#and maybe someone jazzing in their pantfs

[tepre]

I want an 8th year fic where Harry is a really bad kisser. like. REALLY bad. Like, no coordination, spit all over the place, no-idea-where-he’s-going-with-this bad. And it makes sense because he’s never quite had the emotional education that makes him super attuned to other people’s needs? anYWAY when he and ginny break up they have a bit of a row and she wants to throw something at him just to THROW SOMETHING AT HIM because it’s hard to accuse the actual puppy dog who saved the goddamn world of anything -- ESPECIALLY WHEN HE’S SO WEEPY -- and so she just says it. She just says it, You are a bad kisser, Harry. You are a very, very, very, very bad kisser. 

AND at first of course Harry is like how dARE YOU, and no YOU are, but then it gets stuck in his head and he starts asking around. First of all, do people even like kissing? It is a thing people like? It’s always felt kind of off and gross to him and cut to Hermione talking a million miles an hour, confiscating an empty classroom to draw out a full chart on a blackboard about the benefits/social history/beauty of make outs -- IF you want them. Harry nods furiously and is taking notes. 

From there the research expands into a full-scale survey amongst the 7th and 8th years about the best snogger on Hogwarts grounds [on a scale from 0 to 10, 0 being ‘like being slapped about by the giant squid’ and 10 being ‘like a veela caressing the inside of your mouth but also you’re in fire’]. Entirely unexpectedly, WHAT A SURPRISE TO EVERYONE INVOLVED, Draco Ambrosius Giselda Anne Paulus Fucking Malfoy (named after all of his auntie’s favourite corgies) ends up the UNANIMOUS nr 1. Harry and Hermione, main conductors of said research, are appalled. Especially when subject #18 (Hannah Abbott) goes all glassy-eyed staring at the survey parchment and whispers “that mouth tho”, seemingly to herself. 

Cut to Harry and Hermione holed up in the classroom with pictures of everyone from 7th & 8th year hanging on the walls with bits of red thread connecting them. Malfoy’s is in the middle, circled several times and surrounded by question marks. Harry looks frazzled, tie undone, and he’s reading through the case again. “It can’t be!” he says, incredulous, while Hermione laughs a little crazed and disbelieving. “It has to be,” she says, shaking her head. “By Jobe, it has to be.” 

CUT TO HARRY inviting Draco A. G. A. P. F. Malfoy to an official interview where he shakily reads a pre-prepared statement off a paper while Hermione stands behind him and mouths with cuz she wrote it. And Draco’s like, “Ok let me get this straight. You want me to kiss you. To teach you how to kiss.”

“For science!” say Harry and Hermione at once. 

Draco complies on a curriculum of 10 weeks ON the condition of the final result being conducted in the middle of the great hall -- DURING DINNER! -- in full view of the whole school. “I’m rehabilitating my image,” he says, picking a piece of lint off his robes. “It would be beneficial.” 

Harry says “DEAL” and Hermione says “Uh” and they shake on it and so it happens that Draco and Harry set off on a vigorous 10 week curriculum starting off with lesson nr 1, peppermint spells. This is quickly followed by lesson the second, which is basically Draco pushing Harry up against a wall and hovering close without actually touching him. Almost brushing their lips, then not. Breathing against his neck, his jaw, the corner of his mouth -- then leaning away again, all until Harry is a frustrated shaking mess, trying to chase after Draco’s mouth if only to JUST GET IT OVER WITH. But it’s a no-go, it’s just Draco’s hand to his chest to hold him back saying, “Not yet.” 

Lesson nr 3 is Draco’s fingers tracing the shape of his lips and hovering close and Harry opening his mouth and Draco putting the pad of a long finger to the flat of Harry’s tongue and watching, quiet, when Harry sucks at it. Lesson 4 is cancelled ‘cuz Draco is “BETTER THINGS TO GO GOODBYE” (announced by way of a howler), lesson 5 is the two of them in a broom closet and Draco’s hands like fists in his robs, brushing his lips to Harry’s, just brushing them, a total of five exCRUCIATING minutes and then leaning down to bite at his neck, which Harry needs a full hour after Draco leaves to recover from (”calm down calm down what is wrong with you Harry Potter CALM YOURSELF DOWN”). Lesson 6 Draco has him on his back in the grass behind the lake and licks the corner of his mouth, nips at his bottom lip, ignores it when Harry’s fingers slip between the buttons of his shirt to touch the skin of his stomach. Lesson 7 begins with Harry already wrecked and they haven’t even STARTED -- on the stairs to the owlery, Harry one step higher than Draco, Draco’s teeth hard the fading hickey from last time, Harry’s hands in Draco’s hair -- babbling, saying, “You’re never gonna kiss me, are you, God, you’re never gonna--” 

And then Draco leans up, aligns, sucks Harry’s bottom lip into his mouth. Licks up, sucks the top lip, and has to catch what is BASICALLY a swooning Harry James Fucking Potter and they stand like that for a second, swaying, breathing hot and wet against each other’s mouths. 

Lesson 8 Harry has had ENOUGH, goddamn it, and there are only two to go and they’re not nearly advanced enough and also SCIENCE, and so Saturday afternoon in the alleyway behind Puddifoots -- between a trashcan full of half-eaten cupcakes and a soggy cardboard box -- Harry has Draco up against a wall, opening his hot maddening (horrible, good-for-nothing) mouth with a shudder and a moan. It’s all tongue, at first, and Draco has to tell him to slow down, has to put his fingers to Harry’s lips, cradle his face, tilt it, show him how to pace it, how to breathe through it, how to suck on his tongue. How to start slow and end hot and heavy and shivering and being unable to pull away to cast a simple charm against the drizzle or even move the godDAMN inch it would take to take cover under the awning. Idiots. Now you’re wet. Now you’re soaking wet and still making out and it’s been a literal two hours. Great. Wonderful. Don’t come crying to me when you catch your death of cold, I swear. 

Lesson 9 in the changing rooms after Quidditch practice, this time Harry’s back against the tiled shower wall, mouth swollen and skin tender from Draco’s stubble and his hands in Draco’s hair -- Draco’s gloved hands under his shirt, fingers shaky, palming his ribs. Harry whispering “God,” and “Fuck,” and “Come here,” even though Draco’s already there, as close as he can get. 

Lesson 10 Draco spends sucking at Harry’s pulse point. Pulling at the skin, soothing it with his tongue, breathing over it -- first hot, then cold. They’re in the empty classroom, door locked, Harry up on one of the desks and Draco’s legs slotted between his. Harry rides his thigh, doesn’t mean to, can’t quite help himself, is embarrassed and bothered and hot and comes like that, with Draco’s lips wet to the shell of his ear. 

The next day Harry’s showered for the occasion. He’s showered and shaved and conducts himself a little bit like a robot on his first day out saying things like, “Hermione, could you be so kind to pass the butter” in a flat and shaky voice. Hermione is, in fact, so kind as to pass the butter, which Harry immediately drops when Draco enters the great hall. Robot Harry stands and walks to face him, and says Hello and Okay and Okay (again) and Now? Shall we do it now? And Draco clears his throat like 30 times before he can say yes okay fine now. 

And then they kiss. And Harry has come to know those lips better than he knows his own, and has come to like holding on by the small gap between the two buttons of Draco’s shirt -- right over his stomach -- and has come to anticipate the small gust of air that leaves Draco after that first press of lips. After they move to settle into place, cock their heads, slides their tongues together. Draco is the one who rushes into it now, and Harry is the one who gets to smile into it, gets to tell him to slow it down, gets to relax them into it. 

Somewhere in the distance some silverware clatters. Three Hufflepuffs walk into each other. A 4th-year Ravenclaw drops the two glasses of juice she’d had in her hands, one of which was for her friend. It’s okay, because her friend was about bring a potato to her mouth, but that’s fallen off the fork anyway. Nearly Headless Nick gasps a quiet good lord and McGonnagal puts a hand over Mme Hooch’s eyes. Hermione is furiously taking notes. 

Draco murmurs something into the kiss, something about having given them enough of a show, and Harry laughs, nips at his lips, at his chin, his jaw. “Hold on tight,” he says, and slips a hand around Draco’s waist. Dips him, dramatically, holds him in the cradle of his arm -- bends to kiss him again. Draco laughs against his mouth, only a little outraged, and Hermione adds some arrows to her chart. 

Somewhere nearby Ginny mumbles a quiet damn, and, that’s one steep learning curve. 

“It’s a steep something, alright,” is what Hannah Abbott has to say about that, glassy-eyed again. 

Hermione’s now fanning herself with her notebook. “Good science,” she says, nodding quickly. “Very good science.”