hello goodbye ('twas nice to know you)

The stone wall is damp against his back, the coolness bleeding through his robes, but Draco’s barely paying it any attention because Potter’s got his fist in the front of his shirt and a knee between his legs, breath hot against the dip of his throat, and his brain is spinning a thousand different directions at once.

“Do you have any idea,” Potter growls into his collarbone, “how bloody attractive you are? How I can’t stop looking at you?”

Draco’s hand comes up to grab at Potter’s shoulder, fingers fumbling in his robes to grip, to find something to stabilize himself, because if he doesn’t he’s going to be swept away. Potter mouths at his throat, lips dry against his skin, and Draco keens softly, choking on his air, and it’s everything, it’s perfect, it’s got his heart in his throat and his stomach in knots, and Draco can’t get enough.

He wants to stay here, in the semi-darkness of a dungeon doorway, pressed against the wall forever, because Potter’s against him, pressed against his chest, with his fingers in his clothes and his hair and—

Something heavy thuds into the pit of his stomach and for an instant, Draco can’t breathe. The wall at his back is soft and warm, instead of cool and hard, and there’s familiar, amused laughter somewhere off to his right.

“Fuck off, Blaise,” Draco groans, reaching up and brushing sweaty bangs out of his eyes.

“Love you too, darling, come here and let me help you out of those sticky pajamas…”

Draco flips him off and flings his blankets away, shoving the dream firmly out of his mind. Thankfully, years of practice have made Draco extremely good at pretending he’s not wildly attracted to Harry Potter. He passes Blaise with barely a flicker of a glare and heads for the bathroom.

His reflection in the mirror is pale and irritated as he washes his hands, rolling his sleeves up to the elbows. Black ink catches his eye and he can’t help the little glance downwards he gives his forearms.

One forearm is stained with something that will never move again.

His other forearm hasn’t stopped moving since he made the decision to go back to school for his final year.

Draco shakes his sleeve down over the still, silent Dark Mark, letting the familiar ache of guilt and embarrassment twist his stomach and stifle his breath, and instead focuses on his scrawl.

It’s curled itself down his other forearm, exactly opposite where Voldemort carved the Dark Mark, and his soulmate’s words are a messy, cramped scribble he has to turn his arm horizontal to read properly.

wonder if he’s ok

Draco frowns. His words for years had been insults. Sarcastic little barbs that honestly Draco might have appreciated were they not directed at him, day after day, taunting him from his own skin. Now this – vaguely worried, almost kind words hesitant to pen themselves on his skin.

He’d been convinced his soulmate was a Slytherin for ages, but Draco had managed to systematically weed out every single person in his House over the course of his time at Hogwarts.

He’d been turning his attention to the other Houses – maybe a particularly grumpy Ravenclaw? – before sixth year.

His scrawl hadn’t changed for nearly the entire year he’d spent in Voldemort’s service. He’d sat alone in his room in Malfoy Manor, feeling his head spin and his stomach churn and his left arm sting and stared at his scrawl.