Strong Love

"Just to be clear, I didn't come home early for this," Harry said, beads of sweat rolling down his face and chest.

He was propped up on his elbows, looking at naked Malfoy lying on his stomach next to Harry, his feet in the air dangling to an unknown rhythm. Malfoy grinned at Harry, his features transforming instantly into something much softer, much younger, something untouched by war and cruelty.

"I know," he replied, his voice laced with something Harry couldn't quite decipher.

Harry really hadn't expected to end up in bed with Malfoy when he had left the Ministry. He hadn't expected anything, really. With Malfoy, it was never easy to know what was going to happen, but to Harry, that was part of the fun. Draco kept him on his toes, and that was a good thing.

Malfoy stemmed himself up on his hands, and for a second, Harry thought he was about to start doing push-ups, but instead, Malfoy placed his hands on either side off Harry's head until he was hovering above him again, a wicked grin on his lips. Harry didn't get to say a word because as soon as his lips were parted, Malfoy's tongue found its way between them, and every word Harry had ever learned was lost on him.

"Another round?" Draco asked.

Harry reached up to tuck a loose strand of silver hair behind Draco's ear and smiled up at him with regret. "I can't, Malfoy, I should really do some work."

The blonde wasn't discouraged by that in the least. "Alright, then, let's make a bet."

A laugh escaped Harry's lips, Malfoy's eyes widening almost imperceptibly at the sound. "A bet? Come on, Malfoy, I thought we agreed bets aren't good for you."

Malfoy raised his eyebrows. "No, bets aren't good for you."

Harry laughed again. "They bring out the worst in you."

The last time they had made a bet, Malfoy had won and was so drunk with superiority that he had made Harry and Ron release Kreacher from his mountain of dishes and made them scrub them by hand. Ron had sworn he had gotten blisters on his fingers, and even though Harry knew that that was an exaggeration, he had told Malfoy that there were going to be no more bets.

However, Harry should have known that Draco Malfoy wouldn't simply take a no for an answer. Five minutes later, Harry was sitting in his office, three documents hovering in front of his face so he could read them simultaneously while his one hand was gripping the armrest of his chair and the other hand was in Malfoy's hair as his head was bopping up and down. They were both dressed in joggers and t-shirts, but Draco had had the audacity to pull down Harry's trousers to give him access.

"If you want to work so badly, then you surely won't care what I'm doing while you're at it," Malfoy had said with an all too familiar evil glimmer in his eyes. "I win when you give up."

Harry had rolled his eyes, exasperated by Malfoy's childishness and willingness to prove himself. "Fine. What do I get when I win?"

"I'll let you work," Malfoy had replied, his grin so wide that Harry was sure his cheeks must have hurt. "And then you get me."

"And what do you get when you win?"

"You."

At first, Harry had been convinced that Malfoy was way too sure of himself, and he didn't want to give him the satisfaction of declining the bet and admitting defeat, so he had accepted, if not a little apprehensively. But now that he was sitting here, trying so desperately to concentrate on the words written on the papers before him and not on the sounds Malfoy's mouth was making or the feeling of his warm lips wrapped around Harry's prick, he wasn't so convinced anymore that he could win this bet.

Harry tried to read the same sentence for what must have been the tenth time, but he couldn't even tell because time and space all seemed to melt together when Malfoy's hands reached beneath his shirt and held onto Harry's waist.

"Not a sound" was the condition of the bet that now concerned Harry the most. He couldn't even really kiss Malfoy without making a sound, so this was almost unbearable to him. He was biting his lip so hard that he was sure it was going to bleed soon, but he didn't want to give up just yet. He could do it; he just had to focus. He had to think of something else, anything else, just to get Malfoy out of his head.

And then Harry made the foolish mistake of looking down. His eyes met Draco's, so full of lust, his perfect lips wrapped around Harry, his cheekbones more prominent than ever while he was sucking. Harry was sure he was losing his mind. This man was his and his alone, and he would never get over that. He took his hand away from Draco's head just to hold onto the chair, but it loosened Draco's hair, falling into his face, and Harry was done.

"Fuck," he whispered, both because he knew he had lost and because that was the only word he could think of to perfectly describe his feelings. His heart was hammering against his ribcage so hard that he thought he might have a heart attack. "Come here," Harry said.

The second Malfoy's lips were away from Harry's prick, they widened into a grin that Harry would have loved to slap right off. "That was longer than I would have expected from you, Potter," Malfoy teased, and Harry rolled his eyes.

Draco got to his feet, sliding his hands up Harry's thighs and across his torso until they rested on Harry's firm chest, toned from years and years of playing Quidditch. Harry held his breath until his lips met Malfoy's and he felt as if all the life in the world was in that kiss. His hands carefully held Malfoy's face as if he were made of porcelain and would break if Harry held him too tightly. Draco was the most precious thing in the world to him.

"Potter," the blonde whispered against Harry's lips, the softness in his voice making Harry want to cry out. "Get to work."

Harry pulled his head back to get a better look at his husband, whose grin was still firmly set in place. He pressed a kiss to Harry's jaw before stepping away from him, his hands slipping off Harry's chest.

"Did you really do all this just to turn me on and then leave me hanging?" Harry asked. He was always amazed that Malfoy's narcissism could still surprise him. That man really felt the need to prove that he was more important to Harry than his work.

"Do your work," Draco said, smiling widely while walking around Harry's desk, "and when you're done, I'll be waiting in my office for you."

Harry raised his eyebrow, slightly offended not at the rejection but at the demand. "You'll be waiting in your office?" he repeated in disbelief. "What am I, a prostitute?"

Malfoy's grin widened, and he effortlessly pulled his hair up into a bun, leaving two strands of hair to fall into his face. "Yes, love, and I would pay all the money in the world for just one minute with you."

Harry rolled his eyes again. "I'm not sure that this is a compliment."

"Oh, it is," Malfoy replied.

Harry wordlessly watched the love of his life close the door behind himself on his way out, and he sat staring at said closed door for another few seconds before shaking his head. He was unbelievable, Malfoy was. The three documents were staring at Harry in mid-air as if they were trying to accuse him to have forgotten them. It wasn't his fault, really. He had tried to focus, but there was nothing he could do if his husband was playing unfair.

So for another three hours, while the sun was slowly setting behind him, Harry sat behind his desk and tried to apologise to his poor documents by flipping through them over and over again, hoping and beggind and pleading to find something, until he was so desperate for answers that he called Ron.

"Oi, mate, I thought we shouldn't talk today anymore," Ron's first words were when he picked up. "Aren't you... busy?"

Harry smiled to himself. He could imagine exactly the face Ron had made when he had said the last word. "I said you shouldn't call me, not the other way around," he replied. "Besides, I need something to keep me from starting to talk to those papers in front of me. We're old friends at this point, and I can't stand abusing them for information anymore when there's just nothing more to get."

Ron's loud laugh came through the line before his voice turned serious again. "I'm sorry, mate, we have nothing yet."

"Nothing on the guy with the hand?"

"Nothing," Ron repeated. "But we spent hours putting up those charms you told us to do, and let me tell you, there are too many people called like our loved ones."

Harry snorted, but the first part still worried him. "Do we have anything on someone fitting the description, though?"

"What description?" Ron asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Tall and black hair? I think it's safe to say that those results might be somewhere around the number of people called James in the UK."

Harry leaned his head back and let out a groan. "This can't be possible. What are we supposed to do? Just sit around and wait for Avery to do something again and hope that he leaves us some clues this time?"

"I don't know, man, but I know that we can't wait for him to take another person. We have to find this James bloke before something happens to him."

"If it's not already too late," Harry mumbled, suddenly sick to his stomach.

"Yeah..." Ron replied quietly, his voice trailing off. "Listen, Harry, did you talk to Malfoy?"

Harry ran his hand over his face. Right, there was another issue that had to be dealt with. "No, I haven't. Why do you ask? Did you tell Hermione?"

"No, but I think maybe we should."

"I know." Harry nodded even though he knew that Ron couldn't see him. "Now that Avery is taking people, they should now that they have to be careful."

Ron was quiet for a moment, and Harry knew that it was because Ron, too, was nodding and thinking this over. They weren't supposed to tell anyone about their work, but this affected them now, too. Avery must know that Harry and Draco were married, so if Harry were him and wanted to make things personal, he would go after Draco first. Maybe not right away because he had just now started sending Harry a real threat by taking a man with the same name as Harry's father, but at some point, eventually, when they least expected it, he might go for the actual people bearing those names.

"Alright, mate, thanks for answering," Harry said to break the suddenly unbearable silence. "I have to leave this room now. I can't look at those papers anymore, or I'll actually go mental."

Ron snorted. "Do that, and don't tell me a single thing about it." Harry laughed. "See you tomorrow."

"Yes, you will."

Harry hung up the phone, threw the documents a nasty glance, and got up to head across the hall into what was now Malfoy's office. He knocked at the door just to be polite and when Malfoy called, "Just come in, you wanker, you know you don't have to knock," Harry did as he was told. Draco sat behind his own desk which looked startlingly similar to Harry's, only that his papers weren't familiar to Harry and refrained from mocking him.

Harry pointed at the half-empty glass of wine in the midst of the paper mess. "Does Kreacher keep a bottle on stand-by for you, or what?"

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Shut up and go back to knocking on my door so I can tell you to stay outside."

With a laugh, Harry rounded his desk and picked up the glass from the table only to make room for him to sit on. He put his feet in Malfoy's lap, and the Slytherin took them in his hands to caress them.

"What can I do for you, Mister Malfoy?" Draco asked in a formal voice, a sly smirk on his lips that reached all the way up to his eyes.

"Well, Mister Potter," Harry said, equally formal, "I would like to tell you about the case I'm working on."

Harry could see that Draco was trying very hard to keep his composure. "You mean the case I've been asking about for - what? - a month?"

Harry nodded, a knot forming in his gut. "Yes. That case."

Malfoy narrowed his eyes, suspicious. "Is this a test? I swear I was just joking when I said I won't let you fuck me anymore if you don't tell me. I thought you got that... you laughed, so..."

That made Harry laugh again, and he shook his head. "No, I got that," he said, "but I want to tell you. We haven't had a lot of time for each other this past week and it was the hardest week I had to endure since you left me at Hogwarts when Miles had told the Slytherins about us."

The memory alone made Harry swallow hard. Miles Foster, the man who had fucked Draco before Harry had (for he had been nothing more than that), had outed them to the entire house of Slytherin in a fit of rage and jealousy. That had resulted in Harry and Draco splitting up for days because Malfoy hadn't been able to handle the pressure of his parents possibly finding out, but they had found their way back to each other and since never been apart for more than a day.

"Potter, you-"

"No, let me tell you, please," Harry stopped him. "I want to. I have to."

That made Draco raise his eyebrows, but he didn't say another word and only straightened up in his chair. So Harry told him everything. He told him about Cassius Avery, a name Draco - as a Malfoy - had heard before, but a man he had never met. Harry told him how everything had started like every other case, nothing special or unusual about it, until word came up that Avery had gained followers. That had been when Kingsley had personally put together the team that was now working on the case alone. Harry went into detail about the games Avery had been playing with him for the past few weeks, how Ron had been in Essex and Sheffield and Southampton in a matter of a week, investigating the messages Avery had left, none of them as straightforward as the one in Diagon Alley. Harry mentioned the comments of the people that had been there when Williamson had cleaned up the scene, the reason why Harry had been so distraught on Monday, and why he had barely left the Ministry in the past few days.

By the time Harry concluded with what he and Ron had found out today, the sky outside was dark and the office was illuminated by the light on the ceiling above them. Malfoy's hands were in his hair, making it look so fluffy and beautiful that Harry was almost tempted to let himself be distracted by it.

"Merlin, Potter," Draco gasped. "This is what you have to deal with?"

Harry shrugged and nodded with a soft laugh. He hadn't expected this to be the reaction. "How could you, after everything I just told you, still sound so admiring?"

"Because I am," Malfoy said simply. "I bloody admire you, Potter, and I love you so fucking much. I wish there was a way for me to take all the weight off your shoulders and make you feel calm and at peace."

Harry leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Draco's lips. "You have enough weight on your own shoulders," he replied. "Besides, you make me feel more at peace that I've ever been. Ever since I came home today I felt so much lighter, and that's only by being in your presence. You have no idea what talking to you does. I'll never be fully at peace. Way too many things have happened to me for that, but that's okay. I'm not living in the dark anymore. You're my light."

Draco closed the small gap between them again, kissing Harry fiercely. "You're such a romantic," he said, and Harry laughed, shoving him back.

"Shut up." Harry got up from the table and pulled down his joggers. "You won the bet," he said, reaching for Malfoy's trousers, "don't you want to collect your prize?"

With a wide grin, Malfoy got up, too, and let Harry undress him. In one swift motion, he spun Harry around and reached for his neck from behind. Malfoy bent Harry over the table, the paperwork and wineglass forgotten, and grabbed his waist to pull Harry's ass against Draco's prick. A moan escaped Harry's lips when Malfoy entered him rather forcefully and bent down to press a kiss between Harry's shoulderblades, sinking even deeper.