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Chapter Text

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What Draco WOULD Tell You

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“If I can't be close to you, I'll settle for the ghost of you.
I miss you more than life.”

—ghost, Justin Bieber

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7 August 2007.

It’s a strange time to receive such terrible news.

It happened early this morning, as early as five. A little moment before the dawn arrives; before the sun had the chance to rise, to wash a low light on the gloomy earth. At least to make it less dark and frigid for the dead. And yet, he was taken away in the most wistful, regretful way possible: too early, too young, and too soon.

“It was so sad that he was quite in his prime, twenty seven years old, he should have been married in a few years. And yet—”

Draco's open windows clacks. Morning wind blusters its way into the room. It carries the sound of a quiet morning whistle that has no right in sounding so serene. It sweeps the drowsiness from Draco’s face. And yet, the biting cold couldn’t downplay the rage igniting deep within him. Wind blowing too early is rarely a good sign. Something has gone crossways if it's a windy morning.

“I grieve for him, he saved my sister two years ago. I can’t believe—"

It’s such terrible news, so terrible that the wireless airs only irritating mourning sounds. Strange eulogies from random, unworthy, lying politicians. Grieving music. A heart broken interviews from regular shoppers at Diagon Alley. They all sound like petulant children throwing a tantrum, or worse, a grieving housewife whose husband died in a battle. Their opinions should hold no relevance at all. Except these all are deemed news-worthy apparently. At least by the standard of the dysfunctional, corrupted, Ministry-partial press.

“The man was too young, I never even had a chance to shake his hand, my child wanted his autograph—"

Draco is angered beyond measure. He hasn’t yet had the chance to wash his face, and his head hurts. He stares hard at the greyscale newspaper sitting on his messy desk, willing it to burn. One of Draco's stray vials with drops of deep green liquid still left inside lies on top of the paper, right over the print of a smiling man standing bravely in grey ink colouring. It annoys Draco a great deal. There’s something profoundly wrong in every way the newspaper is printed.

“I’m so sad, I closed my shop today, he was—"

Just when he thought the world couldn’t turn out to be any more tragic, this happened. There, see?

Everyone must have heard by now.

Harry Potter is dead.

—

7 August 2007

Draco gives a final stir to his cauldron, surprising himself that the potion turns out to be perfect, in spite of everything. The day has been grey and windy, and Draco has been busy the whole day. He vanishes his own wireless. Another dramatic retellings of Potter’s heroic theatrics. How broken-hearted some unnamed girl is, who he had saved from a thief a few years back. Draco tries to block the name out of his head. He almost considers obliviating himself.

And yet, beating all odds, his potion has the correct colour and proper smell. Draco can still brew in an apocalypse. Potter's death could be one. People certainly think it warrants a national holiday. Shops are collectively closed. Draco takes his labelled vial and decants he cerulean liquid inside. He puts a cork on it and arranges it neatly in a wooden box. The thing would earn Draco a fortune. He will ask Aleta to deliver it at the earliest hour tomorrow, as she is currently sleeping peacefully on Draco’s only window ledge.

Draco peeks over the bird’s head, watching the colourless, lonely, empty sky. The universe feels the same gnawing loss. The sky knows exactly how to be. Not a single star dares to out itself on this night of grieving, as the headlines label it. Draco doesn’t feel much grief, though. He doesn’t believe he should.

A strange lump in his throat. Acid in his stomach. His mouth tastes bitter. He wants to wreak havoc and burn cities. And staying still takes a lot right now. Draco is angry. 

He reads the news again.

Harry Potter passed away heroically on an Auror Mission. The twenty seven year old man was the bravest among his team. According to the official statement of the Ministry, he died while chasing down the Head of the DMLE in the act, a human trafficking ring in Edinburgh. Harry Potter's closest friends are all currently grieving and refusing to give statements to the press. Neither one of St. Mungo’s, the Ministry of Magic, nor the late hero’s family and friends disclosed the exact cause of death. How did he die? Was he killed? Who killed him? Was it an accident? Was he sick? We currently have no answer. But our experts may have some theory to expla—”  

Draco doesn’t bother to read further, and skips to the next headline.

‘Harry Potter, the hot young hero who won the battle against—'

‘Harry Potter is dead. In depth interview with a past lover—'

‘Did the hero of the Wizarding World really die single?’

‘The death of Harry Potter and his heroism—'

‘A closer look at Harry Potter’s life and his marital status—'

‘Hermione Granger’s reaction is too much over just a friend’s death—'

‘Restaurant Owner: Harry Potter and Hermione Granger had a bi-weekly dining appointment’

‘Was Hermione Granger having an affair with—'

‘Maybe the friendship of the late hero and Hermione Granger isn’t innocent—'

‘A close source discloses that Hermione Granger is trying to sue the Minister of Magic for Potter's death.’

Draco stops there. The last one is the Quibbler. That might be Draco’s sole lead to find the answer. He laughs. Look at how hard the press is trying to lessen Granger's credibility by accusing her of infidelity.

And foolish Potter. Trust the fool to die young. Did he obviously thought it was a honourable cause?

Potter's face that gets printed in one of the articles is sombre, his eyes unfocused, jaw set in stone. The small sized letters under it scribe ‘taken before the man embarked the mission’. He looked exhausted. A little resigned. In his crumpled Auror robes. A slight air surrounding his stance, as if he knew it was going to be his last.

Potter is dead, alright. This is just another ordinary day in Draco’s life, nothing remarkable. Life is great. And if Draco feels something about it, it’s most definitely anger. Draco is angry. He doesn’t feel a loss like those people on the wireless. It's just Potter, afterall.

There's a grumble from Draco’s body. His stomach is empty. He has no desire for food. His chest is burning; heavy, thick, squeezed, and compacted. His eyes dry and itchy. His mind empty.

He cuts the image from the newspaper with careful magic; making sure to make the outline evenly trimmed. He retrieves a silver box from under his desk, places it on top a pile of books. He stores the picture carefully inside. Along with all others he’s collecting over the past seven years. 

Is this going to be the last cutting in his collection?

Draco walks past his desk, taking a vial off the crowded work space. He passes between his own limited number of cauldrons. All piled up as there isn't much space for them. He stops to set his still boiling potion with a stasis charm, and then walks past the stacks of books and papers to his bed. He has to move several books to make room for himself. He lies down on the silk bedding. His fingers toy with the single vial he just took, fingertips graze over the glass, and uncork the stopper. He downs it in one go, ignoring the lingering aftertaste.

He lies straight on the crowded bed, and watches the ring on his finger. It gleams, like its twin might be, wherever the thing is. Now the light is smaller, less bright, the palest green light. Draco feels the confining sensation deep in his chest. He need answers. He rests against the pillow, and promises himself he'll find them the next morning. No matter what it costs, Draco will chase it down to the end of the universe. This one and all others.

 .

8 August 2007

The sky is bleak in grey, marching clouds. The rain is merciful in its absence. The sky on the burial of the beloved hero.

Godric’s Hollow is mourning, even the air feels stale.

And there he is, his face looking painfully young and white; as the lily petals that adorn his coffin. He lies prettily in a three piece muggle suit, hair tousled in such a way that Draco has never seen in all his life. Maybe Draco’s theory is correct, that Potter’s hair was actually sentient, and that was the sole reason why it could never be tamed. Now that Potter is dead, the magic is gone. His hair can finally be styled. Potter looks unfairly good, being dead. The Weasleys have chosen a willow coffin for him to rest in, with the lid spelled clear so all could see clearly the face of their lost loved one. It's the currently popular wizarding customary coffin style. Draco used to think it ridiculous, but not so much now, as this is probably the last chance he would ever get to see Potter’s face. There is no journalist in attendance to cover such a scen. They’re probably dying to do it.

A huge barrier of protective wards is set several radius away from the cemetery to keep outsiders out, was written in this morning’s Prophet. Set by the Curse Breaker Weasley, Auror Weasley, and Hermione Granger. It’s so strong that there’s really not a single uninvited guest that isn’t Draco. People gather outside the perimeters, yet Draco’s wings flaps quietly as he flies in and perches himself on a branch of a tree inside the cemetery, a little way off, but still in proximity with Harry Potter's soon-to-be grave.

There are ugly lines on Hermione Granger's face. Anger and grief in her eyes. And should the Prophet get their hands on this exact picture she makes, they’d earn a fortune by constructing a story of how she might be having an affair with a dead man, again. Weasley doesn’t look any better beside her, torn down at the seams. He could burst into tears anytime. Girl Weasley is ugly with her teary face. Loony Lovegood looks odd as she stands there in her out-of-place bright purple dress. The small number of people in attendance are mostly in black robes. The Weasley matriarch is crying pitifully. Besides her wailing, it’s a quiet affair.

Speech after speech. Then the coffin is lowered with such care. Potter’s face is soon hidden away from Draco’s line of sight. The hole is filled with soil. And before anyone could move an inch to stop it, there’s a fresh grave in the cemetery, the stone on top engraved with a name so beloved.

Here rests a beloved friend, son, and brother, Harry James Potter.

No mention of his heroism, his role in the war, his Order of Merlin, nor his current profession. Just simply friend, son, and brother. Not a lover. 

That is what Draco could make out from a distance. His heightened eyesight cannot catch the tiny letters under it.

The day is drawn out, going on slowly in the cemetery. People start leaving, one by one. Until the sun is almost set. It ends with Hermione Granger sitting side by side with Ronald Weasley on the ground, two pairs of eyes set on the stone. Their faces are mostly blank. Draco can sympathise. The grave looks like a seal. A hard vindication that Potter is not going to come back anytime soon. The Golden Boy who finally ran out of luck.

Granger's tone is eerily even and neutral when she tells Weasley. "It was my fault."

"It wasn't." Weasley streches his word. "He killed him."

Granger shakes her head. "I sent him straight to his death."

"No, if it yours, then It's my fault too. I was too late..."

She heaves. “We have nothing left of him. Even Grimmauld Place is gone. You saw too. What are we supposed to do now?"

What? Draco sharpens his hearing to listen more, but Weasley doesn't speak, his eyes are blank. 

Granger does, “All we have of him is whatever he left in his office in the Ministry. But there isn’t anything personal there. Anything 'Harry' is gone. Nothing as a keepsake to remember him by.”

Draco makes a mental note of the information.

"We're currently grieving now. We'll try again. We'll restore Grimmauld Place back. And look, we still have Harry. His memories are within us."

When dusk comes, the cemetery is cast into a golden hue. The previous cloudy mood is washed away by sunset. Weasley's gloomy face looks out of place now.

The gold turns into purple, before the sky gives up to darkness. By twilight, the two finally stand up and leave, Apparating away in a hush. As their shadows vanish from the graveyard, Draco perches on the stone, talons gripping hard over Harry Potter's name.

A heart so gold to the final beat.

Draco stays. He waits for midnight, staring at the name on the gravestone. Nothing happens, no matter how long Draco waits. At the very least, he has seen the body get buried; if there was ever an imposing, lingering doubt that the man is actually dead, it’s taken care of now.

The moon is poised delicately above the cemetery grounds when Draco finally leaves, flying off through the sky towards the staggering, lonely moon.

He goes back to his room by flying in through his window and changes back. He accidentally kicks a book stack and the crooked pile bumps the next. He politely greets Aleta, and she stares at him with her huge, yellow spheres eyes, deeply intelligent. He slowly reaches for an owl treat and gives it to her. And as she nibbles on it, Draco tells her, “Aleta, he is really dead."

Aleta doesn't blink when their eyes meet.

He goes back to his desk, where a cauldron is boiling, the liquid inside is thick and purplish red. There is another newspaper lying on the desk. Another print of Harry Potter’s face in grey ink. The picture is old, probably from two years back, and Draco has already collected this one. An old picture, with today's dated news. There won’t be another fresh picture to keep, will there? These papers serve no purpose at all to Draco, just a bunch of rubbish that belongs in the bin.

Draco doesn't even want to read the trash. He turns to Aleta. "We may go away after this."

Aleta never answers, but her head is bent towards Draco. Draco snaps his fingers to empty his cauldrons, vanishing the in-progress potions. And he goes on, "The Weasleys and Granger have been very quiet. There isn't any statement from them about his death. But there’s something we should check.”

Aleta says nothing. Draco keeps going. "I can't believe the foolish Gryffindor git got himself killed."

Draco sweeps his eyes all around the room, his nest for the past seven years. "If somebody requests my crafts or potions, they'll just have to wait, Aleta. We’re closing business until further notice."

Draco spends the night packing the whole room into a suitcase.

And then, with Aleta perched on his shoulder, he Apparates away, leaving the room painfully empty and abandoned, like it hasn't seen Draco's worst, maddening nights in the last seven years.

.

9 August 2007

Draco lands right in front of number 12 Grimmauld Place in the almost dawn. With a sweep of eyes, the house is in plain sight. The numbered door clearly written with the number twelve.

The fidelius charm is gone.

The house looks unsuspecting in between the others. Similar in shape. Except it has an air of unkindness which is all uninviting. If you ever came across it, you’d look past it in an instant, yet it’s still seen. Above it, the sky is mostly still dark, with a hint of red in the distance. The little red dot is not enough to indicate morning, yet late enough for the night to be old.

There is a new ward set. So strong; one of the strongest wards Draco has come across. It vibrates quietly when he tries to nudge it. Subtly well tended and carefully knitted together. The colour of the magic, the composition, is similar to the one in the cemetery. This must be set by Potter’s friends when they came and found that the Fidelius was already shattered.

Draco punches a big hole in the ward and watches as it breaks to fine pieces. It’s always the best of feelings to ruin strong standing magic.

Draco opens the grungy door leading into the old house. The sight that welcomes him isn’t what he recalls. Maybe this is exactly what he should expect from when he eavesdropped on Granger. Still, it surprises him nonetheless. Grimmauld Place's is exactly like what Draco remembers from seven years ago. The layout is familiar, yet it's obviously not the same. It used to be an old ancestral home of the House of Black. With layers upon layers of magic thick in the air. Yet this place is non-magical at best.

Draco scans the house, spell after spells. It gives absolutely nothing.

He sweeps his eyes over the room, hundred year old furniture, vases, coat stands, couches and rugs. They seem the same to Draco, colours, patterns and engravings. But the big difference lies clearly in the lack of magical traces ingrained deep within. Portraits, and any magical objects are plainly missing. Draco knows Potter had gotten rid of Aunt Walburga's portrait years ago, but it’s unnatural to have them all removed. 

Something significant must have gone on here. If Draco should guess, it's either a cleansing ritual, or a moving ritual. Both need gigantic power to perform. That, or a complicated dark arts. If this is Potter’s dwelling for the past seven years, then something graver than he thought must have happened here.

He wonders why the Ministry hasn’t marched their way around here, making a scene, as this is Potter’s home, and it’s gone after his death. A death that is tightly tied to them, and most likely their doing. Draco would dig it up later. This feels a lot like Prophet headline-worthy. Then, he reckons this must be all hidden by Potter’s friends. They concealed the fact that Grimmauld Place is gone, and might have ran an investigation that resulted in nothing, and chose to deal with it themselves.

Aleta won't leave Draco's shoulder. She slides even closer to Draco’s head, stance tense,  talons grip Draco’s shoulder. 

Grimmauld Place has a heart. Draco traces his steps straight to it. The living room of this strange, shadow of house has a dead, cold fireplace. It has a perfectly similar layout with the one in Grimmauld Place, down to every single detail in candle sticks and flooring.

Draco sits down on the deep green rug. Cross-legged in front of the fireplace. With snap of his fingers, a blue blaze ignites. Draco's magic starts to fill up the air. He unlatches his suitcase, summons an old pendant he accidentally aquired years ago. It is diamond shaped. A bright golden glow. An ominous energy. It belonged to the Black family, years ago, a token from a Black lover that's been pawned off and forgotten. If there's anything that could help to find out what happened to the house, it’s this old token and a few drops of a descendant's blood.

It’s fortunate that Draco is one.

He keeps Aleta on his person, closes his suitcase and transfigures a rope from thin air, then ties the suitcase to his left upper arm. Then he cuts his left finger, red blood flowing from the clean wound. Drops fall onto the green rug. Black splotches shapes up. A metallic smell burns. Draco's lips moves as he chant the incantation.

He drips the blood onto the pendant. 

Smoke billows up from the metal with a hiss. Vile and rotten.

Draco slips into the air. 

A moment pass.

Finally, Draco's body gains weight. 

Draco lands in the real 12 Grimmauld Place.

The room looks almost the same. Except its heavy with a weight the previous place was lacking. Magic.

He shares a look with Aleta. He knows that she can sense it. There's something else here. Familiar on Draco's skin. As if he knows as well as his own hand. Deeply entwined in Draco’s body and soul, rises up and hangs maddeningly in the air. 

Dark magic.  

Draco revels in it. He moves his hand to enhance the existing curse, to further hid the house, to keep Potter's friends away.

He stands up, unties the rope from his suitcase and looks around. It's early in the morning, probably in sunrise. Draco puts off exploring until later. He to the room he knows best. Potter's.

When he pushes the door open, he finds that the dead bastard still used the same room from seven years ago until his death. Draco takes a moment, sweeping his gaze around, forcing himself to take in the room with neutral eyes. He puts down his suitcase near the door, and goes to the bed.

Potter's bed stands in the middle of the room. It once belongs to his prodigal, wayward cousin. It has deep green coloured bedding. Draco's fingers touch the cold sheets, feeling the silk fabric, delicate on the skin. Potter changed is bedsheets preference, then.

Potter has only been dead for two days, and this place is still relatively clean, if a little messy from how Potter left it. A muggle sports magazine lies on the bedside table. Inches away from a half drunk cup of tea. A worn pair of pyjamas lies carelessly on the floor. Unfluffed pillows.

This doesn't look like a dead man's bed.

This bed is used to carry the weight of Potter’s hardest days, ready as his comforting place to return to. It’s still there, waiting helplessly for what's supposed to be just a short while for its master to return. 

Draco lies down on the bed unceremoniously, trying hard to protect his mind from thoughts trying to slip in. His eyes follow the familiar lines of the bedroom ceiling. It's one that he remembers well from seven years ago, on some nights where his eyes refused to close, and had someone lying on his arms. The ceiling doesn’t betray his memory, and he relishes that nothing has really changed around 12 Grimmauld Place, the real one, except of course, for the obvious lack of his presence.

Draco takes a very long, deep inhale. There's a certain smell left on the pillows, it's Potter's masculine, musky, sweet scent. His sweat and natural body odour. Draco inhales it like a starving man. 

The scent drives him mad with the memory of several years prior, where he fucked Harry Potter on this very bed.

His hands goes to the front of his trousers, stroking himself through the fabric, then opens the zip. From there, Draco starts massaging himself, slow and sure, thinking of Potter's brilliant mouth and ready hole.

He is wanking alone on Harry's Potter bed, while thinking of the memories of the dead man. There are no bounds to Draco's insanity, apparently.

He keeps on touching himself, thinking of the sighs, the grunts, and the sounds Potter used to make under him, the empty promises and praises spilling out of his mouth, while Draco fucked him. He remembers the liquids splashed on Potter’s face, white come on the corner of his lips, on his cheek as he swallows Draco's cock.

He remembers everything in vivid detail. That one month here, in this very same Grimmauld Place, where Draco took Potter on every surface there was. Draco likes to call that time of his life a trial phase. That period of time of giving himself a taste of the light, and it comes to Draco as an everlasting memory of Harry Potter writhing beneath him, green eyes pleading prettily, instilled deep within Draco’s brain, coming to him in his dreams.

This earliest hour of the day, as he falls asleep, it comes to him again, the same rendition running through his mind, like a red rose, sensual and vividly bright.

It went like this; some few months after the war, in Harry Potter's home, Grimmauld Place. There was a docile, boneless Potter resting his head against Draco's collarbone, his breath noisy in his sleep, his hair grazing Draco's cheek. And right then, Potter was a vulnerable thing, completely at Draco's mercy. He could have done anything he wanted to Potter, hurt him, curse him, kill him, he was so defenceless, surrendering himself to Draco. Yet, Draco remained. He let the git use him as a pillow for the night. Stayed right there, until it was midnight, and Potter woke up, green eyes wide, blinking sleepily at Draco.

Draco's finger itched to reach out, so he did. He ran his fingers through Potter’s messy hair. And Potter relaxed to his touch, mouth smiling.

Draco's ears went fuzzy, and his chest heavy.

"Hi, Malfoy," Potter said, a voice raspy from sleep.

"Hi yourself. Fancy myself as a pillow these days."

Potter grinned, and he laid back against Draco. "The comfiest. You see, I haven't been able to sleep well before this."

"You don't really sleep, then."

“I'm glad we ran into each other in that club. Of all the clubs and all the people, it was you that I met back there." He had this dopey smile on his lips, then he looked at Draco with dreadfully, hopeful eyes.

"Disappointed?"

"On the contrary," his eyes glinted, “a really nice break, it was. People walk on eggshells and worship me, and think I owe them everything. You, though? Mm....” he kissed Draco’s collarbone.

“You'll sooner find me dead before you ever see me worship the ground you walk on."

Potter laughs. "Exactly.” He looks at Draco with a little shrug. “You'd have thought ending the war would bring change, would bring peace. But I didn't feel peaceful at all. The ministry is still fucked up. And I know you haven’t changed much."

"You thought I would change, just because you testified at my trial?" Draco stared at Potter's exposed throat instead of his eyes.

"I think you’re capable of it."

Draco threw the comforter aside, revealing their tangled, naked bodies. "You can't change people, Potter, it happens only when life forces you and when you’re willing."

"Are you?"

Draco laughed, he started to mouth Potter's throat, teeth scraping on the skin, leaving a burning red mark just above his collarbone, and he whispers on the bruise. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?”

Potter whined, so Draco licked the bruise some more. “You want me. You want me so desperately to fit into your little golden life, but you know I don't."

Draco's mouth resumed its act, going lower to Potter’s chest, giving special tiny licks and a full bite on his hard nipples, that earned a breathy moan and desperate whine. "You'd love it, to have me all reformed and obedient by your side, like some redeemed villain. It’s the fucking dream of your life.”

Draco's mouth went lower to his abdomen, decorating Potter's whole torso with his saliva, licking every bit of his skin, making sure nothing got left out. He then gave the right side of his stomach another bite, leaving another purple splotch, and Potter growled as it was given to him. He told him, "Yet, without me changing, you'll still let me do this," Draco's mouth went on with his journey, inhaling Potter's pubic hair and a finger touched Potter’s cock. Potter kept on making tiny little noises and heavy breaths, "My life is vile and my soul is uncouth, yet you want me to fuck you."

"Yes. Yes. Yes," Potter gasped, and Draco gave a broad lick on his cock, his teeth softly scraping his balls. Potter yelled, "You can change!"

Draco turned Potter's lax, obedient body around. "On all fours."

Potter did as instructed immediately, so readily, as soon as Draco finished speaking. When he was in the position, Draco ran a finger down his spine, from the tip of his neck to his tailbone, slowly, deliberately, a ghost of touch, and he heard heavy, shaky exhales escape Potter's mouth as he did so.

“I know you can.” Potter sounded strangled as he bit his own lips when Draco put his fingers on his pucker, circling around the skin of his hole. He conjures lube and put it inside, slowly massaging the inner skin with two fingers. In, out, in, out, while he whispered into Potter's ears, "You want me to do what, exactly? Becomes a precious little housewife? I have an education and an occupation ban, they took my wand and everything that belongs to me away, and you want me to do what?"

He had finger buried deep inside Potter's arse, yet Potter,  whose eyes were closed in ecstasy, still managed to answer in between his gasps, "It's for you to learn to do it the muggle way. Honestly, it's not all that bad. I could show you."

Draco laughed harder, his fingers moved in and out faster, the fingers of his other hand running so slowly over Potter’s erect cock, which dangled between his thighs. He touched it with a long, torturous graze, then he spread the precum from the tip to the whole length, Potter screamed at that. "So naive. How did you survive this war, again?"

"Ahh! Believe me. You can!" 

“Believe what you want. Wait there for a minute, don’t move.”

Potter nodded, and he bit down on his own lips. 

Draco stroked his own cock lazily, watching Potter face down on the bed, arse up to the sky, his eyes closed and face tortured, and he was patiently waiting for Draco. Opening his eyes, he whined as he saw Draco playing with his cock. “What? You want to be fucked?”

“Yes, please. I know you can be good.”

Draco laughed, it was another stupidity and naivety Draco didn’t think Potter would get rid of anytime soon. He went on his knees and positioned his cock against Potter's ready, angry red hole, "Believe what you want." He started to thrust in, so slowly. 

Potter sobbed. "Draco..."

Draco relished the way his given name came out of that mouth as he begged. He reached round to Potter cock and used the tip of his nail to slowly graze the foreskin as he thrust laboriously in and out.  

"Draco, please," Potter kept sobbing, "Please Draco,"

Draco thrust in.

"I beg of you." He pulled slightly out.

"Please give it to me," Potter added with a sob, and at that, Draco, either relenting or giving up for his own pleasure, picked up the pace a little.

 "AH!" Potter wailed at the new pace, and Draco went even faster so that he started to forget himself. His hands went from Potter's cock to hold his hips, he went in and out hard in rapid thrusts, losing his own momentum. And Potter's weeping, red cock was abandoned, the tip kept rubbing against the bedding each time Draco snapped his hips.

Potter kept begging. "I'd go to the dark with you." 

Draco kept thrusting with a punishing pace, and Potter kept on screaming like a prayer. "I'm under your mercy, please."

Draco came whilst still thrusting in and out, his come spilling out everywhere, in Potter's hole, on his arsecheek, on his thigh, while Draco let out a big moan which  echoed round the bedroom. When he looked, there was come on the sheets too, white liquid dripping from Potter's abandoned cock.  

Draco pulled out and Potter lay down, cock soft on his thigh. Potter had tears in the corners of his closed eyes. His hair was a complete mess, and he was wet all over his body, glistening with sweat, come, and Draco's saliva.

"You look debauched."

Potter opened his eyes, looking at Draco like he'd hung the moon, his breath heavy when he answered Draco, "I feel so.”

For a split second, Draco thought everything would be fine if he could have Harry Potter looking blissed out of his brain getting fucked by him, just by him, for life.

And then Potter spoke again, and it shattered the tiny seed of delusion that had planted itself within Draco’s mind, chiding him for the little uncharacteristic slip. The reminder was loud in the way Potter asked, “What do you need, Draco? What does it take for me to help you? If you really refuse to change, what are you planning to do? I’ll do it with you.”

“You are talking nonsense, go to sleep.”

“Draco….”

“Go to sleep.”

Potter let out a big yawn, eyelids heavy and dropping. He relaxed some more into Draco’s embrace, face on Draco’s chest and said, “I’m going to sleep. You can think it through. I really will help you. Even if you want to be a fugitive forever, I’ll help you hide.”

And then he fell asleep.

Draco decided that was going to be it.

Hours later, when the dawn had yet to rise, Potter’s window was tightly closed, and the only light was from a single tiny lit lamp in the corner of the room. The rays left little patterns on Potter’s face. He slept so deeply in his slumber, and Draco watched him for some time, his naked body tangled in the sheets, and his hair still  a little wet from sweat. He somehow seemed glowing in Draco's eyes, like a piece of jewellery Draco wished he could wear on his neck. Yet, in this newly reformed magical world, Draco didn’t want a place in the light, where Harry Potter was the very essence of it.

Draco considered it as a gift, what he was about to do. There was something very profound and priceless about this pure jewel, and Draco's bloody hand hated to taint it. So, he gathered his clothes from the floor and dressed himself.

When he looked again, Potter was frowning in his sleep. His breath slowed through a soft mouth that was half open, and Draco wanted to give himself another taste. But he didn't want Potter to wake up now, he would beg Draco to not leave. He was not in the mood for any begging. 

Draco whispered, "It's going to be a long time before you see me again, Potter. But you will. Maybe by then you won't be this naive."

Draco Apparated out through the house's anti-Apparation ward.

.

9 August 2007.

Draco wakes up to coldness, like an autumn morning kind of cold, in August. And the light that he wakes up to is not a sneaky warm morning light, seeping in between the curtains, as Draco expected. Instead, the beaming light knocking at his eyelids is a blue, cold glow from a source just next to him on the bed. When Draco opens his eyes, he finds that the source of the light and the dropping temperature is a figure lying next to him, one with an unmistakable resemblance to Potter's face. The face Draco had seen pale white as porcelain, as it lay prettily inside a coffin that got lowered into the ground just yesterday.

Draco searches the face, in all its blue glowing glory. From the closed eyes under a pair of glasses, the lightning scar on his forehead, the sharp jaw bones, the slope of his nose. With a blink, he could discern who these features belong to. Through the long years of observation and unacknowledged obsession from Hogwarts years to a whole box of newspaper clippings, it leaves a candid imprint in his mind. And the face illuminated in beams of blue light inside the dark room. 

Harry Potter is dead, and this is his ghost.

Ghost-Potter reeks a defined ghost energy that delivers a biting cold to the spine, and is a construction of light. Like the see through blue-ish glow of a patronus' body, Potter is still distinctly Potter, in every way. He looks like those prints of him in the Prophet's headlines that Draco expertly curated together in his box. And yet, instead of being printed in grey paint, this one is made of blue light and is the actual size, possibly including the sound. And this surprise of a sight is a breath of fresh air, unlike that atrocious gravestone.

Potter's eyes are tightly closed.

Draco props himself on one arm, studying that face like a religion, like he might have been doing all his life. There are newly soft lines in the corner of Potter's eyes that Draco knows weren’t there seven years ago, and they aren’t visible in Draco’s newspaper cuttings collection. His forehead scar has faded for a bit over several years, not as prominent as it was, but still visible enough to make him stand out. And he’s still got his eyes closed.

"Salazar, look at this, this house is haunted. Do ghosts sleep?"

"I don't sleep," he answers, eyes still shut, his voice still the same as how Draco remembers.

"You look like a patronus," Draco tells him. Potter opens his eyes, startling Draco, and displays a peculiar mixture of green and blue together. Draco could admit, for all that he hasn't seen them for so many years, he’s sure that the eyes used to be as green as jade in that cursed stone in Draco’s trunk, or like the woods of forbidden forest when Draco last visited a few years ago. And not this. Somehow, the blue glow infuriates Draco, it ruins everything.

Potter's mouth turns upwards, turning it into this ghost of smile, or if Draco were to mince his words, it’s more precise to call it a smile of a ghost. "And you look like Draco Malfoy. One would think you’re the ghost here."

Draco lets out an exaggeratedly big exhale. "I breathe, and you’re see-through."

Potter scoffs at him, then he diverts his ridiculous eyes to the ceiling. Draco watches his profile, again, making a study out of it, transcribing the details of his cheekbones, his lips, his set jaw. And the obvious upset lines on the corners of his downturned lips. And when Potter speaks, his voice shakes with a slight quiver, easily noticeable to Draco’s ears. It sounds like an unwanted admission when the words leave Potter’s mouth. "I've been searching for you my whole life."

He turns his eyes back to Draco's, and this time Draco meets them fair and even, though Potter looks like he puts weight of blame in his own, and a little venom drips from his words. "Everywhere. Anyhow. And now I'm dead and here you are. You must be dead too."

Draco answers, "Whatever works for you."

Potter holds out a hand, it hovers in the air between Draco’s body and Potter’s ghostly figure. And blue-ish fingers obstinately reach out towards Draco's mouth, and he almost feels it. Draco holds his eyes, preparing his own skin to the presumably frigid ghostly touch. Yet, Potter retracts his hand before the touch makes it, when it was just close enough, an almost. Potter backs off, even further away from him. It makes Draco almost furious, trust Potter to become a coward in his ghostly form, Draco used to count on his Gryffindor stupidity for his gain. Now, apparently, it’s gone to waste.

Potter clears his throat and asks instead, "How did you find the house?" 

"Not hard. Though I'll have to admit, it's clever of you. Hiding your house with an old, dark, dangerous magic. Are you Harry Potter? What have you become? Your friends don't know, don't they?"

Potter closes his eyes, his face unnaturally neutral. It annoys Draco thinking that the ghost Potter isn’t as open a book as the living one. The movement of his facial muscles, distinctive by their variety and wide spectrum, used to be Draco’s source of entertainment.

Because Potter doesn’t speak, he goes on, "You should have told me that you keep interesting stuff here in the house, Potter. I love that cursed lamp under your bed. I would have come here sooner had I known."

Potter opens his eyes, and everything shifts on his face. It’s like cracking an outer mask. So Potter was attempting to look nonchalant. It doesn’t last, and is unsuitable. It’s not Potter, to act unbothered, this Potter is more real. Anger is written all over his face, clear on sight. He has strange glassy eyes that look as though he’s been betrayed, as though Draco has done something unforgivable. Draco knows he’s a wanker, yes. Yet, all things considered, was it not fair, what he’s done? He doesn’t think so.

Potter lets out a fake, heavy breath. "I sent you a letter, once."

"I know," Draco answers. The air hangs heavy around them. Potter watches Draco, his eyes challenge him to say more, his face hard like metal, so Draco does, "You didn't mention that you practice dark arts, then. What a pity, you wouldn't be dead if you had." 

Potter burst out in this sudden, high shrill of laughter, a raw, bitter, pitiful one. Then, his blue shoulder shakes, his voice cracking under every word spoken, yet he says it so softly in an almost whisper that Draco barely catches up, "Why are you here? After my death? I've been looking for you for years, with any means necessary, to no avail. Why are you here now?"

"Maybe I still want you. And you are too expensive living. I couldn’t afford it, I’m quite poor, you see? My asset was taken away. Now that you’re dead, naturally I should give it a shot.”

Potter lets out another laugh, this laughter doesn't sound fun, nor joyful at all. He says, "You’re sick in the head. You make me glad I’m dead."

Draco laughs back, surprised. "You can think what you want."

Potter, without a warning, yanks his hand through Draco's forehead, fast like a blow, and it goes through. It should be expected, as Potter is a ghost and Draco is alive. Yet, silly Potter looks broken hearted by his own hand, his eyes still glassy as he says, "See? You can't touch a ghost. How are you supposed to have me?”

Draco shrugs, holding Potter’s gaze as he says, "Don’t test me."

 .

I'm an  admirer,  Aleta . I wish I could see you sometime. —HJP.

.

9 August 2007

It’s early afternoon when Draco’s bare feet step on the stairs leading to the third story of Grimmauld Place, on the green stair carpet with gold embroidery that Draco knows had been there when Mother first took him here as a child. He makes eye contact with surprisingly quiet, calm portraits of dubiously fashioned ancestors from many generations ago. They don’t speak at all, mouths tight and eyes unsuspecting, it’s quite unusual. Black portraits that Draco remembers are full of shitty sarcasm and horrible on the ears.

And it’s enough for Draco to know that seven years proves to be a short while and quite a long time simultaneously. This is another proof that the house actually has remained in the same state after all, like Draco hasn’t left for long, yet at the same time, Draco still finds too much unfamiliarity in the corners in the house to say it has avoided change.

“Are you really going to undo all my hard work?” Potter asks when Draco wrecks the wards locking several sealed rooms. Draco finds the rooms mostly looking similar, like how he remembers them, if one doesn’t count spider webs on the ceiling and dust covering surfaces, and the locks.

Draco gestures at the rooms. “These weren’t locked then, I used to find things to steal.”

“I took care of everything that might interest you. Go on, if you want to do that big grand display of power, and undo my hard work. Not my problem anymore.”

“I’ll give you that, you really worked hard.”

“You’d know how far I’ve come had you stayed. Had you not run away and talked to me,” he says, and Draco really despises it when he starts talking like that, with his strangled, pained voice. Draco ignores him, although it’s quite futile as he still follows Draco everywhere. At least, he’s stopped talking.

Potter walks a few steps behind Draco, he doesn't float around like the stupid Hogwarts Ghosts like nearly-headless Nick or the Bloody Baron. And he walks like someone alive would, clad in his uniform, scarlet shirt, and simple trousers. The last thing he wore before his untimely death. Yet, that’s where it ends, the human aspect of him. Because, instead of having things to do on his own, he instead follows Draco everywhere, watching the back of Draco's head and giving him shivers, like a ghost.

Going through this home feels a lot like learning a subject in depth, though. A detailed reading of somebody's life. It’s there if you care to pay enough attention to their dwelling. Draco casually reveals the kind of life Potter must have led, the things that must have kept him awake at nights. He sees everything as he uses a spell to clean the wine glass left in the sink and to remove the shopping receipt from the countertop, and finds the black coat that still hangs on the rack and the thin, worn shoes.

As if performing legilimency, Potter says, “You’d have seen me use them if you'd never left.”

Draco ignores that too.

Potter isn’t one to have much taste in decoration, a fact Draco finds in the way he keeps many things in their original state, but Draco still discovers many personal touches on every inch of Grimmauld Place, evidence of him that Hermione Granger said last time in the graveyard she would like to have as a keepsake. And it’s all here for Draco. Only for Draco’s very eyes, and no one else's.

Potter makes another commentary, “Why, Malfoy? Why do you look like that?"

“I was born beautiful and you know it.”

Potter laughs. “Fine, you’re beautiful. But I meant you had this crazy look on your face for a moment. I thought you'd lost it.”

“I have lost it. Why do you think I’m here?”

“True, that. Have fun looking at my life that you cowardly missed. You’ll like what you see next.”

“What? You’ll show me the room where you kill and dismember people, now?”

“Close enough.”

Draco won’t admit that he’s very much thrilled to look at the glimpses he sees. From all the rooms Potter decided to seal off, and all the nasty portraits that had become tamed instead of removed completely, the docile feeling of an unrestrained ancestral home and in the heaviness left from Potter’s magic in the wards, still carries on even after his death.

Right, that Potter who is now standing a few steps behind Draco is dead.

He really took care of everything, though.

Draco resumes his tour and finds the most unexpected addition to the house. It’s there in the way Potter's transformed the dining room, because Draco is sure there should be a grand dining table with twenty seats, yet it is now replaced with a large, porcelain lab bench. The room is larger than Draco's whole space in the past seven years. It has floor to ceiling high cabinets, and shelves, a little writing desk near the window with an old muggle typewriter and some quills and parchment, and the lab bench in the centre, where Potter stored lots of magical research equipment. He doesn't own many potions kits for brewing, but what he does have are pretty extensive. There’s substances for testing purposes, a useful pensieve, magical curse breaking tools, and muggle mechanical tools.

There is also this heavily warded tall metal cabinet, exuding deep dark energy that Draco is sure it’s where Potter keeps his treasures. Draco is proud.

“Like what you see?”

“Not bad." Draco casually opens the cabinet while still looking at Potter, right in the eyes. Potter keeps his smirks all the while. Draco then scans through the cabinet's contents. A velvet jewelry box catches his eyes. The box glows in muted light, the magic feeling too familiar to be ignored. So he takes it out with a bare hand, destroying the protective spells as his skin touches it. The box seems to contain a tamed old curse.

He opens it and sees a jade ring. Draco looks at Potter, who stands there smugly, and laughs.

Draco takes the ring from the box, it looks painfully similar to the one on Draco’s finger, the same jade glow, but brighter. It's the lost twin. He looks at Potter accusingly. “You’ve stolen my ring.”

Potter raises his eyebrows. “You’ve stolen more than a ring from me.” Potter shrugs. “You like what I did to it? I told you I can go down that path too. You just didn’t believe me. You just left.”

Potter had done a good job at neutralising the bad energy and making the ring a functional protective amulet. Draco refuses to give Potter the satisfaction of approval, though, so he ignores him and unpacks his own equipment from his trunk.

Potter hovers all over, all through it. Right now, his blue-ish light looks rather cold under the harsh bright white bulbs of the lab. Draco levitates his burner over the lab bench, focusing on every task in hand. Yet, ignoring a ghost only works when they want it. Though they can’t touch you, their presence is big when they want it to be.

He knows he can’t ignore Potter anymore when he asks, "What are you doing?"

So Draco resigns himself to a conversation. He sneaks a glance at Potter, and finds him sitting on the stool at the opposite side of the bench, hands over the porcelain, fingers picking at his own nails. Draco considers answering with sarcasm, but the question reminds Draco of something else he’s been curious about since Potter mentioned it earlier this morning, so he asks instead, "You’ve been looking for me, Potter. What have you found about me? Tell me what you know about me."

Potter’s finger stops moving and he looks at Draco with judging eyes. "Of course you are the wanted Death Eater. Gone before serving your sentencing."

"Everyone knows that."

Potter smirks, "The press talks a lot about Aleta."

Draco smiles to himself at that, because that's exactly what he's hoping for Potter to say. And Potter doesn't disappoint. "The infamous Magic craftsman, or my favourite titles 'magic bender' and 'the DMLE’s most wanted criminal'," he pauses, smiling pointedly at Draco, "I know who Aleta is. The Ministry doesn't. There's two cells in Azkaban marked under both names."

Draco smirks, letting go of the burner and sitting down on the stool himself. He examines the glasses Potter still has on, wondering if as a ghost he still has terrible vision, or if death has cured his myopia after all. He stores this question for later. "Good reputation, that. Sorry about the Azkaban thing. I know you tried to keep me away from it, all those years ago."

Potter has a frown on his forehead at that, lines under lines, and he’s got this hard pointed look aimed at Draco. Maybe Draco did hit too close to home, mentioning the trial. "You got it wrong, though, Aleta is my owl."

Potter looks up, all emotions swept out as he is genuinely surprised. "It isn't an alias?"

"Nope. It’s her name," Draco waves his hand at his trunk, summoning out cauldrons, vials, and ingredients and easily levitates them towards the cabinets, where they sort themselves. "You already knew, then. And weren't you the Ministry? Last I heard, you are their precious Auror, so why gatekeep such information?"

Potter throws out a mocking laugh. "You know why. I've never been loyal to the Ministry for many years now, we were still there to try to reform it."

Draco laughs back at him, because Potter thinks he’s not being naive in not trusting the Ministry, and misses out on how funny it sounds to try to reform it. It has been years, and he can’t fathom why Potter would keep such useless beliefs and righteousness. "What a bunch of fools, of course you can't."

Potter sighs, sounding resigned. "We were trying."

"Of course.” Then Draco helpfully points out the other ironically funny fact of Potter’s contradicting nature. “Practice dark art in your home and hide it away to keep up a clean persona. Who are you now?”

Potter chuckles, a sudden flash contrasting the humour arrives in his eyes. "You don’t know half of it. You don’t know how crazy it is out there and how many people are suffering. You don’t know how cruel he is. We were already close to end it. And you know the dark arts don’t have anything to do with that. I told you, I can go down this path too. I was trying to find you, remember? I didn’t know how else. And leaving traces of dark magic when I died would make it harder for Hermione and her campaign if anyone found out.”

Draco gestures to the whole room. “Ah sweet, all this just for good ol’ me?”

Potter looks pained when he answers, “I’ve been telling you.”

Potter sighs, shrugs his blue shoulders, and eyes the two day old Prophet Draco has just taken out from his trunk, which he places on the lab bench. The headline is covered under the fold, but there’s a vivid print of Hermione Granger’s face plastered on the visible side. Potter watches it with his stupid moony eyes, and then asks, "What's Hermione doing after my death?"

Draco closes all the cabinet doors with another wave of his palm. "Chasing her own death, I think. The only thing released to the public is that she suspects the Minister for Magic is behind your death."

When Draco looks, Potter seems to be taken aback. "That's— no, She must have thought it through, right? It's Hermione."

"She’s grieving, Potter. She doesn't have time to think. They discredit her by making it look like you were having an affair with her.”

"But it's Hermione, she doesn't get emotional.”

Draco shrugs. "You think she wouldn't feel emotional anguish over your death?"

Potter shakes his head. "She’s way more cool-headed than that."

Draco feels a bit of sympathy towards Hermione Granger. "Ouch."

"No, look, I’m already dead, she can't afford to take a road that isn't winning."

"What’s winning for you? Do you want to help her? Or leave a warning message for her?"

Potter diverts his eyes, his gaze falling on the floor. "Honestly, no. I prefer to be gone, I’m tired of fighting. And I don't want anyone to see me," he looks up again, meeting Draco’s eyes. Then he fucking shrugs, and picks his fingers again. "Actually, that includes insane dark-arts crafters who used to fuck me when I was young, and left. I assumed he was dead, yet here he is.”

Draco raises his eyebrows. "Should have made your wards stronger then."

"You’d break any ward I made anyway."

Draco smirks. "Understanding my supremacy, now?"

Potter surprises him with his quick and sure answer, like he doesn’t even believe anything else is possible. "I've understood a long time ago. I know the cells in Azkaban will always be empty."

Draco gives him a wide smile. "You've gotten clever."

Draco moves from the stool and sits on the bench, covering the newspaper that displays the haunted face of Hermione Granger printed big on it with his arse. Draco actually is a little sorry for her, and he pities her stupidity in her move of suing the current dictator. Azkaban might be one of the easier fates that awaits her. 

He looks at ghost-Potter, his see through blue glowing incorporeal body. And it’s an annoying little reminder to Draco that his physical body is long buried in Godric’s Hollow Cemetery, next to his parents’ grave, a place he knows Potter would rather be. He’s dead, Draco is talking to this bloody ghost. A ghost is mere remains, it doesn’t have the right to leave the impression of reconnecting with the living being.

Draco schools his stance in neutrality when he asks Potter, bracing himself for the flow of anger he'll most definitely feel. "Did he really kill you?"

Potter gives him a sideway glance, and answers easily, "Yes."

Draco feels a slight pressure in his chest, and he keeps his voice even as he asks, "How did it feel?"

"Fast."

Draco meets Potter's nonchalant eyes, trying to keep down the ignition of more fire burning through his insides. "It wasn't painful?"

A shrug. "Not at all."

Draco despises everything in this world, and he draws the Malfoy bloodline’s graceful approach, proper and untouchable, and manages to say, "Pity. How did he do it?"

Another shrug. "Nothing much. There was a trap. We thought we were going to catch him red handed at a crime scene. But there was only the Head of the DMLE instead of him. And there was a sudden quick Avada Kedavra."

"Did you jump in front of someone?"

Potter shrugs, again, "Does that matter?"

It grates on Draco's nerve, how nonchalant he is. It's in contrast with Draco's constant anger about the matter. "Don't you care that you are dead? You sound like you're recounting a boring tuesday at work."

Another annoying shrug. "It was a boring tuesday at work."

"An Avada Kadavra?" You were never easy to kill. How? "That's anticlimactic, to be your ending. Something heroic must have happened. Why didn't you use your grand Expelliarmus again?"

Potter looks tired, "I've made peace with death, you see. I'll spare the insignificant details. If you need to know, I tried my best to be careful."

"You even hid your house before embarking on it. You knew it was a trap. Is going to a suicide mission careful, now?"

A half smile on Potter’s mouth. "Every mission has a chance of going south.”

"What flawless risk management.” 

Potter laughs, and Draco wants to punch his face for that. But then there is a glint on his eyes and he says, "What if I was tired of this hero narrative? He didn't even get the girl nemesis he's been obsessed with all his life." He fucking winks, the dead wanker. "What if I want to star a ghost romance instead?"

Draco laughs, either for the humour, or the irony, Draco himself can't tell. He asks him, "You want tragic erotica?”

Potter smiles. But then, something catches Draco’s eye. There’s a portrait of a sad woman on the wall above Potter's head.

“To your ghostly adventure, Potter." He fake salutes.

Draco looks at the sad woman again, she annoys him, and he wants to burn her. He looks back at Potter and changes the subject. "That Minister of yours had sent a letter to me, requesting business, a few months ago."

"What was it?"

"Killing someone, he didn't specify. And I wasn't interested."

"Oh? What would you do if it was me he wanted to kill?"

"Who knows, I might help him, I might kill him instead."

"I heard you don't do killing business."

"No. But with me, you'll never know." Draco shrugs. And he asks Potter this question while looking at the portrait, who is now crying, "Is he why you stayed in this realm? Do you want to get vengeance on him? Killing him would be easy."

Potter takes his sweet time to reply, Draco almost burns the witch as he waits. A few more moments, and Potter still doesn’t answer, so Draco glances his way, and finds Potter’s face caught in a raging storm, jaw hard and face set. When Draco meets his eyes, Potter finally moves his mouth to speak, his voice drops lower with each word. "No, that's not what I want."

"What do you want?"

He acts like he doesn't care, and yet, talking about the Minister angers him. Potter’s face gets harder, and then his eyes divert to the paper under Draco's backside, and that makes Draco wonder how the picture of Granger is doing under it. He decides he doesn’t like the imagery and pulls it from under him. He blasts the newspaper with an Incendio, satisfied that he finally gets to burn something, fortunately for the woman in the portrait. He smirks at the blazing anger rising on Potter’s face.

He drops the whole thing and instead tells Potter, "I'm going to the library, I have too many books in my trunk, I'll put them there. Got any new books worth reading?"

There is no answer. Dracon shrugs and leaves the lab. And still, Potter tails his feet from behind. It’s as if he finds it hard to be anywhere Draco isn’t, no matter how angry he is.

.

The library is still behind the realistic vines engraved door on the third story. The old door gives a thin creak when Draco opens it. There is a freshly added shelf with an expanded collection of books Draco knew weren’t there before. Draco spends a moment skimming through the titles, he finds some books he knows only belong to the Restricted sections of Hogwarts or the Ministry library. Draco glances at Potter, who is following and ignoring him simultaneously, as if that’s possible. He feels a bit of pride for thieving war heroes.

Draco takes a seat on the desk. Still the same thing Draco remembers, just moved around now. Potter put it near the window where the light will be blinding in the late afternoons. But Potter has smartly placed it in a place where you can stare at the window to be able to watch the sun and the wind, and not be bothered by the light. Draco sets a large blank paper on it, picks a couple of books Potter gathered over the years, and starts skimming through them.

All the while, Potter sits on the seat across from him, watching Draco with his subdued, sometimes there but not there eyes. Sometimes in between the pages, Draco takes a look at him, and Potter meets Draco's eyes evenly. Sometimes, Draco winks at him, other times it’s a smirk, or Potter just immediately diverts his gaze as if it’s burned.

It’s late afternoon, and Draco starts to feel a knot in his muscles, when Potter breaks the silence. “What are you looking for?”

Draco looks up from his reading, and smirks at him. “Ghosts magic.”

Potter raises his eyebrows. “What about it?”

“Well, you’re a ghost. And it sparks interest.”

“What kind of interest?”

“All kinds, really. A better understanding about how ghosts work.”

“You want to fix me?”

“Do you need fixing?”

“No.”

“Then, no. Let me read in peace.”

“I have in total ten books on ghost magic and several prints that explain strange afterlife theories and death magic, also there’s whole research papers from the Department of Mysteries about ghosts and the veil.”

It’s Draco’s turn to raise his eyebrows. And Potter shrugs. “There was one time when I thought you were dead, Malfoy.”

“I’m deeply touched.”

“I was so angry at you. I was frustrated. In the earlier years, I thought I'd just hand you straight to Azkaban if I ever found you.”

Draco avoids meeting his eyes. “It was a one month fuck.”

And it’s surprising how venomous Potter sounds when he answers, “Fuck you.”

And he’s back to ignoring Draco again, that’s how Draco gets back to his reading.

.

It's almost midnight when Draco has had enough of the books. He’s finished quite a number today. The books are now piling up on the floor near the desk. He takes the one he is still reading, and calls it a day. Potter follows Draco out.

Draco goes to the kitchen, and takes a seat at the small dining table Draco knows has only been added recently by Potter, it looks muggle, modern, and mismatched with the house, and probably the only furniture Potter ever bought. With a deft move of his fingers, Draco levitates a blue ceramic tea cup onto the table, followed with a tea bag, and fills it with conjured hot water water, and he gets a freshly made cup of tea for himself. Potter watches him, eyeing the blue mug Draco has taken, and says, "Make me one.”

Draco doesn’t make a sound as he levitates another mug, and prepares yet another cup of tea while still perfectly seated on his chair. When it touches the dining table on Potter’s side, Potter looks at it with badly concealed wonder, his nose goes down near the liquid, inhaling it. He doesn’t touch it, he can’t, but his eyes gleam as he watches the steam. "It smells good."

"So ghosts have an olfactory system too."

"I have working eyes and ears too."

"Good for you," Draco tells him, "You see, hear, and smell, you don't touch and you don't breathe."

Potter takes a deep inhale just to be contrary, along with a display of a smirk on his lips. "I don't need to breathe, but I can breathe. Sometimes I do it as muscle memory when I don't think about it."

"A fake breath."

"You can call it that." Potter shrugs. Draco sips his tea, in all the quiet and tranquillity of the night, decidedly not paying any attention to Ghost Potter who keeps on inhaling his cup like it has the smell of heaven.

When Draco is done, he cleans the mugs with a snap of his fingers, and leaves.

Potter follows him, still, a step behind.

Draco ignores him, changing into his night clothes. Then, Potter climbs up the bed. Draco has another reminder that Potter is no longer alive, in the way the bed doesn't dip when Potter climbs up, like he has no actual mass. He doesn’t. He hovers on every surface, the chair he sits on, the bed he lies on, the floor he stands on.

Draco mounts the bed himself, taking the right side of it, and puts weight on his side, face to Potter’s side.  Potter mirrors Draco's stance, palms under his face, one breath away from Draco. He's so close to watch, and absolutely untouchable, for now. Up close, Draco decides he knows what to call the shade of Potter’s current eyes, it’s turquoise, a perfect mix of green irises and his ghostly blue rays. Draco decides it isn’t as bad as he thought this morning. The eyes are still as deep as they were back then, laden with heaviness that makes Draco despise their existence.

Potter has questions Draco doesn’t care enough to want to answer, and he asks them with such hurt in his voice that it makes Draco furious.

"I can't find you until my death, Malfoy. Does anyone out there know that you’re alive? Could I have asked anyone about where you were?"

Draco swerves his gaze towards the ceiling, feeling Potter's eyes burn a hole in the side of Draco's head. "No one knows where I am, but I do correspond with Luna Lovegood. She gives me books from time to time."

Potter lets out a chuckle, a bitter little thing. "Of course she knows. Why didn't I think to ask her." He throws a fake sigh, visibly berating himself for not trusting Loony Lovegood to be insane enough to exchange letters with a top tier criminal. "What are you planning, now? You seem like settling in, are you moving in?"

"I am."

There's a smile on Potter's lips. "Interesting. Why Grimmauld Place? Hiding a non-magical place is too hard for you?"

Draco turns his gaze back towards him, pleasantly surprised that Potter actually understands the little mechanism of keeping houses unseen. Yet, Draco should probably give him more credit, Potter has successfully concealed the real Grimmauld Place off the map completely, undetected from magic. He must be familiar with the simple working of hiding a non-magical property. He replies, "It isn't really hard, just requires a lot of magical power and is costly. This is easier. And I'm here to fuck you."

Potter closes his eyes. "Then it must be convenient for you, and your plan to fuck me."

"That, too. You'll be tied to this place as a ghost, and I know you wouldn't move on, not yet, at least. So that's it. Isn't it also what you want? To have me?"

Potter opens his eyes, a cloud covering the irises in a strange disappointment. "I didn't think I'd be dead by then."

"Don't overtax your brain, Potter. You'll get what you want soon."

Potter doesn't answer. He looks at Draco strangely, like there's something on the tip of his tongue, almost out and repeatedly getting swallowed again, or like there's something he can't say yet is desperate to do so. 

Then it happens, Potter slowly raises his right hand and brings his fingers up towards Draco's face, it hovers above his eyebrows, and up near his eyes. The hand floats in hesitancy. And Draco watches, wondering whether Potter would retract them back in his cowardly way, or he’s going to let it touch.

Then, there's a nudge of cold air against Draco’s temple. He can see the fingers on his forehead, the blue glow grazes across the skin. Yet, Draco can’t feel the touch as a touch. Still, there’s a definite sensation, like winter air pressing against naked skin, and sending shivers down his spine. And Potter’s eyes are intense as he says, "That is how I touch now."

"For now.”

Potter doesn't answer, instead he closes his eyes, ghostly eyelashes on his ghostly cheek. 

"I'll figure it out.”

.

10 August 2007

It becomes some kind of routine, to sit at the desk in the library, where Draco reads and studies theories from a book, while Potter sits quietly, watching Draco's face from the chair opposite. He isn't even interested in the slightest bit in Draco's spread out paper. All he does is stare at Draco's face, or does absolutely nothing at all. Sometimes, when Draco isn't focused enough, it reminds him clearly that Potter is no longer alive. He holds little interest in worldly matters that don't directly concern him. It reminds Draco of the inescapable truth that Harry Potter is a ghost, now.

Draco browses through the shelves, much more thoroughly this time. And on the lowest shelf on the fourth bookcase, Draco notices a closed drawer. He opens it, and finds a leather covered binder inside. There aren’t any titles on its cover, and the material seems expensive and it has a floral smell, like jasmine mixed with bergamot. Draco takes it out of the drawer, and runs a finger across the back binding. He asks Potter, “What is this?”

A shrug. “Open it.”

Draco puts the binder on the desk, and carefully flips it open. There’s a drawing on the first page, hand painted with soft colours, of Draco. It’s Draco’s face as he lies on a fucking pillow. His eyes were closed in peaceful sleep, mouth relaxed. He looks gentle. He doesn’t even know he’s capable of being. Under the picture, a tiny scrawl writes ‘where the fuck are you, Malfoy?’

He looks up, only to see Potter’s eyes already waiting for him, calm and serene. Potter doesn’t say anything, and Draco feels his throat clog up and it gets a little harder to breathe.

Draco turns to the next page. On the second page, there’s a clip taken from a newspaper, ‘Draco Malfoy escapes sentence to Azkaban, gets cut off from magic instead. Worse or better punishment for a Death Eater?’ Pictured Draco’s face in seventh year. He thinks he looked painfully young and unfamiliar, there.

The next page is ‘What’s become of the Malfoys after the war?’ with a picture of the three of them, in the family shot Draco no longer owns. He looks at his mother’s regal face, graceful and strong, and suddenly he feels that he painfully misses her.

Draco risks a look at Potter, and flips another page, ‘Draco Malfoy hasn’t reported to Ministry for three months after his sentencing’

‘Draco Malfoy is gone. Is his sentence a fatal mistake?’

'No one has seen Draco Malfoy in a year. Dangerous Death Eater on the loose. The DMLE hasn’t found any leads.'

'The Head of DMLE Speaks: If Draco Malfoy is caught, there won’t be any trial held. He’ll go straight to Azkaban.'

‘Draco Malfoy might be dead: Wandless, poor, and no knowledge of the Muggle World. His disappearance could mean death.’

‘Draco Malfoy is reportedly seen in Diagon Alley: a false alarm.'

‘The only loose Death Eater, what to do if you ever see Draco Malfoy: step by step.’

‘Wizangemot's fatal mistakes: ranked one to five. One of them is Draco Malfoy’s infamous trial’

Draco laughs. He always skips his name in the newspaper, he had no idea they were this fun. And it gets even funnier to know that he isn’t the only one who keeps newspaper clippings. At the very least his clippings are more vibrant and interesting, he has a collection of Potter’s face as it ages. Potter’s collection only consists of a repeat of Draco’s school year photo.

He closes the binder, unwilling to see the rest. “Alright, you have newspaper clippings with my name.”

Potter glares at the binder. “Open page fifty.”

“I’ve seen enough.”

“Page fifty!”

“Fine,” Draco skips most of the book to three quarters through.

Page fifty says: ‘Who is Aleta? The magical crafter who can’t be traced.’

He looks up at Potter. “Oh, this is when you start to divert your attention to Aleta’s name instead of mine.”

‘The snow white owl and its untraced deliveries.’

‘The enigmatic magical crafter who bends curses and magic like a toy’

‘The misguided prodigal potion maker: Looking at Aleta’s genius illegal creation.’

“How did you make the connection?”

“Gut feeling.”

Draco laughs, and Potter adds, “It’s not that hard if they just know you. You both are untraceable. People just underestimate you and are ashamed that they can’t find you so they deny it. But I know what you were capable of. You apparated straight out of Grimmauld Place without a fucking wand, and I was bloody paranoid, my wards weren’t weak. You stole things from my home. I was too blind to see, my brain was stupid with lust. Once you were gone, I saw things for what they were.”

Potter chuckles. “It’s hard to see unless they know what I know. And I suspect I’m the only one who knows. I bet Luna doesn’t know that Aleta is Draco. You correspond with her as Aleta.”

Draco sweeps a glance at Potter. “You underestimate her, Potter.”

“I might,” he shrugs. “I tried to send a letter through your owl. It was hard to catch her. And she’s the only way to ever reach you. It took me quite a fortune to get to her. And she refuses to pick a letter that isn’t addressed to Aleta. That's why people think your name is Aleta."

“Okay. You really did spend an awful lot of time in your short life trying to track me.”

Potter let out a bitter laugh. “Sometimes, I wonder why I kept on chasing after your shadows instead of moving on. Then, whenever I try, everything else seems bleak in comparison.”

Draco packs up the binder and moves it away, he puts his elbows on the table and uses his wrist to lean his head, he looks at Potter, from his head to his waist, which is all of his body that's visible to Draco, he drops his voice and asks, “Do you want me to remind you?”

“What?”

Draco raises his chin to gesture towards Potter’s direction, and he shrugs. "Every reason that everything else would be pale in comparison. Remember that time when I fucked you here?"

Potter raises his eyebrows. "Which one?"

Draco gives him a smirk, feeling the pride as it rises up within his chest. "Yeah, too many times. I remember standing and leaning against that bookshelf and you kneeling before me, my cock deep in your throat. It was glorious."

Potter's fake breath hitches as he says, "Yes."

"Do it, now. Kneel on the floor, and take off your trousers."

Potter falls down from his chair to the floor immediately, kneeling beside the desk. Draco’s heart soars to know that he still has the same effect on him. And his blue-ish trousers are gone in a blink of an eye, along with his shirt. Draco observes him. His body seems unscathed —no sign of visible dismemberment or any scar he didn’t have when he was still alive.

He wonders, if as a ghost, the memories of their shared bed stories are as vivid as how Draco remembers them. Because Draco could always picture any moment of their sinful entanglements in detail, every touch, every noise, every movement.

Maybe Potter remembers them well too. Seeing how he kneels on the floor completely naked like a newborn. Turquoise eyes look up at Draco, fake breath gets held in as he hangs on to every command Draco gives, cock already quite heavy dangling between his legs. And Draco laughs, feeling the overwhelming joy filling up through his chest.

Draco moves his own chair closer so he can have a better view of Potter's lovely cock. The view doesn't disappoint, the full hardness of it, the thickness and the veins decorating the skin.

"Good,” Draco nods in approval, “Now touch yourself, slowly. So slowly, you can never rush these things with me. I enjoy the process."

"Yes," Potter starts to use his fingers and massages himself.

Draco interrupts him, "No, not like that, put your palms on either side of your cock and roll it, gently," Potter does as he's instructed, his blue-ish hands cupping his own cock, rolling it gently back and forth. The skin furls as he keeps on moving his hands. Loud gasps and lovely moans pour from his mouth. And all the sounds are heavenly when they reach Draco’s ears.

Potter’s face is absolute bliss, mouth hanging open as cries escape his throat. His body slants forwards as he starts to lose his senses. Draco’s own breath gets stuck on his throat as he watches that blissed out face. And then, Potter starts to increase his pace. Draco has to interfere, "No, too fast, I don't like it. Stop for exactly ten counts."

Potter stops with a loud, shuttered gasp, as though it pains him. He gives a whine and his eyes plead like a pitiful pet when it begs for food. His cock is already angry and weeping, looking painful and abandoned between his legs. Draco wants to croon to him. He smirks, "Count, Potter."

"One, ah," a broken fake breath, "Two," a bite on an lower lip, "Three," A clearing throat, "Four," a tiny whimper, "Ah, five," almost tears, "Six," a louder whimper, "Seven, ngh," pleading eyes, "Eight," a cry, "Nine," a scream, "Ten!"

"Gently!"

Potter's hand is back on his cock, this time really gently.

"Stand up. I want to watch at eye level."

Potter immediately stands up, he almost falls in the process but in the end regains his balance. And he stands up tall facing Draco, cock right in front of Draco’s face. Then, he resumes rolling his palm along his cock, moaning with each roll. His eyes tight shut and mouth open. He keeps on increasing his momentum. This time, Draco lets him. When he is almost there, Draco tells him to stop, and he complies with a loud whine.

Draco moves to sit down, cross-legged on the floor, and he smiles, "On all fours, now, arse up to my face. I've missed it."

Potter moans and immediately does as he’s told, falling onto his knees, legs spread wide, palms flat on the floor and arse jutted towards Draco's face, and the tip of his forgotten dick touches the concrete floor. "Now put your head on the floor, and use both your hands to open up your arsecheeks, let me see your hole."

Thus, the lovely pucker is presented to Draco, a little bit purplish as the blue mixes with the red skin. Draco enjoys the view for a moment before telling him,  "Put your fingers inside your hole, fuck yourself with your fingers, and don't touch your cock."

The said cock is forgotten, crying for attention. Potter swallows, but does as he’s told. His index finger has gone deep inside with a moan, and he keeps going in and out his own hole. 

"Good," Draco praises him, "I know your fingers aren't the same as my cock, Potter. But it has to do for now while you wait. I'll fuck you, good and proper. I promise I'll fuck you, Potter. Keep going."

"Ahh!"

"Don't you dare to touch your cock. Touch only your hole. Touch your pucker that I miss so much. You’re doing good, Potter. Keep going."

"Please, Draco...."

"No, keep going. Imagine it's my cock inside there."

"Yes!” And Potter comes like that, a loud cry from his open mouth, face scrunched up in ecstasy, like he’s on cloud nine and higher, blue-ish liquid falls from his dick, and it’s immediately gone as it leaves his ghostly body to the floor.

Then his knees fall, and he curls up on the library floor, face looking like he is still in paradise.

Draco stands up, pulls down his own trousers, and frees his own hard dick, then calls for him, “Potter.”

Potter opens his eyes to see Draco, surprise on his face as he watches Draco’s naked penis. "Now you watch me."

Draco wanks above Potter’s starry, hungry, eyes until his come spills through his face, ghostly body, and to the floor.

.

11 August 2007

Papers and parchments scatter on the lab bench under Draco’s finger as he reviews them. The sun shines unfairly bright, lightening the lab as it tresspasses through the open window and Potter’s ghostly form. Potter lazes around on a stool on the other side of the bench, faithfully studying Draco as Draco studies the papers, and launches these freakish tiny smiles on his blue lips whenever Draco glances back at him. It is mostly silent in the room except for the sound of pages being turned and occasional sighs. 

In the early afternoon, the quiet room is disrupted by the sound of flapping wings, and Aleta flies through the windows. With her is a wooden box almost her size. She gently placed it on the lab bench. Draco carefully unties the knot fastening the package to her talons. And when he's done, she perches herself on his arm, watching him. Draco kisses her snowy white feathery head, and summons her treats for her.

Potter idly makes a comment, "So this is Aleta. You’ve been keeping her hidden in the house."

"Don't ghosts haunt attics? She loves being there."

"I'm the Chosen One ghost, rules don't apply to me."

"Of course." Draco doesn’t even look at him and instead he smiles at Aleta, and tells her, "Thank you, Aleta. Please take some rest."

And she flies off the desk and perches herself on the window. 

Potter follows her, leaving his chair empty. He stands behind her and watches her. "She looks like Hedwig."

"They are the same breed."

Potter studies Aleta closely, eyes tracing the faint, tiny, and sporadic dots of a pattern of feathers. Draco heard that Potter's owl died in the battle. Maybe that's why he is looking at Aleta with such sacred worship in his eyes. Aleta indulges the deification, sitting like her noble self opulently. And then he hears Potter whispers, "You look eerily like Hedwig, Aleta."

Draco leaves them to it, and opens the box. He carefully examines the contents, ensures everything is perfect just how he wants them. He catalogues everything, one vial of centaur blood, a few drops of phoenix tears, Equator Aqua Dragon's scale, Rafflesia Arnoldii roots, and several other rare vegetation ingredients. He carefully places them inside a metal box, and stores them in the cabinets.

Then he takes out a twenty four carat gold cauldron, and fills it with red sea water and starts the fire. 

When he looks up in Potter's general direction, he finds him sitting on the desk near the window, newspaper spread on it, and Aleta watching him nearby.

"What are you doing?"

"Aleta is helping me read the news. I can't turn the pages."

That irks Draco somehow, "You could have asked me. What are you reading?"

"I doubted you'd do it. And it's Hermione."

Draco walks to him, standing just beside the desk. “Potter.”

Potter looks up, and Draco meets his eyes and asks, "What else do you want but don't think I'd give?"

Potter blinks at him, caught off guard. Then, his eyes shift back to the newspaper, at Granger’s heartsick face and he opens his mouth then closes it again. Potter steals a glance at Draco, and then watches him scrupulously through unblinking eyes. There is this visible sign on Potter's face when he makes up his mind as he elevates himself from the desk and stands before Draco. With eyes on the same level as Draco’s, Draco could read a challenge written vividly within them, and he asks Draco,  "What if I want you to help Hermione to overthrow the Minister for Magic?"

As if those weren't the words Draco would kill to hear.

Draco gives him an easy smile and a shrug. He takes a step closer, sets his face so near to Potter's open mouth. "What do you want? Kill him and leave no trace? Alter his memories and make him resign just because? Curse him with an illness that doesn’t kill but is painful enough to be hard to endure? I'm accepting ideas."

Potter shudders, the quiver is visible as it washes all over Potter, and he backpedals. "You'd do it?"

Draco doesn't answer, but he meets Potter's eyes steadfastly, unwavering. The non-breathing Potter is breathless under Draco's eyes.

Draco catches the moment when Potter finally gets it. The comical eye widening, the fallen jaw, and the hushed fake breath.

Potter clears his throat, and looks down. "If you’re confident you could do that to the Minister for Magic, how come you stayed hiding for so long? You could have been the new Dark Lord and have the world in your hand with that power."

Draco laughs, and he closes what's left of the distance, standing in Potter's ghostly coldness, and wishing to hell that he had a slight height advantage on Potter. Potter is still looking at the floor when Draco tries to catch his eyes. He smirks. "Are you interested, Potter? You could be the Dark Lord if you want. You could use me. I give zero fucks. I can make you a Dark Lord. As long as I get to fuck you, I'll do it. What do you want? You know I can do anything.”

If ghosts could shiver, Potter would. Potter looks up, and meet Draco’s eyes, his face outlandish in a burst of madness. Draco gives him a searing smile. And Potter breath shutters in his wonder, even though, again, he's a ghost and he technically doesn’t even need to breathe. There is a manic timbre in his shrill laughter as he breaks into it, and he hysterically yells at Draco, "Do it, Malfoy."

Draco smiles widely at him, "I thought you didn't care that you're dead."

"I really don't. I care that the mad bastard is still not punished after everything." Potter's laugh dies into this faux serenity that somehow looks vicious on his ghost form, Draco likes it. Potter says, "Make him resign himself from his position. Destroy his reign."

"Easy. Anything else?"

Potter stops in surprise. "You're offering more?"

Draco meets his eyes once more, eyebrows raised.

Potter diverts his gaze and says, “Oh.” Draco watches a flick of tongue as it licks Potter's own lips. “It’s enough for now.”

Now Draco should admit that he's the breathless one.

.

25 August 2007

It is almost midnight in London when Draco sneaks a peek at the archaic clock that sits up there on the lab’s wall, and it's completely dark when he looks out the window. He's instructed Potter to wait in the bedroom, turning off all the harsh lamps and setting up a few tiny candles with ember light that blends softly as it descends against the bedsheet, and then Draco commanded him to take a seat on the edge of the bed and be still, with a gracious  promise that he will get everything he wants tonight. And that, Draco finds, is the trick to have Potter stay put, and not follow Draco everywhere he goes like a misshapen shadow, like a ghost. 

Draco has three vials in his hands. The vials are different colours.

He leaves one of the vials, the one that looks as clear as pure water, on a wooden storage. Then he takes another vial with thick silver liquid and pours it into a jar with water already in it. And then, he ingests the last vial, the blue one, pouring the contents down his throat.

When Potter sees him entering the candle-lit bedroom, Draco has his dominant right hand glowing in blue light, not unlike Potter's; a ghost hand. From the wrist to the fingertips, each of them is going to be Potter’s tonight.

When Potter notices it, his eyes widen in wonder, and his jaw falls open, and he stands up from the bed slowly. Too slow and too clumsy in the making. Time stops the moment he makes his way to Draco. Then, as he stops he asks, "What did you do to your hand?"

His voice shakes badly under a mask of fake composure. He is brimming emotionally, too much for a ghost, really.

Draco lifts the blue hand with a smirk, proudly showing off his work, then he closes their distance and raises the blue hand, wrapped it around Potter's throat as a test, to know whether he can really touch. It can, Draco rests his fingers on the vulnerable skin of Potter's neck, soft and human skin-like texture, if anything it makes Draco's heart take flight as it soars to the moon.

He whispers to Potter's ears, "Instead, the question should be...  what can I do with this hand."

Potter's fake breath hitches, and Draco tells him, "I'm undressing you."

"Yes," Potter answers, fast.

Draco uses his blue palm to gently push him, and gets Potter lying on the bed while his feet are still on the floor, Draco spreads his knees and stands in between them. Then, he pulls Potter up by the collar of his shirt, so Potter's face is just under Draco's nose. Turquoise eyes looking up in open desire. Potter uses his elbows as support. Draco's blue hand goes back to Potter's neck, thumb caressing his jaw, and tells him, "Remember, Potter, your hands can touch the bedsheets, anything else is forbidden, not any parts of your body."

"Yes."

Draco takes his sweet time. To Draco, undressing feels equal to a sacred ritual when it comes to Potter.  Everything is worthy to be taken into consideration as he uses his one blue hand on Potter's ghostly body. He starts from the shirt, opening one button to another methodically, from the upper ones to the bottom. All the while he holds Potter's turquoise eyes, pinning them in place. They look dazed, as if lost in a mythical reverie, like nothing else matters but Draco’s face, and every slight movement of his blue hand. Draco's chest feels full with an odd pressure, a drowning rush of blood as it runs towards his lower region.

When Draco is done, and the front of Potter's body, chest to torso is visible, he slowly runs his fingers over Potter's chest, through the jutting muscles and across the skin. Draco shudders, drugged by the way Potter sighs at the smallest touch. He relishes all the shivers Potter gets from the smallest caress. And then he runs his hand across the chest to his arms, just under his shirt, to pull it off, one arm after the other. Then he goes to throw the clothing to the floor. Yet, it vanishes to thin air as soon as it's out of Draco's hand, "Interesting."

Potter, from under him, smiles. "I can always summon them back, please go on."

Draco laughs, and he gently caresses Potter cock over his trousers, earning a long and loud whine, and Draco tells him, "I wasn't very concerned, I can live forever with you naked all the time."

Potter looks like he's half crying when he replies, "Easy, I’ll torment you with my bare beauty. You’d definitely love that.”

Draco puts one finger to Potter’s lips. “Shut your smart mouth for a bit, Potter.”

The wanker licks his finger.

Draco laughs. “I’ll take off your trousers.”

Potter nods eagerly. He starts with touching the zip on the front, giving it a slight pressure, right on the cock, and it earns a rebuke from Potter, "That's straight up just cruel, Malfoy."

Then he slowly undoes the zip. Potter groans, and then redoes it, then undoes it again, while putting a little pressure on the tent, always.  Potter's breath gets shakier as Draco goes on. Each shake of breath gives Draco life and sends heaven into his bloodstream.

Then he pulls the trousers down, freeing Potter from the torture.

Potter looks up. “Take off my underwear too.”

“You're too noisy.”

“Don’t you want to see my cock?”

“All in due time. Here,” he put his whole palm on the front of Potter's lower torso, and tucks the tips of his fingers under the band of Potter's pants, and then flatly pushes his palm down, touching Potter's dick while pulling down the underwear, earning a luxurious strangled growl from Potter’s throat.

His lovely cock flies free, already angry and hard.

He runs a finger over the beautiful dick, running from its tip to the balls, giving the twin weights a little squeeze. Then he collects all of Potter's precum on the tip of his index finger.

Next, he leaves Potter's lower body for his face. He wants to touch everything Potter is. He carefully caresses Potter's open mouth, beginning from his lower lip with the finger with precum on, moistening it until it glistens, glowing under the low candle light.

And the mouth speaks what Potter must think is the smart thing to say, “Painting me with my own bodily fluid?”

He runs his thumb all over the annoying lips as he answers, “I haven’t figured out how to do that with mine. I’d prefer looking at your face glistening with my come, but that’s for later.”

Draco's face is so near to Potter's ghostly one, to his frowning forehead and his intense eyes. So fucking close, just a hair's breadth away, and yet their faces still can't touch. So he uses his blue hand to touch Potter's eyebrows, feeling the soft hairs under his fingertips, then he runs them near his eyes. Potter closes them, long eyelashes meet his cheek, and Draco runs his fingers on the closed lids. So vulnerable.

Then Draco traces his cheekbones. And back to the lips. Merlin and Morgana, Draco wants.

He looks at Potter's full mouth, he wants to go through torment, through hell and everything to be able to kiss it.

"You love my pretty face.” Potter comments idly.

"You can think what you want."

Then he puts two fingers into his mouth to shut him up. It gets an immediate bite.

Draco pulls his fingers out. He tells Potter sweetly, "Lick them Potter, make my fingers wet."

Potter does it immediately, blue-ish tongue running over Draco's digits, eyes never leaving Draco's face.

"Not wet enough," he put a palm in front of Potter's mouth, "Spit here."

Potter does it.

"More."

More spit on his palm.

“Now what, Draco?”

Draco ignores that, and runs the palm all over Potter's chest to torso, wetting the glowing skin with Potter’s own saliva, because Draco can't use his.

Then Draco gives attention to his nipples, the right one first, twisting it as hard as he could, until it's red, or purplish under the blue glow. Relishing each scream it causes from Potter's mouth, a chant of Draco's name in that hoarse sound on each twist, "Malfoy! Draco!" 

Draco does the same to the left.

Then his palm goes downward, spreading Potter legs as wide as possible, watching a perfect view of his cock and hole.

He starts massaging Potter's inner thighs with his fingers, avoiding his cock entirely

Potter's hand, at his side, turns into a fist, tightly wrapped around empty air, as Draco plays with his inner thighs, listening to Potter's grunts and moans and pleadings, watching Potter's tortured face and begging eyes, wishing he could do more with his mouth. Wishing he could lick and leave love bites on every inch of his skin. Especially there, on his sensitive inner thigh. Draco knows he will, in time.

Draco touches Potter's pucker, circling it from the outside. Then, he puts one finger inside, and then a second finger, deep inside the hole that sucks in Draco’s two fingers perfectly. Draco pulls the fingers in and out of Potter's hole, as it draws more frenzied, sinful groans from Potter in each thrust.

"Draco, please, touch me," Potter starts to whine.

"Please, Draco, I'll do anything for you.” Potter keeps on chanting this as Draco starts touching his cock, making a fist around it and letting Potter fuck his hand. Potter's hip movements are messy and too fast, and he keeps on crying Draco's name like a chant of a cultist prayer,  "Oh, Draco. God, Draco. Merlin, Draco!"

And he comes all over Draco's hand. 

Potter stops moving, he doesn't breathe. And yet, he looks like he's gasping for air. His face scrunches in pure bliss, and soft sounds still escape his mouth. And his head is probably left in the heavens. Draco spreads Potter's come on his spent cock, which is lying on his stomach.

Potter whines.

Draco lies down beside Potter, hands still caressing Potter’s cock. Feeling nostalgic, Draco tells him,  "You look debauched."

There is a small, knowing smile on his lips when he answers, "I feel so."

Potter then stops Draco's hand on his cock, fingers covering Draco’s tease of a hand and asks, "Can I do this, now?"

He doesn't even wait for an answer, and takes the hand with his own blue ones, holding it up, watching it intently. Then, he traces the three lines on Draco's palm with a finger, like it is the most fascinating thing he had ever seen in his twenty seven short years of life. Then, he turns the hand around and touches the skin on Draco's knuckles. It tickles.

Potter intertwines their hands together, and puts them on his own chest, above where his heart should be. Yet, Draco doesn't feel a real heartbeat beneath the loud phantom one Draco can't stop imagining.  Potter is a ghost.

Potter's eyes never leave their intertwined hands. He gives Draco's palm a squeeze, then brings their hands and puts them beneath his cheek as he lies sideways, facing Draco. Draco stares at the odd sight, at Potter, who appears the same as in the pictures Draco kept in his collection in the locked box. And yet, this Potter is not that Potter. He lacks a number of details whose significance is a perpetual argument within Draco's head. He is fond of Potter's rushed breath and noisy heartbeat. And yet, logically, he knows his ghost is the attainable one. The ghost never lacks in its intensity and earnestness.

Potter's eyes turn down towards the tent in the front of Draco’s trousers, which is painful, to be completely honest. And yet Draco feels he's going to miss out on important happenstance if he pleasures himself now. Potter cringes and asks, “Will you take care of yourself? I can’t touch yours.”

“Want to watch? I’ll do it once I get my hand back.”

That is when Potter's rusting, lust-coated brain finally makes the connection. He finally asks, "What did you do to this hand? How come it became a ghost hand?" He asks in a light tone, "Is it dead?"

"Just temporarily."

Potter's entire body stiffens. He looks up to Draco's face, seeming genuinely surprised. There are several lines on his forehead, one under another. Seems like the possibility flies through his head after all, despite claiming he's gotten smarter over all these years. "What?"

Draco touches his cheek with a knuckle. "It's fine. It's preserved in a jar with an elixir made with unicorn blood. It's safe."

Potter sits up in a beat, one rapid motion, he would knock Draco off the bed if he wasn’t a ghost. His whole body shakes and he stares at Draco in horror. "Malfoy, you chopped off your hand?!"

Draco, annoyed, sits up along with him. "It's fine. Look, I know what I'm doing."

"Are you insane? Put it back on, now!”

"It can go for about two hours. I still have—"

"Now, Malfoy!"

Draco sighs. "Fine, but I get to touch your face one more time.”

Potter looks taken aback. The lines on his forehead remain, but he does give Draco a tiny nod, so Draco takes his dumbfounded face in his palm. Draco imagines Potter would have been closing his eyes in this kind of moment, and yet, he is wide-eyed, turquoise eyes glaring angrily at Draco. Maybe Draco has traumatized a ghost this time, that would be a first.

Once more, Draco runs his thumb along Potter's jaw and cheek, slowly, seeking the pulse he doesn’t have, ignoring Potter's eyes.

And Potter pulls away, eyes avoiding Draco's as he says, "Put it back on now."

"Fine."

Draco walks back to the lab, opens the warded cabinet and retrieves the jar. He meticulously takes out the hand inside with magic, Draco won't attempt using a non dominant hand to handle his cut off body part. But Draco does use his left hand to stick the severed hand to his empty wrist, and then he spells out the old incantation to the joint. Lastly, he levitates the last vial of the elixir, the one with phoenix tears, and pours it to the split juncture.

He watches the skin on his wrist start to knit back together, like the two parts were never split before, brand new and well.

And his erection has gone as well as his mood.

When Draco comes back to the bedroom, it’s completely dark, except for a little dim blue light near the window. Maybe in his anger, Potter used his ghostly coldness to put out the candles. Draco doesn't turn on the lamps, instead he lights the candle back up to the ember glow.

Potter is no longer in bed looking debauched like how Draco has left him. Instead, he looks clean and clothed, standing by the window with half closed curtains, eyes watching the old night outside.

Draco approaches him with raised hand, a sign of surrender, and to make Potter see with his own two dead, ghostly eyes how well his hand is, and tells him, "See, mended perfectly like it was never split."

Potter gives him a sigh, and a disbelieving shake of his head. "You’re insane. I'm never doing that again."

Draco shrugs. "I wouldn't be so sure if I were you."

"You could have lost your hand, Malfoy."

"Don't be all self-righteous, you didn't care enough to think it through before you got fucked."

"I'm still not doing it again, find another way."

"Fine. I was planning to anyway.”

Yet, Potter's forehead still has lines on it, and his eyes are laden heavily with an emotion Draco doesn’t care enough to categorise. He then says, "If there is, I should be informed how it works first. I know this hasn't been tested before."

Draco gives another shrug. "I know what I'm doing. I don't have a reputation for nothing."

Potter's eyes are hard and his voice heavy when he says, "Malfoy."

Draco sighs. "Fine."

"You’re insane."

Draco smirks. "Good that you know."

Potter lets out a little laugh. "I know alright. Now I just realised something," he smirks, the light in his eyes gets turned around before Draco can process it, "If you really want to do it, instead of your hand, you should have put your dick in a jar. I would’ve loved it. I'd let you fuck me with the blue dick and keep the jar one as a souvenir. That would be lovely."

Draco laughs back. "Of course you'd like that. You love my dick."

Potter smiles, the candle light falls through his face, it's not reflected in Potter’s ghostly blue rays, instead it flickers on the wall beside him. "As if you don't love mine."

"Sure, think whatever you want."

"You say that when you don't want to admit something."

"Think whatever you want."

He looks at Draco with an all-knowing expression, and it makes Draco feel like he should have punched him in the face earlier, when he still had the ghost hand. Now he regrets that he didn’t. He feels his face harden in anger. Yet, despite it, Potter still dares enough to go on with his all-knowing eyes by saying more all-knowing shite. A smile smooths his lips as he says, "Since you came, I’ve done some thinking.”

“Congratulations, you’re the most productive ghost I know.”

Potter throws a dirty look. “Shut up, I’m dead serious here. I think—”

“I know you’re seriously dead. You’re a ghost, remember?”

“Shut up. I think I know why you left seven years ago."

Draco looks sideways at him. "What other stupid idea do you have now?"

Potter clears his throat, and he moves carefully to stand in front of Draco. Because Draco is standing facing the window, half of Potter's body is inside the wall and window, his arms through the curtains. Potter doesn't usually do this, as he seems to be bent on doing things like a human being would, avoiding crossing walls and furniture, yet this one time seems to be an exception to him. All to look Draco in the eyes, and he says, "I saw you put a spell on your left arm, on the dark mark every few days. Is it bothering you?”

“Yes.”

“Death Eaters died cutting off their own arms in Azkaban, didn’t they? I seem to remember it on the news.”

“Your body heals it with its own magic by default, so you should be fine, if your magic is. Not the case for the Azkaban residents.”

The words seem to freeze Potter in a trance. He audibly gulps, taking a long consuming breath. He force-relax his body to a slumped posture and dejectedly whispers, “The ideal road I asked you to take, it was impossible for you, wasn't it?”

Potter's eyes shine in understanding and empathy. It's bothersome in every way. It's as if Potter tries to convince Draco that he has personally seen what he has gone through in those moments after the war. And yet, no one did, even Draco himself refuses to ever remember.

Potter whispers, “I wanted you to bend yourself to your verdict. You just physically can't, as a dark mark holder. It's doom either way. And you were the only one sentenced like this. Other Death Eaters got Azkaban. I didn't know that."

Potter let out a harsh fake breath, there’s a clear glaze visible on his eyes, and he is shaking, again, "I thought I saved you. And it could have killed you.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. I would most likely be dead several years ago if I did get Azkaban. You built a leeway for me.”

Potter crosses that last gap between them, standing even closer to Draco so that they could have touched. And yet, Draco knows they won't, even with all the distance closed. Yet, with those eyes this near, it still makes him feel frozen in place, his chest tightly squeezed, his body heavy and immovable. Potter keeps talking, "You built yourself power, and have become invincible after years, no one could catch you. But that also means you embody the dark arts so deeply, and it can hurt anyone near enough in proximity, more so if they don’t practice the dark arts themselves. So you were learning to contain it." 

He pauses, all-knowing, watery turquoise eyes right there, "You didn’t know I practiced the dark arts, and I died before you were done."

Draco gives no answer.

Potter goes on, "That was it, right? You would have met me sooner if you could."

No one speaks for a moment, on the horizon, as Draco takes a peek through the half curtained window, over Potter's shoulder, the sun is beginning to rise, reddish glare  colouring the sky, and Potter still stands before Draco. He’s a ghost, he’s not alive, and he doesn't breathe. He doesn't have a pulse if Draco touches his neck. His body is buried under the ground, and Draco has borne witness to the scene as it happened before his own two eyes. Potter is a ghost, but that means he isn't gone.

"You can think whatever you want," Draco tells him.

Potter nods, the smallest smile on his mouth. 

Draco meets his eyes.

.

9 November 2007

The morning starts with a quiet little drip, with the muted sound of water splattering gently against Draco’s ears when he opens his eyes. There’s also the whistle of the gushing wind as it batters Grimmauld Place’s windows. Draco takes a little moment before righting himself, leaning heavily against the headboard. There, he finds Potter sitting at the other end of the bed, just near Draco’s feet. He crouches on the blanket, hugging his own knees, his face morose, mouth down turned, and eyelids drooping.

As time goes on, as a resident of 12 Grimmauld Place, Draco has come to learn that Potter’s daily moods begin too early in the day. And Draco could discern what kind of looks he would throw Draco’s way through the day, how intense, how smiley, how bright, or how dark they could be. It’s all there in his face in the early morning. And this morning, with this tiny stance he holds on Draco’s bed, Draco knows there will be a pair of gloomy eyes following his move.

“Is this one of those grouchy mornings then?”

Potter doesn’t even look his way.

Draco leaves him be and washes his face in the bathroom, meeting Potter’s eyes in the mirror as he stands behind Draco. He doesn’t even ask him if anything was wrong. Because with Potter, anything could happen at anytime, and there doesn’t have to be any cause in the first place.

After a cup of tea, he goes straight to the lab. It’s rather quiet there, except for occasional noises his knife makes as he chops ingredients or stirs his brew, or Aleta's flapping wings as she flies into the lab. Potter is also somewhere in the room, but of course, following his current gloom, he has been extra quiet today too. There isn’t any random snarky commentary about anything.

And then, two hours into the peaceful silence, Potter suddenly gives out a gasp and several curses through Draco's quiet lab, his screeches loud and painful on the ears. Draco turns his head around, and finds Potter sitting on his small desk by the window with a newspaper spread on it, Aleta perches close as his designated page turner.

Draco puts down his silver knife, then he turns his body around and says, "What is it, now?"

Potter looks up. There is a intriguing, full blown anger clearly painted over his face, on every inch of his skin and muscle movement as he gives an ugly sneer and a deep frown. His gaze is sharper than a blade, and there is a slight quiver in his voice as he says, "Malfoy, what did you do?"

Draco raises his eyebrows. "What are you on about?" 

Potter's finger points to the paper, precisely on the headline of the unreliable newspaper Draco no longer needs to read, the newspaper that holds no importance to him since there are going to be no more prints to keep. Potter’s mouth looks ugly and he sounds faint as he reads the title, "The Minister for Magic, Gawain Robards, has killed himself in his luxurious muggle hotel room last night."

Ah, the windy morning and the misfortunes it brings, of course. How could he miss the sign?

Draco shrugs. "You read what you read."

Potter yells at him, "I didn't ask you to kill him!"

Draco crosses his arms, unaffected by the outburst. He then tells Potter slowly, like talking to a little child, "He's greed itself, making him let go of everything he wanted gave him a great depression, Potter. I don't make the rules. You wanted me to take away his greed, so he’d resign from his position. And guess what was left of him by then?"

Potter stands up, noiselessly. Potter’s index finger is at Draco as he heaves a fake heavy breath. "He should have gotten his punishment, rotting in Azkaban. You ruined it, Malfoy. He deserved to suffer. I’ve watched so many ways he fucked up, and all the ways he was downright evil. He didn't deserve an easy way out."

Draco answers softly, "My sorrowful curse is more painful than Azkaban,” at which Potter deflates. Draco shrugs, “It’s a slow, excruciating pain, it gets worse as time goes by, and his family would probably try their best to keep him alive. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had to incarcerate him on his last days, with him begging them to be killed.”

"Draco!" Potter leaves his chair, shortening their distance in an instant, and soon there's two heavy, angry, disappointed turquoise eyes glaring at Draco with a gaze that feels similar to a heavy fist punched on the face. If Potter had a functioning physical fist, he might have done it. He has to settle with a sharp glare on his ghostly face, though.

Draco holds those eyes, as a proof that, of course, Draco Malfoy wouldn’t be swayed by a mere loud growl. Carefully choosing words in his head, he tries to keep his voice steady and level when he says plainly, "He killed you, Potter. He deserved every pain he felt. Every day. Every minute. Every second."

And that’s how unexpectedly, Potter's angry face crumbles. The raging fire in his eyes is extinguished in a splash of water. His face muscles drop the strain.

Potter blinks, seeming a little lost. And before Draco knows it, there's the tiniest sound falling from Potter's mouth. "Oh."

It strikes a chord. Draco despises that sound so much that he adds, "I don’t kill people for fun, just because I can. I don’t gain anything from killing, unlike Voldemort. I’m not interested in that. And I don't care if he's a nasty bastard, doing whatever crime you see. Or your movement, I don't give a fuck whatever makes you want him taken down. I'm a criminal too. But he killed you."

Potter is pointedly avoiding Draco's eyes. Draco lets out a shaky exhale to tone down his anger, he speaks slowly, "Why did you die, Potter?"

"...I was killed."

Draco gets even angrier at that. "You let yourself get killed."

"Draco, I didn't just let myself get killed. I was killed. It was grime— honestly I had been fighting for days by then," he bites his lips, eyes still determinedly looking at the ceilings, "I was exhausted, hurt, and alone. Everyone else has managed to flee. Back up was coming. Godric, I hate thinking about it."

He finally looks at Draco, "It was peace that greets me after death. The initial grief washed away when I found myself finally safe in this hidden house. And then there was you, who I had been looking for so long.  I—"

Potter swallows, his whole mannerisms seem slowed, and his eyes don't leave Draco's face, turning into that all-knowing look that Draco despises. And then, Potter dares to tell him, "I didn't know you felt that way about my death." 

Something begins to constrict the insides of Draco's chest, there is this restrained rage he's been trying to keep hidden. And Potter is toeing the line of crossing Draco’s last stretch of self-constraint. Draco diverts his eyes back to his boiling potion, deep red in colour, the bubbles rise to the glass lid. He persistently ignores Potter and his teary blue-green eyes, and his face, every muscle forming it that translates in every visible emotion. The Potter who believes whatever he wants. The Potter who is a ghost and who Draco isn't able to touch, yet.

"Draco—"

"I would shut up if I were you."

Potter shuts up. There's a shift in his facial muscles, and his eyes have a brand new, earnest look flaming inside. And in a heartbeat, before Draco gets a hold of any idea of what is happening, Potter has closed the gap separating them. And his ghostly mouth kisses Draco's with a cold freeze and a shiver down his whole body, and yet, the lips never really touch. 

Potter is a ghost, yet there he is, attempting a kiss he can't do.

When Draco opens his eyes, tears are streaming down Potter's face. It’s fascinating that ghosts can produce that much feeling. Potter must be the most emotional ghost there is. And Draco despises him.

.

22 January 2008

Draco examines the tiniest bubbles rising in his brew. This elixir has an extreme time delicacy, and Draco is nothing if not a delicate brewer. And he knows he probably has all the time in the world, even when this exact potion would need four whole full moons. It has been warming comfortably since that quiet October full moon, to the last December cold full moon, when winter starts touching London. And now it’s time for January.

It's a quiet and soft morning with crisp air when Draco slips into the lab. He observes his cauldron. The brew is perfect in its delicate static state, sitting on the lab bench, waiting for the last part of the process. Draco will add the final ingredients tonight, under the soft glow of the full moon as it floats with grace up above Grimmauld Place’s roof.

“Is it going well?” Potter asks.

Draco gives the brew the usual three regular daily stirs. “After all this time, you still haven't gained potion making skills? I thought you were getting clever these days.”

Potter looks from beside Draco. “I didn’t have time to learn brewing. In between obsessing about tracing someone to the ends of the earth and trying to reform a fucked up Ministry of Magic, you can consider what I learned to be quite sufficient already.”

Draco closes the lid. “Pity, you’d be even hotter if you know your potions.”

Potter laughs. “Lie. You already think I’m hot. Besides, I know my potions, just not in the brewing or experimenting process. I know enough.”

“Sure thing.”

“Is it going to be ready tonight?”

“If everything goes the way I want it, then yes.”

Potter leans against the lab bench, although he is a ghost and he is not supposed to lean against anything, and with a sigh he says, “I’ve missed you, you know.”

Draco smirks. “I thought you said you were going to toss me in Azkaban had you found me.”

“I was in a really bad space after the war. Lonely, hurt, confused, and grieving. People asked for things from me. They asked what I think, what to do, they asked for help, they asked for my contribution. And you even asked me to speak at your trial, in that letter you sneaked into the Burrow.”

“What letter?”

Potter shoots him an annoyed look. “And when I saw you again at the club, I thought you’d changed, that you really obeyed your sentencing, coming to a muggle club. It was a big fucking relief. And then you took me home. You took everything. I let you, Draco," he pauses for a shaky breath, "I wish you understood that it fucking hurt when you left."

Potter's words sounds too earnest. Draco doesn't get to see his eyes as he looks down, avoiding whatever look they displays. Potter goes on, “Now I know why, and I still feel like you could have talked to me. I was already obsessed with you in school. I hated bad things happening to you. I was obsessed to find out if you were a Death  Eater, yet I never reported it once I saw the evidence. I cursed you to bleed on the floor, and it became my worst nightmare in the years to come. It was the most horrifying and regretful moment in my life. By Merlin, now it is my fucking boggart. I really didn’t want you to go to Azkaban, and I know I would have still come to your trial whether you asked or not. It really was brewing slowly for too long, and it wasn’t simply just a month long fuck. The roots had already taken a hold even before you knew it.”

When he stops talking, the world is quiet for a moment. Nothing moves, nothing makes the quietest sound. The lab is bright, and the air is frigid. And Potter stands right beside Draco, and with him around, it feels even colder. Draco hates talking. He doesn’t want to ever think about the past, except for the good parts. “The past is in the past.”

Potter’s eyes dare to look even more pitiful, what does he even expect Draco to say? Draco despises remembering the past, except for the part where he had Potter moaning and writhing under him, everything else is dismissible. And Potter has no right to look that hurt. "Don’t dwell too much, Potter. Here, you take a look at this potion. This is going to work.”

Potter glances at the static portion, there isn’t a light on his eyes. “When do you plan to tell me about the mechanics?”

“Tonight.”

Draco leaves him standing there, and goes to the bedroom and closes the windows and the curtains. It’s deep in  winter, and the snow starts piling up on the ground outside Grimmauld Place. Potter follows closely behind Draco as he climbs up onto the bed, and then they lie on the sheets, facing each other. 

Ghosts, or ghost-Potter specifically, hates winter, for the cold. He gets grumpier as the temperature drops lower. His sarcastic nature takes on a whole new level that Draco honestly doesn’t want to deal with. Maybe ghosts, or Potter himself, are sensitive to the cold, even though he can’t really feel it on his skin. Draco seals each window in the house off with closed thick curtains and keeps the air warm with magic, easier than dealing with a moody ghost-Potter. Maybe all this is just one of his temperature induced moods.

And Potter looks better right now, his face is notably calmer on the pillow, pensive, as he watches Draco with unblinking eyes, "Tell me about the mechanics now. If tonight you’re going to be done, then I'd rather not waste any time talking."

Draco considers that, explaining to Potter too early will raise unnecessary questions, and Draco has been trying to avoid that and put it off to the last possible minute. "The elixir will help me to be in an undermind slumber."

Potter’s forehead folds in a deep frown. "Is that a word you just made up? Does it mean that you’re going to put yourself to sleep?"

Draco nods, "Yes, an undermind slumber. The elixir will make me sleep as if I'm braindead for two hours, it will take out my soul and let it wander as a ghost in the meantime. I'll also digest another potion to make sure I'll stay breathing and living."

"You haven't tested it?"

"There isn't anyone to test it on," Potter looks alarmed, so Draco cuts him off before something else can come out his mouth. "No chopping off body parts this time," Draco smirks at him, "I've researched through muggle and magical literature for this. It's a controlled magical medical drugging, like a full body anaesthesia.”

Potter’s frown is still deep on his forehead, so Draco adds, "I took another precaution. There's a letter addressed to Luna Lovegood, and Aleta can deliver it when you ask her in case of emergency. Lovegood will know what to do from there. It'll be fine."

And yet, Potter still looks unsure, his eyes glare at Draco with questions. Draco evenly meets them and says, "I'm me, Potter, I know what I'm doing."

Because it's true.

Draco pays him no more mind and pulls the blanket over himself, closing his eyes and goes to sleep. And he spends the rest of the day sleeping. He has a lot to do at night. 

When he wakes up, it's nearly dusk. The full moon will rise at about eight in the night, he still has three and half hours for himself. He takes an hour long quiet bath, with ghost Potter eyeing his body from the corner of the room. He then prepares a meal for himself, a full chicken roast with Potter watching him with half crazed eyes as Draco chews on his dinner.

Then as the moon slowly rises above the sky, Draco starts on the last part of the delicate brew, in which he puts dragon’s heartstring, a wand core, into the potion.

And it's already two, in the earliest hours, when Draco has finished everything. He has five vials ready in the container. The night is too old, yet Draco doesn't feel tired at all, his heart beats loudly in his ears and adrenaline flows all over in his bloodstream. Potter hovers by his shoulder, intently eyeing his potion. There's an infatuated look in his eyes, a heavy contained lust visible in his ghostly face. He is thinking the same thing Draco can’t stop thinking about.

This is going to be the night.

Draco takes one of the vials, running his fingers through the glass containing bright red liquid, and he whispers to Potter, "This one to help with breathing."

Then he takes another vial containing a sky blue liquid, and shows it to Potter, "This is the main elixir, it will make me go deep into an undermind slumber."

And then he points to three vials left on the wooden container, Potter watches them carefully from over Draco's shoulder, face close next to Draco's. "I’ve also included this information in the letter for Luna. These are the emergency potions, one for antidote, one with bezoar for any complications, one for last minute resuscitation. These aren't actually needed, they're more for you than me, actually."

Draco is confident he will be fine. He knows Potter won't without them. Potter nods at him.

Draco calls out, loud, "Aleta, please come."

The snowy white owl flies in from the attic, her flapping wings make a quiet sound in the silent room, and she lands gracefully on Draco's outstretched arm. Draco kisses her head. Then he levitates a letter from a drawer, and binds it carefully to Aleta's talon, and tells her, "This is for Luna Lovegood, please give it to her when Potter asks you, don't go if he doesn't ask."

Aleta flies off Draco's arm and perches herself by the window.

All things done, he turns to Potter, "Now, Potter. Are you ready?"

Potter nods slowly, his face mostly blank. Maybe Potter doesn’t know how to be in this circumstance, Draco doesn’t blame him. There’s only so much for ghosts to do when some bloke with a cracked head goes barmy enough to put themselves in some sort of coma just for a sex-blown night together, and Draco knows he isn’t the most balanced person out there.

Draco gulps the breathing potion first, the bright scarlet liquid leaves a sour aftertaste, and it burns as it goes down his throat, and then he looks at Potter. He slowly lifts his hand as if to touch Potter's still unattainable cheek and whispers, "You'll get anything you want, tonight, Potter. Everything."

Potter gives another nod.

Draco lies flat down on the bed he has conjured in preparation, and closes his eyes, breathing through his mouth, and drinks the main elixir. It comes slowly to him, the way Potter’s face blurs from his vision, the way his body surrenders to the cold air. He feels light and weightless and he knows his mind is closing in, and the last thing he remembers is that everything turns dark in the room.

Then, Draco opens his eyes. Light burns through his vision without mercy, it hurts his head. Yet, strangely, his body feels weightless. After a few moments, everything starts to take shape, from the bright harsh light of the laboratory, and Potter’s relieved face. Draco tries to sit up, and he feels like floating. And he must be, as he lifts his hand, he sees it's as blue and see-through as Potter’s, not just from the wrist down, but his arms too, his chest, his stomach. Sitting down like this, his physical body ends at the waist. Draco’s upper body is ghostly. 

Draco leaves the bed, taking away the whole spirit from his body. From there, he can see Draco Malfoy lying peacefully still on the bed, face relaxed and blond hair soft around his head. Draco examines his own face carefully, the first time he can do it from this angle. Draco knows he is decent looking, but he thinks that he kind of looks like an angel down there. He now knows why Potter is so obsessed with him, even after Draco’s wanker move of leaving him on his bed several years ago. Draco is beautiful, that must be it.

There’s a soft movement of his chest, expanding and contracting , indicating he's still breathing just fine. 

He looks sideways, where he knows Potter is, and smirks at him. Because unlike Potter’s initial relief in watching the successful process like promised, now he just looks pressed and overwhelmed. His jaw down and mouth open and he's gawking at Draco.

Draco closes their distance, takes a step closer, and stands with his face one breath away from Potter’s, mouth still content in a smirk. Draco wants to touch him, yet, surprisingly, it's Potter who makes the first move, his face turns into this starry, moon eyed expression, too tender to bear, and he says, "Your eyes get impossibly prettier this way."

And before Draco can give him the prideful, smug, self-satisfied answer that’s ready on the tip of his tongue, he gets kissed instead, right on the mouth. 

This is a kiss. Mouth over mouth, tongue caressing teeth, hands under the strands of hair, breath speeding up, and wet, wet, wet. A kiss he can completely feel, the heat on his skin, the wetness of another mouth, the sensation his whole body feels as it attaches to another body in front, the touch of a hand running through his hair and over his body, and the burning desire going from his mouth to his groin. All consuming, it numbs his senses. He doesn't know where he ends and Potter begins.

Through the twist and the tangling thread that started on the mouth.

Then, Potter dares to laugh. He lets go of Draco’s mouth, yet his hands never leave Draco’s body. And when Draco opens his eyes, they are not standing on the concrete floor anymore. Their feet float over the air, defying every sodding rule and gravity, like both Draco and Potter have been doing their whole life. Potter, with his silly, stupid laugh, takes Draco by the shoulders, and screams, “Trust me!”

Draco sees that glint and he remembers suddenly why he’s as obsessed as Potter in this madness of hell.

And then, Potter doesn’t give another warning as he takes Draco flying. They fly and float all over through the house. This flying doesn't feel like a raven flying with a pair of wings, sure and steady, nor like using a pair of brooms, relying on man-made equipment. This is merely moving through space with a little too much freedom, one thing Potter doesn’t do when Draco is around.

It's too early in the morning, the windows in the bedroom are tightly shut to keep winter air away, and Harry fucking Potter and Draco land gracefully onto the bed, sitting down on the blanket that they can’t move now. Potter holds Draco close, nose touching, ten fingers cupping his face, he has a bright fucking smile when he whispers, "Take off your clothes, Draco. Think yourself naked, now."

Draco does it in his head, and the clothes are gone in an instant. "Oh."

Potter laughs and Draco watches it, the way he gets all open mouthed. He tells Potter, "Bet you love that."

Potter's grin gets even impossibly wider. "You as a ghost? Sexier than everything."

Draco takes Potter's hand from his face and instead cradles back Potter's face in his hands, then whispers to him, "I'm the one who throws commands around here, Potter. You forgot?"

"Oh, really?”

Draco chuckles, his fingers press on the back of Potter's neck, pulling him closer to Draco,  then he uses his other hand to touch Potter’s ugly glasses frame, he drops his voice to the lowest octave and asks him, "Can you see without these?”

Draco doesn’t wait for an answer and takes off the glasses from over his nose. Potter’s brilliant turquoise eyes are a breath away from Draco’s, with nothing to stand in the way. It reminds Draco about how once he’d gotten to use a turquoise crystal in one of his experiments. In the gemstone, he had put a deathly curse. It’s now stored away safely in the toy cabinet. A single touch, and the stone could slowly kill you if you come into contact with it. He remembers that it glowed too, the colour is painfully similar to the one reflected in Potter’s eyes. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why Draco despises those eyes in the first place, or is fascinated by them. It's an equal feeling.

Eyes that are currently blinking at Draco as he says, “Oh, I didn’t know my vision was fine without them.”

“Good,” Draco touches the corner of his eye, and Potter daringly opens it wide as he does it.

He tells Potter, “Now, you strip.”

Potter's clothes are gone in a blink of an eye. Draco smacks their mouth together in a lock, Potter’s lips accommodating to Draco’s every whim. And as he deeply snogs him, he touches Potter on his spine, from the lower back to his neck with a feather-like touch, and relishes the shivers and the pants against his mouth that he gets from the touch. Potter's hands run over every inch of Draco's skin, before they end up on Draco's arse and give it a hearty squeeze. 

Draco lets go of Potter's lips to speak onto his mouth, "You can touch anything except for my cock. Do it."

Draco goes back to claim Potter's mouth, running his tongue in every space inside his mouth, knocking his teeth. He feels Potter’s fingers on his inner thighs, not daring to trail anywhere too close to Draco’s warned regions, being the obedient, snarky, dead ghost he is. He feels Potter’s fingers on his own hip bone, tracing patterns amidst the burning motions, then he lays his palm flat on Draco's torso, sending Draco’s blood to run to his cock. 

Draco pushes Potter to lie down on the bed, and he then lies flat over him, covering his whole body with his, and gets their bodies entwined. He cherishes the delicious friction he gets from the touch of Potter's cock on his as they rub over each other as their dicks get trapped between their stomachs. His mouth turns to Potter’s neck, doing the thing he couldn’t with his hand when he’d chopped it off several months ago, and savours the taste of the skin there with a lick, before giving his teeth a chance to leave a wonderful mark on the skin, carved deep, wishing he could hurt a ghost and let the marking be permanent, lingering as long as Potter does.

With his bite, Potter screams, “Merlin, bloody hell, Draco.”

And the purplish hue left is perfect, like a marking of a vampire claiming.

He feels tension building in his lower region with each rub on their cock as they move against each other. He stops Potter from rubbing their cocks and spreads Potter’s knees, then folds them up until they touch his elbows for better access to his cock and his hole. And then Draco kneels between the spread legs, watching the delicious feast as it lies prettily before him. Then from under him, Potter begs, "Draco, fuck me, please, put your cock there."

Draco softly touches Potter’s cock, "I will."

Potter cries, "Fuck me, fuck me so hard that I forget everything."

He lightly grazes Potter's cock with a finger and tells him, "Patience. Remember the rules with me?"

Potter nods, "You take your time."

"Good boy," Draco says with a stroke on Potter's hair, Potter preens under him.

Draco snogs his mouth again, thinking there would never be enough time to satisfy the thirst he has for Potter’s mouth. Then he moves his mouth to lick his jaw and take a little bite of skin in the juncture of Potter’s jaw and his neck, earning a scream of his name from Potter’s whimpering mouth.

He goes lower to his chest, leaving another mark on the skin, a red over blue skin that turns into deep lavender shade. Potter curses through hell and heavens, calling out the muggle god’s name, and wizarding ancestors alike, then Draco’s name like a chanting prayer. And Draco loves every second of it.

He then twists and bites Potter’s hard nipples. Giving the extra attention the pair deserve under Draco’s fingers, teeth, lips, and tongue. He travels his mouth all over Potter’s body, pushing words he refuses to say against his skin. Wishing the words would get known without ever being spoken. Giving kisses and bruises everywhere. 

Everywhere, on his chest, on his stomach, on his inner thigh. And he makes sure to leave the pair on the upper thigh in symmetry, just near his balls but not quite there yet. Potter cries each time Draco licks over the bruise, “Fuck me, put your cock inside me.”

 "Sadly, I didn’t think of ghostly lube, do you have any idea how to summon it?"

"Yes," Potter says, which surprises Draco. Potter looks deeply embarrassed for a wild moment, before he lifts his hips, showing off his hole towards Draco, it looks open, empty, ready and lubed. Draco gives him a question with a look, and Potter mumbles under his breath, "Ghosts are equipped with something regarding the reason they don't move on."

Draco gives a cruel laugh at the strange, too quiet, admission, "You don't move on because you want to be buggered by me, Potter?"

Potter doesn't answer, his face a bright red and Draco laughs so hard he almost loses his erection. He looks at Potter, who looks back at him daringly, challenging. Draco meets it with a smirk, "Look at my cock, Potter. You’ve just humoured me too much. Give me back my erection then I’ll let you beg me to fuck your empty, sad, lubed hole. Put my cock in your mouth."

Potter whimpers and sits up to reach for his cock with his mouth, he’s being so eager and clumsy in his lust that when he catches Draco’s cock in his mouth it falls out once, but he reaches for it again, and puts the whole thing inside his mouth. Draco groans, feeling the vacuum of Potter's mouth on his cock. Draco bucks forward, and fucks that mouth. 

Ghost don’t breathe, they are dead, they don’t gag, so Draco pushes his cock deep in there. Sharp snaps, deep, and not merciful at all.

Potter’s eyes are looking straight at Draco’s as Draco fucks his mouth, and the view of his face from up here is the best thing he’s ever seen, “What a lovely cock sucker, you’ll look even lovelier with come all over your face.”

Potter whines on his cock. Draco stops him with a hand on his head, “But, I thought you wanted me to fill your hole.”

Potter nods fast. When he lets go of his dick, a string of saliva connects his cock to Potter lips, and as it breaks, it completely lands on Potter's chin. Draco uses his thumb to wipe it. Potter licked his own mouth, his gaze daring and bold.

Draco pushes Potter’s head down as he says, "Lie down, spread your legs as wide as you can."

He does as he's told, and five seconds later, his knees are spread wide and he has presented Draco with a view so lovely, and with a pair of pleading eyes, he begs, "Fuck me, Draco, please.”

Draco doesn't waste any more time.

He goes down and holds his dick to Potter's ready, lubed hole. It slides in easily, slowly, with delicious friction, and they both groan at the same time. When he’s half inside he stops and watches Potter’s face with sweat on it, his mouth open and eyes closed. Then he resumes, pushing his cock deeper into Potter’s body. It fits, as if Potter is made solely for this, “Emh, Draco….”

Draco slides out easily, then gives a tiny thrust into the hole before snapping his hips and puts it all inside. Potter screams, “Merlin, you're there!”

Draco gives him another thrust and Potter moves his hips in sync with him. He holds onto Potter, on all the skin he can touch. He uses his hand to the back of Potter’s neck to levitate him a little, and put his mouth onto his. Each kiss is followed with a deep thrust. He can feel Potter’s hand as it explores Draco’s whole body. Potter cries at every thrust, and his cries are directly swallowed into Draco’s mouth. They are deeply connected, like in Draco’s worst dreams in his sleep. Because his skin is against Potter’s, and his dick is inside Potter’s body, and his mouth is adjacent to Potter’s.

Potter’s cries become more prominent as Draco hits an angle, so he repeats the same angle for the next thrust. Draco starts losing himself, uncaring if he hurts Potter. They shout and groan into each other’s mouths. And then, in one sure motion, Draco comes, liquid spilling inside Potter's lovely arsehole. 

Draco pulls out of the hole to see the mess he's made. The sight of his come flowing out from Potter's hole is darling. And so is the forgotten cock above it, and Potter's tortured, crying face. His cock still lies on his stomach, hard and needing a desperate release. Draco gives it exactly four strokes before it also gushes come onto both their stomachs. 

Draco falls down beside him, coming down from the high. Potter wastes no time before he puts his head on Draco's chest, using him as a pillow, yet again. It's the middle of winter, and it's in the earliest hour of the morning, possibly almost dawn. Draco would need to go back to his body later. But now, he lets himself lay there, running a hand through Potter's messy hair, and then strokes a finger on his forehead, at the lightning scar that's forever imprinted there.

Ugly jealousy washes over Draco, and he curses Voldemort for ever leaving such markings on his Potter’s body. Draco probably could overpower and torture him to hell, if they fight now. And he wishes could paint another scar on Potter just to claim him as Draco’s. He can’t. Potter is already dead. The purple markings Draco left just now will be gone soon.

He feels Potter’s finger on Draco’s chest, tracing some pattern, before realising that it’s the pattern that Draco got when he was sixteen. Oh.

It makes much more sense, that way. Draco couldn’t mark Potter as his. And yet, Draco is marked quite violently, permanently, and profoundly by Potter, with a scar that could never be undone, as much as the dark mark on his arm. It is always somewhat peculiar, the way he got tagged twice by both Potter and Voldemort, in the same year. It’s as if Potter doesn’t want him to be marked by another either.

Then, Potter touches his left hand. Fingers daringly caress his dark mark. "Why didn't you remove it?"

"I think you've misunderstood," Draco touches Potter's jaw to divert his eyes to him, "You think I'm great and all. And while it's true, with dark arts, there's always something at stake. And I pick the ones that worth the risk. You love my hand, don't you? You were upset when it got chopped off."

"Oh...." Potter's mouth displays a fucking smirk, "Was I worth it?"

Draco doesn't say anything. But really, what for? Potter will have his answer anyway.

Potter looks up at him from under his eyelashes, taps his chest, smiles widely, and says, "There's a heartbeat here."

"I'm not dead."

"Mm... It's nice, hearing the sound of your heartbeat," and then a finger is lifted to touch Draco's jaw, drawing a map there on Draco’s skin. He gives Draco a tiny smile. "Do you realise that you’re just as pathetic and insane? You are so hung up on the idea of me that you'd fuck a ghost, Malfoy. You worked so hard and risked your life for it."

Draco puts an arm around Potter's body, pulling him close to himself and asks back, "Whoever says I am sane? Certainly not me. It's a very calculated risk with more success rate than failure. I believe in myself more than you do. And you’re dead, Potter. You refuse to move on to the next realm because you crave my cock."

Potter laughs, his face bright as he plays with Draco’s hair. “Have you ever thought of resurrecting me instead?”

“Resurrection only brings vessels.”

“Not worth the risk?”

Draco stops for a moment, and he tilts Potter’s head with his fingers so their eyes meet. “Do you want it?”

“What?! No! It’s just a simple question, because apparently you’re insane. I was just wondering how far gone you are.”

“Say it. I can try. I’ve done research before, but I never had a reason to really try.”

Potter doesn’t speak for a moment, he reaches for Draco’s hand and tangles their fingers together like a loser. And it feels warm. Ghosts can warm each other by their skin too. Then, he squeezes Draco’s hand as he asks in a quiet voice, too quiet that Draco only hears it because they are close, glued tight skin to skin, “Is a ghost not enough for you?”

Draco shrugs from under Potter, “Doesn’t really matter. I could work with a ghost. Is it for you?”

Potter lays his head flat on Draco’s chest, ear right where his heart is, and as he speaks, a smile is apparent in his voice, “Like this? Yes, of course I love my ghost erotica era.”

“Happy to star there.”

“We’re a pair of insane fools.”

Draco laughs, "Insane is fine."

"Of course it is, insane is you, Draco," he moves so he can stare at Draco more easily. He caresses Draco's face with his hand, his face close and unguarded and defenceless, and he whispers, "I'll stay around as long as you are."

That doesn’t sound like an empty promise. 

—

Chapter Text

—

What Draco would NEVER tell

—

2 May 1998

The war left everything in dramatic shambles and crumbles. Father’s tight grasp makes a painful pressure on Draco’s shoulder. And mother holds his hand like a cursed lifeline. The three of them Apparated away in such a hush, running away from the aftermath, the sins, and the shattered remains of Old Hogwarts, like the cowards they are.

They go home. In one piece, but different. Their arrival is the quietest it has ever been. No one to welcome them as the three stand in the foyer of the Manor. Draco isn’t sure what to call this dreary old manor, he knows that it isn’t really a home. He doesn’t think either Father or Mother even thinks of the place that way anymore. And they couldn’t keep the place anyhow. They won’t be able to.

Mother’s hand lets go of Draco’s as she falls down on the rug, weak on the floor. Father lets go of Draco’s shoulder to kneel before mother, watching her with hopeless eyes. Draco watches too, standing on the spot, not sure what to do with himself.

It isn’t spoken, shared in the same understanding, that they’d stood with the losing side, and there were going to be prices to pay. This is only the beginning of long years of pain and suffering.

Father's face is bleak, and mother has tears streaming down her face. All his life, Mother never cried. She knew how to be in most situations, in the direst situation when Voldemort waltzed around the manor house and caused wreckage over everything, she stood with grace. She was never the gentlest person, she was a strong pillar that couldn’t be swayed much. Yet, tonight she’s on the rug, and tears are flowing in a free fall across her cheeks.

Draco leaves his parents to walk in the manor house, through the hallways and the rooms. The night air feels icy on his skin, it’s either a temperature drop or Draco is too exhausted to actually feel. Everything looks like it has been washed in grey paint, the walls exude dread, vegetation has died in the grounds, father’s livestock collections rots in the fields, and every house elf has fled. Nothing is left around here except, horrible, dreary, dark energy.

Draco—

Standing here, Draco feels the strange desire to live. Can he make a living after this? Should he rot in a cell? Should he craft a plan to stay alive?

Was it all a sin in the end, if Draco only did it all because he wanted to live? He loves magic and how it feels under his hand as he shapes it. He learnt how to repair a cursed cabinet, he's an excellent potion maker, he’s good at transfiguration, he knows magic well. And he knows there’s endless possibility with magic. He wants to know more.

Even this old manor, he thinks as he stares at the empty shells of portraits, has a million what ifs to discover.

His life is worth nothing much now, nothing he carries with him, and despite it all, Draco doesn’t want to die just yet. He doesn’t want to suffer for the rest of his life. He sinned, that’s true, but does it count if he didn’t like it either? What is the Ministry and what right did they have to punish Draco for something he didn’t even really want to do? He didn’t have a choice in his allegiance, it was predestined when he was born into the Malfoy family. It wasn’t his fault to be born like this, he didn’t ask for it.

When he comes back to the reception room, he finds mother sitting on the couch, father beside her. They look up as Draco closes the door behind him. Mother has this crazed look as she approaches him, and takes him by the hand. She speaks closely to his ears, “Let’s leave, Draco. We have a property far in the north, not under the Malfoy name and hidden away. They won’t find us there. If they do, it’ll take them some time.”

“I’m staying in the manor, Mother. I have plans.”

Mother’s face crumbles, “What plans? We have no future, son. I’m so sorry.”

Draco squeezes her hand, “You can leave with father tomorrow morning. I’ll help you, I... I had some free time last year and I learned to make a portkey. It'll take me a few hours. You should take a rest in the meantime.”

Mother looks despairing, “You really aren't coming?”

“No, Mother. I will try to survive, in my own way.”

Mother spends the night crying on the couch, and father sleeps in the master bedroom, while Draco constructs a portkey in a small necklace. Making sure the thing will take both his parents to what might be their last chance to take a little breather.

The next morning, just after dawn as the sun rises from the horizon at the end of the manor grounds, Draco stands in Malfoy Manor’s living room. He waves at his parents as they touch Draco's makeshift portkey, and as the portkey activates, they are gone in a heartbeat, leaving Wiltshire, and their departure leaves Draco painfully alone in the eerie, silent manor.

His parents are running. Draco is weak, he won’t survive running.

He learnt many things during his years at Hogwarts. From repairing a cursed cabinet, toying with an old necklace, playing with toys kept in the room of hidden things, and getting mutilated on the bathroom floor with a deadly curse. He knows, something that isn’t weak is the dark arts.

Draco spends the morning scouring through the manor halls, through rooms he avoided in childhood years. He collects a pen and a pair of jade twin rings from his father’s study. He collects a little hair pin from mother’s vanity desk. He collects an old tiny dagger from the dining room. Draco takes away anything small and insignificant, something that doesn’t have much history, something the Ministry won’t suspect missing, and yet powerful enough to be moulded.

Then he spends the night in the manor library, tired as hell but knowing too well he doesn't have much time. He tries to read the books, as many as possible. Knowledge is always power. And Draco wants to know as much as he can. At midnight, his body feels like it's burning, and he gives up. If he manages to read the whole manor library, he won’t remember the contents anyway. That’s when he remembers a better way to keep knowledge, he could always steal them. And he takes empty books and makes a copy of everything there is in the manor library.

Draco finds an old metal suitcase in one of the attics, and he enlarges it and uses it to store the collected objects and the books. He then Apparates carefully to the forbidden forest, and makes a hole and buries the suitcase under the soil. It will wait, as long as Draco can manage to retrieve again later.

He accidentally falls asleep the next day on a couch in the library, hand holding a book titled ‘The Art of Animagi’.

Draco was always equipped with a little talent in transfiguration. Yet, it takes him the whole seven days in a week, with a tired body and starvation, and Draco has succeeded in taking this shape, turning himself into this agile, black feathered raven, splitting through the sky. By then, he perches himself in the library. Spending exactly seven days in a bird body, hunting, flying, sleeping, learning to be.

One afternoon, he flies through England to find the Weasleys' dwelling, spending the whole day lingering in the fields, finding out where Harry Potter’s room is. Observing the residents of the house going about their boring day. Noticing Potter, who sits around in the kitchen table with a cold forgotten tea cup, noticing the lack of Granger, noticing Weasleys he doesn’t care about, noticing Ginny Weasley who strangely avoids Potter like the plague. He lingers longer than necessary, circling the field surrounding the shack. Then in late afternoon, he finds the window of Potter's room, sneaks in a piece of parchment, with a written letter that Draco has spent quite a time composing, and leaves.

And one sunny day in July, a few weeks after the war, the manor wards are disturbed by visitors. They send in five men in regal maroon robes. They incarcerate Draco's hands in magical cuffs. And then, they throw him into this sad, white floored cold holding cell inside the Ministry, where he spends his time watching the closed door and takes a long sleep on the hard floor. They don’t even ask him where his parents are.

Draco might have fucked up the count, or Draco could be right. He thinks it takes several days before his parents are also brought in. Mother looks bad in the provided uniform, yet Father looks like he belongs in it. Their faces are in complete resignation. Mother’s face is drained of colour when she sees him. As though he's betrayed her by being there.

Father’s trial is held the next week, when they take him from their cell and out the closed door, and he never comes back. Draco sits with his mother, side by side, shoulders touching. Mother has dried her tears, and they both know they won’t ever see Father again.

Mother is called out a few days later, she gives Draco one last squeeze of his hand, and a tiny, meek smile full of irony. Draco prays to the devil and whatever god he doesn't believe for her. And Draco hasn't seen her again since.

Draco keeps on waiting there. Days come after nights. Inmates brought in and out. Yet they seem to forget about Draco. It might have been months. It might only be weeks. Draco has stopped counting. His dark mark is fucking painful. He tries his best to unfeel his arm.

When Draco finally gets called out, he feels clumsy on his feet, having rendered them useless in immobility in the tiny room. He's in this too big uniform, too big because Draco keeps on losing weight. Draco walks through the hall, imagining how it looks to passersby,  skin covered skeleton Draco gets escorted by four big men in Auror robes. Draco feels nothing, he’s not even scared. But he hasn’t seen the sun for long. And people wear long cloaks in the hall, maybe the weather is already cold, maybe it is sometime in the autumn.

Draco is tied tightly on a metal chair, magically held tight, he can’t even move to breath. And his head feels dizzy. He doesn't hear much of what is said or spoken. He doesn’t know his fate and he starts to doubt his plans, whether he really can survive. 

Yet, amidst the feverish haze in his mind, he still hears it when Harry bloody Potter comes in. He’s a big presence as he enters the courtroom, because everyone starts speaking in a hush. The git wears a casual red tee and blue trousers with holes in the knees, it looks atrocious even for him. Still, his steps are confident. He stands on the podium, eyes looking at the judge that Draco doesn’t care enough to remember the name of. Harry Potter delivers his speech with his clear cut voice, reverberating through the room. He stands there, tall, with both eyes stubbornly looking anywhere but Draco's direction. He speaks with deep conviction and finality, like he's delivering a simple, honest truth, “Draco Malfoy saved my life. He doesn’t deserve Azkaban. He doesn’t.”

It almost sounds like faith, coming out of his mouth.

Draco does want Potter to help his trial, but he doesn’t expect Potter to be like this.

Draco can't take his eyes off of him. As long as he's lived, no one, no one has had this kind of belief in him. Even his own mother, though she admits her love for him, wouldn't have this much faith in him in hand.

And somehow, among everybody else in the big courtroom, tied down on a chair, criminal Draco meets Harry Potter’s eyes, when the man finally spares a glance his way. Draco has been gawking at him the entire time, yet the eye contact still throws him off. He’s looking at you. Draco doesn’t know what image Potter probably is looking at. Draco must make a very disturbing sight there, pale and extremely underfed, too big clothes, hair wild and filthy. Draco gives him a board, wide-looney smile just to perfect the image. Potter diverts his gaze, and at that very second Draco's heart beats deafen his ears, so loud in his chest. Draco thinks he might end up being fine, anyway. He thinks he fucking sees light.

Bloody Potter and his fucking earnest self.

Yet, everything falls away as his sentence is stated. Draco escapes Azkaban entirely. Instead, he has been sentenced to ten years of an education and employment ban in any magical school and vocation, his wand and his assets taken away. He has to live his life as a muggle, for ten long years. Draco stops listening, instead he thinks of the dark mark on his arm. It fucking hurts. The verdict sounds as bad as a death sentence.

Turns out Draco's life is a sealed fate he can't escape.

When he looks at Potter again, he is already leaving. His back is the only thing visible as he exits the courtroom. When he’s out of sight, Draco’s light is gone. He tries not to be disappointed. It's just typical in Draco's life to be left in the darling dark.

Draco is thrown away to the streets a few hours later, into the pouring, stormy rain. He is completely drenched in seconds, with no way to cast an impervius charm or buy an umbrella. His thin body almost collapses under the sudden temperature change. He looks around at nothing, knowing that there isn’t anyone waiting for him nor who will welcome him, he’s alone in this world. 

At least no one would suspect him or try that hard to find him if he’s gone, because he is wandless and poor.

They don’t know that wandless and poor Draco is still somewhat hard to kill. The haziness is gone in the wet, and Draco’s thin body sprints through the rain, runs away fast, his ugly shoes hit the puddles, and he feels cold to his bones. He pushes and pushes, refusing to fall. He finds a grim alleyway, where he makes sure no one will witness, and changes into a black feathered bird, and flies high through the pouring sky.

He travels far from London to Scotland, taking rests in between, taking meals after hunts, chewing small birds from their nests, and finally reaches the Forbidden Forest in a week. It’s late in the day, almost dusk. He perches himself on an unsuspecting tree, watching the sunset over the Black Lake. Life is easier for a scary bird, who is avoided by humans and animals alike.

A scary bird who should be a predator in the sky, scares off other creatures. And it surprises him that all night, his human instinct seeps through and he thinks that he feels eyes on him, from somewhere in between the trees. He doesn’t try to seek it out. What creatures lurk deep inside there, Draco doesn’t want to know or disturb. He knows this should be expected, because this is the Forbidden Forest, all kinds of forms of life are there.

It’s completely pitch black in the night, no sign of the stars scattering the sky. Draco thinks it’s sad, the Scottish sky that he used to see from the astronomy tower had stars spattered above, yet this night in this forest, it is a very lonely northern hemisphere and completely dark. Draco despises the starless sky, it feels safer with them around. If anything, at least he knows the stars are the same, pointing in their directions when he loses his sense of place.

A loud hoot splits through Draco’s ears, surprising him. It’s the sound of an owl. But, what owl hangs around the Forbidden Forest at night? Draco sweeps his sharp avian eyes through the forest, yet he finds nothing.

When morning comes, Draco crouches on the ground in his human form. Hands deep in the dirt, his fingers wounded and it hurts as they dig into the soil. His whole body is covered in filth, in his hair, his face, and the only clothes he owns. And it takes Draco half a day to dig deep enough to see his suitcase, and it takes him half an hour to retrieve the suitcase out.

It’s already afternoon when he’s done. And he takes a little breather. He stands tall feeling the sweat as it drips down his forehead. He watches the shadows deep in the trees. This is a dangerous forest, and he’s painfully alone in this world. And he wonders, how is he supposed to live this life now?

Then there is a hoot in the air, and a white owl approaches Draco. The bird flies in a static glide near Draco’s head, letting him examine her graceful appearance. He asks her, "Are you really an owl?"

Little White is watching him with a pair of deeply intelligent yellow eyes.

Draco offers his arm, and the bird perches on it. Draco rubs his hands on his own clothes, afraid to give the bird too much filth, and touches its snowy feathers, trying to discern the magic flowing from her. Whether she’s really an owl or something else. This owl reminds him of Potter’s dead pet. Draco heard some Death Eaters killed her on a raid. He feels the flow of magic from the bird, and decides she’s probably harmless to him.

He rubs a finger on her head, “What do you want from me?”

She stares at him, long and judging. He didn’t know owls could be this critical of creatures.

He asks, “Any letters for me?”

The bird stares, yellow eyes intimidating. Draco sighs. “Of course not, who would do such a thing. Do you want to come with me?”

The bird gives a hoot, clear and brief.

Draco sighs, “Fine, you come with me. I'll call you… Aleta. I’m poor but it won’t be for long. And we might need each other in the future.”

Aleta doesn’t answer. She flies off to the nearest branch, watching Draco intensely.

Draco pays her no mind, and opens the suitcase. There, on first glance, something glimmers under the sun. A small jade ring gives a warm glow. He takes out the small thing, and puts it onto his finger, and feels the instant pain drops into his chest, a throbbing ache in his skull. He persists. He’ll breathe everything in, the darkness, the pain, the life he’ll still have. He knows he’ll be fine.

He'll be forever on the run starting today. And he promises, not one person will ever find him.

.

Draco finds an abandoned space in a muggle slum, a dirty, little forgotten room. It looks like it’s haunted by a ghost. Draco could be the haunting ghost to make it true. He’ll repel anyone close enough if they try to see what’s inside the storeroom of the abandoned old tea shop. They’ll never find what’s behind the sealed door leading to the second floor. The room only has a window to get in and out.

He makes potions and studies the little souvenirs he owns, he makes deals.

He spends sleepless nights lying wide eyed, talking to Aleta sometimes. And in those moments, he can’t stop thinking of the trial and Harry bloody Potter’s burning eyes and the words that came out of his mouth. Those words would forever haunt him. Draco will probably hear them on his deathbed, when the time comes.

Thus, he seeks Potter out, it can’t be helped.

He finds him in all the likely places he would be, in Hogwarts, the Ministry building, near his hidden residence. Draco finds him in newspapers too, in all the headlines and pretty pictures. About Potter and his efforts to build the world back together. He joins Hogwarts reparation, he catches Death Eaters (which is not Draco, Draco is harmless), he joins the reinforcements, he talks on podiums, green eyes blazing in brilliant heat. He carries the light for the whole wizarding world, what a weight dumped on a nineteen year old.

Draco keeps one of the pictures, in which Potter is standing leisurely in his garish purple sweater, buying sweets from a stall in Diagon Alley, he looks the most relaxed there. That thing makes a headline on one boring Tuesday. Draco cuts the image off the useless prints of words. He looks at it sometimes when he can’t sleep or is tired. Then, like an addiction, he keeps on seeking more. Draco soon has an assortment of Potter’s pretty face in newspaper cuts inside a meticulously kept  box. He could do an exhibition of those someday, build a whole archive of the wizarding hero, if Potter ever dies young someday.

Draco watches him too, in real life. It's fortunate, really, that Potter is an oblivious fool, never noticing a raven perching near, sharp eyes following his every move. 

And one night, on a whim, Draco decides to show up as himself. It’s late in the night and he dresses in a simple white shirt and follows Potter to a muggle club he frequents. Draco sits at the bar, ignoring the flirty ginger bartender and drinking this scarlet red muggle alcohol that Draco barely understands, relishing the unexpected wonderful touch on his tongue. All the while he quietly admires a badly dancing Potter, skidding around in his charmingly bumbling way, his beyond awkward legs moving beneath a popular tight blue muggle wear called jeans.

And ten minutes in, Potter is no longer dancing, he is standing wide eyed there on the dancefloor, hair wild on his head, drenched thoroughly in abrasive club light. He seems deeply fascinated when he finally notices Draco, who is nursing his drink, pretending as if he hasn’t see Potter in the same room.

Potter’s whole world is distracted once he catches sight of Draco, what a way to be.

But Potter doesn’t approach, he gets his awkward limbs to slide on the dancefloor, sharing space and stumbling sensually with people Draco doesn’t care about. Yet, Draco still can feel Potter’s stubborn eyes as they burn a hole on Draco’s head.

After some moment, Draco raises his head and meets his eyes.

Potter looks star-struck, mouth half open, like he isn’t the celebrity one. Draco holds the gaze, soon it turns into a battle in stubbornness. Potter raises a small smile and a wave, Draco doesn’t return those, and instead keeps on fixing a look at his eyes. In a few moments, Potter turns bright red, his eyes diverted somewhere else. It feels sweet, like Draco has just grazed a nerve, or teased an Achilles heel. What a win.

That’s when Draco approaches the dance floor. He dances, glides, and slithers purposefully three or four bodies away from Potter, fighting off his repulsion of these muggle strangers. Nothing like that, he hates any random stranger touching his skin in general. It’s a sweet victory though, as it gets the desired result. It doesn’t take long for Potter to come closer, like a magnet drawn to a pole. Draco ‘accidentally’ brushes his fingers on Potter’s. There’s a shiver run over him, and he can visibly see Potter fucking melts just by one touch. And those green eyes are a force of intensity when they stare. There's a question there, many of them contained quite badly inside his eyes, spilling out in the look. Questions Draco knows he would never answer, not in a thousand years or within the death of a thousand stars.

Potter stops moving, frozen in place where Draco traps him with his eyes. Then Potter, living up his foolish Gryffindor glory, closes the last distance between them and stands in Draco's space, his face on Draco’s neck as they both move among stranger's bodies, and he tells Draco, “Hi, Malfoy, fancy meeting you here.”

Draco pulls away, their faces almost touching. Potter's breath is gentle on Draco's skin, his green eyes bright and painfully, unmistakably alive. He can feel Potter resist his Gryffindor recklessness. It’s painfully clear and quite sweet of him. It emboldens Draco through his cowardice to make the next move, he puts a hand on the back of Potter's neck, and puts a kiss right on Potter's mouth. The mouth is hesitant and unsure, but Draco's is not, he kisses him certainly, wetly, deeply through this realm to another then straight to fiery hell like one of those predestined lovers. Draco kisses Harry sodding Potter on a muggle club dance floor in the late hour of the night, what a sight.

This isn’t an accident, though. Despite Potter's claims that it is. It never is. There is every intention and none of the fucking useless universe meddling. Fuck fate, fuck accidents, Draco is here.

Then, they get kicked out of the club so late, just before the sun rise. And they are out and stranded under the big black sky in the arms of each other. Potter looks frail and soft in his clothes, and his cheeks are flushed scarlet when Draco uses his fingers to caress the skin. Right in these quiet hazy sequences before dawn, he whispers and coaxes Potter, “Take this somewhere else, Potter.”

And by then, Draco knows he is sealing his own fate.

This is going to be his forever lifeline.

—

Antelucan

an·te·lu·can  (antə̇lükən)  adj.

: 1 before dawn

 —

My whole life exists in Antelucan Ruins,
amidst the pitch darkness and before the rise,
   I take his ghost because I can’t have him alive,
he runs my bloodstream & reforms my lifeline