Chapter 22
Casual. I could tell immediately Potter was bad at casual because by its very nature it shouldn’t have so many rules. This can’t get in the way of either of our work. If I felt uncomfortable at any point I had to tell him. We couldn’t get attached, we’d have to stop fooling around if I in anyway reported to him. I rolled my eyes and told him it would be fine, but I already hated that we both knew anything between us would soon be over. I carried the dread of the ending with me before things ever had a chance to start.
How do we start?
Potter came in early the next day, carrying two cups of coffee from the good place on the outside Iris raved about. He found me in Weasley’s office, already up to my elbows reviewing reports, and before Potter could even say hello Weasley was thanking him for the drink.
I uncharacteristically left Weasley’s office instead of working through lunch, as if I didn’t mind braving the canteen at the busiest time of day. I poked my head in Potter’s office on the way there, but it was empty. My stomach fluttered. Maybe he went to lunch, too? My hopes of joining him and cutting the line were dashed when he was nowhere to be found. I had to wait in the back with the first years who always arrived late.
We both were in defence, but then again so were fifty other people. Weasley and Potter were taking turns running trainees through drills while I took notes on technique and style. Weasley had walked me through how the charm worked weeks ago and I’d taken to carrying a chopstick in my back pocket to demonstrate the maneuver should I find someone to be particularly hopeless. I caught Potter watching, caught him biting back an amused grin.
It wasn’t strange for Potter to swing by Weasley’s office at the end of the day, but Weasley actually wanted to talk. I dipped out to the canteen, being as subtle as I could in my pointed eye contact to Potter about it. By the time he caught up Ajax and Parker had commandeered my table for studying. I tried to get up and sneak off, but Ajax was wise to my efforts to skip workouts and he reached the wrong conclusion.
It would be weird for Potter to go to the gym at night so he wasn’t at the gym. It would be weird for him to be hiding by the showers, after all I’d never seen him there before. It would be weird of him to still be in his office this late, trainees studied at all hours and anyone could see him slip in or slip out. It was less weird to see me. After all, I lived here, and I was just a weird person, so it was easy to get away with walking into Potter’s office uninvited on the off chance he was still there.
Weirdest of all was rendezvousing with Potter like secret lovers having an affair, but then again Potter had clearly been waiting for me and he didn’t seem to think any of this was weird. Nope. He was… well, I could get used to that dark stare with those hooded bedroom eyes. I could get used to Potter’s rush to meet me at the door, the way he didn’t hesitate before kissing me. That kiss. Hot eager lips devouring me like he’d been thinking about this moment all day and just couldn’t hold himself back.
Our hands fumbled over each other’s clothes, yanking and tugging on edges and corners so we could reveal more skin without disconnecting our lips. He only got so far as opening my trousers before he gave up on getting naked and let his hand inside my pants. I gasped when he gripped me, my head finally falling back and away from the kisses to thunk against the door Potter had pressed me into.
Of course Potter was bloody amazing at jacking me off. He always had been better than me at anything that mattered. I grabbed his arm with one hand as if I could buy myself a reprieve from the overwhelming sensation but he didn’t give it to me. I arched into him, making these needy little sounds I couldn’t quite bite back because he was touching me. My entire world was focused solely on my cock, which had Harry Potter’s hand on it, rubbing even faster now as my breath hitched and my grip on him tightened, my nails digging in and leaving marks because it felt so good, so good, so good.
I blinked open my eyes and looked up, and of course he was watching. Not his sinfully talented hand undoing me, but my face. His pupils were dilated and his lips parted like just watching me brought him pleasure. This man. This ridiculous man. This unfathomable man. This-
He kissed me and I came, making a mess over both of us. Leaving me exhausted and sated and desperate to make a mess of him.
After that, I was back in Potter’s office on nights when I wasn’t training, aware that being turned on by him soothing helpless trainees was five ways past inappropriate. But then they left, and it was only me and him. This time I was allowed to walk around the desk and stand in front of him, too close in proximity to be anything but intimate. I loved how his eyes watched me. How eager he was to be taken apart by my kisses.
One night I was caught up in my note taking, having observed a breakthrough Potter could build upon, and had the pleasure of him walking behind me and wrapping his arms around me. He whispered in my ear to let the paperwork wait. Potter had never cared enough about the paperwork. A made a noise of dissent, and when he started nibbling on the shell of my ear I had to shrug him off in order to explain how his mentoring tonight built on a foundation he set last quarter, and if I cross referenced the conversation tonight against my previous notes…
Potter pushed the notes off his desk. I doubted he’d ever read through what I left for him, even if he’d continued to dedicate a sizable chunk of his desk to the pile. Maybe he liked how it reminded him of me. He didn’t need a reminder anymore. Not when he could lay me over his desk and take me hard and fast, with a decisiveness that made me think he was fulfilling a fantasy he’d thought about over and over and over again. Just like I had imagined him savagely plowing me exactly like this. Just exactly like this. Fuck, he was going harder. He wanted me. He wanted me.
I tried to fix his daily reports. I tried to cobble together all his records into a final study that could be turned in. I may have gone too far when I said again he would make a shit senior auror, they had to be able to complete their studies. He only ever frowned that heavily when I told him he was bad at his job. It made me twitchy to think if I pushed too hard he might kick me out and not let me back.
I didn’t even realize I was still talking about it when one night I asked why he was even in DMLE education. I’d thought he’d be a field auror or a combat specialist, razing dark wizards strongholds and preventing dark wars before they could start again. He just chuckled, low and bitter, then distracted me with his hands and his mouth until I didn’t care that we couldn’t talk about these things.
The Muffliato charm was a godsend. We could fuck anywhere. Potter loved putting his hands on me. Frottage was my new favorite thing. His hands were just so big. And he was so very dedicated. I tricked him into empty training rooms between classes and showed him what being seduced by me actually meant.
I love how guileless you are, I said to him one evening. This laugh was boisterous, like he actually thought I was funny. I told him I liked knowing I could out politic him if the occasion called for it. This laugh was low and rumbly like he didn’t care. I really liked that about him. His lack of ambition made me feel safe. I told him to be careful or someone unscrupulous would take advantage.
The first time I let him see my chest was in the showers. I had planned to find a way to hide it, but somewhere between the embarrassment of showering in a shirt and not putting on anything Potter had let himself in.
He called me sexy. He called me gorgeous. His mouth kissed my chest without trailing over scar tissue, as if the lines crisscrossing me didn’t matter. He mouthed down the front of me until he dropped to his knees on the hard floor. His mouth on my prick was glory itself. It had me shouting, begging for him, begging him to stay.
I knew he got off on it because when Weasley got me permission to go out with the trainees to celebrate passing midterm exams, Potter did it again. He must have been sure no one was watching when he pulled me into a bathroom and got to his knees. He hadn’t cast any spells. I had to bite down on my hand to keep quiet. If I made a sound, even a single sound, any of the aurors could hear us. The way he wrecked me. It was like he wanted them to know.
Everyone likes you, Potter insisted when I once again hid in the back of a booth to be as far away from the aurors as I could. I rolled my eyes and chided him for being so bad at reading a room. Wasn’t it his job to do better? Besides, what I really wanted to talk about was the catchy song on the radio. I had heard it once before, what was it called? I’d rather talk to Potter about pop bands and catchy lyrics than how his optimism was all wrong.
You can’t just be nice to them, I told Potter often. His trainees watched him like he’d hung the moon in the sky, but their test results were falling short.
I don’t want them to think their only value comes from what they can do for the ministry.
I don’t know why my stomach fluttered as I scolded him for being an idiot. I wrote him new scripts he probably wouldn’t follow, teaching him how to ask his trainees if this is what they wanted to do with their lives, and if they found purpose in it. I wasn’t there for the conversations, some things are better one on one, but afterwards Potter was scrambling because three trainees quit.
It’s fine, Potter. You have a dozen trainees at risk of failing. Now at least you know that the people who are staying want to be here, and if you don’t step up and actually help them pass you’ll have to feel bad about not doing all you can to support their dreams.
I still told Potter he was too nice, after. I don’t know how he ever managed anyone. He certainly hadn’t been this nice to me. He kissed me to make me shut up.
We couldn’t kiss each other silent in public. It made me cognizant of not asking the questions that made Potter bristle. He had no such qualms. In the canteen we sat a predetermined distance from each other, as if we weren’t inseparable behind closed doors. We ate our food at a respectable pace, instead of rushing it so we could go back to his office to fuck. He asked me about parts of my life I thought I’d forgotten. What was life like before my Hogwarts letter. Did I ever have any pets. What had I wanted to be when I grew up. Ice breaker questions. First date questions.
Potter first called me Draco in front of Weasley. Weasley had been calling me Draco for ages, although I would never, ever be calling him Ron. I couldn’t tell if it was a jealousy thing, like when he used my given name in front of Charlie to imply an intimacy we hadn’t had yet. Possibly it just slipped out. Whatever his intent, it left me flabbergasted.
Draco, what do you think?
I think he was going to leave me, and he wouldn’t be calling me Draco then.
I cleared my throat and looked back down at my notes. Weasley was right, we should do his plan. I didn’t have to look up to know Potter slumped when I didn’t side with him. Weasley is better at this, I reminded Potter, even if he wouldn’t appreciate me saying it in front of his friend.
Potter rearranged his office, and while he never said so I think it was for me. His desk, where I kept all his notes organized, was moved to the side of the room to make space for a small, round table in the middle he kept clear and where he preferred to take meetings. A new loveseat had settled into a corner. It was just big enough to sit side by side, and we quickly discovered not big enough to lay across when fucking. That was fine. Potter could shag me over the armrest. He could bend me across the table. He could have me against the wall. Afterwards we had never known where to go and now we had somewhere to collapse. He called me an octopus when I clung to him, but he never pushed me away. Not until it was late and he caught me dozing. He had to go home, then. He had to go home.
One day he asked if he could take a picture of me with that muggle box. I let him under the condition that he explain why the fuck he even has it. He laughed when I said things like that, caustic and open minded. Potter taught me how the buttons worked. He let me practice typing, and it was like I had to learn all over even though I’d once mastered muggle letters. He showed me how he talked to people. Weasley. Granger. More Weasleys. His old classmates Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas. And right there, not far from the top of the list, “Andi.”
My thumb hovered over Andi’s name until Potter saw. He shifted and I wondered if he would take the phone away. Instead he settled back against me and said without prompting that Andi was just passing through town. They went out for drinks sometimes. I didn’t ask any questions. Potter was a trained detective, though, and sometimes he managed the bare minimum. He clicked on Andi’s name for me and let me read the text thread where he turned Andi down. I still didn’t say anything. Not even when Potter tried reassuring me it was nothing. It felt very much out of the bounds of our casual relationship for me to ask if he’d go out with Andrew again, once he left me. I wondered if I broke the rules when I didn’t tell him I was uncomfortable not knowing if this was casual enough that he could go, if he wanted, in between nights with me.
I threw myself into the work whenever my feelings tried to warn me I might be breaking our rules. There was a freedom to crafting Potter’s report I hadn’t known would make me giddy. I kept adjusting tiny details for clarity and impact, and talked over my choices with him constantly. He liked to watch my work, I could tell, but when I forced him to make decisions it was always followed by a heavy sigh. Why are you even doing this, I tried not to wonder aloud. He treated the report like the same sort of obligation Mondays with me once had been in the file room instead of out in the field.
One day, instead of tracking the work I was doing, even though it was for him, Potter asked if I ever thought about switching. You know, in sex. I might have frozen on the spot, Potter certainly rushed to reassure me it was fine if I didn’t. He was happy with what we were doing. He liked it both ways. He was versatile.
For the next day I couldn’t get the idea of fucking Potter - by which I did mean penetrative sex into Potter - out of my head. I was thinking about that instead of whatever Weasley was saying to me and no way in hell did I manage to take any notes. Weasley actually kicked me out of his office to “take a break” and “clear my head.”
Surely I couldn’t take Potter up on his suggestion in the middle of the day. Not when everyone was around and we weren’t guaranteed privacy.
Then again, I was feeling awfully dedicated to solving this one. Which is why I pulled Potter out of what might have been an important meeting with one of those excuses that were probably too thorough. I was being fastidious in my nervousness. By the time I got Potter back to my room I had a whole timetable outlined to convince him it was okay that we were here now, Ajax wouldn’t be back for ninety minutes, and if Potter was still open to it would he mind -
Potter just kissed me. He had his hands in my hair and he sucked at my lower lip until my mouth opened and he could properly taste me. His ferocity made me shudder. It made me reach back, clinging to him just as hard as he held onto me.
We were masters at getting naked these days. We knew better than to waste time in these captured moments. So often did we fumble for skin in empty offices and broom closets. We hadn’t been on a bed since that first time. But now it was mine. My bed Potter sprawled out on. My chest felt tight at the sight of him in my space.
I crawled on top of him, running both hands up his chest, feeling all of him before I took his mouth again with my kisses. His hands explored my body as well, caressing my shoulders, my back, my hips, before squeezing my ass. He pulled me against him as he rutted into me.
I was nervous to tell him I wanted to try what he’d suggested. There was no need to be. He groaned at the idea. His head fell back, showing me everything as he bit his lip in arousal. He didn’t hesitate to wiggle out from under me so he could turn over and present himself. He asked if I had this before and smirked at me when I said yes. I wondered if he would ask more, later. If he wondered just who I’d been shagging the same way I wondered about him. Still, he cast the preparation spell on himself twice in case I didn’t know what I was doing. A third time and I could thrust right in, he offered, but I shook my head no. I wanted to feel him every way I could. Including the small of his back, where one hand held him steady. And the small puckered hole, shinning with his spell slick as I pressed my finger in.
This part was not always sexy. Potter liked to take his time, be thorough with me so I wasn’t hurt during the main event. I was always patient for him, far from how needy he was being now for me. Underneath me, Potter whined and wiggled. He jutted his hips backwards, asking for more, harder, with words and actions. I had two fingers in and he said he was ready. I could do it now. Instead of my cock I put in a third finger and he groaned out frustration. I pushed them in and stretched them apart inside of him to prep as much as I could.
I fucked him then. It thrilled him. I knew I was nothing special size wise, not like Greg had been or even as big as Potter, but I was big enough and I was eager to make the most of what I offered. It was good I’d been training, too, because I had the strength and stamina to try different angles until I found the one that had Potter howling. I held him there, and pistoned into his spot again and again while he thrashed under me in pleasure. Despite my stretching he was still so fucking tight, and he squeezed around me like he knew he could pull my brains out through my dick. I did what I could to slow my reaction down but in the end nothing could hold back my ejaculation. It hit hard and fast and I made some garbled noise as Potter groaned again, feeling my come coat his insides.
I wanted to slump forward and collapse on top of him as he so often did on me, but he wasn’t finished. I had to fumble my hand around his body, find his still achingly hard cock. His ass clenched again when I stroked him, too much sensation on my most sensitive parts. I took my hand back so I could pull out of him and push him back over onto his back. I swatted him away when he reached for me, probably wanting more kisses. I used my mouth for other things this time. The weight of his cock had grown familiar in my mouth. I’d been practicing taking him, all of him, and showed him how practice paid off by swallowing down, down, down, until all of him was in me and he had new reasons to groan. He came quick, too, when motivated.
He wanted to cuddle me after. I almost gave into his cajoling. It undid things inside of me I thought would always be tangled up in pain. We couldn’t, though. Ajax would be back soon, and this place wasn’t really mine.
I liked the time we spent together not touching almost as much. That’s how I knew I was doomed. I rarely felt safe enough with a person to want sex from them. But it was clear sex wasn’t all I wanted, and Potter had been very clear about what he couldn’t give me.
I still enjoyed the time. I sat with him as he finalized his report for the year. I’d taken it as far as I could for him and now he had to wrap it up. I’d already offered suggestions and tied his themes into case studies he had for the topic he was focusing on, always remembering exactly where I’d stored them. I tried not to chide him as he incorporated all the pieces. Truly, I held back on almost all his mistakes. I had to speak up though and encourage him to reference Weasley’s work, especially when it was a tip I’d given him based on Weasley’s success. I could tell it was annoying him but I didn’t know what else to do. Weasley had done it first, and honestly I worried I’d been disloyal by sharing his methods. I figured Potter could use his report as further evidence the strategies were effective, while expanding on Weasley’s learnings by showing they could be applied at different points and in different ways. It would benefit everyone, that acknowledgement.
That’s not how Potter took it. Usually he let me tell him how he could make his point best, but this time he asked if I could cool my heels on trying to get Weasley the promotion instead of him.
His words sent me reeling. I’d know how to react if Weasley said something like that, or one of the trainees, or the senior aurors. But what should I say to my… not boyfriend. Not lover. At best, my paramour. My affair. My fling.
My voice was very soft when I tried to correct him. This wasn’t about Potter, I just know how hard Weasley has been working and I didn’t ask him about sharing his project with Potter first. Potter’s quiet voice didn’t sound half as reconciliatory. He had also been working very hard, and he hadn’t let me in on his efforts so I could help him cheat. There was no way to hear that and misunderstand that he was angry. It wasn’t an anger in the way I was used to seeing from him. It was still familiar, though. An anger I knew from a decade ago, when so many people spoke quiet and calm as they outlined all my failures. I didn’t know how to defend myself from this. I didn’t think Potter had cheated, and I knew he worked hard. I tried saying that. My father liked flattery when he was angry. Maybe that would make Potter happy, too. Maybe I could assuage him and we could move past this like it never happened.
Now he got angry like I recognized from Potter. Loud and accusing. What was I saying? What was I trying to do?
In some distant part of my brain I knew this was a trap, but it had been comfortable sitting there next to him. I had felt safe. I was desperate to get that feeling back. We could fix this, couldn’t we?
It didn’t matter. The senior aurors told him last week they were giving him the promotion so whatever I was trying wouldn’t work.
That… that was… that… I wasn't sure where I was meant to start in a reply to that. Probably not by saying that wasn’t fair.
His face twisted into something I physically pulled back from. Potter was saying things, too, nonsense things. How he knew I didn’t want him to be promoted because it meant we’d have to end things and he was tired of me bringing it up. He’s been upfront since the beginning that it was going to happen. He seethed when he reminded me the rule was don’t get attached.
I think I would have tried to say something different to a lover. But I never had been his lover. This was just casual, and it always had an end date. Potter set those bloody rules and I said they were fine and there was no reason they shouldn’t be. No reason my insides should be aching. No reason to talk about it with him.
The rule was this doesn’t get in the way of our jobs, and this conversation was about the job. Potter was a senior auror now and, honestly, fuck the lot of them. Weasley deserved that promotion. He was better at the job than Potter, he worked twice as hard, he could stand his own against those people and wouldn’t let himself be propped up as a figurehead that could be bulldozed over when things got political. Potter was making a mistake. Worse still, he was fucking over his friend. Again.
Fuck you, Potter said, face red with anger. Definitely not shame.
My skin ached from all the places he ever touched me but for once I was glad the memory could fade. Probably would fade. With time and distance and steadfast commitment I could forget ever feeling like this, just like I’d forced myself to forget every other choice I made that ever hurt me.
Yeah. Right. Whatever. I didn’t need to be here for this. Staying this long has been a mistake.