SPRING
They smile at each other over the pier, like Siamese, like they’ve been ripped and thrown far away and after all these years their arms have just once again reached for the other. The wind is soft and delicate, skating across their faces, and the sun is warm and bright above them. Draco slides his arm around him, and Harry can close his eyes and feel every muscle in Draco’s fingers dragging across his hip, his back. Feel the love and warmth pool out from those hands that are gentle in their embrace. Harry smiles, sun bright, tilts his head and whispers, “my sweet prince”. Draco laughs, low and tender, and Harry feels so utterly taken in, every bad thing he could ever despair to remember completely wiped away under Draco’s eyes, hands, mouth. He’s never felt so clean in his life, so absolutely slate less. It had started so fast, a burning glance or a lingering touch. The desire that evolved so soon between them binds them like twine, wrapping around them until they relish the constriction, the tightness around their hearts that blocks out all the pain and isolation that had overwhelmed them before. Draco wraps his hands around Harry’s head, eyes light and a razor less smile, and they kiss, long and slow with the sun setting and Harry weightless and pure and in love. On that pier, the world disintegrates around them.
SUMMER
Harry traces the linen below him, the curves and angles under his hand. His hips rock with Draco’s, rhythm so sweet and gentle that Harry’s breath catches and holds and he lifts his hands to trace the muscles flexing and pulling along Draco’s back, cradling Draco’s head in the crook of his shoulder. It’s warm and sunlit, and clean white sheets and Draco pulls his head up, face free from the hair held by the elastic, lifting his palm, so hot and heavy on his face and the superfluous words not needed with so little between them. Harry feels so more beautiful, so more loved, so more substantial with Draco over him, above him, in him, with that endless look on his face. Harry can taste love on his tongue, sweet and burning. He has never felt more perverse or more satisfied. They go to the sea again that summer, and Harry stands on the beach, staring at the sea, the water so blue and endless and feeling the sand underneath his feet so acutely. Each tiny grain, like a memory, or a mark, or an occasion and all of them steadily eroding away. Draco’s arms wrap around him and he can’t help but smile towards the sun, seek the warmth at his back, hold onto Draco’s hand tightly while he’s lead away. I love you, they whisper over the bed, drinking themselves silly on cheap cherry wine and smoking themselves senseless over the local weed, Draco’s newest fascination. The local boys seek him out at the back of the hotel, and Draco comes in with bags full of dried green grass. They portkey back to London, too stoned to apparate, and Draco leaves the apartment for hours on end, leaving Harry there by himself. It goes on for days, weeks, until Draco comes back with more grass and things in vials that Harry won’t bear to ask about. He brings people to the apartment later, people who are quiet and slim, and Harry isn’t sure if he likes it or not, this new turn they’ve taken, these new people in their home. They fight about it once, so quiet and dark in their little apartment and the sound of a slap so loud and no more words are uttered about it again. Draco never apologizes, an ironic contrite expression on his face though, and Harry is cold for a few days but when the people come again, he learns their names and Draco pulls him close. The summer seems to last forever, and Harry knows it’s partly because of the drugs. Harry loves marijuana so much that his fingers are stained green; he even likes the pills Draco brings home sometimes, tiny tablets that are halved between them on the glass living room table along with the little lines of white that even Harry starts to do more frequently. Draco will smile on the inhale, Harry cradled in the v of his legs, Draco’s hands holding his hair, like he’s playing with it and when Harry leans back against him, his eyes will go up, like he’s trying to look through the layers of their home to the sky. Eyes held up to look at other people, strong and rich like Draco himself, dangling their ambrosia so tantalizingly above him. Toward the end of their glorious summer, Draco brought it home, keeping Harry’s questions quiet with his mouth until he could lay his prize on the table. Harry clenched his fist and winced, and eyes open, mouth wide with shock, finally his miracle, his manna from heaven. The completion of their love. These people, these new and strong and rich, jaded people didn’t deal with money as Draco soon found out, as he would understand with his own tediousness when dealing with it. No, they traded in other things.
FALL
Harry looks in the mirror, his hand automatically tracing his lips with the lipstick, and he knows Draco is behind him, watching him so closely he’s afraid his hand will start shaking. Draco’s hands are wringing together and he keeps pulling them through his hair, tugging strands out of the ponytail. Summer is just a distant memory. “I love you.” Draco whispers in his ear and Harry smiles, blushes, and tugs a piece of hair behind his ear. He can hear drunken laughter drowned out by the blood humming in his ears and the tingle trailing though his body, he feels languorous as Draco grips his hand and leads him toward the sound. He closes his eyes when they reach the room and he feels hands and he can’t feel Draco anymore, only their hands and their mouths and the dirty words they are calling him. He keeps his eyes clenched painfully shut as his mouth is ripped open, his back arched bow like by a cool hand, and he’ll focus on that beach and he’ll writhe like a whore and try to touch that forgotten warmth where it was behind him. Back home, everything is dark and ugly for a seemingly endless and terrible stretch of moments. Draco yells at anything, everything and pushes Harry in the shower, scalding hot and both of them fully clothed with Harry screaming that he’ll kill himself. Soap and tears and come circling down the drain like a train wreck and Draco’s arms the only thing keeping him from disintegrating all together. On their bed again, clean white sheets, and wet hair stringing together, they huddle close around their reward, hiding it away like it’s something far too intimate for the world to acknowledge. Harry watches Draco’s hands shake badly with anger, relief, holding onto Harry for dear life. Hiss. Burn. Slide. Bright. Sigh. The great world spins sickly quick on her axis and when Harry opens his eyes it’s like she’s painted everything lovely with her insides. Draco smiles beside him, eyes black with hunger and they kiss forever, the world growing blurry and surreal outside them. It is only them, only them, everlastingly and always. “I love you.” Draco whispers behind him and Harry smiles and opens the door before him, laughter still clinging to the walls inside the room with people inside without faces. It always starts with these words, from the man Harry craves in the deepest places in him. Love. Love for Draco, like it’s all he’s ever known, will know forever. Hiss. Burn. Slide. Bright. Sigh. It’s never enough. Satisfaction doesn’t exist but he’ll chase it out with the dragon.
WINTER
They could feel it coming upon them, feel the weight of the snow seep in through the windows, the door. Draco went and bought tape and nails and black cloth and they boarded up against the harsh light that was coming in. Winter. Cold and ruthless and unforgiving and a shortage that no one could see coming with all the white flakes outside. It started with the yelling, Harry screaming and scratching himself and pointing fingers and hurling accusations and placing blame. “It’s your fucking fault! I fucked them for you!” Until Draco had to stop his fist with the wall beside Harry’s head, breath coming short and one red tainted word spills from his lips, eyes blazing into Harry’s. Harry turns away from the slamming of the door, falling to the floor and sobbing and still scratching at his skin, itching and burning like a disease-ridden whore. Hiss. Burn. Sigh. He knows that that was the last of it. Three days. Harry’s been in hell. He won’t open the door, too afraid of the outside and spends twenty minutes placing the strongest pieces of furniture on it. He must stay away from the windows and he destroys pictures and little things scattered everywhere and scratches and beats at bruises that have yet to heal. He finds the bright red tube of lipstick under the bed and starts marking the walls with shaking hands. He wakes up with his whole body cramping, clothes drenched in sweat and stinging the sores on his skin where he clawed. He’s aching and cold on the floor, crawling toward the glass table, anything, anything, Draco, Draco, Draco. Nothing there, no residue, and he cries and pushes the table over, falling over with it. He remembers the warmth of love, curled into himself so close to his own memories, he can imagine the sweet smell of Draco’s breath, warm and laughing and curled toward one another above clean white sheets and smiling and kissing with the sun warm on them. “Harry? Harry?” Draco’s voice, godlike and harsh and urgent, is waking him from his exhaustion. He looks toward the fireplace, soot less and empty except for Draco’s floating head and Harry is riddled with confusion for one indescribable moment. “We’ve got a delay here … I’m sorry.” Draco breaks on the last word and Harry reaches for the dry flames to Draco’s turned face. “Are you coming home now?” Harry’s voice is small and he feels the tear roll down his face so slowly. “Can you come home now?” Draco lets out a sob, so unusual, and whispers yes, yes, yes, over and over until the connection is lost. Harry kisses the hearth, cold and pitiless, and stands to remove all the furniture blocking the door, the tape and cloth covering the windows, and he tries to scrub the lipstick off the walls. Picks up the pieces of scattered paper and pictures and finds numbers and names that Draco would never tell him.
SPRING
It’s not unexpected that Remus is standing there looking at him. He had knocked on his apartment door and receiving no answer, pulled his wand and stepped cautiously inside. Harry can see it clenched in his right fist. He looks surprised that everything is immaculate in the apartment, refined, just like Draco. Harry is curled on the couch, half delirious, pale and small, and his body is wrapped protectively around a small brown bag taped closed. He watches Remus wince and look away, steady himself and move closer, pulling Harry up on the couch. Harry looks up at him, the black of his pupils engulfing the vibrant colour of his eyes, a smile slicing his frail face open and he’s forgotten that there is still red lipstick smudged over his mouth, black still heavy around his eyes. “He’s coming back. He went to Marion’s and then he’s coming back.” Harry’s voice is hoarse and rough, from screaming or from no use at all, he can’t remember which. “He’s coming back, he promised me.” Harry slumps on the couch, pulling his knees up to hide the little bag. He looks up at Remus, hope shining in the little light of his eyes. Remus looks like he’s about to open his mouth and speak for one singular moment but he stops. He rubs one gentle hand over Harry’s head and kisses his forehead over a scar that’s long since faded. Harry watches him turn around, go back the way he came, but he stops, suddenly looking at the wall still stained with Harry’s lipstick. Harry never could get it all off. Harry thinks he hears something that sounds like crying but he’s smiling and holding his piece of perfection close to him.
SUMMER
There is no regret, only a justification that this is a necessary action that can be benefited by the end result. Harry finds no guilt anymore, no red tainted words, he doesn’t mind this trade anymore, sometimes enjoys it if he’s high enough and they always supply at the beginning now. The slow slide of clothing against his clean skin, its intoxication in its iniquitous. Hands on him, filling him up, pushing him around, high as a kite, he’ll escape to that beach, Draco’s arms wrapped tight around him and he has to curl himself up tight inside and remember …
My sweet prince, you are the one.