𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄

Part 15

1.

Abraxas’ words still sting.

Draco thinks about it after they come home. He thinks about it when he and Potter and Viola eat supper every night. He thinks about it when Potter takes the train to London to pick Pyrrha and Abraxas up from King’s Cross at the start of the Christmas hols.

And when he sees his son, he thinks about it most.

He forms the word on his lips. Poof. It makes him sad, because he is no poof. He doesn’t like the things poofs like: being camp and sucking cock and taking it up the arse. When Potter’s hand lingers at the cleft of his arse in bed, Draco stops breathing.

“I’m not a poof,” he tells Potter.

Potter nods once.

“I’m not!” he hisses.

He stands in the shower and thinks about things. He has locked the door so Potter can’t come in, open the glass door and slide in behind him, kissing his neck and making him shiver like he does sometimes. He needs to think by himself.

The water sluices down his body; his hair is plastered to his face. His muscles relax in the heat, the steam making his body lethargic, but his mind clear. He runs the bar of soap across his chest, down to his hips and inner thighs, across his cock. He wraps his hand around his cock, tugging and sighing as it swells in his hand. He tries not to think of Potter, of Potter’s hands over his body, of Potter’s tongue between his legs, making him shudder and moan. He fingers dip deeper, behind his balls and he wonders when the next time will come, when he’ll bleed like a girl.

Draco steps out from the shower, smelling of clean and herbal soap. He pulls a towel from the rack. It’s frayed at the edges, and a little off-colour. He sniffs it and tries to remember when last the towels were changed. He frowns and thinks, Potter can never remember to do any bloody laundry.

Potter is lying in bed, on top of the sheets in his pajamas. He looks up when Draco walks through the doorway, toweling his hair dry. He sits up and reaches out to pull Draco down to the bed with him.

Draco falls. Potter’s lips are a weakness, a poison infecting him with the desire to be here for a long while, for as long as he can. Potter’s tongue slides into his mouth as his hands slide through Draco’s damp hair.

“I’m not a poof,” Draco insists, pulling back for a moment.

Potter studies him, scrunching his brow. “I know that. Can you possibly talk about anything else for once? Like how Christmas is in two days?”

Draco sniffs, but he doesn’t resist when Potter tugs the towel down from his hips and sinks to his knees in front of Draco, his mouth kissing a path down down until Draco is gasping and faltering and would gladly tell Potter’s he’s a poof just to keep the sweet agony to endure.

2.

Christmas comes.

Santa visits. Cookies are left but none of the children believe in Santa Claus, so Draco happily munches on them while Potter spell-o-tapes the last of the presents. He and Potter go to bed, fuck quietly through the too-thin walls of Christmas Eve, then fall asleep, waking far too early in the morning to truly appreciate the day, not when they have shouting children poking and prodding them well before seven o’clock if they can go down and open presents.

Draco goes into the kitchen to make a pot of tea and put the crumpets in the oven to warm up. He can hear Potter puttering around, charming the glittering, crumpled wrapping paper into folded dragons. He can hear Abraxas and Pyrrha whispering frantically about something, and the flush of the toilet from Viola.