The way back

At school, Draco’s lips used to draw tight into a sneer. More than once Harry caught himself looking at it. It was Draco’s least attractive expression. It had taken Harry over a year of staring at Draco across the great hall to consider what it meant that he’d ranked the attractiveness levels of Draco’s expressions. It was that sneer, though, that made Harry want most to do things to him. Harry’d been certain he could wipe it off Draco’s face. Replace it with something wild. Something Harry hadn’t yet seen. Something like the wide eyed amazement drawn out over his features when he came.

Draco definitely just came. He’d been humping Harry like a man possessed, and now the mouth-watering scent of his spunk filled the air. That scent was seared so deep in Harry’s consciousness that an obliviate couldn’t have erased the memory. Harry wanted to bask in it. Study each minute detail of how soft Draco could look, when before he’d only ever been sharp and pointy.

Circe’s tits, Draco fucking orgasmed. His clothes were wet with it, just as they were wet with other things. Draco was a fucking wreck.

Harry had never before felt as compelled to take care of anything.

Which meant it was bloody horrible timing that the aurors chose that moment to break down two decades worth of security charms to crash through the wall behind him.

All thoughts trailed seconds behind instinct-driven movement. Harry whipped round to face anything and everything, his body shielding the vulnerable omega at his back. Harry saw faces, bodies, but the images didn’t connect to knowledge. They were just threats. People who might want Draco for themselves. Harry bared his teeth even before the smell of them scraped through the room, assaulting Harry’s senses with heightened, aggressive emotions.

Worse, he smelled an alpha. A challenger. A large imposing man whose power sparked through the room. An electric current that sought to burn through Harry’s earthier musk.

No. No. Harry would tear the alpha’s throat out before he laid a finger on Draco.

One of the others stepped forward ahead of the pack. A large, broad man, hardly more than a blur at the edges of Harry’s vision. He was saying something. Murky words that thudded dully beyond the blood beating loud in Harry’s ears. No possible words could matter when the man stood alongside the challenger alpha.

Smooth holly rested easy in Harry’s palm. His wand brought a focus and force that he didn’t need in day to day casting. He craved it now. The power it offered. The ease with which the blasting curse spun from it towards his foe. The way it would tear into…

Harry wasn’t used to seeing Ron afraid. Ron hardly had reason to be, with all the auror resources at his disposal, and Harry a powerhouse at his back. Ron clearly hadn’t considered there would be a reason for Harry to turn all the force he was capable of towards him. The other alpha was ready even when Ron wasn’t. The shield he flung forward carried its own outsized alpha strength. Enough to hold up against Harry’s blast, barely, even as the burst once again shook the room’s foundations.

Ron. Harry had almost killed Ron.

Harry pulled back, away from his attempt at destruction. Draco, who had never stopped grasping for Harry’s skin, groaned at the contact. The omega’s arms were wrapped around Harry’s waist, underneath his shirt. The edge of Draco’s jaw lined up against the side of Harry’s neck. Draco’s lips were parted against his skin, breathing wetly as he recovered from the pleasure he’d run headlong into. The tingle of Draco’s touch threatened to rob Harry of the senses he’d only just recovered.

Harry couldn’t let the world fade into unrecognition. That was Ron. Ron was his family. His pack. He was Harry’s. Like Draco was Harry’s. Ron shouldn’t be with that…

When the other alpha shifted into a defensive position all the images that Harry hadn’t previously been able to process came together. It wasn’t a vague, dark, unknowable villain. It was Kinglsey. Harry’s boss. The man who’d taught Harry how to reign in his alpha instinct in order to be an asset to the force. These people, all the people who’d broken through the ministry's defenses, were Harry’s friends.

And Harry would kill them before he let them take Draco away from him.

An hour ago, that sort of realization would snap Harry out of his haze. But the knowledge no longer stood up to the instincts howling in Harry’s chest. Still, Harry wasn’t so far gone he couldn’t intellectualize how he was supposed to think in this situation. There was a bloody handbook for this sort of encounter. Harry once had to take a test proving he knew the policy. Proving he understood the biological reactions that made omegas so vulnerable during heat, and how pheromones could drive an alpha to uncharacteristic displays of aggression. Realizing that he now matched the criteria he’d been warned about hardly mattered, but it did make clear he had to get the fuck away. Kingsley was fingering his wand, and Ron’s features had set into an expression that terrified the most hardened criminals. That handbook Harry once had to read clearly laid out successful strategies to take down an alpha even as strong as Harry in order to get the vulnerable omega away.

Maybe Draco didn’t smell them. His nose was right up in Harry’s throat. He nuzzled against the strongest smelling skin. Then his lips chased the sensation. He was kissing now. Lazy, languid brushes of lips. Sensual flicks of tongue. Motions designed to sink Harry’s thoughts back into oblivion. Motions leading up to Draco finding the most sensitive spot. A bulbed gland hardened by Harry’s arousal. A place so easy for Draco to wrap his mouth around and suck.

Merlin, Mordred and Morgana. Harry could howl out his pleasure. Maybe he did. He gave some signal to the aurors that he was compromised. As a unit, they raised their wands to strike. Their movements looked so slow in the fog of Harry’s brain. They were doing everything by the book, but Harry read that handbook, too. He knew what they meant to cast. It would have been so easy to counter, to respond, to curse them with magic so foul their blood would boil under their skin and they wouldn’t have time to shriek before they died. With Draco’s uncompromising devotion as inspiration, it would be easy.

Harry’s certainty that he could murder all of them struck him as hard as the electric charm in that blasted hospital had. It pulled him out of brain fog and gave him half a second to choose another path. If he had the power to strike down the most elite aurors in the ministry, he had the power for far more.

Harry’s free arm clung tight to Draco. His Draco. His.

It wasn’t so much easy as it was inevitable that Harry cast apparate, right there in the Ministry of Magic, where ancient wards should have stood in his way. Harry shredded them. He had to. He needed to take Draco away.

Grimmauld Place was not where Harry took the blokes he pulled to. It was always so dim, even when the lights were meant to be shining. Lamps were just bright enough to reveal paint peeling off the walls, and dark spots high up in ceiling corners that looked suspiciously like mold. Try as Harry might, Harry could never get the house to stay clean. The shapes of the room were once new, quality furniture he brought in himself. All of it went lumpy overnight, and within the week had faded into the dull shades of a house that made clear Harry wasn’t welcome.

But it had the fidelius on it. It was the only place in the world Harry was ever assured privacy. Which was one of the few things Harry guarded fiercely. Harry and his damn house had been locked in a stalemate over the years, neither being able to make the other let it be.

Harry scowled at the shadows and the ramshackled furnishings. The drudgery he’d grown complacent to suddenly unacceptable. How dare this bloody house treat Draco this way. The rumble of a growl started deep in Harry’s chest, straining his throat as an unprompted roar erupted from him as a single, demanding word, “Lights!”

Every light in the house blazed on all at once, so bright in that first moment that Harry had to lift a hand to shield his eyes from the glare of it. A blink later and the eye-piercing light beams were gone, leaving a cheerfully bright room, with garden green wall paper and clean, sturdy furnishings. The large, cushy armchair Harry had purchased a year ago, just to see it dip in on itself in a matter of days, could have been freshly assembled that very morning. It was decorated with a lilac throw pillow Harry had never seen before, and what Harry assumed was a hand-made quilt draped over the back.

What the actual fuck was happening.

And of course Draco was there, pressed up against Harry’s chest and already reaching under Harry’s clothes to glide his blazing hot fingers up Harry’s back. Switching locations had been disorienting, in no small part because they’d moved away from where Draco’s scent had permeated the otherwise sterile interrogation room. Harry got to experience once more how Draco’s scent wound out and around a new space. Harry’s space. Under the dust and mildew of Grimmauld Place was Harry’s own scent, and it was doing things to him to taste in the air how well he and Draco intermingled.

Harry carded his hands through Draco’s hair again. He’d spent ages wondering if Draco’s hair was as soft as it looked. It had been, earlier. Now it was damp and stringy. It clung to Harry’s fingers. Draco fought against Harry dislodging himself from Draco’s space. Harry forced the issue just enough to push Draco’s face away from Harry’s skin.

Yeah, he was still beautiful. But he didn’t look well. His normally pale skin was flushed and red. His dry lips were cracking even as they were lined with the shine of sweat. His eyes… Harry had spent too much time staring at those eyes. Too many years catching each other’s animosity filled gazes. A sharp gray that Harry once overheard Draco trying to convince his friends was silver. The prat just couldn’t help but try to be special. Only now those beautiful, stormy eyes were glazed over and blurry. He was staring at Harry, but it didn’t look like he actually saw him.

“Oh hell,” Harry whispered.

Draco tugged forward, trying again to get as close as he could. He whined in the back of his throat. His voice was thin as he mewed, “Alpha.”

Harry squeezed his eyes shut. Draco wouldn’t stop saying that. It did things to Harry even though he wished it wouldn’t. Everything about Draco did things to him. He was the sort of man Harry would pick out of a crowd at a hundred paces. His scent alone could knock Harry on his ass. If Harry didn’t know who Draco was, everything he’d done…

Draco took advantage of Harry’s distraction and pushed forward again to kiss him. The sweet taste of his lips had Harry groaning even though he knew better. Knowing it didn’t stop the fire channeling through his body, as if Draco could infect Harry with his heat.

The heat. Gods, Draco would never throw himself at Harry like this if it wasn’t for his heat. The sweat was dripping off him in bullets. He couldn’t even remember Harry’s name.

Harry shoved Draco off and tried to ignore how Draco’s whimper cut him to the quick. It wasn’t right to be kissing Draco. Draco was…

Fuck, he was beautiful. Every time Harry tried to focus on how sick he looked he got distracted by delicate features. His eyelashes were so long. Had they always been that long? How had Harry never noticed before? He’d thought he’d known everything about Draco.

Like how Draco was sick with heat. Harry couldn’t afford to forget it. He’d read the fucking handbook, damnit. So what if he never thought it would apply to him. Harry knew how to take care of an omega.

His omega.

His Draco.

In some vague, far away space in his mind he considered reckoning with his need to possess the other man. He seethed at the thought, the mere suggestion that Draco could be taken from him. The aurors were wrong to have tried. They wouldn’t have, if they understood. They thought Harry was out of control, that he wasn’t capable of keeping his omega safe. Of course Harry could keep Draco safe. There was no one better suited to it. He’d show them all. He’d treat Draco like a king. Draco would want for nothing. Any minute now, Harry would figure out what to do. Any minute now, he would take perfect care of Draco.

It was hard, because the first step was letting Draco go. Even when Harry’d shoved him away he hadn’t let him go. Harry had held him by the shoulders, too far to rut up against Harry but very much still in his grasp. The perfect distance to view Draco’s sweat soaked skin, to see the tremors shaking through him.

It was enough to strike actual fear into Harry.

Harry tried to be gentle as he forced Draco down, right into that cozy chair Harry’d never been able to use for himself. The quilt would be too much, but Harry knew better than to mistake an omega’s heat for proper warmth. Harry’s wand was back in his hand before he could think, but he needed only to turn to the hearth for fire to leap up from the logs resting there. Hot enough to warm the room, and keep Draco from falling into shock.

“Rest here,” Harry urged, too clear a signal Harry planned to leave. Draco all but jumped from the chair to cling to Harry, only his weakness holding him back from tangling Harry up in his limbs. Harry shushed Draco as he pushed the damp hair from his forehead. “I’ll be right back, love,” he reassured. “I have gifts for you,” he promised. “Rest for me, love, rest and I’ll come right back and take care of you.” It was the right thing to say, exactly what Draco needed to melt back into the chair. Pride welled in Harry. He had known there was no one better than him to care for his omega.

The kitchen was the dreariest place in the house. It had been so for Kreacher, but Kreacher had only ever scowled at Harry for saying so. There was never anything but dented pots and chipped mugs in the cupboards. The tongs on the forks were always bent out of shape. Harry’d survived on takeaway and Sunday dinner with the Weasleys. If he went looking for himself, he’d swear up and down there was no food to be found.

That day he stormed in with the ferocious insistence that the kitchen would damn well have food for his omega. Light burst on along his path, blazing with intent. Yesterday Harry’d have sworn the bulbs in the kitchen lights were burnt out, but today they shined as savage as his rage and when Harry slammed open the kitchen door all the cupboards slammed open with it.

The first place Harry looked had a tray. The second, a stack of plates. The third was lined with clear glasses. On and on it went until Harry reached for food and it was there. Saltine crackers that would be easy on Draco’s stomach. Fresh fruit that would give a burst of energy. Cucumbers and bell peppers, already cut up in slices in the fridge. A small bowl of what must be hummus. Small balls of chocolate Harry didn’t recognize but he was certain Draco would enjoy. A plethora of items for Draco to nibble at. Things Harry could feed him by hand. Snacks Draco could sustain himself on between bouts of…

Harry hurried back to the drawing room where he’d left Draco waiting, all alone.

He gave Draco water first. The water spilled around Draco’s lips as he drank, running down his chin and dripping onto his already wet shirt. Harry couldn’t help but look for something to wipe the water away, and of course a cloth was there waiting for him. Harry knelt down in front of Draco, slotted between his legs, and ran the cloth gently along his chin until he realized Draco had stopped drinking the water. He was clenching his glass as he heaved in deep breaths, his entire body taunt with the effort to stay still.

“So good for me,” Harry purred. To his delight, Draco shuddered. Harry’s breath caught and he wanted more. He reached for the platter of food and plucked a large strawberry from it, bringing it to Draco’s lips. “Eat it, love.” Draco didn’t hesitate to wrap his lips around the strawberry, the visual of so large an object in his mouth conjuring new thoughts in Harry’s mind. Draco bit into it with relish, eating it eagerly as red juice ran down his mouth, begging for Harry to lick it up.

That was when Harry realized how hard he was. He was aching. Just as Draco must be aching. Their bodies were made for each other. A perfect fit.

It was wrong, so wrong, to tempt himself when Harry knew he had to put Draco first. Still he reached for the platter and dipped his finger into the hummus. He lied and said it was because Draco needed the protein, but really he just wanted to feel Draco’s hot mouth around the digit, sucking on the sensitive pad of Harry’s finger, lighting up every nerve ending and pulling a moan out of Harry so deep it sounded like he was already lost. Draco arched up into Harry, the hardness of his cock rubbing against Harry’s chest leaning up against the chair.

It would be so easy to fucking have him. It would be the best thing Harry had ever done.

But Harry knew he couldn’t. Draco was his omega, and he had to prove that he was right to keep him. It wasn’t just that he could take care of him, he wanted to. He wanted Draco to have everything he ever hoped for, and never have a moment of regret that Harry found him and brought him home.

Shaking, Harry refilled the water and put it back in Draco’s hands. Of course Draco took it and drank. He was giving Harry everything he wanted. It was maddening to know how easy it would be to take from him. Harry had to close his eyes to block out the sight of Draco so wantonly displayed.

Water. Food. A good start. Then what? A shower, maybe? Gods, Draco would look beautiful soaking wet. He’d bend over so perfectly.

No shower. No. Not this time. Not yet. Later, Harry promised himself. Later, after he’d proven to Draco how well he could take care of him. After Draco made the choice to stay.

Draco would have needs, though, beyond nourishment. Harry put a cracker into Draco’s mouth, trying not to think about the feel of his tongue and lips. Harry would need to feed him as much as he could now, while he was willing to take what he offered. Soon… Draco was already heaving deep breaths. His heat glistened along his skin. He was inching back towards mindlessness. He’d be rutting in no time. Or better - worse, Harry tried to convince himself - he’d present himself and whine until Harry agreed to mount him.

The omega had needs. He needed to be filled. Stuffed full. Harry was panting as he imagined how good Draco would look, filled beyond measure with cock and come. It was all Harry could do to hold himself back.

It would be bad, Harry tried not to convince himself, to let Draco go empty. It would hurt him. Harry had to close his eyes against the justification. They came easy and eager. He needed to solve this before he lost to his baser instinct’s reasoning. If only…

Harry’s eyes shot back open. If only…

Harry’d seen the heat aids sold at the chemist. Bland colored dildos with large, inflatable bulbs at the base. They weren’t too different from the toys Harry kept inside the table next to his bed upstairs. He might be an alpha, but from time to time Harry enjoyed the feeling of being plowed by a good hard cock. His imagination was happy to try out the image of this beautiful omega laid out on his bed, shoving toys that had once been in Harry up his own slick-drenched ass.

Morgan and Morgana, what a sight that would be. Wank bank material for the ages.

Not that he’d watch. Of course he wouldn’t watch. That is, unless he needed to, to make sure Draco was safe. To make sure all of Draco’s needs were being met. To make sure the dildos were enough for him. Maybe he’d need an extra hand to shove it in just right…

For the rest of his days Harry would wonder if his failure to hear the aurors coming for him was because he wasn’t the alpha Draco needed him to be. Even knowing all their spells and how they trained exactly for this situation, Harry would never forgive himself for being caught unaware. He’d sworn to himself, he’d have sworn to anyone, that he was the only person who could care for Draco. No one, absolutely no one, could do half as good. But in the half moment when he could have taken action he was caught up staring at Draco’s lips.

He’d forgotten his secret keeper was Ron, and his mind had been too far gone to set the wards against him. It wasn’t until he felt the air pressure shift around him as a team of aurors apparated into the space that he realized he’d left his omega at risk. Harry had just enough time to throw himself on top of Draco, to shield him from whatever attack was coming. Just enough time to attempt an apparition, even as anti-apparition wards didn’t let him escape. Harry shifted the direction of his magic at the last second, twisting himself and Draco together in time and space until they fell out into their bodies too close to where the aurors still searched for them.

Harry’s room was the one place in this whole cursed building that never fought against him. It was cluttered with all his favorite things lined up along his desk and shelves. Spacious in a way his childhood self had only ever dreamed of. Safe as anywhere on Earth, until the aurors came and tore notions of safety away from him.

Draco clung to him, chanting his terror with the repetitive plea of, “alpha, alpha, alpha.”

Harry bundled Draco in his lap, offering soothing sounds and soothing touches, even as his magic prodded the shields and wards boxing them in, unable to find a weak spot. He would have flung himself at even the tiniest dent in their power, but the shield was secure.

There was no sound, but Harry could feel them coming. It was their magic pulsing in his house. He could practically see it on the air, like the house wanted him to know. Like the house wanted him to stop them. He could taste their spells. Sour and acrid, disgusting things built to overwhelm Harry. He gagged on the magic, tasting it was strong enough to do him in. He’d read the handbook, he knew what was at their disposal. Magic dampeners and tranquilizing potions. A coven of nine to trap Harry in a spelled net. Charms embedded into every item of clothes so Harry couldn’t rip their protections off them with brute strength.

Draco was crying in his arms and Harry would have murdered them if it meant he could keep his omega. It didn’t matter if the aurors were like family to Harry. They were trying to take his omega away. Draco was his. He’d waited his whole life to find him and bring him home. Harry couldn’t live without him. There had to be a way to make them understand.

It was that thought which unlocked the answer in Harry’s mind.

They could take away an omega they deemed threatened by a wayward alpha. But they couldn’t take away an alpha’s mate.

Draco’s sweet scent was overwhelming when Harry brushed his nose to his omega’s neck. It made Harry’s teeth ache. They’d ached for an eternity. They ached for a reason. It was so Harry knew what he was meant to do. How he was meant to dig his teeth into Draco’s flesh. Into that pulsing gland, where Harry’s bite would mate them.