture, and a quick flick of a wand, the incantation was whispered, and the spell cast; the prey never knew it happened. The student remained focused on him, hoping to see some physical sign of impact, but there was nothing. He continued going about his breakfast routine as normal.

~*~

Harry sat dejectedly eating his breakfast, trying hard not to look across the Hall at Draco reigning over his loyal Slytherin subjects. His toast held all the appeal of cardboard, but he forced himself to eat. His relationship with Draco, if it could even be called that, was a closed chapter of his life and it was time for him to move on.

He simply wished he could make his aching heart understand that. He felt like he’d been given a precious gift, only to have it snatched away before he could truly examine it. And to have Draco deny their beautiful dreams was… He tore his mind away from those kinds of thoughts. If he was going to be able to make it through the rest of his life, without constantly wondering “what if,” he would need to never think about Draco Malfoy again.

He turned to Neville, forcing a smile as he conversed with the gentle boy about the various attributes of plants they were studying in Herbology. He was grateful for Neville’s shy nature, knowing that even if the other boy suspected anything was wrong with him, he would never say anything about it.

~*~

Draco’s heart clenched as he watched Harry smile at Longbottom, and draw him into a conversation that animated the other boy. When Longbottom felt secure in his subject and surroundings, he blossomed from a subdued boy into a quietly confident man with a bright smile and lively eyes. Draco began to grind his teeth; he felt sure that if he watched much longer, his molars would be dust.

Why did his life have to be like this? Why couldn’t he simply be a teenager, flitting from one crush to another? Why did his life have to be complicated by threats of violence and murder?

Draco pushed his plate away, no longer hungry. Making excuses, he left the table, walking slowly to his first class of the day.

~*~

Draco crawled into his bed, closing the curtains around it with a silencing spell. As he reclined on his pillow, the memory of last night’s encounter in the ward rose unbidden.

His eyes narrowed on the disembodied hand floating near his head.

“What the hell are you doing here? Get out! I’ll have you in detention for this!”

He watched as the hand shakily pulled back, appearing to grasp the empty air. Slowly, Harry shimmered into existence, dropping an iridescent swath of cloth to the bed. “Draco, it’s me.”

Fixing his face into a mask of hatred, he spat out, “I know it’s you, Potter. And what do you mean, calling me by my name?”

“What? But, you---”

“Never mind! Get out!”

Harry’s beautiful eyes filled with bewildered despair as he slowly shook his head. “I don’t understand. Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what, Potter? We’ve hated each other since first year. What would make you think that’s changed?”

Harry stiffened in pain; his emerald eyes blazing. “How about the way you touch me? The way you kiss me? The way you look at me with the light shining in your eyes?”

Draco dropped his gaze and snorted contemptuously. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Potter. Go back to your dorm. Or better yet, go check yourself into the mental ward at St. Mungo’s.” He forced himself to laugh nastily.

Harry leaned in to whisper harshly, “Don’t know what I’m talking about? How about the love-bite on your neck? Hmm? Where did that come from? Or the fang marks on your prick? I was here, Draco. I was here yesterday when you were talking to Madam Pomfrey. Still want to deny it?”

Draco rolled his eyes, his heart tearing into shreds at the words pouring from his own mouth. “You’re mental, Potter. I think the Dark Lord has finally broken your mind. Leave me now; I want to sleep.”

Draco watched, a dull throb resonating in the area where his heart should have been, as Harry’s eyes turned cold and hard, and his beautifully shaped upper lip curled in an expression of disgust. “You’re a coward, Malfoy. You’re too scared to reach out and take happiness when it’s offered to you.” Straightening and grabbing his cloak, Harry said in a quiet, cutting voice, “Don’t look for me in your dreams. I won’t bother you again.”

Draco kept his eyes trained on the coverlet until he heard the sound of the door closing. He lay there for hours, wishing desperately for the knot in his throat to dissolve so that he could sleep.

He came back to the present with a groan of frustration, slamming a fist into his pillow. He felt the need to beat something to a pulp and the feather-filled cloth was his first victim. He almost felt sorry for anyone who pissed him off in the near future. He wouldn’t be likely to let them off with a simple hex or jinx this time.

Which was yet another reason to push Harry away.

Sadness and futility overwhelming him, Draco felt the pull of sleep and embraced it with open arms. He needed to see Harry again, and this was the only way he could allow himself that pleasure.

~*~

Draco stood in the clearing, hands curling into fists at his sides, his voice rough from shouting. Taking a deep breath, he called out yet again, “Harry! I know you’re here. Come out.” His eyes searched the area slightly outside the boundaries of Hogsmeade, the Shrieking Shack lurking in the distance.

Nearly ready to give up, he whispered, “I know you’re here. I can feel you. Please come to me. I need you. I need this. Don’t be angry.”

Harry’s resolve was broken by the anguish he saw hovering in the silvery depths of Draco’s eyes. He slowly dragged the invisibility cloak from his body, revealing himself to the teen standing mere feet away from him.

“You’re here. You came.” Intense joy flooded Draco’s features as he lifted a pale hand to Harry, needing to feel that he was real, and not a figment of his overeager imagination. He paused, his hand never making contact as Harry jerked away from him.

“Why, Draco? Why do you want me here? You turned me away yesterday, and now you want me? I don’t understand you.” Harry shook his head, a huff of air escaping him. His voice grew increasingly louder as he continued to demand answers. “What the fuck do you want from me?! How many times am I supposed to let you push me away before I stop coming back?!”

Draco finally broke, a wild expression flitting over his handsome face as he shouted right back, “Oh, and I suppose you expect me to just drop down and kiss your robes because you finally noticed me? It doesn’t work like that, Potter! You’re so fucking naïve, did you know that?” Closing his eyes and counting to twenty, he calmed himself enough to speak rationally. “You see the world in black and white, good and evil. You have no fucking clue how the world really works. You don’t understand what it’s like to know that if you do what you want to, what you really want to, you’re signing the death warrants of your family and friends.”

He stepped forward until they were nose to nose, their eyes snapping sparks at each other, their passion, as always, ruling their confrontation. “It must be so nice and cosy way up there on that pedestal, Harry. Way up where everyone places you, to keep life from touching you. What would you do, I wonder? What would you do, to keep your family safe? To ensure that the people you’ve grown up with won’t end up with their guts spilling from them onto the frozen ground one day because you couldn’t protect them? What would you do, Potter?”

“I would fight, Draco. I would fight with everything in me, until I had no more to give, until it was my guts lying on the ground. I would never bow down, I would never give in.” Harry hissed the last words through teeth clenched as tightly as his hands. He was a mass of pent up emotions just waiting to explode and take the whole world down with him.

Draco sensed the impending storm of Harry’s anger and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Would you kill your own family, Harry? How about Weasley? Could you kill him? Because that’s what you’re asking of me, to sacrifice my friends and family for you. I cannot have a relationship with you. I might want to with every fibre of my being. But. I. Can. Not. Do. It.”

Harry blinked and stepped back, head shaking a little as he processed what Draco was saying. “I would never ask you to kill anyone, Draco. I don’t want you to have to kill anyone! How does a relationship—a real life relationship outside of these ridiculous dreams—equate to me wanting you to kill someone? You’re just running again. You’re scared of living, and you’re running.”

Draco gnashed his teeth and pulled on his hair, feeling like he was talking to a brick wall. No, he thought, a brick wall would be more intelligent. What on earth did he see in Potter, anyway? Locking gazes with Harry again, he remembered exactly what attracted him. He was beautiful, inside and out, even if he was a stupidly noble and selfless prat.

Drawing in a deep, cleansing breath he said, “Sit down, Harry. We need to talk. Really talk, not sit here and scream at each other like children.” He watched as Harry took a seat on a nearby stump, absently rubbing at his forehead.

He knelt in the grass in front of Harry, ignoring the mud under him as he took Harry’s face in his hands. “I would love nothing more than to be able to be open about what a good shag you are.” His mouth quirked in a small grin, trying to lighten the moment, but fell away again as he realised humour had no real place here. “I know I would enjoy being with you, but if the Dark Lord found out, he would take away everyone I love, one at a time, before finally killing me.”

“You don’t really understand him, Harry. You know he wants to kill you, and that’s it. You have no idea how he acts around those who are loyal to him. Constant pain and humiliation is all they get. And if they do something to displease him… he finds ways to hurt you, beyond anything you can bear.” Draco’s eyes had dropped from Harry’s as he talked, thinking about the punishments in store for himself and his loved ones, if even a hint of what he felt for Harry were to come to light.

Blinking to clear his mind of images of his family being tortured, he continued, “If I only had myself to worry about, I’d do it. I’d tie myself to your bed and never leave it. But I don’t have that luxury! There are too many people who depend on me to protect them, and I cannot let them down.”

“But I can help them, Draco! You can all join us, fight with us against Voldemort!” At a hiss from Draco, he amended with a roll of his eyes, “You know who. Whatever.”

“Harry, don’t you understand that, no matter what, some of them can never join you? They are trapped. They will never be able to escape him, whether they want to or not. People like my father and Blaise. My mother has managed to stay out of his control so far, but if I step over the line, she’ll be killed. I can’t let that happen. I want you, but I can’t let her die just so I can have you.”

Harry, realising Draco could not be swayed, at least not yet, from a lifetime of certainty, placed his hands over Draco’s and asked gently, “Then what do you want to do?”

“I want to make the most of these dreams. If this is the only place I can be free to be with you, I want to take advantage of that.”

Harry rolled his lips between his teeth as he contemplated what Draco was saying. “So, we do whatever we want here, but we continue hating each other in real life? I don’t know if I can do that, Draco. I’m not that good of an actor.”

A small, sad smile accompanied Draco’s softly spoken, “I am.”

Harry nodded slowly. He grinned, the humour not quite reaching his eyes, but the effort was appreciated by Draco nonetheless, as he said, “How would you know if I’m a great shag or not, Malfoy? We haven’t done that much yet.”

“Well, there’s the old witches tale about how you handle your broomstick mirroring how you handle your cock,” Draco drawled sexily, moving in closer to Harry’s body. “And I have never seen anyone handle a broomstick so well as you.”

Harry’s breath caught in his lungs as he watched Draco’s eyes turn sultry with promise. A chill wind whipped around them, but both were oblivious as they slowly leaned in to one another, lips slightly parted, eyes locked. When they were a mere breath apart, Harry dipped his head, bringing them finally into the contact each craved.

Draco made a low sound deep in his throat as his hands left Harry’s cheeks to plunge into dark as night hair, pulling on it slightly to get Harry to deepen the kiss. He’d needed this for so long, it seemed, and now that his dreams were finally coming to fruition, he couldn’t stand the thought of going slowly. He needed Harry, and he needed him now.

Ripping away from Draco’s lips, Harry buried his face in the fragrant neck offered to him, biting and sucking, giving and receiving pleasure. He didn’t know when it had happened, but they were both on the ground now, naked as newborns, rolling in the mud and muck of the small clearing. His hands couldn’t seem to get enough of Draco’s body, roaming freely, and drawing gasps and moans from the responsive man under him.

“Harry!” Draco shouted, pale blond hair becoming stained as he tossed his head on the muddy ground. “Gods, I can’t wait. I don’t want to wake up before we can have each other. Please, Harry, don’t wait any longer. I want you. Now. If you don’t do something, I’m going to explode!”

Harry nodded against Draco’s stomach, feeling the same urgency. He slipped his hands between firm, pale thighs, seeking and finding the tight opening with deft fingers. Closing his eyes, he frantically wished for something to use as a lubricant and was delighted to see a phial of some liquid lying in the wet grass near Draco’s shoulder when he next opened them.

Pouring the bluish liquid out in his palm, he slicked himself and his fingers up, taking his time stretching Draco, not only to prepare the other boy, but also simply because he loved the feeling of the muscles clamping around his fingers. He was in awe of every bit of Draco that he found, from the small blemish on his hip, to the pale nipples begging to be tasted.

Dipping his head, he gave in to temptation and swirled his tongue around first one, then the other, all the while continuing to move his fingers in and out of Draco’s body. He grinned a bit, enjoying his new knowledge that Draco was a screamer. The blond was thrashing around under him, panting, moaning, and occasionally screaming, trying like hell to hurry Harry along.

Draco could finally take no more of the delicious torment, and yanked Harry up by his hair, snarling at him to, “Get inside me now!”

Harry, losing the capacity for speech at how sexy Draco looked and sounded in that instant, just nodded his head and raised the long legs to wrap around his waist. Taking Draco’s mouth in a searing kiss, he slowly pushed his way inside the tight, grasping channel he’d so lovingly prepared. When he was fully seated, he paused; the sensations assaulting him were too fucking beautiful to be believed.

Draco keened loudly as he felt Harry stop, full length inside him. He’d never bottomed before, but if this was what it was like, he’d never top again. The glorious feeling of being filled was threatening to overwhelm him. He was so close to coming just from Harry’s presence inside his body, he couldn’t form a coherent sentence. And then Harry did something that stole his soul.

He moved.

As he slowly began to thrust in and out, Harry watched Draco’s face, enthralled at the fierce twist of emotions he saw there. His pale, mud splotched brow was furrowed, his eyes squeezed tightly closed, and the muscles in the pale length of neck stood out in stark relief when Draco threw his head back. So lost was he in his examination of Draco, that he missed his own body’s reaction to the stimulus provided by the tight arse gripping him so deliciously. His orgasm broke over him in a surprising rush, stealing his breath and causing every muscle in his body to spasm with the force of it.

His saving grace was that Draco was screaming his own release underneath him. At least now he wouldn’t have to hear Draco teasing him mercilessly about leaving him hanging.

~*~

A cloaked figure stood in the shadows of the trees flanking the clearing, watching the muddy boys with great interest and a keen sense of anger.

TBC