Providence

Who knew

at this party that I

would walk in and I'd see you.

I guess now

we could just get drunk

yeah, that could be our excuse

you could slip

and outta nowhere

I could be there to catch your fall

we could laugh

at ourselves

and the writing that's on the wall

It's a narrow margin

just room enough for regret

in the inch and a half between

hey, how ya been?

and

can I kiss you yet?

-Providence, Ani Difranco

A flash of silver blond through the crowd and I find myself searching for it again without even realizing I am, like searching for the Snitch. There it is again, it could be anybody really, it could be someone who dyed their hair. It could be...

He's turning around, he's laughing. He moves with such grace, just in that simple motion. I've never seen anyone but him move like that. His eyes pass over me and then come back. I can feel his gaze brush across my cheek. Our eyes lock.

I don't remember if he walked toward me or if I walked toward him. Maybe we both moved. Suddenly we're face to face. That beautiful face. I shouldn't be thinking that, but I look at him and I forget I'm even at a party, I forget everything but him. The whole world has been distilled down to just two things, him and me.

It all comes rushing back, all the memories I should have forgotten. The years are gone, it seems only yesterday we were back at Hogwarts, back in the tower room.

------

I feel him before I see him, I can feel his eyes on me. I always could. I know it's him without even looking, I don't have to look, I shouldn't look.

I use a laugh as an excuse to turn in his direction and there he is, green eyes under a shock of black hair. He's standing in the middle of the dance floor like and idiot, it's ridiculously endearing. People are dancing around him and giving him strange looks. He's staring at me.

I look away.

I should just turn and leave now, but now that I've seen him the years and the excuses don't seem to matter anymore, I can't help myself and I stare right back. He's the only person who's ever had this sort of effect on me and before the though that I shouldn't is even fully formed I am standing right in front of him.

*****

You don't have to go.

Yes I do, you know I do. If my father...

Sod your father, he's not here. I want to spend just one night with you, one whole night. How would he know any different?

You don't understand... He... If he ever finds out about us he'll kill me.

I won't let him. Draco looked at Harry. He had that look in his eyes, green fire and suicidal determination, but it didn't make any difference what he or Harry wanted. It never had. He couldn't stay.

*****

He looks down at me, down, he's grown, there's no doubt that he's taller than me now. But the thought barely registers. It doesn't matter. Nothing does but the fact that I'm looking into those silver grey eyes, and they are filled with such emotion. His eyes are the only part of him that ever gives anything away, and they are are speaking of his desire, a desire so strong I can feel it, like I can feel the heat of his body.

The look in his eyes is exactly what I'd hoped to see. Too good to be true. This must be some sort of spell. A mirage... if I reach for it it will be gone.

------

He takes a step closer. He reaches for me, his fingers against my chest. Tentative as if he doesn't really believe I'm here. The touch tingles through the cool silk. It sends threads of warmth through my entire body. My hand goes to his, it's automatic. I'm moving by instinct, by memory.

Someone brushes past us. Reality comes charging back.

I'm standing in the middle of a ball room holding Harry Potter's hand. I shake my head to clear the fog and let go. His hand lingers on my chest for a moment and then drops to his side.

Draco.

It's barely a whisper but I have no trouble hearing it over the music and the noise of the crowd around us. My senses are tuned to him.

Harry, is all I can manage to say back. My voice doesn't seem to be working properly.

We both move at the same time. It's as if our bodies remember how to communicate even though our minds don't. Without thinking or talking we're walking together, I'm not sure who's leading who.

We're in a small round room. Haven't we been here before?

The door shuts behind us and the only sound is our breathing, in perfect harmony.

*****

Draco marked Harry as close he could. He couldn't lose to him again. He knew Harry was a better flyer but he had the better broom, a Firebolt3. They'd flown enough matches against each other that they knew each other's moves. Harry anticipated Draco's and Draco anticipated Harry's.

Harry suddenly leaned forward speeding toward the ground. Draco was sure it was a feint but he matched him anyway, just to prove he could. They sped toward the ground, Harry's cloak whipping Draco in the face as he pulled along side him. They were so close their legs touched. Harry turned his head and grinned at Draco, a challenge, an acknowledgment, then he pulled out of the dive. It hadn't been a feint after all. Harry had the Snitch in his hand.

But Draco keep thinking about that grin and the way they were so well matched. He had a feeling that that smile hadn't had anything to do with Quidditch.

------

He pulled Harry further into the room. He didn't know why he was doing this, no he did know, he just didn't want to admit it to himself but he had to know what Harry was thinking. Harry looked bemused. That proved it, that look had definitely not been about the Snitch.

*****

The door closes and the noise of the party is shut out completely. The room is small and cozy and there's a fire in the grate. The overstuffed couches remind me of the Gryffindor common room.

I'm locked in his gaze and I can't pull away. I don't want to.

We step together as one. His body presses against mine, I feel his warmth. His eyes tell me all I need to know. His lips brush my cheek, then my lips. He pulls away slightly, but I pull him back. Our lips meet again, the touch is delicious and electric, his tongue warm on my lips, and I am lost.

Nothing, nothing matters but this. I grab at him, holding on for dear life. I am not going to let him go again.

------

He tastes like red wine and dark chocolate. Our bodies are pressed so tightly together that if they were any closer we would be one person and still he tries to pull me tighter to him. I run my hands through that black hair that feels so much softer that it looks.

His eyes tell me more than words ever could. I can see everything in them. They are full of longing, and every thought and feeling of the last four years, it is almost too intense. I look away, but his hand gently brushes my chin and I turn back. Those green eyes are saying that all is forgiven, that all they want is me.

Time seems to have had no effect on us. This is exactly how I remember it. He is exactly how I remember him. He feels the same, his kisses on my neck, his hands on my back. I walked away from this and now I realize how much I've missed him, how much he meant to me. The feelings that were dulled when we were apart come rushing back stronger than ever now that we're together.

*****

Here, take this, Harry held out his hand to Draco. On his palm sat a tiny, perfect silver dragon on a thin silver chain. Draco looked at it and then back up at Harry.

I...

I've cast a protection charm on it. You don't need to go, but I know you're going to, so at least wear this. He'll still be able to hurt you, but not kill you. Harry could feel the sting of tears forming at the corner of his eyes. He looked at the floor, he was not going to cry. This was stupid, it was never meant to go this far. He'd known from the beginning that it was going to end. It was just a fling, just two boys experimenting.

It had started like that anyway, but somewhere along the line something had changed. Somewhere along the line he had fallen in love. He hadn't meant to, especially not with Draco Malfoy. He had tried not to, he knew in the end that he would only hurt himself. They were leaving tomorrow and Draco was doing as planned, he was going back to Malfoy Manor, to his father.

It had all made sense in the outset. They couldn't very well tell anyone about this, but now Harry knew things about Draco that he had not known then. That Draco had never really wanted to be a Death Eater, that he'd just done it out of fear of his father, that he was really a good person, that he was a wonderful lover.

He was only making it harder on himself thinking like that. He could see the truth in Draco's eyes. He could see that he didn't want to go, but he felt that he had no other choice.

*****

I can't believe he's standing here with me. I can't believe he so willingly followed me to this room. He was always so hard to figure out. Alternately saying it had to end and nearly attacking me, dragging me back to the tower room. That was when the sex was the best. It was always good but when he looked at me like that I knew I would be sore in the morning and all the happier for it.

Or he would be saying that it had to stop. That his father would find out. That he would kill him. And he really believed it, that his own father would kill him for shagging me. I never asked if it was because I was a boy or because I was Harry Potter.

That was when I'd realized just how afraid he really was, and that wasn't something I could fight. I tried, I tried so bloody hard, and sometimes it almost seemed like he'd let it go. That he'd stay. But the fear was something he'd felt his whole life, it was a part of him. I could defeat Voldemort but I couldn't break down the walls in my lover's own mind.

I still wear the protection charm I tried to give him. It won't work for anyone one but him. Still I keep it.

------

He's always had this unfathomable strength and that firm belief that everything was going to work out in the end, that everything good would triumph. It's always amazed me, his constant optimism. He should have been mean, he should have been bitter, he should have been angry. But he wasn't. It gave me hope. Being with him gave me hope, but not enough. Not enough to keep it going. Not enough to go against a lifetime of fear and hate.

He would just laugh in the face of danger. He never though of consequences. He never stopped to think. At first I'd thought he was just stupid, or I'd wanted to think that. That I could see something no one else could, that the stories of his bravery were just that, stories. But they were true. He's made of stronger stuff than me. At first it just made me want to hurt him, and then it just made me want him.

That first night it was me who pulled him into the tower room. I was the one who started it, but he was the one who got attached, and I was the one who ended it. The reasons are still there, the obvious and the not. But the part that seems most clear now is how good it was, and I just walked away.

And now his hands are on me, and his lips, soft and warm against mine. His tongue is hot and insistent as he works his way inside my mouth, my resistance fading fast. He walks me backwards until the back of my knee connects with a couch and I topple back onto it, a very un-Malfoy-like thing to do.

He flashes me that same grin that he flashed during our last Quidditch match together. The same grin that had led me, against all better judgement, to drag him to that tower room and see what exactly it was he had meant by it. The same grin that I'm helpless to resist.

And he's on top of me, one knee on either side of my hips. He sits back a bit and looks at me and he's got that look in his green eyes. That look like a feral cat, that look that says there's no point in trying to stop this because he has me and he knows I want him too. That look gives me just an inkling of what he wants to do with me, before he leans forward again, clasping my face in his hands, and kisses me.

I try to ignore the part of my brain that's screaming that this is wrong. That the last four years were a waste if this is just going to happen all over again. I left for a reason and I must stick to it. I'm a Malfoy after all, I need to keep to my word. But that didn't really worked out the way I had planned. Nothing ever seems to, especially if Harry is involved. And here is Harry, warm and alive and sitting on top of me doing wonderful things to my ear with his tongue. And it feels better, more real than just about anything I can remember in the last four years. Have I really just been waiting for this all along? Could I possibly have been that stupid?

------

I want to tell him everything. How I worried I was when it was revealed that Voldemort was using Malfoy Manor as his headquarters. How my first thought when Dumbledore told me was not how close Voldemort had been the whole time, how vulnerable we'd been without even knowing it, but that I hoped Draco was ok. That I should have tried harder to get him to take that charm. I want to put back all the missing pieces of the last four years. I want to hear everything he's been through. Fill it all in. I want to lock us both in a room and not let anyone in, not come out ourselves, till we're done, till all has been told.

He squeezes out from under me and somehow he is on top, he's stronger than he looks and I am pinned beneath him. The weight and warmth of of him on top of me feels so good and I arch my hips up into his.

His kisses move from my ear, tracing a path down my neck working their way down my chest as he slowly unbuttons each button of my shirt. I let out a slight moan as his tongue flicks over my nipple. He slides his hand under the waist band of my trousers, warm flesh on warm flesh and ooohh... this feels so right.

For the first time since leaving Hogwarts I feel like I am home.