𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄

Part 19

1.

Potter develops a taste for insisting Draco go out with him.

Potter chooses the restaurants- all perfect for romantic dinners for two, candle-lit and slow strains of music, wine and hushed words. It eats him up inside a little the first few times, until he complains that he’s not a poof and he gets sick of the sneers and confused glances of the Muggles who think he and Potter are together like poofs.

I don’t take it up the arse, and I’m not camp and my wrist is most certainly not limp! he thinks.

He won’t admit he likes the change from the monotony of the meals of the house elf, of the headaches James gives him because he still barely speaks to Draco. He fills his days reading The Prophet in the morning, clipping articles about Potter and filing them into boxes. He writes short notes and sends packages of crisps and cakes and chocolates to Hogwarts, and he brews Potions in Potter’s rusty old cast-iron cauldron that he keeps in the cellar. It took nearly a week of abrasive charms and potion cleaners to remove the rust, but the sight of a bubbling mauve liquid is welcome to Draco’s eyes when he manages the cleaning at last.

As much as he loves the feel of velvet robes and silk linings, he loves it even more when Potter peels Muggle trousers off his hips and sees that Draco never wears any underpants with them. Potter licks his lips, just the bottom one, then he licks Draco’s hip, his cock, his balls, until he’s clinging to Potter’s hair, writhing and straining on the bedsheets, the backseat of Potter’s car sometimes, and coming with a moan.

And he loves it when Potter drives, his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road and Draco could mention something utterly foolish, like “By the way, Potter, I fucked Granger up the arse,” and he wouldn’t bat an eye or notice. Instead, Draco fingers the zip of Potter’s trousers more than once and reaches through Potter’s underpants, making him gasp and swerve and say, “Fuck!” but never “Don’t stop!”

Draco makes the dinners worth it. That, and the house elf seems to cook nothing but stew tasting of old trainers for two weeks straight. He looks forward to Pyrrha, Abraxas and Viola coming home for the summer. He grows too used to the silence and lingering quiescence of the house and the garden outside. He orders the house elf to plant more hydrangeas and irises, but the colour doesn’t make up for the lack of his children there to be seen among the blooms, especially Pyrrha.

Potter is home more now, now that the Ministry has dealt with the scandal at Azkaban. He resented Potter for the time he spent there, with other people, with Weasley. They sit in the evenings with James at their feet and watch the telly. Draco doesn’t really understand the box, even after all these years, but he doesn’t mind because Potter will stretch his arm out behind his shoulders and Draco will lean in. He likes Potter’s warm body, sitting next to him, in bed snoring next to him, on top of his body, thrusting hard when they fuck.

The days pass in a pleasant fuzz of domesticity. One day in late June, Potter drives to London to King’s Cross, leaving Draco alone with James. James sits on the window ledge, staring out as Potter’s car pulls out from the drive and disappears from sight.

“He’s gone to get your sisters and brothers,” Draco says.

James nods slowly.

Draco grins. “I’m not so bad, you know,” he says. “You could talk for me.”

James casts him a sidelong look from his dark eyes, before resuming his staring out behind the curtains at the roadway.