Ten Thousand Forfeit Heartbeats
there are ten thousand forfeit heartbeats
I have placed aside
for safekeeping
Each night, as they set out on their latest mission, Harry feels his heart stop. It hurts for those few moments when it's motionless, but he actually believes it would hurt him more if it didn't happen, if he didn't care so very much.
They don't talk beforehand; they rarely even make eye contact. They can't say goodbye every single day, even though today might be their last. Even though it's not just a simple, vague possibility that they might die, one or both of them, the way it is for ordinary people, something that can be ignored because it's not really that likely. No, for them it's all too likely. They're at war, and people are dying; their friends and acquaintances and strangers and enemies and muggles across the country who were unlucky enough to get in the way.
But each night as they set out, Harry feels his heart stop whenever he sees Draco, as though it's preparing for the way he'll feel if - when - he won't see Draco any more.
Sometimes, when they're curled up together in the relative quiet of the day, and there are no more than a few others milling around this borrowed house that they call home, they laugh at the way they used to be. The way they would snarl and prowl around one other, defensive and attacking all in one. The way they would say the other's name, as though it offended their tongue to shape it, hurt their vocal cords to produce. The way they would pretend to avoid each other, yet sit close in all the classes they shared, write love-hate notes, and secretly follow each other with their eyes.
No secrets now in the way they watch one other, and what pretence is still around is merely surface protection. When they are sent out together (which they always hope for, but never request), they pretend that they are merely two colleagues fighting together, that the lives of all of them, all their friends, all who fight alongside them and all those they fight for is equally precious.
But Harry knows how he felt when Sirius died, how his heart stopped for one ghastly moment, then carried on beating traitorously, as though nothing had happened and the world would carry on. And when Seamus died, and Leah, the little Hufflepuff who had worshiped Harry from afar from the moment she entered Hogwarts, and when he thought Fred and George might have died, his heart didn't give up then. Sometimes, when the need to be silent is greatest, he worries that his heartbeat is so loud that it will give away their position; he wants it to stop for a while just so that it will be quiet. But despite all that evidence, all the times they tell each other that the cause is the important thing, has to be what matters if they're to keep going, not the individuals, Harry knows it will be different if he loses Draco. He knows his heart will stop and that nothing will make it want to start beating again.
just in case you change your mind
and if by that the sun were then to rise
with meaning
I might take them out
and sweetly suffer them
to sight
and breath
with you
"You know the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything?"
"Sure, it's 42." He laughs at the memory.
"No," he says quietly, "it's you."
It's not sentiment, it's just a fact. Neither boy has had anyone to be the meaning in their life before, and neither has been the meaning in anyone's else's life. They've been important, yes, because Draco's a Malfoy and Harry, well, Harry is the famous Harry Potter. But they don't always want to be Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter, and they don't want to be needed because they're tools in a grand plan, or because they're part of a prophecy, or they might be heir to something they had no say in and no desire to even know about. They've given that to each other, that want and purpose and meaning that makes each day important and living wonderful, even in the midst of horror.
It's not sentiment, but it is love.
by my forfeit hearts which beat I swear this true
that you
that you, you are a blood
that runs
so and swiftly through
my what and ever what
my ever
my
my what
my every my is you
There are oaths in the wizarding world, oaths that bind far more tightly than any muggle oath. They've taken them, all the good ones, all the ones that say that they want to be a part of one other, that their lives will be so entwined that nothing, no magical force of good or evil, no muggle or wizard or evil creature, could split them.
They've bled into one other, intentionally and unintentionally. They've sliced their flesh and held the wounds together, whispering charms to make the blood run from vein to vein, marvelling at the sense of intimacy. And they've rescued each other, pressing shaking hands and wadded robes desperately onto gaping wounds. They've both been hurt, many times, but Draco will never hurt Harry, and Harry will never hurt him, not any more.
Draco asked Harry about muggle weddings once, what they were like. Harry didn't know much more than he did, but of course Hermione had all the answers, and also had the sense not to ask why he wanted to know. She told him that there was mention of becoming one flesh, although she couldn't remember the exact words, and laughed when Draco asked what type of magic they could do to make two people one. She said it was just a figure of speech -- muggles were fond of that kind of thing.
Draco is glad that is all there is to it, because now he knows that the bond between Harry and him is far greater than a mere marriage. They really are one flesh, the same blood flows around them. One night they learned that they could even use each other's wand as easily as their own; they'd both lost their wands in the attack, and when they'd found them later, by feel in the dark, they'd picked up the wrong ones, and hadn't felt the difference. It was unheard of, and Snape had scoffed at their claim, until he'd seen them casting spells as fluently as ever, throwing their wands back and forth to each other in a flashy display of teenage showing-off.
there are palaces wherein there I have wept
where I have wondered of your lips
where I have crept upon the dirty floors of if
and licked the bruises of my knees there into peaches
Harry has been captured, been tortured and tormented. He's even lost hope, more than once. He's lain on the damp grass of an old graveyard and run through every painful, ugly if only. But it wasn't for himself, it wasn't his own death that he was fleeing from contemplating. He's grown accustomed to the idea of death, even though his friends tell him angrily that he won't die, not yet, not at the hands of the Dark Lord, not until he's an old, old man if they have their way. They tell him they'll all get through it safely, that one day soon the war will be over and they'll have normal, safe lives again, all of them, but they know that's a lie. Some will, but not all, or even most of them.
He's smiled under torture, and probably unnerved the anonymous hooded Death Eater whose duty it was. He was too far gone to feel the pain anymore, and all he could remember was Draco's lips on his the day before. Draco's lips everywhere, sanctifying him, preparing him. It was all he could feel, soft caresses, worshiping him, giving him a perfect moment to hold onto. It kept him sane when nothing else would have, and staying sane kept him alive.
Draco is his lodestar, then, now, always.
into paradigms
Harry is held up as the image of good, fashioned into that by those who don't know him. Draco knows he'll never be considered truly on the side of right, no matter what he does to prove himself, but he doesn't particularly care, because he knows Harry's flawless image isn't who Harry really is either. Harry's not just the boy-who-lived, he's not summed up by a messy scar, he's not the saviour of the wizarding world, although Draco hopes and even secretly sometimes prays that someone will save the world, and soon. Harry has never been the chubby-cheeked little boy that motherly witches across the country have imagined and sighed over, not in his years with that wretched muggle family that he refuses to discuss, or through his six and a half years at Hogwarts, before his last chance at childhood was cut off abruptly and war began in earnest.
Harry is passion and determination and anger and occasionally, just occasionally, bright happiness. He's sulky and irritable and interrupts too often, but Draco likes all those qualities in him. Perfection in people has never appealed, whether real or merely assumed.
He's not simply a boy with one very visible scar either. Harry has more than one scar, although only the one shows outside his robes. Draco knows all of them, made two of them, held the skin tight around others when they were not scars but red raw wounds. He likes them in a strange way, sees them as reminders of all they've been through together -- they paint survivor over Harry's body. He also likes that only he has seen them all, only he fully knows this almost-adult Harry, only he knows which hurt at night, which have fond memories and have a twin on Draco's own body (their blood-linking scars), which bring a wry smile to Harry's face (the little triangular scar on Harry's hip, from the night he got shit-faced and decided to fly around the Slug and Lettuce, only without his broomstick). He knows all too well which ones hurt him, Draco, more than they hurt Harry -- they're from the times when Harry came too close to being the boy-who-died, and Draco doesn't like to think about that.
There are a lot of things Draco doesn't like to think about. He doesn't think about next week, or tomorrow, or even just tonight, doesn't plan for the future beyond the war tactics that are thrust upon them. He tries to forget most of the past too, the years when he was bitter and full of hate for all the wrong things. All the wrong decisions he made, that he can't undo.
But there is here and now, and sometimes that's far scarier than anything he could ever have imagined a year or two ago, far worse than his father's displeasure or being changed into a ferret or having that huge creature of Hagrid's attack him. But sometimes… sometimes it's good, good enough that the rest doesn't matter for a while, that past and future blur into the distance.
Especially when Harry is here, stopping him from thinking. Looking at him sadly until he comes out of his introspective mood, waiting for Draco to stop regretting and remember to live for the moment, and then lighting up, letting the want show, first in his eyes and then in his eagerness. Undressing fast and a little clumsily, always shedding his clothes in a mess on the floor, until he's naked and hard and full of life and this is a moment Draco doesn't want to waste on thinking about all the shit in their lives, not when he can be naked too.
And he is naked, pale against Harry's darker skin, their limbs otherwise almost a mirror image. Beautiful together, lean and battle hardened, scarred and often bruised, but still beautiful.
I do not give one single shit
for anything less
than my happiest thought
Harry's not sure what he wants right now. He wants Draco inside him, he wants to be inside Draco, he wants his mouth on Draco's cock, he wants Draco's mouth anywhere on him, he wants to kiss and be kissed, bite and be bitten, lick and suck and feel everywhere. Not even magic can give him all that in one instant, but it should keep them safe and undiscovered for a while, for long enough.
Nothing else matters at this moment. There's only now, and now is good, and, oh fuck, really good. "Yes, like that. More."
Draco's sliding down him now, that absorbed look that he'd interrupted turned entirely on Harry. He's engrossed in Harry now, watching his reactions, smiling as Harry shudders under the trail of nips and bites.
Skin so thin, sensitive, he feels even the faintest touch.
Even more sensitive there, just there, the delicate groove of flesh in the crease of his leg. Soft, wet mouth, warm, then cold as the lingering tongue leaves and chill air drifts over. He starts to complain, a vague whimpering sound, and Draco looks up, grins for long enough for Harry to start to glare down at him, then…
Heat.
Wet.
Draco's mouth around his cock. No more teasing, no more going slow.
Harry thrusts his hips forward, can't help it. Draco rocks with him, back and forth, kneeling now, hands grasping Harry's arse, fingers squeezing tight.
Harry needs more though, more even than this, Draco inside him. He pushes, against narrow shoulders that are stronger than they look.
Draco lets go, slithers off his cock with an obscene plop, looks up with why written in the arch of his eyebrows. Sees the answer on Harry's face, and he's pulling himself up, turning around, and before Harry knows it they're twisted around and Draco's against the wall, leaning forward, pulling Harry up behind him, welcoming him in.
A grab for wands and quick muttered spells from both of them, and they're laughing because they're so slick it's ridiculous. Harry leans against Draco's back, shaking a little from laughter and from desire. Grabs his cock and positions himself against the crack of Draco's arse.
"Okay?" he queries. He wants it tight and hard. Some days he loves to feel inside Draco, watch his fingers sink inside, knuckle by knuckle, until he's caressing him, twisting and turning, but not today. He can't wait today.
Draco presses his hands against the wall. "Now, do it, now." His voice is low, but cracks before he can finish the sentence.
Harry pushes in, slowly, the head of his cock stretching Draco's hole. Draco's starting to sweat, tiny beads glistening motionless on his back, shivers rippling down his torso with each movement from Harry.
Harry rests his head against Draco's shoulder, murmuring into his skin, words that are more vibration than sound. Presses in more, feels Draco's body adjusting around him, letting him in. He could lose himself in him, lose his mind, it's so much, this love and lust.
He holds onto a slim hip with one hand, and reaches around for Draco's erection, still curving proudly up, despite the discomfort he must be feeling. Jerks his hand up, tries not to be rough, but he's fully in Draco now and he needs to move. And Draco knows, as ever, and is moving away, then slamming back, a solid slap, until Harry takes over the movement.
It's too much, his brain is shorting, and he's trying to jerk Draco off and go just that bit faster, needs it faster, harder, faster, and Draco's hand is joining his, pumping, fingers sliding over each other in the lube they magicked all over themselves. And he's coming, and he can feel the heat from his come spreading into Draco.
Slides his head across Draco's back, nuzzling his shoulder blades, as he keeps coming. Rests a moment, moments, he's not sure how long, but he feels loose inside Draco, yet he doesn't want to move. Draco's hand is doing all the work on Draco's cock now, Harry's just resting there, feeling the weight and warmth.
He's vaguely aware that sleep is creeping up on him as he feels the warm wetness of Draco's come trickling over his fingers, shudders softly rolling through them both. Thinks he should say something meaningful to match the moment, say how happy he feels, but guesses that Draco will understand anyway as they slide to the ground, tangled like newborn puppies.
He wishes he could fight sleep, make this day last. But they don't have long, and tonight will be dangerous enough as it is, and even more so if they don't sleep now.
He's not sure if he's asleep or not when he hears a whispered "I love you." He says it back, just in case he is still partly awake, and holds Draco tighter.
They have two hours to sleep.
a truer me to see me through
sees this:
Tonight's mission is meant to be an ambush, but the ambushers have been ensnared themselves, trapped in a garden that smells of sweet jasmine and fear and must have been beautiful this morning. It's happened before, and Draco knows that some point the finger at him as the traitor within their ranks, and will do so again, and that Harry always sturdily stands up for him. But now they're in the middle of it, and there's no time for recriminations, no time to think or use finesse, just throw hexes and block curses and hope that the shadows he can see out of the corner of his eye are on their side.
It's dark, and the only colour besides black is the green of curses that flash up too frequently for their eyes to adjust to the dark. Draco doesn't need light to see Harry though. He knows Harry's by his side, where he always is, shoulder to shoulder.
your eyes are closed
and you love me
I pay the forfeit heartbeats, all the borrowed ones, the stolen ones, the ones I should never have had, every one since I was a baby. All the thousands of heartbeats my mother never had, the remaining few that Dumbledore sacrificed, all forfeit now. I pay happily, because your eyes are closed and you love me.