Photo credits: upthehill
I opened the window before going to sleep last night, hoping for some respite from the humid evening. Now, as I turn over in bed, I hear rain tapping lightly against the glass and listen with relief. Tomorrow will be cooler, fresh after the past week of heat and headaches.
Tomorrow. My nineteenth birthday.
I suppose technically it's today, although I'm not sure what time it is now. It's not like it's anything to look forward to. I ignore the familiar clench of anxiety at the thought of another day and stretch my bare legs out against newly cool sheets. It's comfortable here, at least, and peaceful. I'm just drifting, sinking gratefully back to oblivion, when I hear him.
My first thought is that someone's come in through the window. I freeze, and, trying to make no sound, grope for my wand under the pillow.
"Shit."
Sounds like they've stubbed their toe on something. I can see a large shape by the foot of the bed. I find the solid length of hawthorn and slide it out, ready.
"Draco." It's a whisper. Nervous, or excited. I can't tell. The voice is familiar, but‒ "Draco. Are you-?"
There are some cautious footsteps, then the mattress dips as whoever-it-is sits down near my head.
"Ah, there you are." It's weird, but I can hear them smiling in the dark.
"Who the fuck is it?" I grip my wand tighter.
"It's me. Harry."
Merlin. It is, as well. I can see his glasses glinting in the bit of light that slants in through the window.
"Potter. Why are you in my bedroom?"
There's a laugh. I'm starting to think he might be drunk.
"It's a surprise." He's still whispering. "For your birthday."
Drunk, or just idiotic. He sounds sort of giddy.
"If this is your idea of a joke..."
"No joke, Draco." He laughs again. "You thought of it, in fact. Hold on." There's a rustling and then he casts a low Lumos, and I can see him, perched on the edge of the bed, looking a bit wide-eyed. "Oh, wow," he says. "You're really... wow."
I sit up and squint at him. "What?"
"Well. Young."
Something's really off. It's Potter, all right, but- "What the bloody hell is going on?"
He's grinning like a fool. "I've come from the future."
At first I think it's just his hair. His hair actually looks good. But it's not just his hair. It's―
He fumbles in his shirt and brings out something golden, intricate, on a chain. There's a tiny hour glass resting inside a dial, shining in the light from his wand. "I'm from 2005."
His face is different. It's him, but it's different, he's―
"We just celebrated your twenty-fifth birthday together."
"Together." The time travel bit is nothing to the strangeness of that word.
He grins again, a great warm thing, overflowing with humour, and delight, and something like- "Yes. Listen, it's chilly out here. Can I get in?"
It's the middle of the night, and Harry Potter is sitting in my room. He says he's from the future, and he looks older, and he wants to get into bed with me. I've had some fucked up dreams in my time, but―
"You told me that you'd probably think it was a weird kind of dream. You said you had a lot of those the year after the war."
"Merlin, Potter!"
"Don't start freaking out. It's OK. That's what I've come to tell you. It's all going to be OK." He's pulling at the covers, nudging at me until I move over enough for him to scramble onto the bed and tuck his legs in.
He looks around appraisingly. "Your room is nicer than mine was in Eighth Year." He waves at the hangings on the wall. "You've got tapestries, and stuff. And your bed is more comfortable." He bounces a little, making us both sway. "You would have thought they would have given me the better bed, wouldn't you, seeing how I was the Saviour and everything?"
It's so uncanny. His smile is just the same. Bloody brazen. You want to hate it, but you can't, because it's so infectious. The glasses are the same shape, but subtly more stylish. The hair is‒ well, whoever's been giving him advice about his hair knows a thing or two. He looks‒ really good. Fucking good. And his eyes are just as green as ever, and those bloody long black lashes, and-
"I don't understand." My voice sounds higher than I would have liked.
"Don't worry. It is a bit bonkers. It's strange for me, too, coming here, and seeing you like this. You're nineteen, right?"
"Tomorrow. Tomorrow I'm nineteen. Why did you come?"
"I told you. It was your idea. To come and tell you. About us. And everything. That it's all OK. Everything works out, you see. In the end."
"Everything works out." It sounds flat. But there's a tiny bubble of hope creeping along my spine. It's hard not to believe in impossible things, with Potter sitting in my bed grinning like that.
"I know you haven't exactly had a great year."
A scornful noise huffs out of my mouth.
"Yeah. You've told me," he says. "About having to leave the Manor. And people being generally shitty all the time. Thinking you were going to fuck up your NEWTs. Not to mention the nightmares, and-"
"Fuck, Potter, did you turn up simply to remind me how crap my life is?"
"No, that's the thing. In the future, things are different. I just came from your party. You're‒ happy now. Really happy. You love your work, and you like to travel, and‒ Things are good. We're good."
I look at him. There are tiny lines by the corners of his eyes, when he smiles. He looks like he smiles a lot. But this is all bollocks.
"Time turners don't take people back six years," I say. "You can only travel a few hours, and where would you get a time turner from anyway?"
He raises his eyebrows. "Hermione's a marvel. She invents all sorts of things. Then I nick the interesting stuff from her."
"My parents? Are they-" I know it's not real. I just want to hear what he says.
"They're alive, yes. In fairly good health. Your father hasn't changed one bit." He quirks his mouth to one side.
"So what do I do? For work?"
"You design brooms. You're bloody good - in demand. You've been mostly working in Europe, recently." His eyes are shining, fixed on mine. As if he's willing me to believe. "But you come back to London quite a lot, too." He says it quietly.
"Because of..."
"Because of me." He looks into his lap, hiding his smile.
I shake my head. "This is really fucking weird."
"I know, right?" He laughs again. "I seriously never thought things would turn out like this."
"You're telling me that we're‒ a couple. In the future."
"Yup."
"But... you're not even gay."
"Oh, is that right?" His shoulders shake with amusement. He's filled out quite a bit, his arms defined under his shirt, the material tight over his chest. He looks like a man, rather than the gangly boy I saw yesterday in Potions. "Yeah, OK. It took me a while to work it out, too."
I swallow, suddenly aware of my bare legs stretched out next to his under the covers.
"And it took me even longer to... well, to realise that you... that you were... Well. I'm sorry." The corners of his mouth are drooping and he fiddles with the fringing on the edge of the bedcover.
"You hate me."
He looks up. "No."
"You do. We hate each other."
"You mean, now? In your time? Well, maybe. Maybe we do. But maybe we don't."
"We do," I say, stubbornly. "I can't stand you."
A little smirk pulls at his mouth. "Oh, really?"
I feel like I might have taken a wrong step here, but it's too late now. "I think you're a stupid prat."
His eyes are lit up. "God, you're so fucking cute like this. I don't know why it took me so long to see it."
I don't know what to think when he talks like that. "Shut up."
"No, you shut up." He's grinning again. "I know perfectly well that although you think I'm a stupid prat, you also secretly fancy me, and-"
"Shut the fuck up, Potter!"
"And you think about me, quite a lot in fact, and you-"
"That is a load of bullshit and lies-"
"And the reason I know all this is because you told me this yourself, shortly after we got together, and I also know that you wank over me quite frequently, and-"
I've got my wand drawn, now, and pointing at his stupid, smug face.
"And I think that's so fucking hot, Draco. "
Oh, god, my face is burning, and it feels so strange the way he keeps calling me Draco, but he just carries on talking.
"You're so hot, and I wish that I hadn't been too much of a prick to realise."
"You've always been a prick."
"Maybe. But now I'm fucking crazy about you. Merlin, you're so gorgeous like this. All spiky, and defensive-"
"You're an arse."
"I know. I'm sorry." But he's smirking all over his face.
I can't even take in everything that he's saying. I'm pretty sure that it's going to be one of those frustrating dreams, where it starts out promising but then descends into nonsense and you wake up dissatisfied and restless.
I let my wand drop down and he covers my hand with his. It's warm and I can feel rough patches on his palm. It feels too real to exist only in my imagination.
"Do you believe me?" he asks.
"Not really."
He laughs. "You said that you wouldn't. Not really. But you wanted me to try, anyway. You remembered the day you turned nineteen was so miserable. We thought we could liven it up a bit."
Something occurs to me. "What do you do? In the future?"
"I play Quidditch. I fly your brooms."
Somehow this detail carries conviction. I can see this Potter - this fitter, older Potter - sitting astride a sleek broom, flying with power and grace. My thumb rubs over the callouses of his fingers. "You do?"
"Of course I do," he says. "They're amazing. You're amazing."
Merlin, the way he looks at me. I can feel sweat prickling under my nightshirt.
He keeps on staring, his eyes wandering over my face, down to my chest. "I'd forgotten how skinny you used to be."
"I'm not fat, am I? In the future?"
He bursts out laughing. "The look on your face. No. No, you're not. But you're not all... corners and edges like you are now." He's still covering my hand with his, and his fingers seek out the bones in my wrist, circling them lightly. "Do you believe me, then? Just a little bit?" His eyes are full of heat.
I wet my lips. "Maybe."
He leans in, closer. My heart is knocking against my ribs. It's overwhelming, being this close to him. "What can I do to convince you?" he asks.
I can smell the scent of his skin. Something spicy, and then woodsmoke from his hair. "You smell like bonfires," I say.
"We had a fire in the garden. For your party. It was such a good evening. We sat out there til late. Til our friends had gone home."
Our friends. It slips so casually from his lips.
"Then we sat out there some more. Finishing one last glass of wine together before bed." He smiles, remembering. "And sharing the remains of your cake. And we dreamt up this crazy plan. For me to visit you. I thought it was a bad idea at first ‒ messing about with time ‒ but you persuaded me anyway. You're very persuasive." He's staring at my mouth. "The other you is still sitting there, by the fire, waiting for me."
"Shouldn't you be getting back?" My throat is so dry, the words come out as a whisper.
"There's still time," he says, and then he tilts his head and asks a question with his eyes, and there's only one possible answer.
His mouth is so soft, his lips just brushing against mine at first. I'm trembling, but he goes so slow, so gentle. He cups my face in his hands and kisses me softly until little sounds are welling up in my throat, and then my mouth opens for him and I feel his tongue slide in, sweet and easy. He tastes of good wine, of chocolate... but mostly of himself.
I don't know how I thought Potter would kiss - clumsy and defiant, perhaps, and maybe he did, when he was eighteen ‒ but I never thought it could be like this. These kisses are sure and fearless and‒ god, they're fiercely tender, too. I feel something in me melting, like candle wax, and when he brings one hand to my chest and uses the other to cup the back of my head, I groan into his mouth, low and hungry.
"Fuck, Draco..." He kisses the line of my jaw, his own chin sharp with stubble beneath the softness of his mouth. "I told myself I wouldn't... but you're so bloody..." His hand slips under my shirt, his fingers feverish and possessive as they slide over my skin. "Uhh."
I arch against him. I don't even know what I'm doing. I want to climb on top of him. This may be a dream, but his body feels solid and real and it's thrumming with heat and desire. The way he looks at me, the way he moves his hands over my back, drawing me closer. His kisses turn a shade more demanding, and then he's gripping my arse and pulling me onto his lap. I'm dizzy. I close my eyes but I can still feel him, still smell him, hear his breath close to my ear as he presses his nose into my hair.
"God, I want you." His hands are under my shirt. I've nothing on underneath and the rough denim of his jeans chafes against my bare legs. "I want you just how you are now."
His mouth is on my neck, his teeth dragging over the sensitive skin. I moan and clutch at his hair, thick handfuls of it.
"I don't know if we should be... Is this wrong?" His pupils are so wide, like inky splotches, but his face is screwed up as if in pain.
I can feel his erection, hot and hard through his jeans. I squirm in his lap, letting my weight press against his length again and again, breathless with the power of seeing his face transform with desire, his eyes glassy and mouth slack. I want him to stop thinking. I want him only to want me.
"Feels like I'm cheating..." He laughs a little bit. "But you were the one who convinced me to come here. Oh, god... yes. Just like that, Draco, just like that."
I'm getting into a rhythm, perched in his lap, grinding away on his cock. I know I could make him come like this. I can see it in the way his eyes keep losing focus, in the way his breath catches in his throat and then he lets out a little groan deep in his chest.
"Stop..." he says, but I don't want to stop. But he reaches up and holds me still, his face serious. "I don't want to just... I want it to be good for you."
I nuzzle his neck and take a deep, long breath of him. That's the great thing about it being a dream; I can let myself do whatever I like. Even moan at how good he smells. Even that. "This is good. It's really good."
I start moving again, but he stops me. "No." He moves me off his lap and sits looking at me, his chest heaving. "Maybe we should stop."
"Bollocks to that."
"I mean it. Don't forget, I know, Draco... I know you've never done this before. Maybe this is a bad idea."
I stare at the bulge in his jeans. "Your cock doesn't think it's a bad idea."
He looks as if he's going to blush.
"And nor does mine."
It's tenting my nightshirt, the shape clearly visible through the thin material. Potter's eyes drop down to it, and his Adam's apple bobs in his throat.
"You think you know everything," I tell him. "But you don't. You're treating me like I'm some precious thing that needs to be protected."
He frowns, his jaw jutting out.
"I'm not like that. You don't know anything about me." I curl my lip at him.
His eyes flash, just as they always do in reponse to a challenge. He's not changed so very much, then. "Oh, but I do." He reaches a hand up to touch my hair. "God, you're beautiful."
I stare at him, my chin high and haughty.
"I know how you like to be stroked here... " His thumb traces a line along my jaw, and I can't help it, a long shiver throbs through me, and I know he sees. He pushes me back against the pillows and kisses me again with infuriating care, making me ache for him. "I know how sensitive your nipples are."
"What a load of shit." The answer comes automatically, but the bastard is already running his thumbs across the points of them, and the end of the words runs into an undignified broken moan.
"I know it, Draco. I know how you like to have me kiss you slowly, again and again so that you feel like you can't bear it." He breathes it into my mouth, damp and sultry. "I know how you like to struggle, to feel my weight pinning you down." His thumb is still at my nipple, flicking it over and over again until I feel like I'm on fire with it. His voice is husky, insistent. "How you like me to hold your hands above your head while you're coming. I know it all."
"Oh, god." I'm arching towards his touch. "Yes."
He's staring at me, drinking in my face as if he's never seen anything like it.
"Yes. Please," I say.
He sits up and begins to unbutton his shirt, revealing a messy trail of hair that leads down between his nipples and disappears into his jeans. "Fuck, Draco." He shakes his head, then tosses his shirt onto the floor.
I just lie there, watching, as he works on his belt buckle and then his flies. His cock is a deep pink and thicker than I was expecting. It juts out angrily as he shucks off his jeans and pants. Merlin. I've thought about it before. I won't deny it. But this time, the fantasy is so much more vivid. Like he's really here. Like every single perfect detail is right in front of my eyes.
When he's naked, he grabs hold of my foot and places it on his shoulder. I must look surprised or something, dammit, because his intense look softens and a concerned one replaces it. "Don't worry. God, I'll make it good. I promise. I just want you to feel so good."
I scowl. "Whatever. " I'm not scared. It's only a dream, after all. "Why don't you get on with it?"
His eyes burn into me and then he's pushing up my shirt so he can nuzzle at my thighs, making little appreciative grunts. He's on his stomach, resting on his forearms, still holding my leg over his shoulder as he nudges his way between my legs with hot licks and open-mouthed kisses. Fuck. He's breathing on the head of my cock. Harry Potter is here, in my bed, oh hell, sucking me into his mouth and, oh, holy fucking Merlin, this is no dream, surely, this has to be real, because every nerve in my body is singing with bliss, and he's looking up at me while he sucks me and, oh, ohhh...
My hands are clutching at the covers. He's got my knee draped over his shoulder, my cock deep in his mouth and I'm just wondering how the hell I can make myself last more than a minute of this, when he pulls off for a moment and whispers something to himself. He pushes up on one elbow, and then a slippery wet finger is tracing along the crack of my arse and skating over my hole.
"Holy, holy fuck," I stutter. I think I might forget how to breathe. I've touched myself there, in the past, but it's nothing, nothing at all, to Potter's sure, steady finger, pushing gently but firmly inside me while he tongues the head of my erection.
"Nnngh," he says, as it slips inside, like it's me doing it to him. Like it's the best thing that ever happened to him. "God, Draco. You're so tight. Oh, god."
He pushes in further and I clench around his thick finger. I think I can feel the knuckle.
"Oh, hell," he says. He sounds wrecked. "I need to... oh, god." He pushes in further, surely that's as far as his finger can go, and then he takes me back into his mouth. Ahh. So... so perfect. Sparks, all along my spine. Waves of heat, waves of pleasure. Those eyes, watching me, lapping the whole thing up... I lose control and thrust between his lips and he just grunts and drags his finger out and then, oh god, all the way back in, and I'm starting to shake with it.
He pulls off again, pressing ardent kisses everywhere. My balls. My stomach. The base of my cock, oh, god, the head, the shaft... He presses his lips against the hair at the base and murmurs words I can't understand.
"Draco..." I hear.
"Uhhh." I can't really speak properly. "Yes."
"I want you just like this." He's licking and kissing in between the words. There's a pleading note to his voice. "Like this, when you're not quite nineteen. I need to have you, just once. Is that wrong?" His finger slides into me again. So deep. So good. "Oh, god. Is it wrong, to want it so much?"
My head falls back. I can't think of anything except how it feels to have him touch me this way. How it feels to hear him need me so much. "Not... wrong. Not."
A second finger tries to join the first, and it's slick as well, but I think I'm probably too tight for this, and it almost hurts. Then he sucks me again and I'm floating, only floating and rocking into his mouth, and so full, so full, so good. He opens me up, so sweetly, using just his mouth and his fingers and a relentless tenderness. I feel like he might never stop, and the thought frightens me a little, even as I'm quivering with the joy of it.
"Uhh... Potter... I need..." I don't even know what I want to say.
"Harry," he says, laying his head on my thigh and grinning lopsidedly at me.
"Harry." It's very nearly too much. The feel of his name on my lips seems almost more intimate than his fingers, twisting and stretching inside me, smooth and unfaltering. "Harry." I don't have any words to tell him what I need, but he seems to know.
He takes care of everything. I feel so awkward, but he props me up with pillows, and murmurs in my ear. "You're so beautiful. I wish we'd been together this whole time. I'm sorry. After the war... I was so fucked up. I couldn't see... but god, Draco, I'll make it up to you."
He unbuttons my shirt, and touches his lips to the raised pink scars on my chest, and tells me that they are almost gone, in the future, that I found stuff to put on them until they faded nearly to nothing. Another flare of hope flickers in my chest, and I ask him about the Dark Mark, but he shakes his head.
"It's still there. But people got used to it, in the end." He keeps kissing me in between the words. "The war is over. It's been over for a long time, Draco." And he lays me out on the bed just so, while I hold my legs the way he shows me, and then he pushes inside me so carefully, patiently, his cock inching into me, teasingly deliberate, till I'm greedy for more and tell him so.
He laughs. "Always insatiable," he says, and then he holds my wrists and presses them into the mattress high above my head, and oh, god, the weight of his body on mine is like a drug. I struggle, purely for the thrill of feeling his strength pitted against mine, and he grips my wrists harder, and slams into me, fierce and sure and flawless, and it's just what I need, just exactly what I've always needed.
It only takes a dozen strokes before a great rolling surge of heat rises up from my thighs, nearly overwhelming me. I cry out, but Potter doesn't falter, and then I'm coming in long, desperate spurts between our bodies.
"Draco. My god, Draco." He looks as if he's holding back, then, and clenches his jaw, eyes riveted on my face as he fucks slowly into me, slow but so, so deep, once, twice, only three times more before he comes with a great shuddering groan inside me.
I remind myself that in a dream, I can do whatever I want. It doesn't matter, the noises I made, or how tightly I hold him afterwards. No-one will ever know.
***
He's buttoning up his shirt again. It's mesmerising, how like Potter he is but how different, too.
He looks at me sideways. "I don't know what the other Draco will say about this."
"Tell him... tell him I loved it." I suppose I should say tell me, but it seems too strange. "Tell him I needed it."
He laughs ruefully. "I'm just not sure it's going to go down entirely well."
"He‒ I‒ might be jealous," I say, seeing how it would be. "But I'll also think it's... well, pretty hot."
To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if I knew exactly how this visit would work out. I might well have planned the whole thing. Sent Harry to myself, as a present. I look up at his face. Kiss him one more time. Maybe the last time. "Tell him ‒ me ‒ that you couldn't resist me."
"I couldn't," he says simply. "I don't know how I did, before."
"Are you going to fuck me again, now?" My face feels hot at the way that sounds. "I mean, the other me. When you get back."
His eyes are very green. "Maybe."
"Is it good? You and him? I mean, you and me?"
He wets his lips. "It's good. It's very, very good."
I smile, but there's something tight in my throat, making my eyes prickle, because I've wanted him for so long, and I know he has to go. And I don't know if it's worse because it feels so real or because I know it can't ever be.
"Remember." He runs his hand down my arm, links his fingers with mine. "Everything's going to be OK." He casts Nox, and when his hand leaves mine, for a moment I think he's already gone, but then he presses one last kiss to my lips, his breath hot and sweet and smoky. Then there's a rustling, and I can feel the air swirl and then settle again in the space where his body used to be.
***
In the morning, I remember the dream even before I remember it's my birthday. It's still cool in my room, and I lie in bed for a while with my eyes shut, thinking over every detail. The addictive taste of his mouth. The way he looked at me. My body aches, deep inside, as though it actually happened. As though he really had spent all that time getting me ready. The way he tried to go slow at the end, to make it last, as though being with me was something special.
If it were real... if it were real, perhaps he'd travel back again. He might. One day. I wouldn't really be jealous - future me, that is. I'd know how lonely this bloody year was. How hopeless it felt at times.
I'll be late for breakfast if I don't hurry. As soon as I open my eyes, reality hits me like a Bludger. Merlin, me and Potter? As if. I grimace at my own self-delusion, the lame trickery my mind comes up with.
I know it's ridiculous, but as I get dressed it seems as though I can still smell woodsmoke. As though traces of it have lingered on my pillow. Or maybe on my own skin. Stupid dream.
I go down to breakfast. There's a card from Mother and Father. The picture shows a Quidditch player soaring above a cheering crowd, his hand out-stretched and just about to catch the Snitch.
Inside, in Mother's rather shaky hand, it says, Presents when we see you, darling. Work hard, won't you?
I know the presents will be small and inexpensive in keeping with our new status. But I'm probably rather old for presents, in any case. I smile at the card and pretend I'm delighted.
I don't mean to look, but I can't help glancing over at the Gryffindor table. Just to see if Potter's still the same idiot boy as he was yesterday. Yes, there he is. Awful bloody hair. Skinny shoulders. He catches me looking, and throws me a lovely scowl in return. Stupid fucking prick. It was just a dream; I know that. I run a hand over my hair, twitch my robes into place, careful to keep the Dark Mark covered.
As I pull my sleeves down, I rub at my wrists absent-mindedly, and then wince at an unexpected tender spot. I don't want to draw attention to myself, but my fingers move questioningly over my skin under the folds of my robes. It feels like... Bloody hell, I know what it feels like, but I daren't look. Not yet.
I finish my breakfast quickly, tasting nothing, just spooning it into my mouth. Then pick up my card and stalk out of the Great Hall with my head high. I don't look at Potter. Not for a second.
I take a sharp right and duck into the nearest empty classroom, then pull back my sleeves. There's my Mark, twisted and ugly as ever. But also... I raise my hand nearer to my face and blink. There are a series of small but distinct bruises, each one the size of a man's fingerprint, pressed lovingly into my skin. Like a string of tiny promises wrapped around my wrist.
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Author of the work - birdsofshore