Dormiens

Title: Dormiens
Author: Ravenna C. Tan
House: Ravenclaw
Rating: NC-17
Characters: Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Severus Snape
Warnings: Homosexual sex acts of various kinds.
Prompt: Written for the prompt "Wrong" in the 50.1 prompt table at the 100 Quills Community on LiveJournal.
Beta Reader: Miraba
Summary: Post-war. Harry has defeated Voldemort, but has paid a heavy price. Draco Malfoy still has dues to pay. And what of Snape?

--

Draco struggles with his keys, the bag of groceries clutched in one arm. The sticky lock seems to chew at the blasted metal things in his free hand. He glances up and down the street--no one. He shakes the sleeve of his leather jacket, his wand slips into his hand, and he mutters a near-silent Alohomora, feeling a pang of guilt as he does so. He knows it's wrong to use magic where their Muggle neighbors might see, but... The door swings open and Draco calls out with forced cheer: "I'm home."

The house is dark, lit by neither lamp nor candle nor incantation. Draco gnaws his lower lip, trying not to give in to worry.

He fails. Something is wrong. With another guilty pang he lights every sconce in the house with a wordless spell--one of his best, a shame he doesn't get to use it more often--and rushes from room to room, his wand in his hand. "Potter, are you here? Harry?" His voice grows more frantic as he finds each room empty.

He bounds up the stairs first to Harry's bedroom, even looking under the bed, then his own room, then the bathroom--still nothing. Could he have gone out?

Then he hears a thumping sound, like a rat in a cupboard, coming from the spare room. Draco hurries into the room. It is furnished partly as an office with an oak roll-top desk and shelves, partly as a guest room with a futon couch and a chest of drawers.

The thumping intensifies and now Draco hears a voice as well, coming from the top drawer of the chest. "For Merlin's sake..." he swears, feeling sick and angry and worried all at the same time. "Let him be all right..."

He pulls the drawer open with care, and there is a dark-haired man, shrunk to mouse size, nestled among a bevy of miniaturized things, bundles of bed sheets and pillows. Potter looks a bit dischuffed, but relieved. Draco reaches in, unsure for a moment if he should pluck him up between two fingers or not--how fragile is he that size? But an idea dawns as he lowers his hand; he turns the palm upward, and Harry clambers into it.

Draco lifts his hand out of the drawer and the miniaturizing charm reverses--suddenly there is a full-sized Harry Potter landing in his arms, his arms around Draco's neck. The sudden removal of the spell leaves Harry gasping and weak. He leans against Draco for a few moments until he can steady himself.

Then he yanks himself away and kicks the offending furniture. "Goddamn it!" He kicks it again.

"I'll get rid of it," Draco says, slipping his wand into his sleeve and trying to calm his heart, which still pounds from his frantic search of the house. "That blasted charm is defective! The manufacturer will hear from me..."

"Leave it," Harry says, dropping onto the futon and pushing his hands into his hair. "I'll just... I'll just stay out of here from now on."

Draco goes down to one knee, trying to get himself into Harry's line of sight. The resignation in that voice leaves him with a dull ache in his stomach--it was better when Potter was angry. "No. That's no solution. I'm of a mind to ... chuck the entire thing." He almost said obliterate, another good spell he never uses any more, not in front of Harry. "The only thing that's stopping me is there might be something of yours in there that you want."

Harry does not reply, but at least he looks Draco in the eye. Draco suddenly remembers the one thing in the chest that he wouldn't want to obliterate. Harry's wand in the bottom drawer. His remark, which was meant to sound caring, sounds callous in that light, and he swears to himself. Hasn't it ever been thus, between him and Potter? Something about Draco's tongue always had the ability to cut Harry to the quick.

Even when he doesn't intend to he says the wrong thing. But what can he say now? His apology wilts in his mouth. Draco has never been good at apologizing.

"I've been in there since three or so," Harry says, his voice quiet and his eyes now on his hands.

"I'll get rid of it." Draco says again, appalled at the thought of the careless charm-maker. What kind of miniaturizing spell can't tell a former-wizard from a ball of socks? The thought that Potter has the same amount of magic in him as a ball of socks makes his stomach churn. The wrongness of it sometimes makes him want to run screaming. But it's the wrongness of it that makes him stay. "They assured me it was Squib-Safe," he tries, realizing as the words come out how lame they sound.

Harry just stares, out the window onto the tree-lined street. "I'm all right."

You're not, Draco thinks. Harry has never been good at putting up a façade. Draco is. "Do you fancy dinner out or in, tonight?"

Harry huffs, shaking off the horror of being trapped in a sock drawer all afternoon, and looks up. "I could use with getting out." He tries to smile but only manages a twitch.

Draco does smile. "Great. Let me change my pants and we'll hit the little Italian place across the park? Or would you prefer Indian?"

The warmth reaches Harry's mouth at last, and a small grin emerges. "Italian is fine. But let's bring our own wine, eh?"

Draco breathes a long sigh of relief in his room as he switches into a pair of faded blue jeans. It's not just that Harry likes the truly fine cotes du ventoux that Draco raided from the wine cellar at the Manor. By suggesting Draco bring one along--charmed hidden--he is encouraging Draco to do magic.

Not that Draco needs permission, per se. Harry's always said not to act like a Squib on his account. But Draco has seen the open pain and longing on his face, sometimes when Draco performs the simplest of spells, so he doesn't. Draco's one goal in life at this point is to keep Potter out of pain.

And out of danger. Stupid, stupid furniture. Draco moved them to the Muggle part of town for Potter's sake, because there are too many things he can't manage in the Wizarding World, too many everyday charms that Draco and everyone else takes for granted that are suddenly a danger to a person without magic.

Even a simple chest of drawers. Draco berates himself mentally once more. This weekend he'll go through the thing, clean out what he doesn't need, and then give the thing away. Maybe he'll build that wizardspace closet he's been meaning to, though it would mean Harry wouldn't be able to get to anything inside it...

He emerges from the bedroom to find Harry downstairs, reading a book under an electric lamp. He puts the book down too quickly as Draco steps into the room and Draco quirks an eyebrow at him.

"Just a Muggle novel, you wouldn't like it," Harry says, and Draco is astonished, as he always is, by how much Potter sounds like he did in school when he was found out at some mischief.

You killed the greatest dark wizard of our time and saved the Wizarding World, but you're still a scared schoolboy inside, Draco thinks. As he goes into the kitchen to retrieve the wine, he notices the groceries have been put away. "You don't have to show me if you don't want to," he says as he selects a bottle from the Muggle-style wine fridge.
But of course when he returns to the sitting room, the bloody Gryffindor is standing there with the book outstretched in his hand. Potter won't keep secrets from him, and Draco doesn't entirely understand why. Draco keeps secrets by second nature, without even thinking about it. It isn't as if he really cares what Potter reads--but Potter himself has the need to fight the urge to hide.

Draco swallows a small lump in his throat as he takes in the cover. It's a garish thing, the illustration showing a red-scaled dragon--Draco knows perfectly well there wasn't a living species of European dragon with red scales--and what is clearly a wizard in a long robe with a long gray beard. Draco swallows again, not only thinking of Dumbledore, but knowing that Harry is, too.

The title, which glitters non-magically in foil, reads: Wizard's First Rule. Draco puts up his cheerful façade again. "Any good?"

"Actually, it's absolute rubbish," Harry says, reddening. "But after finishing The Lord of the Rings I didn't know what else to pick up."

Draco ushers him out of the house, happy to listen to the stream of chatter that was comes out of Potter now. As if books about magic and gray-bearded wizards are of no more consequence than the weather. As he hops down the front steps, Draco subtly makes the bottle invisible and then stows his wand back in its sleeve sheath. He smiles. Potter bought the sleeve holder for him when they moved to the neighborhood. When Draco asked where it came from, and Potter told him "a magic shop," that had taken quite a bit of explaining, until he had made it clear that there are shops in the Muggle world which cater to charlatans who want to make it seem as if they can conjure their wands out of thin air.

"The prose is horribly stilted and the characters just aren't making sense to me," Harry says, as they make their way across the tree-lined square. "I'm only a hundred pages in, so maybe it will get better." It is a gentle summer night, the breeze ruffling Draco's hair into his eyes, and for a moment he wants to reach out and hold Harry's hand.

But he knows better. He doesn't want to ruin the mood if Harry pulls away or turns dark on him. So he settles for walking alongside him, swinging the invisible bottle of wine in one hand, and watching Harry's lips move as he talks. Things have been very placid, of late, and until the incident with the drawer Draco had almost believed they had finally settled on the way life was going to be for a while. Harry, magicless but with his demons quelled, immersed enough in the Muggle world to keep from being a recluse. Draco, providing.

Providing what exactly, that is the question. Potter has plenty of money, even with the highway robbery that is the Gringotts Galleons-to-Euros exchange rate. He still has friends he can see, especially that Muggleborn Hermione who has no trouble navigating the mundane way to the house. He can cook for himself, clean, write a book if he needs to keep busy... In fact, the way Draco looks at it, the only reason Harry is in need of any help is because Draco himself keeps booby-trapping the house with magical furniture and the like.

But Draco stays. In the beginning, in the early days after the war, Potter needed someone to keep him not only from magical mishap but from hurting himself. He couldn't stand to be around too many people, nearly clawed his eyes out at St. Mungo's. Draco ended up being the one, relieving the others of the burden of a mad Potter and Potter of the burden of their pity.

Now he stays out of his own late-blooming sense of penance, he supposes. When they fight, Harry tries to get rid of him. Sometimes Harry rages. But they have not fought in quite a while. It's reached the point where Draco feels almost like they are friends.

We did it all backwards, didn't we, Potter, he thinks as the restaurant comes into view. We went about it all wrong. We were enemies first, then we fucked, and when everything fell apart, we became friends.

Friends is the word he uses with mother, when they speak, which isn't often. It's even the word he has used with Snape, who knows exactly what an inaccuracy it is and who occasionally points that out. All in all, it's better not to bring up the subject of Potter with Snape, and vice versa. Never the twain shall meet, and Draco does not push the issue. Harry once accused Draco of "compartmentalizing." Once he figured out what that meant, he realized it was yet another vital Slytherin survival trait that Harry thinks is wrong.

Just thinking about the gap between them, the communication gap, the culture gap, everything, makes Draco's heart feel like a stone in his chest. His smile freezes on his face. But Harry is still chattering away, apparently quite recovered from his scare with the drawer and apparently happy to have Draco's company.

Dinner goes well. The veal piccata is strong and lemony and their cotes du ventoux--disguised as a rope-wrapped bottle of chianti--is rich and heady. As good as Draco remembered. They linger over panna cotta with early peaches, finishing the wine. Draco has a moment to think, while looking over a candle flame at Harry's green eyes, that maybe tonight is the night he will ...

No. Harry made the ground rules clear quite some time ago. They are not lovers--never had been, in fact. Harry speaks and acts as if what happened between them wasn't even real. Maybe it wasn't. After Voldemort's fall--it was a time universally remembered as dark and insane. They don't speak of it.

On the walk home, Harry calls Hedwig to give her a few nips of veal, and she sits on Draco's shoulder while Harry feeds her. "She's really taken to you these last couple of months," Harry says, as she flies off.

"She's a good owl," Draco says. See, even your bird thinks I'm okay, he thinks, then silently casts a sobering charm on himself. If he is having thoughts like that, he needs to clear his head.

Harry takes his book to bed with him and Draco makes a pretense of fussing about with things in the kitchen, moving things Potter cupboarded incorrectly and the like. A short while later, he creeps up the stairs and peeks into Potter's room. Harry is asleep with the book on his chest and his glasses askew. Draco eases them off his face and folds them on the nightstand, then whispers "Nox." Nothing happens. He winces, feeling stupid, then reaches for the switch of the electric lamp.

Back downstairs he uses magic to open and close the front door--it's quieter than keys--and waits until he is a block away to Disapparate.

He appears on a weed-choked hill and makes his way down to the gap between buildings that leads to the street. The moon has just risen, but the light from the street lights soon overpowers it. Before he knows it, he is standing on a ragged doormat looking at a heavy, wooden door, green paint flaking off.

He raises his hand to knock, but before he can, the door swings open and there is Severus, as severe as ever, fixing him with the same glare he used when a young Malfoy dared knock on the door to his private quarters one night at Hogwarts.

"Mr. Malfoy," he says, much as he'd said that night, too. That night he also said a great deal more, but in the end the result was the same, as Draco knows it will be. Severus Snape is, if nothing else, consistent. He motions him inside with a jerk of his head, then wastes no time once the door is locked in sliding his hand down into Draco's jeans.

Snape, thank Merlin, has always understood, at least when it comes to this. Draco leans his head against Snape's bony shoulder and almost cries with relief as the older man begins stripping him efficiently out of his clothes, one hand maintaining contact with his erection while the other, holding a wand, charms each piece of clothing off. Draco's own wand clatters against the floor of the entryway as his jacket falls in a heap. Snape's spells are always nonverbal and Draco wonders--not for the first time--what incantation it is that seemingly tears the clothes right off a person yet leaves the garments whole once they hit the floor.

This is Snape's version of taking his time, as Draco is denuded piece by piece. Snape's magic is heady, intoxicating, like stepping out of bitter cold into a greenhouse of night-blooming flowers. Draco presses his mouth against Snape's neck, licking the musky scent of him, of potions, and magic, and maleness. Snape lights the candles in the room with one flick of his wand and Draco sighs, only partly aware that he is rubbing his erection against the roughness of Snape's black robes, only partly aware of Snape's hand snaking into the hair at the back of his neck and pulling, exposing his neck for Snape's mouth to explore. Draco's mind is burning with the candles, the ease with which they flared. He imagines he can feel the magic in the room caressing his skin like the breeze.

"Severus..." he rasps, as Snape's mouth glides over his Adam's apple, and the next thing he realizes is he is on the floor, the carpet actually, of Snape's sitting room, the room crammed with books as usual. He is on his back, and Snape's mouth is attacking his erection, the man's robes pooling over Draco's legs as he crouches down.

The agreement between them has never been spoken. Snape provides when Draco arrives. Snape decides what they do. Draco tries not to arrive too often or too inconveniently. It has been thus since the first time Draco showed up at Snape's door--neither of them will admit how long ago. Draco doesn't know if Snape used Legilimency on him all those years ago, or if his need and tacit agreement were simply that transparent.

He hisses as Snape insinuates a slick finger into the pucker of his ass and begins crooking it in time with his head, which bobs on Draco's cock. Draco's fingers scrabble for purchase on the matted rug, but the sensation stops as Snape rears up, opens his robes, and begins to let down his trousers.

Potter, apparently, isn't the only one who can be reduced to the state of a scared schoolboy. Draco trembles as Snape exposes his cock, veiny and large as ever. To be truthful, Draco isn't scared, just atremble with anticipation, but the distinction is unnecessary to his Slytherin instincts. He relishes the feeling of not knowing what Snape is going to do or demand.

Snape locks eyes with him, as he levers himself along Draco's body until their two cocks touch, the heat making Draco's throat tighten. Snape's hair hangs down, as do his robes, blackness enveloping the gold that is Draco.

He thrusts, and Draco sees stars, squeezing his eyes shut and cutting off Snape's always intense gaze. Snape establishes a rhythm now, and Draco bucks a bit. If he could roll his hips just so, just a little faster, just a touch higher... but Snape's motion is relentless. He moans as he surrenders to the other man's rhythm, Snape getting himself off and pushing Draco up to the peak of arousal himself in the process. He isn't even sure how it happens, how he goes from feeling like it's not enough, he needs more, to he's holding back, he's gritting his teeth and trying to hold back until Snape himself is coming.

Draco likes it when Snape comes--which he doesn't always. It makes it harder for Snape to grouse about Draco's visits. What was it he said last time? "Do you imagine that I enjoy finding you on my doorstep, near-bursting and begging for relief?" But that was typical Snape-speak. Draco never begs, and he knows Snape enjoys it.

He feels the hot spill of come onto his bare belly, Snape's, and his own, as he lets go the carpet, wraps his arms around Snape's shoulders, and thrusts back hard against the man above him, making sure he can't pull away too soon. Not that he ever has. Draco always leaves feeling quite sated. But he can't help himself. He claws at Snape, pushing his pulsing cock convulsively against him, until he falls back like a puppet with its strings cut--spent and now unable to move.

Snape climbs to his feet slowly, and Draco hears the whoosh of various charms. When he opens his eyes, Snape is fully restored to the state he was in when he opened the door. He casts a few charms onto Draco, who opens his mouth as if he can catch the taste of magic on his tongue like snowflakes. Then he takes his time collecting his clothes, putting them on one piece at a time.

"I take it Mr. Potter has not improved," Snape says, his wand now hidden and his fingers steepled.

Draco is accustomed to there being some lecture or piece of advice at the end of one of these little trysts, but he is shocked to hear the name Potter come from Snape's mouth. "He's fine," he says, pulling on his socks. "He's fine," he repeats again, as if that is the end of the discussion.

Snape fixes him with a black stare. "And you?"

"I'm fine, too." Draco stands up, preferring to see eye to eye with his former professor rather than be talked down to, literally, if he is to be lectured. "Brilliant."

"Your reluctance to break down Potter's resistance baffles me." Snape says. "Draco, if I may..."

"You may not." Draco will always be able to muster superior hauteur to Snape. It's the Malfoy blood. "When I want your advice, I'll come for tea."

Snape's eyebrow arches in condescending amusement, but he says nothing. And Draco has nothing else to say. His limbs feel leaden post-orgasm and it is time to go. He checks that his wand is in his sleeve and Disapparates without another thought.

He is startled when he opens the door to find Harry sitting up on the couch, the paperback novel in his hands. He hides his wand as he says "Couldn't sleep?"

Harry's eyes are ringed by dark circles. "Nah," he says without explanation.

Draco sits in the armchair, wondering if maybe Harry does keep some secrets after all. This doesn't bother him. He's not about to tell Harry where he has been. He cracks a casual grin. "So, what is the 'Wizard's First Rule?'"

Harry's eyes remain haunted and serious for a moment and then he gives in. "Never tickle a sleeping dragon,"* he answers, then laughs.

Draco wants to laugh, too. It's the first time Harry has mentioned Hogwarts willingly in months and months. He settles for a frozen grin, as his heart has jammed itself in his throat so tightly he can't even draw a decent breath.

He wants to talk about Hogwarts. He wants to ask Harry if he misses it. He wants to tell Harry he misses it, too, though he doesn't miss the parts where they tried to kill one another. He wants to talk about Dumbledore, and the Tower, and even Snape. He wants to hear Harry rage and accuse and do all the things he never did to Draco's face. He wants to cross the room, kiss Harry until he surrenders, undress him piece by piece without magic and make him cry just with the sweetness of his touch.

But it would be wrong. Potter is the bloody Gryffindor. He decides what is right.

Harry says good night, then, tossing the book aside and climbing the stairs. Draco listens to the sound of his feet as he moves back and forth upstairs, runs the water, makes his bedsprings creak. Then the house is silent.

It is a long time before Draco follows, and even longer before he sleeps.

--
* The Hogwarts school motto is "Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus" which translates to "never tickle a sleeping dragon."