written for @drarrymicrofic prompt “paper” | M, 463 words | thanks to the microfic queen herself @amortentiaboys for the beta!!
On paper, they’re roommates.
“Fuck, Harry, Harry, right there right there right there oh god–”
“That’s it, you’re so good, Draco, baby, you’re so good for me, come on, you can come–”
“Oh!”
Draco sends passive aggressive paper swans to beat around Harry’s head when he forgets to take out the trash, and Harry rolls his eyes but secretly likes the attention. Whenever he trips over Draco’s shoes in the entryway he yells into the flat as loud as he can, knowing it’ll get him a row that neither of them actually cares about, but they’re both angry enough at the world to need. During pub nights they bicker until one of them cracks up laughing, and Hermione watches with sharp eyes.
“Are you still going out with that witch from the International Travel department on Friday?” she asks.
“Yeah,” Harry says, grinning as he’s jostled by Draco’s arm over his shoulders. “Why?”
Hermione looks away from him, her lips pressed thin. “I was just wondering.”
“You’re really going out with her?”
“Yeah, you knew that.”
“But I didn’t think it was real.”
“Of course it’s real, it’s a date.”
“I thought you were just saying it for our friends– Oh, fuck you, Harry.”
“I don’t understand–”
“Get the fuck out of my room!”
Harry slowly shreds his paper napkin as Emily stares at him.
“So you’re in the Department of Magical Creatures?”
Harry grabs another napkin. “Yep.”
“Always thought you’d be an Auror.”
“Yep.”
She blinks her big blue eyes at him. She’s pretty, and he wants to tell her, except the words keep getting stuck behind something that aches a lot like the way looking at Draco in the morning makes Harry ache. No strings, they’d said. It just made sense, when Draco ended up shaking in Harry’s bed with nightmares anyways.
Draco is always so warm.
“So…” Emily starts, and Harry stands up.
“I’m sorry,” he says truthfully, and then he runs.
“You’re real. What I feel for you is real.”
“Harry–”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please. Please let me fix this.”
“No. I don’t want pity. I don’t want to be a second choice.”
“There was never any other choice. I’m sorry. You’re it, Draco. You’re it, I just didn’t see. I didn’t know.”
“Harry…”
“Baby, please. Please.”
“Don’t play the ‘baby’ card.”
“But I want that. I want to call you baby like this, standing across the room from each other. Not just when we’re– be my baby. Be my sweetheart.”
“Merlin, Harry, you don’t… you don’t know how to do anything halfway, do you?”
“Please let me come over there.”
“Fine.”
“And kiss you?”
“Don’t push your luck.”
On paper, they’re roommates. But in the honey-warm light of the kitchen, Harry reaches for Draco, unraveling the narrative.
The bagger at the Muggle shop we always walked by asked me if I wanted paper or plastic. I said paper, then plastic, then paper again. Both are fine, the bagger assured me, but could I trust him? I didn't know what plastic was, but paper, I knew my whole life. Then, curiosity bit me again, and I said plastic. But my apples were already bagged up.
The bagger gave me the plastic anyway. His smile said I only got away with it because I was cute. Mother said that, too. That I had a face of an angel and the hair to match. For a while longer, anyway. (I was going bald.) Harry said he didn't care what I looked like, I was rotten to the core. But in a good way. Everyone rots in the end. It was only trouble if you tried to stop.
First thing I did when I got home was to throw away the apples from last month and make room for the Muggle ones. The basket had a preservation charm weaved in, but it only lasted a couple of weeks. I tossed in the first apple from a distance, in case it exploded. Nothing happened. Apples were apples, and there was no magic beyond their taste. But I wanted to check.
I hung the plastic bag in my window. Sun shone through the thin film, and THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU refracted red over my desk. Something about it pleased me, so I sat down to write my mother a letter. I signed and sealed it with my thumb, which burned, but I had salve. Then I put the letter away in a drawer with all the other envelopes. Some were starting to yellow.
Harry came home that evening and kissed me on the cheek, his arms heavy over my shoulders. I was still sitting at the desk. He smelled of ink. Or maybe I was smelling myself. Harry had a way of getting me to look beyond my eyes. Taste things again. I could hear the rain on him now, though his jumper remained dry, and soft. And warm.
Harry shifted from my back to touch the plastic bag. "Plastic isn't a good thing."
The bag crinkled under his hand.
"I didn't know Muggle things could be good or bad." They couldn't hold a curse. That was why I liked them.
"People throw them out, and they clog up landfills. They choke birds. It's impossible to get rid of them."
"I didn't mean to buy a bad thing."
Harry turned back to me and took my hand into his. His palm was rough, like wool. "I know you didn't."
We went downstairs to the kitchen, where I reheated the chicken I made last night, and we ate it with sliced apples, because I forgot about the salad. Then we went to bed, and the next day arrived in the night.
I left the plastic bag up even though I knew it was bad. I liked to watch it sway in the open window. A bad thing that couldn't die. Not like me, who was rotten to the core.
The asteroid was set to hit on the 30th of October, 2020. There was nothing to be done, the astronomists said, in the meeting where they were informed.
“This is top level classified information,” the Minister said. “Should the board find out that the situation is relayed to anyone outside this room, the divulger will be executed. No trial.”
Harry was in the Doomsday Board because he was the boy who lived, and thus, he became one of the only 42 people in the world to know about the end. Draco wasn’t in the board, but being Harry’s soulmate, he was told immediately after the meeting ended.
“I will be executed for telling you,” Harry whispered into Draco’s shoulder that very evening, in the quiet of his home. It was true, but there had never been a question of doing anything else. There were to be no secrets between soulmates.
“What are we going to do?” Was Draco’s answer, ever practical.
“There’s nothing to be done. The Earth will be destroyed.”
Draco’s arms came around Harry’s shoulders, the familiarity grounding him. They weren’t lovers. They had never really been friends, either, had gone straight from schoolyard rivalry to the knowledge that they were soulmates, and that had been that. They were a two-headed being.
“We shall find a new planet, then,” Draco whispered. “One where it’s just us. We don’t need anything else, do we?”
Harry stilled, considered the ache in his chest, space carved behind his ribs where his heart had once been. The savage devotion burning through him. The dangerous grace of Draco’s hands shaping his soul.
Love was too delicate—wasn’t enough—to describe this.
“You’re my everything.”
For the @drarrymicrofic prompt: space song. This is dedicated to @lou-isfake. Thank you to @amortentiaboys for the simply superb beta work.
350 words | M for brief smut mention | small injury
thank you to bee @softlystarstruck, my beta beloved, for the extra pair of eyes 💛 written for the @drarrymicrofic prompt 'paper'
Harry stares Draco down from across the classroom as the new Transfiguration teacher drones on about the limitations of Reparifarge on magical creatures.
He keeps staring as Draco smirks, lips pulled thin and cruel as he slowly drags the edge of the parchment along the edge of a long, pale finger.
Harry's knuckles go white around the edge of the desk as pain slices through the bond and down his own finger. Bastard.
He holds Draco’s gaze. Had enough?
A pale eyebrow quirks in reply, the drawl clear in Harry’s mind. You wish.
A tongue flicks out to lick the wound, pink and wet. A sharp inhale mingles with a soft exhale. Pale lips part and Harry clenches his own hand as warm breath curls around the finger inside his fist. Draco’s now-familiar, wounded layer of being skitters over the surface of his own broken skin, broken self, a blanket of barbed wire.
Harry grits his teeth, the sucking heat of Draco’s mouth on his finger tantalising and taunting. The ghost of the Sectumsempra scar prickles, pulling at the skin across his chest.
Draco gives a sardonic smile, the scar on his lip pulled taught. Had enough?
Harry grins, sharp and sweet, adjusting his tie before subtly pressing a thumb into the hollow of his throat. The place he knows Draco likes to be pressed when Harry fucks into him fast and harsh as they trade softly whispered insults in the dead of night.
You wish.
Draco blanches, a roiling double shot of hatred and lust from them both muddling together in Harry’s gut. A heady cocktail poured neat from the bond.
It races through Harry's bloodstream, and he feels alive again.
Written for the @drarrymicrofic prompt Space Song. This one came to me quick and has more to do with the overall vibes of the song than any one lyric.
(TW: Vague suicide ideation)
Little Fires
The biting chill of the October night was worse up on the roof. Draco pulled his coat tighter, but the wind still found a way to seep through the cracks.
He only had a few moments of incomplete city quiet before he heard the metal door swing open behind him and he felt the prickle of a warming charm settle over his skin. Heavy footfalls stopped beside him, uncomfortably close if only for the fact that the body next to him was better than any warming charm could have hoped to be.
“Abandoned my party?” Draco asked. “Rather rude of you.”
“I fought against it,” Potter said earnestly.
“Pansy and I spent ages tracking down alcohol the Muggle way,” Draco continued. “Least you could do is appreciate it.”
“The trial shouldn’t have even happened, you were already cleared. Hermione said Muggles have something called Double Jeopardy—can’t be tried for the same thing twice. She thinks—”
“Where’s Ginerva?”
Potter huffs. “She’s fine.”
“What would she think, poor thing. Leaving her to spend time with little old me.”
“Don’t worry about her, Malfoy, I’m trying—”
Draco flicked his fingers and watched the fire dance on his fingertips. They broke his wand but they’d never break his magic.
“Worry about yourself.”
Potter touched Draco’s fingertips, snuffing out the little fires one by one. “No.”
Draco leaned against the ledge. He used to look down, calculate the distance to the ground, if he’d have enough time to regret his decision between jump and impact. Tonight he looked up. He could only see the crescent moon and a few of the brightest stars, nothing like the world he used to know, but it was enough.
"I forfeit," Harry groaned from where he was sitting at the other end of the couch under a pile of students' papers. Draco looked over at him, smiling in spite of himself at the way Harry had shoved his glasses up into his hair to rub his eyes. "They win, I'm a terrible teacher and they've learned nothing."
Draco rolled his eyes, "Don't be dramatic."
His boyfriend shoved several rolls of parchment on to the floor and out of the way so he'd have a clear view of Draco, and then he glared at him, "Draco, the question was 'name the wispy, smoke like creature that lures travelers to their deaths by posing as guides in marshes'?"
"And?"
"Their answers? A mermaid," he said, holding up one paper, "As though mermaids are going to pop out onto the land in marshes!"
"Well, you didn't necessarily say they were coming on land."
"I did say they were wispy and smoke like, though!" he protested. "And they know what mermaids look like! They've seen them in real life."
Draco nodded his head, conceding the point.
"And this student," Harry said, waving a second parchment, "wrote, werewolves."
Draco bit the inside of his lips to keep from laughing but Harry didn't seem to notice.
"But at least those two had creatures that are related to what we study in Defense Against the Dark Arts," he continued. "This student wrote 'pygmy puffs!' Fucking pygmy puffs, Draco! They're not even a creature that a person can be in danger from."
At this, Draco couldn't contain it any longer, the laughter he'd been keeping choked back burst past his lips
(Read more below the cut)
"Oh sure," he grumbled, "laugh it up, you arsehole. But you won't be laughing when McGonagall fires me and there's no one to keep your icicle feet warm at night."
"Babe," he said, sympathy winning out over amusement, as he set his own grading off to the side and crawled across the couch and over to Harry, "It's not that bad."
"Yes it is," Harry whined, taking off his glasses and dropping them on the floor, an obvious cue that he was giving up for the night and just wanted to be cuddled, and of course Draco would oblige him. "She's going to think I don't know how to teach."
Draco shoved the rest of the papers off of Harry and settled on top of him, grounding Harry between the couch and his body. "It's not that bad."
"It is!" he protested.
"They're just third years, love," he soothed, stroking Harry's hair back off of his face.
Huffing, Harry replied, "Our third year I had to learn how to cast a corporeal patronus because I was being plagued by dementors. And if I hadn't learned about werewolves I would have died third year."
"More like if Hermione hadn't learned about werewolves," he said.
"But still!"
He shook his head, "Surely someone said the answer was hinkypunks."
"Only like half of them," he groaned.
Draco snuggled closer, forcing Harry to slip lower on the sofa so that they were laying comfortably together. "Then they're doing better than the three of you," he said.
"I'm serious!"
"So am I," Draco replied. "I'm not trying to minimize the challenge of teaching children to protect themselves but I am saying that if Hermione was the only one of the three of you who learned those things and you turned out alright, they're going to be fine."
"What is that supposed to mean?" he muttered petulantly.
"Oh come on," he said, pressing a kiss to Harry's chest, "You attract trouble. Admit it."
"S'pose that's why I'm dating you," he grumbled, "Merlin knows that trouble is your middle name."
He chuckled, "It's going to be alright," he promised.
"How do you know?" Harry whispered, wrapping his arms around Draco and pulling him impossibly closer.
Draco hummed, "Because it has always been okay. Because we do the best we can and we recognize that even if we do everything right, a child still might not retain what we teach them."
"But-"
"They aren't you," he said softly. "None of them are being asked to save the world."
Harry let out a breath that Draco hadn't realized he'd been holding.
He always forgot that Harry got like this sometimes, forgot that for him Defense had been a matter of life and death. "Kids have their strengths, love. And Defense isn't everyone's strength."
"I just want to be a good teacher," Harry whispered, voice tight.
Draco nodded, "You are. And the kids love you."
Harry was silent for a long moment and Draco knew he was processing and weighing his words.
"They're okay, Harry," he said again. When his boyfriend didn't reply Draco said, "We don't have a war on our hands."
"But that doesn't mean that someday-"
"What's the most important thing?" he asked.
Harry scowled and pursed his lips.
"Come on," he encouraged, "What do we always say is the most important thing whether we're teaching or just being good heads of their houses?"
"Making good small humans," he grumbled.
Draco huffed a laugh, "You say that like you weren't the one using that slogan to push for education reform last summer."
"I know but-"
"Would it make you feel better if I said that half of the fourth years' cauldrons exploded this afternoon because they brewed their potions poorly?"
A little smile curve the corners of Harry's mouth, "Is it true?"
"Yes," he said, kissing a dimple that appeared. "And I don't think it makes me a bad teacher."
"That's because you're not."
He nodded, "I'm not. Because we used that as an opportunity to talk about how it's okay to make mistakes." He kissed Harry's forehead, "I remembered some annoying prat telling me that we were trying to make good humans and I took the high road."
Harry laughed and cuddled closer to Draco, tucking his nose into the crook of Draco's neck.
"It just means we get to try again. No one died, no one got hurt, we just have to try a different approach."
"You're right."
"Mmm," he hummed, brushing his hands along Harry's sides, "My two favorite words."
28. "I loved you, you asshole." | rated t, wc 637, warnings for smoking and kind of rough kissing!
Draco has taken a single drag of his cigarette when Harry stumbles out of the club door, dragging thumping bass into the alley with him. Draco glances away, a futile effort as Harry’s gaze is burning through his skin.
“You–” Harry starts, his voice tight. He kicks at a rock on the pavement, sending it skittering down the alley. “You’re hard to find.”
Draco hums, taking another drag. In his periphery, Harry is nearly crackling with energy, wearing that infernally attractive leather jacket and dark jeans. His curls are short, spilling right over his forehead, vastly different from the shoulder length ringlets Draco used to sink his fingers into.
“You cut your hair.” Draco’s voice is neutral– flat. Exactly what he wants to sound like. But Harry makes a sound low in his throat, and Draco’s stomach clenches tightly.
“That’s what you’re supposed to do after a breakup. When someone leaves without warning,” Harry says. He hasn’t come any closer, but his low voice carries; Draco’s body gravitates toward it instinctively, even after all this time.
“We were never together.”
Harry barks out a sharp laugh. “Bullshit.”
“Six months of fucking isn’t a relationship,” Draco spits, his calm cracking. There’s a sharp inhale and Harry steps back as though he’s been slapped.
“You… you stayed for breakfast,” Harry says softly, and his hurt is so much worse than his anger. “You asked me about my day. I listened when you talked, because I was interested in what you had to say. I…” Harry makes a wet sound, the dim light glinting off his glasses for a second. “Okay. You know what? Fine. I should’ve known that you– that I wouldn’t be enough.”
“Harry–” Draco starts, stricken, but Harry turns away.
“I loved you, you asshole,” he snaps over his shoulder, stepping back into the club, and Draco moves faster than he ever has in his life, flicking his unfinished cigarette to the ground and throwing himself back into the pulsing lights. Music pounds through his chest in time with his heart as he throws himself at Harry, pushing him back against a wall. Harry’s eyes go wide and wary.
“You didn’t love me,” Draco says right into Harry’s ear, close enough to be heard over the music. Under his hands Harry is trembling, heat wavering off his skin “Harry, you didn’t. Don’t say that.”
“I did.” Harry scowls, but he doesn’t shove Draco away, instead flipping them around so Draco’s head thumps against the wall, his hips flush with Harry’s. “You don’t get to tell me what I feel. What I felt,” Harry adds, turning his face away slightly.
“I’m not something to be loved,” Draco says desperately, trying to make Harry understand. “I left because I couldn’t ask you for what I want.”
“What do you want?” Harry asks, his lips brushing Draco’s earlobe.
“I– don’t ask me that.”
“What do you want?” Harry repeats, crowding even closer until Draco is shaking. “God, you bastard. I can’t… Draco, what do you want?”
“Everything,” Draco gasps, his entire heart shattering as Harry grabs his wrists and slams them up against the wall. Lights are flashing around Draco, behind his eyelids. “I wanted everything, but I don’t deserve– I can’t– Harry.” Draco closes his eyes as Harry presses a kiss to his jaw, his neck, his exposed collarbone.
“I didn’t stop,” Harry murmurs, and Draco doesn’t understand, his entire mind consumed by desperate heat.
“What?”
“I didn’t stop loving you,” Harry says into Draco’s mouth, his hands pressing bruises into Draco’s wrists the way they used to, as though he isn’t planning to let go. “Be with me, for real. I know we’re not perfect, I know we’re not, but– Draco, baby, please–”
Draco kisses him, all teeth, a string of yes yes yes lost in their shared breath.
written for @drarrymicrofic august 27 prompt | 576 words | G | No Warnings Apply | massive thanks to @nv-md for the help and the beta! we love some slightly sad boys
There was paper everywhere when Harry opened the door. Draco sat in the center of the room surrounded by what appeared to be the contents of an entire forest. He was smudged with ink, streaked purple and blue from the tips of his fingers to the tops of his ears. The ends of his fringe were stained a lavender tint, as though he’d been tugging at it in frustration.
“Draco?” Harry kept his voice low, aiming for soothing, afraid of startling the other boy.
Draco startled anyway. He jerked in his seat and pages fluttered around him like butterflies, sending the sea of paper across the floor into motion like the shifting sands of the desert, or a gentle wave in the Black Lake. Wide grey eyes snapped to Harry’s and he could hear the harsh breath Draco sucked in from his place in the doorway.
“What are you doing?” Harry asked, after the silence had stretched on a beat too long, and Draco blinked hard.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he whispered, eyes darting around at the hundreds of papers strewn about the room.
Draco tensed, panic in his eyes as he moved for his wand but stopped short. Harry let his eyes fall from Draco to the papers at his feet, finally taking in the writing on the pages.
Variations of his own name stared back at him. Hundreds of Harrys littered the floors, scratched out half-written letters below them. When he eventually looked back to Draco, he found the other boy frozen.
“Have you been trying to write back all this time? I thought you didn’t want to talk to me anymore…“
“Harry, Harry, no.” Draco’s voice broke.
Harry could see tears welling in Draco’s eyes from the doorway, and that finally pushed him into the room. He waded through the mess of paper until he could drop to his knees in front of the other boy, taking Draco’s shaking, purple stained hands into his own.
“You didn’t reply… and I thought—”
“Harry, no. I — I wanted to. But how could I possibly? You’re so good. You’re so good and I’m just me, and how could I possibly —”
“Did you even read what I wrote? Good? Draco I’m nowhere near good. I’m so fucked up it’s... and you? Just you? There is no just about you.”
Harry tightened his grip on Draco’s hands and looked away, feeling tears prickle behind his own eyes.
“I thought I had you — not, not like that. I thought we were friends. I thought you wanted to be… maybe more than that. I feel more like myself when I’m with you, like just Harry, instead of what they all want me to be. I didn’t mean to overwhelm you. I just thought—”
Harry didn’t get to finish sharing what he thought, because Draco was tackling him to the ground, sending paper up into the air like so many birds. He buried his face into the dip between Harry’s neck and shoulder and took a gasping breath.
“You have me,” he choked out, “you have me, you do. But are you sure you want me?”
Harry wrapped his arms around Draco’s shaking body, pressed his palms tightly against his shoulder blades, clung to him like he’d never let go — and considered that he might not.
“Yes, yes,” he said into Draco’s hair, not caring how his voice broke in the middle. “Draco I’m sure.”
►Navigating the world post-war is better with friends.
—
Fest/Exchange
1. Frequency by @frenchmarshmalloww [T, 3k]
►Where Harry is not sure how to use a iWiz and Draco is in for a surprise.
★ 2021 Summer Writin’
2. The Stars on the Calendar by @anaxandria-writes & @mystickitten42 [T, 2k]
►Harry accepted there were many things he and Draco would always argue about. He just didn’t think sex would ever be one of them.
★ Exploding Snap: A Drarry Game/Fest | @gameofdrarry
Written for @drarrymicrofic prompt: Paper. 850 words. No warnings! Rated G. Thank you so much to @phoebedelia for looking through this!
Very much inspired by that not-in-the-books scene in the PoA movie where Draco blows a paper crane at Harry (which cracks me up every time). Enjoy! <3
~*~*~
Teddy Lupin hates strangers.
At four years old, he is wary of unfamiliar faces. He is only comfortable with Grandma and Uncle Harry, because he spends the most time with the two of them. Without either of them, he doesn’t feel safe. He cries loudly whenever he finds himself around people other than his grandmother and his godfather, much to the chagrin of Uncle Harry’s friends. Initially, everyone attributed Teddy’s reactions to ‘stranger anxiety’, and accepted it. But lately, Uncle Harry has begun looking more troubled whenever Teddy acts up around his friends.
One day, while playing with his stuffed baby dragon in the sitting room, Teddy overhears Uncle Harry talking to Grandma in the hallway.
“What if he doesn’t like him?” Uncle Harry sounds distressed.
“We won’t know until we try,” Grandma says kindly.
Teddy continues playing with his dragon, turning his hair green to match the stuffed toy’s colouring.
Several days later, Teddy is playing with the dragon again, but this time he’s in his own bedroom. He looks up to see Uncle Harry standing by the door with a nervous smile on his face.
“Hi, Teddy, may I come in?”
Teddy nods, and Uncle Harry steps in and sits wordlessly next to him on the carpet.
Uncle Harry waits for a while before speaking. “There’s someone I want you to meet. He’s your family.”
“Only Uncle Harry and Grandma are family,” Teddy protests petulantly, hugging the stuffed toy close to himself.
Uncle Harry heaves a heavy sigh. “We are, but you’re allowed to have a bigger family than just the three of us. Give this person a chance, please. I love him and he’s been looking forward to meeting you and he is literally your cousin.”
He trails off and sends Teddy an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Teddy. If you’re uncomfortable, I can tell him to come another day.”
“No,” Teddy blurts out, immediately biting his tongue after. Seeing Uncle Harry upset makes his chest feel heavy and he hates it. “I can meet him today.”
Uncle Harry sighs again, but this time in relief. “That’s great, Teddy! Er, wait here. I’ll go get him.” He leaves Teddy’s room for a short moment. When he comes back, he is followed closely by a slender man with a strikingly fair complexion, sharp features and sleek blond hair. He is dressed entirely in dark colours.
When he steps into Teddy’s room, Teddy immediately stands up and hides behind Uncle Harry’s legs.
Uncle Harry starts to grumble but the man places a gentle hand on Uncle Harry’s arm.
Then he slowly lowers himself to his knees until he is just below Teddy’s eye level. He looks at the stuffed dragon trapped between Teddy’s chest and elbow. “Is he your friend?” he asks softly, almost like a whisper.
Teddy nods, gripping Uncle Harry’s trousers.
“Then I’m your friend, too,” the man says cheerfully, holding out a pale hand at Teddy. “My name is Draco. It means dragon.”
Teddy takes a moment to study this new man. He reaches out, taps Draco’s fingers and instantly draws his hand back.
Draco appears amused. He places both palms on the carpet and regards Teddy fondly. “What do you like about dragons?”
Teddy glances up at Uncle Harry, who nods at him in encouragement. “They can fly,” he answers.
“Then you’ll like this gift from me.” Draco reaches into his jacket and takes out a square piece of yellow paper. He shows it to Teddy and then starts folding it.
Teddy watches Draco’s nimble fingers work, entranced. Uncle Harry is just as silent and probably just as mesmerized.
When Draco is done, the paper has taken the shape of a creature with wings, a long neck and a sharp beak. “This is a paper crane,” he explains, balancing the paper crane on one palm. “I can make it fly. Look.”
Draco purses his lips and blows on the paper crane. Teddy gasps when the paper comes to life and starts flapping its wings. It leaves Draco’s hand and flies around Teddy’s head, much to the boy’s delight.
“More!” Teddy squeals, jumping back and spinning as he watches the paper crane fly. “Draco, more!”
“Yes, let’s make more. Together,” Draco says. “If we fold one thousand of them, Uncle Harry will grant you a wish!”
Teddy looks up at Uncle Harry, who laughs at the hope in the boy’s eyes. “Sure, anything you want, Teddy.”
They don’t manage to make one thousand paper cranes that day, of course, but Teddy manages to fold one entirely on his own without Draco’s help after about twenty attempts. He is so happy with his achievement that he gives Draco a hug, his own hair mimicking Draco’s shade of blond. When Teddy pulls back, he catches Uncle Harry smiling happily at them.
It takes them a week to finish one thousand multicoloured paper cranes. When Uncle Harry asks him for a wish, Teddy glances at both his godfather and Draco, who are sitting together with their clasped hands between them.
“I wish,” Teddy says, beaming, “for a big, happy family.”
If there was such a thing as too much love and cuteness this would be it!!! Draco using his paper crane making skills for good instead of evil this time is lovely ❤️❤️❤️ little teddy is making my heart soar
"It's only on paper," Draco repeats somewhere behind his back, politely distanced, and Harry’s fingers draw closer around the pen he’s holding. It’s all right. Draco’s right.
It’s just on paper.
"Thank you for agreeing to this," Draco tries again, his manners getting the better of him. It makes Harry strangely furious to see him so casual about it. The ring rests around Draco’s slender finger and Harry wonders if it’s the spell that makes the metal so cold.
—
"S'that what the book said?" Harry whispers, trying to busy himself with something solid. Unbuttoning, unzipping, undoing. Kiss, and kiss, and a lick, and they’re both so hard he wonders if it could be real, if Draco means it when he grabs him like that.
"Bind," Draco breathes against his neck and bites down on his clavicle, and the bond tugs a bit harder at Harry's core. It burns, and all his tendons and veins are on fire. His body, an inert network of white-hot lust and regret.
"Seal," Draco whispers into his sternum and the warm air skirts lower and lower until it all melts between Harry's skin and Draco's mouth. "Consummate." It's a moan Harry swallows and it's not the bond, it's not—everything is Draco, around him, inside him, and Harry lets the waves take him, he consummates every inch of Draco like it’s the last time, not the first.
And Harry regrets, he regrets.
Later, his heart and his muscles ache when Draco answers: better safe than sorry in a strange voice, when Harry asks if they need to do it regularly. Harry regrets the day he agreed to this.
And so they do it. Every Friday night, on the clock, they do it like it’s a duty worth dying for, they do it religiously and ardently, they do it until they can’t speak, and until Harry forgets: it’s all on paper.
The Prophet catches wind fairly quickly and it’s a whole thing, and Draco’s trying to be nice about it when he fucks him that night. You don’t really care about that rag, do you Potter, it’s just a paper.
Just paper, Harry thinks. It’s hard to think with Draco’s mouth wrapped around the knobs of his spine, Draco’s fingers making obscene noises around his rim. The cool wood of the dresser is soothing, it helps the thinking because he has to be conscious for this, can’t lose his head when all his dignity is lost, when a magical bond is reduced to a formality, a warrant on his soul his hand had no business signing.
Draco holds him closer, harder than he has any right to.
—
They watch the Black family tree bear another burnt-out hole and Draco doesn’t seem as content as he should. He snaps the book closed, throws it into the fireplace, and then snaps Harry’s belt open, for good measure, for good luck, for the pettiness of it all. He kisses Harry’s paper-thin eyelids and maybe even asks if he’s been getting enough sleep at some point. Harry shuts him up with more kisses and more hands, pushes his face into the bedsheets, pushes himself deeper inside his husband.
Paper husband, paper hope.
—
It’s Friday night and he’s still sore, but it’s not his hips, nor the base of his spine that’s aching. Harry wonders if emotions work like the universe is prone to, if a minus cancels a plus, if every clash of high and low cancels itself out to a neutral.
They should, he thinks. Tells himself it’s slightly better when his heart caves in instead of unfurling, when his body forms a solid line instead of fire-melt desperation. Cold sweat, calm hands, void heart.
The tall, blond-haired man stops him, grabs his wrist. Harry rests his head against the bathroom wall. The stranger fiddles with his ring.
"You're married?"
Harry disrupts the balance, turns him around, presses that unfamiliar face into the tile. The man cranes his neck at just the right angle. “Hey.”
"It’s only on paper," Harry whispers into the empty, parchment-dry kiss.
——
huge thanks to my precious @veelawings for the swift beta <3
Everything we have now, we’ve made with our own bodies.
A nest, from the masticated splinters and frayed fibers of trauma.
The enzymes in our mouths, the acid on our skin, and the saltwater from our eyes catalyzed our remains.
We massage the paste into a home: thin walls separating I’ll never be enough, Harry from you’re everything, Draco.
50 words for @drarrymicrofic’s prompt: Paper
Paper wasps gather fibers from dead wood and plant stems, which they mix with saliva, and use to construct nests made of gray or brown papery material.
Draco’s fascinated by the neon green squares—sticks them everywhere. What starts as an obsession quickly becomes the easiest way to talk, busy as they are.
—
3/9 at 19:00, dinner at R+H’s, put it on your calendar - DLM
I’ll be late tonight, don’t wait up. Love - H
Don’t forget to eat lunch, I packed you extra biscuits - DLM
Everything will be perfect, don’t worry! I love you - H
—
Harry proposes with a bright note attached to the top of the velvet box. ‘Marry me? - H’
Draco, eyes wet with tears, clicks his pen and writes. ‘Yes - DLM’
Went all in on fluff this week, for the @drarrymicrofic prompt: paper. Thank you to @softlystarstruck for the beautiful and quick beta work.
Level Hardcore : Wrong Number + Time-Travel + 1st Person POV + Forgotten God
FREQUENCY
Summary :
"No way, no fucking way. It's not him, is it? But how? I don't even have his number. What am I saying, he surely doesn't even own a mobile phone! I have to make sure though."
Where Harry is not sure how to use a iWiz and Draco is in for a surprise.
READ ON AO3
Thank you @m0srael and @avenueofesc for the inestimable help and support :)
Yes, friends, you read that right! I bring you a homegrown, lovingly assembled prompt list from your friendly neighbourhood pervert. Please feel free to join the party, reblog and tell your friends–there’s no minimums or maximums, here, just wholesome dirty fun for everyone who wants to join!
1st: High Protocol |Cock-warming | Collaring
2nd: Medical Play | Uniforms | Violet Wand
3rd: Feminization | Striptease | Revenge Sex
4th: Lactation | Fem Dom | Service Submission
5th: Watersports | Master/slave | Public Sex
6th: A/B/O | Aphrodisiacs | Coming Untouched
7th: Chastity/Cock Cages | Begging | Cuckolding
8th: Bathhouse | Hate Sex | Biting
9th: Gunplay | Mirror Sex | Praise Kink
10th: Asphyxiation | Gags | Deep-throating
11th: Predator/Prey | Knotting | Size Queen
12th: Shibari | Sensory Deprivation | Sounding
13th: Somnophilia | Prostate Milking | Inflation
14th: Handfeeding | Nipple Play | Petplay
15th: Breeding Kink | Gaping | Forced Orgasm
16th: Phone Sex | Crossdressing | Roleplay
17th: Consensual Non-Consent/Rape Roleplay | Bloodplay | Bondage
18th: Xeno | Size Difference | Claiming
19th: Pegging | Spit-roasting | Service Topping
20th: Spanking | Wax Play | Sex Tape
21st: Daddy Kink | Spreader Bar | Creampie
22nd: Harem | Fisting | Overstimulation
23rd: CBT | Punishment | Humiliation
24th: Double Penetration | Sex Toys | Incest
25th: Glory Holes | Partner Swap | Auction
26th: Dirty Talk | Dubious Consent | Fucking Machine
27th: Leather Kink | Clothing Disparity | Corsetry
28th: Sex Magic | Sensation Play | Threesome
29th: Figging | Impact Play | Rimming
30th: Gangbang | Orgasm Control | Body Modification
31st: FREE DAY
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy/Original Male Character(s)
Summary: Sometimes, you need to step back and think about things from a new perspective. Other times, you’ve just got to open your eyes to what you needed all along. HPDM 8th-year FILTH. Please see warnings in notes :)
Written from Harry's POV, this is such a wonderful 8th year fic full of longing and pining and helpless wanting. The UST is delicious and the resolving even more so. Harry is hopelessly captivated and delightfully clueless, and Draco is a scheming, lovable little snake.
This fic is like settling on the sofa with a blanket around you and a nice cup of tea. A delightful story full of warmth, deft characterisation and gentle humour.
FrenchMarshmallow @frenchmarshmalloww - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
