October, Draco thought as he crossed the grounds down to the quidditch pitch, might be his favorite month at Hogwarts. The crisp air and leaves changing color always buoyed his mood, and it was the best month to fly. Many of the days were sunny, and though you could see snow capping the mountains, it wasn’t quite due to hit you yet. The first-years were settling in and had far less questions and concerns about their life at school, and the returning students had reacclimated. It wasn’t time for end-of-term exams yet, so there was plenty of time for indulging himself - and he wasn’t the only one.
Two years ago, he’d brought up the idea of staff games, and to his delight, many of his coworkers had been interested. Word had gotten round in Hogsmeade as well, and as of this year, they had enough players for four teams total. They practiced twice a week and played their games on Monday evenings after lessons wrapped up.
"Ready toignore our real lives for a couple hours?" Erin, one of the newer professors at the school, joined him on one side as Neville fell in step with him on the other. "I think I was more distracted than any of the students in my last class."
Draco gave a quiet hmm in response, looking towards the lake as they passed it. Down at the edge, he could see Luna sitting with a book in her lap. He wanted to turn, to go to her, despite how much he wanted to fly. Read with her, read to her. Kiss her. Let her read to him. He didn't care. He just wanted to be with her, and it slightly terrified him.
"Is she not coming to watch the practice, then?" Erin nodded towards Luna. "I heard you inviting her earlier."
"She never does," Neville said with a grin. "But we ask her all the same."
"I've not talked to her much. She seems a bit–"
"Mind yourself, Erin." Draco strode ahead of them, jaw tight. They were too new for him to feel comfortable telling everyone they were together, but he'd long since stopped tolerating listening to anyone say anything about Luna in front of him. When the school had been rebuilt after the war, there had been a few months where anyone saying anything about Luna had found themselves meeting his fist; he'd grown past that - mostly - but he thought it best not to tempt himself.
"Happier is all I was going to say, mate. She was rather out of sorts at the start of term."
"So was I." He looked over his shoulder in time to see Erin and Neville exchange an amused look, and then carried on down the path.
The sun was setting when Luna finally closed her book and pulled her feet from the water at the edge of the lake. She loved this time of day, the way the sky was often streaked with color just before the sky turned to ink and how everything seemed hushed. It always made her feel like anything was possible, that dreams could come true…and it was when Draco had kissed her for the first time, not so long ago.
She smiled to herself as she walked down the path towards the quidditch pitch, thinking of him. They were supposed to go to dinner in Hogsmeade tonight and if she didn't remind him, he'd spend too long down there with the other professors. And she wouldn't totally mind that; she loved to watch him fly, loved the passion he had for it. He deserved to enjoy the things that he loved.
But she did want some time with him alone.
"Oh hello, Luna!" Neville was heading back toward the castle, extra robes tucked under his arm. "Draco's still down there. In the gym, I think."
Luna blinked at him. "There's…a gym?"
"Yeah. It's just off the locker rooms." He smiled and moved to continue past her. "Everyone else has left already."
When she walked beneath the stands, following the signs posted, and again when she walked through the hallway to the door Neville had indicated, she ran her fingers across the wood and stone. How many times had she been to the pitch and never knew they had a gym there? It should have been obvious, she supposed, but she'd just always assumed that they did their workouts somewhere in the castle.
Most of her thoughts of that fled as she opened the unmarked door just past the locker rooms.
She could look at him all day, she thought, standing in the doorway and looking into the gym. One hand was on the stone of the walkway she'd followed down here, the other held in front of her as though she were reaching for something. For him, maybe? She wasn't sure, really. Many of her thoughts had fled her mind when she'd seen him and stopped walking, and for good reason. His back was to her but that may have been a good thing - she wasn't yet accustomed to seeing him stripped down and wasn't sure she'd have been able to do anything but want to shove him back against the wall.
Practice had been over for half an hour, but she'd not have known that to look at him. His robes were on a bench at the side of the room, his white oxford neatly folded and sitting on top of them.
Sweat made his skin gleam and accentuated the muscles moving in his back as he reached up to grab the snitch that was flying around the room. Evening light streamed in from the window, turning his hair gold and softening everything in the room. He caught sight of her as he turned around, letting the snitch go, and the way the light turned his eyes to molten silver made her breath catch.
She definitely wanted to shove him against the wall.
"You can do it, if you like." Draco's voice startled her slightly, making her blush, and the corner of his mouth twitched up. "Don't worry, you didn't say anything. It's just written all over your face."
"I'd have said it, though." Her eyes dropped from his face, down his neck to his chest and the beads of sweat there. She wanted to lick him.
"I don't doubt it." He reached to grab a towel, stopping when she made a sound in the back of her throat, and raised a brow instead. "We'll miss dinner if we do anything."
"We can go to Hogsmeade another night." She stepped into the room, breathed in. She could smell leather, sweat, and the spicy, woodsy scent of Draco. There was no way she was leaving without something. "Please?"
His lips twitched upwards. "If you knew how many fantasies I've had about this happening, you wouldn't be saying please."
"Finish your workout. I'll wait for you." She gave him a sweet smile in return, heading for a bench along the other wall.
Draco had turned his back to Luna in less than a minute, unable to concentrate on anything that didn't involve touching her. But after nearly twenty minutes of hearing quiet rustling behind him, he couldn't resist turning back around to see what she was doing, and when he saw her, he knew he was done for the day.
She was sitting on that damned bench completely naked.
"Luna." His voice was practically a growl.
"Draco." She smiled, leaned back on the bench. "Are you done?"
"Oh, I'm more than done." He moved swiftly across the room, took her hands in his and pulled her up. She shivered as he bent close to her, leaning to whisper in her ear. "But you're not. You wanted to shove me against the wall? Do it."
A shiver ran down her spine and she smiled slightly, turning her head toward him, nipping lightly down the side of his neck to his Adam's apple. His hands dropped to her hips, pulling her against him, and her smile widened. She could feel his erection between them, demanding, felt the aching within herself intensify. "Already?"
"I want you all the damn time," he murmured, his tone low and gravelly. "I'm like a blasted school-boy."
She pushed him backwards in response, harder than he’d expected, until he gave a quiet grunt when his back hit the wall. With something solid behind him, she snaked her hands behind his neck, clutched him while he brought his lips down to hers. She sighed as his tongue touched hers, felt her breathing quicken as he groaned quietly, made a little thrust against her. "I never understood what that meant," she said a few moments later, short of breath, when he was kissing his way down the line of her jaw. "Until you."
She slid her hands down him, tracing a mixture of muscles and scars, made quick work of his trousers. He swore quietly under his breath as she took him in her hand, and she looked up at him, looked back down.
"Don't even think about it." His voice was lower, getting more hoarse. "I want–"
"I don't think it matters what you want. Not when I've got you like this." She slid her hand over him, let her thumb rub across his tip. He twitched in her hand and she did it again, watching as his eyes fluttered closed and he exhaled.
"You'll be the death of me," he finally muttered.
She let him flip them around after he'd slid his fingers between them, curled them inside her, made her come on them while his cock was still in her hand. I want that again, she thought, her forehead resting on Draco's chest, her back now against the wall. And again. Always.
He made her wait for it, though, letting her catch her breath before he started kissing his way down her body again, alternating nipping and sucking on her neck, her collarbone, her breasts. He lightly scraped his teeth across his nipple in turn, swirling his tongue around them before letting them out of his mouth with a soft popping sound. Luna was writhing against him by then, desperate for some friction.
"I've never done this down here before," he was working his way back up her neck, his hands sliding down to her hips again and then lower. Her laugh vibrated against his mouth and he let his hand slide lower, his fingers teasing her. "I'm glad you wandered in."
"I'm glad you hadn't put your shirt on yet." She paused. "And that you hadn't showered."
His mouth found hers again in response and gripped her hips, lifting her for a better angle. Luna gasped into him when she felt the tip of him against her, tried to squirm closer, but when their eyes locked onto each other, she stilled. She'd always been enthralled with the intensity of his gaze, the way it changed. She had been aware of how he could make people feel just by looking at them ever since she'd met him, but over the past few years, she'd come to learn the subtleties to it, to reading him. She knew what he looked like in a room full of people he cared nothing about, knew the quiet stillness when he was listening to his students or teaching, the awareness when somebody was trying to fool him. There was a whole other level to the intensity, though, set aside for those he knew - whether it be because he cared about them or they were going to pay for something - because Draco was extremely talented at letting the people who were invisible to him know that without trying.
The look she was getting told her that his entire world was right in front of him.
She knew he was seeing that reflected in her own gaze, and knew that as soon as she whispered the words against him, his self control was going to snap. She didn't mind; she wasn't as fragile as everyone liked to make out, but she and Draco had only done this a handful of times, and he'd been restraining himself. She wanted him to let go.
"I need you inside me," she breathed. "Immediately."
His stillness lasted only a few more seconds as her words sank in, and then in a move so swift it surprised her, he'd lifted her up and was holding her against the wall. She wrapped her legs around his waist, tightened her hold around his neck slightly.The stroke of his tongue coincided with his first slight push into her and she whimpered.
"Are you all right?" He sounded ragged. "I can–"
"I'm not a doll." She looked down at where they were joined. "You won't break me."
He searched her face as he thrust hard, slid into her completely, pulled back and repeated the movement. When her eyes fluttered closed and her nails dug into him, he sped up, slamming into her again and again. The room was filled with the sounds of their bodies, their pants and moans.
“You feel so fucking good,” he said as he slid his mouth down her neck, biting and sucking in turn. She was going to have marks for a few days, reminders of how she made him come apart. A sign to everyone that she had someone in her bed.
“You, too.” Luna wound the fingers of one hand into his hair, damp with sweat. She wanted to say more to him, tell him in detail how he made her feel, but she hadn’t quite figured out how to explain all of that with the pressure building in her, the slight relief she feels when he fills her. She was caught up in chasing the wave, needing it to crest, writhing under him because it felt so good it was nearly unbearable.
Draco stilled suddenly when he was in her to the hilt, and Luna thought she might cry from frustration. She squirmed against him, huffed against his jaw. “Why’d you stop?”
“Because I need you to come and I’m not going to last.” Draco paused, pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. He slid his hand across the damp skin of her hip, over and down, bumping against himself and groaning at the slickness between them. “Fuck.”
He began to move his thumb gently, leaning in to whisper into her ear, and Luna did everything in her power to get more of him, to get closer. She felt the ache grow again, starting low and deep within her, spreading out with every caress against her. It extended lazily along her body, inching down her legs, her arms, tension spreading until suddenly her back was arcing as spots danced in her vision and pleasure zapped her of any thought. She barely heard the low, long moan she let out, but imagined she felt Draco twitch within her at the sounds. She felt boneless as he let her catch her breath.
When he started to move again Luna watched his face, let her eyes travel over his shoulders, chest, and arms, landing on the faded Dark Mark. During the nights they laid in bed, with him moving over her in the dark, she would trace the design and tell him how beautiful he was to her. How it would never matter to her what people said about him, she knew him. She was claiming that mark as hers, taking it away from the man who’d ruined so much in their lives, turning it into a reminder of what he’d overcome instead of what could have been. Last week, she’d kissed the Mark, following the lines of the snake until he came, shaking, his arms trembling.
She was thinking that when he locked eyes with her again, he could see the memory if he wanted. And she wasn’t sure if he did, or if he was thinking of something else, but suddenly he thrust into her so hard she felt her back slide up the wall. He paused to adjust her, raise her legs up slightly, and suddenly somehow he was deeper when he snapped his hips.
He was beautiful when he came undone, she thought, watching the storm rolling in his eyes, strands of his hair falling over the front of his face. It was nearly dark out now and without the light, she could see the gleam of sweat on his skin even better.
“Draco—”
“I’m—” he broke off with a strangled sound, catching Luna’s mouth, moaning into her. She could feel his pulse hammering beneath her fingertips. It took a few moments for him to speak. “Sorry. I’m so sorry for that.”
“For what?” She tilted her head, confused.
“The way we just— what I— how I treated you.” His cheeks were pink as he let her down, holding her hips until her feet were on the ground, looking anywhere but her face.
“You didn’t do anything wrong or that I didn’t like.” Luna cupped his jaw in her hand. “I very much enjoyed it. All of it.”
They were both quiet as they dressed, sneaking glances at each other, and Draco almost wondered aloud what the point of it was. He was already half-hard again watching Luna sweep her hair up into a knot and put her dress back on. He would happily pull it back off, or even up; kneeling in front of her, he could shatter her into a million pieces.
“I was thinking we should probably tell people….” Draco cleared his throat. “About us, I mean.”
Luna came back to him, put her arms around his waist, palms against his back. He bent his head to kiss her gently, putting everything he had trouble saying into it.
I’m sorry that it's taken me so long. I don’t care what my family says about me breaking off my engagement to Astoria; I’d rather lose them than you. I want everyone to know how I feel about you.
She kissed him back, swearing she could feel his skin heat beneath his shirt, and laid her head on his chest. Coming down here had been a very good idea, she thought with a soft sigh.