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"We shouldn't be doing this…"
Harry murmured into the sensitive skin above Draco's clavicle.
That was one thing they could agree on.
Draco pulled him closer, working the button of his trousers loose.
"You know where the door is…"
Right behind them, as usual: broom cupboards in the halls of Hogwarts, shower cabins in Quidditch locker rooms, toilet stalls in bars or nightclubs. Tonight? A cloakroom at a Ministry gala.
The way out was always so close, but neither of them ever took it.
What was the harm in one last time?
But every time was the last time. It's what they said. What they meant.
They could go weeks, months — more than a year once — with meaning it, but only if they stayed far away. Away from each other, their lives proceeded as expected. Harry, hero of the wizarding world; Draco, scion of the Malfoy family. Two orbits that had no reason to cross.
But when they did, inexorably pulled back towards each other as they were, all expectations and intentions vanished.
The moment Harry walked through the double-doors of the ballroom and locked eyes with Draco, they'd known where it would lead, the backward slide predictable: awkward avoidance, stiff greetings, polite small talk, a brush of the hand, eyes that said, "I miss you," the world slowly, then rapidly spinning off-kilter.
Bringing them here: entangled with one another amidst a sea of cloaks, wondering if they couldn't just stay in retrograde.