Work Text:
Draco chuckled against Harry’s mouth, one hand on his shoulder as he shifted on the bed. Harry kept his hands in his lap, unsure of what to do, trying to relax, let it happen. The kiss grew clumsy, too much teeth, too fast too soon. Draco pulled away. Harry’s stomach sank. But the other man’s smile was soft, confused but kind.
“Slow down, Potter,” he murmured, his hand brushing against Harry’s neck, fingers threading into his curls. “Just enjoy it.”
Harry frowned. “What do you mean, slow down?” he asked. Draco pulled back more, his smile growing into disbelief. He raised an eyebrow, his ocean grey eyes searching Harry’s face. Harry felt the thrum of his pulse deep in his gut, beating against the nausea building in his twisting stomach. “Show me,” Harry insisted. “Please.”
Draco cocked his head to one side. His hand fell away, and he leaned back, his lips pressed into a thin line as he considered Harry. “You do… want this, right?” he asked slowly.
Harry nodded – yes, of course, he wanted this… right? Sure, his movements were mechanical, and every second he was thinking through his next touch, what he was supposed to be doing to make Draco feel good, but that was normal, right? The ease with which he saw other people kiss and hold each other, the passion he saw on the telly, that just came with practice, right? It’s not like everyone just innately knew what to do, right? Right? Realisation dawned horribly in his chest as the nausea threatened to claw up his throat. Draco’s cheeks grew pale watching Harry.
“You don’t, do you? Is this some kind of joke?”
“No, no, Draco, that’s not – ” Harry fumbled with his words, not knowing how to explain, what to explain. Draco was moving further and further away from Harry and he reached out, trying to grab hold of Draco’s arms, his knee, anything. But Draco was shaking his head.
“I don’t understand,” Draco said, his voice choked. “I thought… I thought you actually liked me. But I must have been wrong.”
“No, God, Draco, I do, I like you, please – ”
“So what the fuck is going on?”
“I- I don’t know. I thought…”
Draco’s expression twisted and he pushed off the bed, grabbing his jacket from the back of the armchair. “Owl me when you figure it out, then,” he spat. He tried to fill his words with venom, but Harry saw the hurt flashing in his eyes like lightening. Harry stood, tried to reach for him, tried to tell him to stay – but Draco spun away, and with a pop, he Apparated away, leaving Harry alone in his room.
Harry collapsed onto his bed and buried his face with his hands, pushing his glasses up into his curls. “What’s wrong with me?” he whispered into his palms, hot tears pricking at his eyes. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”
-
He went to the only person he knew would have all the answers – Hermione. Harry stepped through the fireplace straight into her arms. Harry held her close, breathing in the smell of her floral perfume, magnolia and jasmine. She sat him down on the threadbare couch she and Ron had found on the side of the road, brought him a cup of strong tea and a plate of biscuits, the gingersnap ones he liked. He mumbled through his thanks, not entirely trusting his voice. Hermione just smiled and sat next to him, hands folded in her lap. There was a hole in the toe of her black stockings. Harry focused on that, knowing that if he looked Hermione in the eye, he would fall apart.
“So, what did you want to talk about?” she prompted him. “All your letter said was that you were worried something was wrong. Is it your scar? Did something happen?”
Harry shook his head, then paused. “Something…did happen… or rather, didn’t happen.”
Hermione picked up her tea, took a sip, patiently waiting for him to continue. Harry picked at a loose thread in his jeans. His teeth worried the scab on his lip from where he had bitten so hard he’d bled, the pain grounding him, sending sharp sparks through his system. Pain he could understand. Pain was manageable.
“We… Draco and I… we were, er, snogging, and er….” His cheeks burned. God, why had he brought Hermione into this? He should just bury it all deep down, keep a stiff upper lip about it, and…die alone. But then he thought of Draco, and his heart broke a little more. “I think there’s something wrong with me,” he said finally. “I want to kiss him, I guess, I want him, but I just,” he gestured vaguely at himself, “I can’t respond properly. It doesn’t work. It’s all mechanical and awkward and uncomfortable, and I thought that was the way it was for everyone but… Draco said I should enjoy it and I realised that I … don’t.”
He wiped furiously at the tears building in the corners of his eyes. He could feel Hermione’s gaze on him, heavy and pitying, and he bit down on his lip, desperate for the pain to focus him, as it always did.
“Has it always been like this for you?” Hermione asked gently. Harry nodded once, staring at his knees. “Oh, Harry. Sweetheart.” Then her arms were around him again, and he let her pull him into a hug, crushing his face against her shoulder as he fought back a sob. The wool of her sweater chafed against the sensitive skin around his eyes, and he could feel the fabric soaking up the tears he tried to hold back. He curled his fingernails into his palms, needing any other pain than this, anything but the crushing weight in his chest as his ribs collapsed into his heart. Hermione rubbed his back, shushing him and murmuring reassurances as she pressed her cheek to the top of his head. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s okay, I promise.”
“What is wrong with me?” he choked out, his words muffled against her shoulder. Hermione was quiet. She kept rubbing his back, up and down.
“I don’t know,” she admitted after a long silence. “Or, rather, I should say, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you.”
Harry sat back, rubbing away the tears and sniffling as he looked her in the eye for the first time that day. He knew that expression – Hermione’s gaze was distant, flipping through book after book in her mind, searching her internal library for answers. She blinked, her brown eyes refocusing. She smiled, and took Harry’s hands in hers, uncurling his fingers from their tight fist.
“Let me look into it, okay? I’m sure there’s an answer somewhere. I’ll go to the library and – ” Her smile broadened as Harry let out a wet chuckle because of course she was going to the library, where else would she go? “I’ll let you know what I find as soon as I can, okay? You’re lucky you got me on my day off, and it’s still early, I can spend the rest of the day there. Oooo, this is exciting! I haven’t been to the library for fun in ages! Or, not fun, but you know what I mean.” She squeezed Harry’s hands, her face lit up with the prospect her entire day off deep in the stacks of the local library. Harry forced a smile.
“Thanks, Hermione,” he whispered, voice still thick from the swallowed tears. “You’re the best.”
Hermione pulled him into a one arm hug and rested her head on his shoulder with a sigh. “I know,” she said. “You and Ron wouldn’t last a day without me.” She smiled when Harry laughed. “If they wrote a book about our adventures, it should be titled, Hermione Saves the Day Again by Reading. Or, Hermione and the Times She Saved Two Idiots from Certain Death by Doing Some Actual Research.”
Harry giggled. But when his laughter passed, Hermione could feel the weariness in the slow rise and fall of his shoulders. She gave him a tight, reassuring squeeze.
“You don’t think… it’s because of Voldemort, do you?” he asked. Hermione sighed. There it was, the question neither of them wanted to consider. “Could having part of his soul in me all those years have cursed me or something? Messed with my ability to love?” His voice broke and he bit his lip. He tasted blood. He took a shaking breath in through his nose, let it out.
“No,” Hermione said firmly. “No, I don’t think that’s possible. I know you, Harry James Potter, and you love people so fiercely that it puts the rest of us to shame. Do you hear me? Never think for a second that Voldemort took that from you, because it is simply not possible. You hear me?” She waited for him to nod, then sat up. “Now, I love you, dear, but if I’m going to get to the library, you need to go. Maybe get dinner with Ron, because goodness knows I’m not going home until the library kicks me out.”
Harry laughed. “Alright, I’ll send him an owl. I should go, anyway, do adult things around the house like laundry and all that.” He stood shakily. Hermione got up and gave him one last hug. She watched him go, returned his wave as he stepped through the flames. The minute he was gone, she summoned her purse and ran off to the library. Research called.
-
Draco looked up from the book he was pretending to read when he heard the knock on the door. He frowned. Had Pansy forgotten something? She had been by earlier that night, commiserating with Draco over a bottle of wine older than both of them combined. It had been a week since the fiasco at Potter’s, and while he had insisted to Pansy that he was fine, really, he’d lived without Potter before, he could do it again, she had just looked at him over her glass and he knew she saw right through him. Tonight, when she showed up with the wine, he didn’t even try to lie.
“I just can’t believe he led me on like that!” he said again after his second glass. Pansy refilled her cup, then emptied the rest of the bottle into Draco’s half-full glass.
“I know, darling,” she said. “Honestly, you deserve better than that.”
Draco groaned. He ran his fingers through his hair, which he hadn’t had the energy to style properly in days. The strands ran thin and flat through his hands. “Better than the fucking Chosen One?” he grumbled. “Not likely.”
That had been three hours ago. He had properly sobered up, drank a cup of tea, and was curled up on his sofa wrapped up in his silk bathrobe and a cosy blanket, doing everything Pansy had said qualified for ‘self-care’. Because he didn’t need a man in his life, and he definitely didn’t need to be pining after Harry ‘Golden Boy’ Potter. He was fine. He was great. He was –
The knock came again, louder this time. Draco let out a huff and set his book down. He got up, tying his bathrobe tighter around himself as he made his way to the front door of his townhouse. “I’m coming,” he called grumpily when whoever was disturbing his peace knocked for the third time. “Galloping gargoyles, calm your tits, I’m co- Harry.”
Harry stood on his doorstep with a sheepish look. He was huddled in his vintage leather jacket against the November cold, his thick black curls dampened slightly by the heavy mist outside. He pushed his glasses up nervously, but they couldn’t have done much to help his vision, fogged up and speckled with water as they were. Draco’s heart squeezed tight in his chest. He pursed his lips, crossing his arms as he looked Harry up and down.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. When Harry pulled out a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket, Draco’s eyebrows disappeared into his fringe. “The fuck is that?”
“It’s an explanation,” said Harry. He looked up at Draco through his thick lashes, a ruddy blush spreading across his cheeks, and Draco had to remind himself to breathe. “I owe you an explanation,” Harry continued. “Can I come in? If you still don’t want me after, you can throw me back out. But please, just let me try and explain.”
Draco frowned. He knew, in that moment, that Harry could commit murder and he would forgive him. Hell, Harry could kill him and he would forgive him. He sighed and stepped aside to let Harry in. “I will throw you out if you’re explanation is shit,” he told Harry as he came inside.
“I know,” Harry said, even as he took off his jacket and hung it up on the coat rack, knelt down to unlace and take off his boots, just like it was just another normal date. His smile was nervous, though, when he turned back to Draco. He took his glasses off to clean them with the hem of his shirt, and that’s when Draco saw the dark, heavy shadows under those summer green eyes. Draco turned away and stalked off to the living room, knowing without looking that Harry would follow.
Draco sat down on the sofa, one arm resting on the back as he crossed his ankle over his knee, regal and ready to pronounce judgement. All of this was lost on Harry, however. He sat down next to Draco, still holding the piece of paper in his hands. There was a dark red patch on his bottom lip. Draco tried to hide the concern that strained inside his chest at the sight, knowing exactly what it meant. Harry was hurting himself again. Over him.
Harry cleared his throat. He didn’t look at Draco as he stared at the words on the paper.
“I talked to Hermione,” he began slowly. Draco raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. “She did some research, and we, er, talked it over.” He readjusted his sweating grip on the paper, took a deep breath, and blurted out, “I think I might be asexual.”
Draco blinked.
“What does that mean?” he asked. “If I cut off your finger, would I be able to grow my own Potter?”
Harry snorted, an ugly sound so endearing to Draco that he couldn’t help his smile at it now. Harry licked his dry lips, his gaze still trained on the paper in his hands. “No, that’s not – it means I don’t experience sexual attraction,” he said quickly. “I… I try, and it doesn’t… it doesn’t work for me like that. There’s nothing wrong with me,” he added, as if trying to persuade himself more than Draco, “I just don’t experience attraction the same as most people do.”
When Draco said nothing, Harry looked up at him, his green eyes wide, vulnerable and afraid. “Draco?” he said. “Please say something. Anything.”
Draco leaned forward, his elbows braced against his knees. He opened his mouth, thought better, and closed it again. He fidgeted with the signet ring on his right hand, twisting it around and around as he frowned, deep in thought. When Harry reached out and put his hand over Draco’s, he didn’t pull away. He looked up. Harry had never learned how to hide his emotions. Draco read them all as they played out across Harry’s face – fear, anxiety, love. Draco turned his hands, held Harry’s in both of his. And there – there was hope, right there in the slight raise of his eyebrows, the tightness in the corner of his mouth.
“I understand,” Draco said, his voice quiet but as gentle as he could make it. “Well, I don’t really understand, but I’ll try. It’s just a lot to process.”
Harry let out a scoffing laugh and ducked his head. “You have no idea,” he said with a crooked smile. “I didn’t know there was a word for how I felt, or that it was different from everyone else. I thought….” He swiped at his eyes with his free hand, looked away to hide the tears threatening to slip down his cheeks. He let out a shaking breath. Draco squeezed his hand, waited for Harry to speak. “When I realised,” Harry continued in a broken whisper, “that I – my experience wasn’t normal, I was convinced there must be something wrong, that maybe being a Horcrux for so long had damaged me somehow. But Hermione assures me that it’s perfectly normal.” He frowned at their joined hands, threaded his fingers through Draco’s and held tight.
“I don’t know where to go from here,” he murmured. “I don’t know if I can ever give you what you want. With Ginny, we did everything but sex, and it was the same for me with her, I just…went through the motions. It’s just… it’s stupid.” He pulled up the collar of his shirt to wipe at his nose. Draco grimaced, but didn’t reprimand Harry for his gross habits, just schooled his expression back into one of patient attention as Harry continued. “I want to be with you,” he insisted as he looked up at Draco earnestly. “You – God, you make me so happy. And I – I want to show you how much I care for you, I want to make you feel good, I-I really do, but… I don’t know how. Does that make sense?”
Draco nodded slowly, mulling Harry’s words over in his head. He pursed his lips. “So,” he said, “last time… it wasn’t because you don’t like me, you just don’t… know how to be with someone like that?”
Harry shrugged. His eyes were so big behind his glasses, he looked ten years younger, just like he had back in Madame Malkin’s shop, trying so hard to not look scared shitless. But this time, Draco didn’t sneer at him. He nodded again, and let the ghost of a smile cross his lips.
“Okay,” he murmured. “Okay. So you want to be together?” Harry nodded.
“I really do,” Harry whispered.
Draco didn’t say a word. Instead, he pulled Harry against him, leaning back against the armrest and letting Harry snuggle up against his chest with his feet tucked up on the cushions. He held Harry there with one arm, his other hand running through Harry’s curls as he peppered kisses on the top of his head, his forehead, his nose. Harry took off his glasses so that they didn’t dig into Draco’s chest, and Draco took them from him, put them carefully on the end table next to the sofa. For a long time, they were quiet, just holding each other. Draco breathed in the smell of Harry’s damp hair and warm spiced cologne, his exhale ruffling Harry’s hair. Harry absentmindedly played with the tie of Draco’s bathrobe.
“This is a lot to take in,” Draco said slowly. Harry hummed. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been going through,” he added, cradling Harry against his chest, burying his nose in Harry’s curls. Harry wrapped his arms around Draco’s waist, pressed his forehead against Draco’s collarbone. “But we’ll figure it out. Together. Okay?”
Harry raised his head. Draco’s heart squeezed painfully at the slightly unfocused look on his face. Gods, he really was blind without his glasses.
“Even if I can’t… you know?”
Draco rolled his eyes with a chuckle. “Harry, I’m not going to let you go that easily,” he drawled. He booped Harry’s nose and grinned when Harry wrinkled it with a playful smile. “There’s more to a relationship than just sex, you know.”
Harry’s mouth twitched. “Yeah, but from what I understand, sex is a big part of it,” he pointed out. Draco shrugged.
“As I said, we’ll figure it out. That’s the point, right? That we figure things out together?”
Harry beamed. “You’re an absolute sap, you know that?”
“Shush, you. That knowledge goes with you to the grave.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Scared, Malfoy?” he teased. Draco laughed and gave his boyfriend a quick, chaste kiss.
“You wish.”