Inertia
cavendishbutterfly @cavendishbutterfly
Chapters: 26/26
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Characters: Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Pansy Parkinson, Thea Nott, Gregory Goyle, Blaise Zabini, Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood, Severus Snape, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minerva McGonagall
Additional Tags: Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Secret Relationship, References to Canon Violence and Death, Chapter-Specific Content Warnings In The Notes, Loss of Parent(s), Grief/Mourning, Ministry of Magic (Harry Potter), incarceration, Deradicalization, Illness, Getting Together, Fluff, Angst, Breaking Up & Making Up, negative self-talk, There Was Only One Bed Missing, Brief Description of Violent Law Enforcement Policy, Learning About Abolition, Trans Female Character, Coming of Age, Sexual Inexperience, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, POV Alternating, Enemies to Lovers, Politics, Background Relationships, this is both a love story, and a story of healing
Summary:
It’s three months after the war. Harry has already mucked up all his plans. Draco is no longer the prince of Slytherin house. And they sure as hell didn’t both mean to go back to Hogwarts at the same time. Cue snarking, long conversations…and unexpected snogging.
This is the story of how Harry and Draco put their past aside. And then it's the story of how they finally learn to listen to it.
Excerpt:
“POTTER AND MALFOY,” Ernie MacMillan shouted, then collapsed into laughter. “Because—inter-house, the two of them—”
Draco’s heart thumped, sudden and intense. He met Potter’s eyes across the room without meaning to. There was a long pause.
“Do we,” Potter cleared his throat. “Do we have to have sex in there?”
“Not technically,” Thea said, as Granger chimed in with a hearty “Absolutely not.”
“The idea is that you’re trapped in there,” Pansy said sweetly. “And that you’ve got seven minutes, and you might as well.”
Thea snickered, and leaned back to watch. Draco expected Potter to storm out of the room. Instead, he stood up and said, “Right, Malfoy, come on.”
As Draco walked toward the cupboard, he felt Granger’s sobering charm wash over him and felt oddly grateful. It looked pitch dark in the cupboard, and Potter was close enough to smell some kind of warm musk, unfamiliar but appealing, and Draco suddenly didn’t want to know what he would have done had he entered the cupboard drunk.
He stepped inside behind Harry, and the door swung closed.
The inside of the cupboard was dark. It pressed against his arms. He could hear the reverberation of Potter's breath across from him: steady, and then one deeper, longer exhale.
"Alright, Malfoy?" Potter sounded right in front of him.
Draco swallowed. "Yeah."
Potter laughed slightly, then there was the sound of shuffling. Draco had only played this a couple of times before, and he thought it might almost be easier with other Slytherins. It was like an unspoken rule—you stepped into the cupboard, you snogged, maybe you got off a bit. It made it easier; it was an expected, measured kind of intimacy. This, with Potter's body an unknown, forbidden entity just in front of him—it was hard to know where to stand. Draco settled for pressing his back against the far wall, trying to figure by the sound of Potter's breaths and the meagre sliver of light exactly how far away he had to stay.
"So," Draco said. "We just. Stand here for seven minutes?"
"I don't know," Potter said. His voice sounded muffled from the tight walls around them. "You probably know better than me what we're supposed to do here."
"Well." Draco picked at the side of the cupboard, leaned the back of his head against the newly transfigured wood. Blaise hadn't done a half-bad job. "I think what we're meant to be doing in here is out of the question. So."
There was a pause from the other side of the cupboard. Then the sound of shuffling.
"Where are you?"
"I'm right here, Potter," Draco said drily.
"No, no. Here. Where's your hand?"
Tentatively, Draco held out his hand. After a few moments, Potter found it.
"Right," Potter said. "We've got room, I think. Want to sit down?"
"And what?" Draco scoffed. "Then we'll talk?"
"Maybe, yeah," Potter said. He started tugging Draco down to the bottom of the cupboard.
"Here, wait a second."
"Where the fuck are you?"
"No, if you just—"
"This isn't going to work."
"It will, just hold on. Here, my leg is here. If you just—“
"Well, hello.”
"Just sit on top of my leg, Malfoy, is that alright?"
Draco perched atop Potter's folded leg in the dark, half-straddling him.
"This is a little intimate, no?" Draco drawled.
Suddenly, he felt Potter's hands on his sides, adjusting the way Draco was sitting on top of his leg.
"You're really warm," Potter murmured, like an afterthought.
Draco’s heart pounded, and he hated it. For a few moments, there was only the faraway noise of the others shouting drunkenly at each other, muffled through the doors of the cupboard.
"Are you," Potter cleared his throat. "Are you opposed to all the things we're supposed to be doing in here? Or only some of them?"
Draco barked a laugh. "You're the one who's opposed. This is all sort of expected, in the Slytherin common room.”
"Right," Potter breathed. He seemed closer. Suddenly, Draco felt a hand skate up the plane of his neck, then settle at the bottom of his chin. "So if—if we were to—“
"You sound like such a prude, Potter." Draco tried to sound snide, but he didn't have much breath.
"Right," Potter said.
And then there were lips against Draco's. Imprecise, slightly off the mark, but Potter quickly righted himself. It was tentative and messy at first, a little wet, Potter's lips were a little chapped, but then suddenly it was as if Potter was asking for more, as if he'd let Draco in somehow, and Draco found himself swiping his tongue into Potter's mouth, relishing the warmth he found there, and Potter was making these little moans under his ministrations that made Draco work his hands into the mess of Potter's hair, which he seemed to enjoy a great deal. Draco felt Potter lean towards him, felt Potter's tongue dip into his own mouth. Fuck. Potter seemed hungry as he pressed his hands into the sides of Draco's face. From the pitch of his body, the sureness of his lips, his tongue—and Draco felt his cock stirring—
The tempus outside the cupboard rang out, and he and Potter broke apart.
"Make yourselves decent!" Pansy shouted from the other side, gleefully.
"Ah, shit," said Potter. "Sorry."
There was the sound of scrambling as Potter got back up to his feet. Then there was a hand, reaching around for his arm, and he was pulled up as well.
"Nothing to be sorry for, Potter," Draco said breezily. He adjusted his robes to disguise his budding erection. "You might want to check on your hair. Although, with the state it's usually in, I wonder whether anyone would notice the difference if it were sticking out sideways."
"Right. Thanks."
Draco waited a few moments, then spelled open the door and strode out of the cupboard.
“They didn’t even murder each other,” Ernie MacMillan slurred, disappointed.
"You have a good time, boys?" Thea asked. She fixed Draco with a knowing glance.
♡✧( ु•⌄• )
43 notes
·
View notes