"I was thinking," Harry says. He's lying in Draco Malfoy's bed, and it's eleven-thirty at night. Draco is half asleep already, dozing off. They have just been making love, making love, not just fucking or not just jerking each other off. It may have been that way once but not anymore. The I love yous are three weeks old and Draco likes to think of it as making love now. As if something is being built between them, something that will stay after they've gone, or died, or left each other in disgust.

"Mmmm?" Draco says. Nothing can bother him right now, Harry can say whatever he wants. Draco feels warm and boneless and comfortable. Harry's leg is straddling his thigh and he can feel the sole of Harry's foot against his calf.

He loves Harry. He can feel the certainty of it surging through his sore muscles. It makes him feel like someone other than himself, someone who has nothing to hide from and no secrets to keep.

"I was thinking about after. You know, after school's done."

"Mmmm," Draco's eyes are drifting shut again.

"What are you going to do?" Harry asks.

Draco doesn't really want to open his mouth to talk, he's tired and it seems like too much effort. He hums something at Harry and shifts closer.

"I mean, are you...going back to Wiltshire? Do you know what you want to do?" Harry is on his side, propping his head up. His left hand is resting on Draco's chest sort of possessively, which Draco likes.

"Hmm. I don't know."

Harry sighs. It's not a loud sigh, not a sigh to make a point. Just a sigh.

"Tell me what you were thinking," Draco says. He speaks softly now because he's tired, because they've just made love, because he loves Harry, and there's nothing he can do to stop every word coming out of his mouth from sounding like I love you. "Tell me." He likes to hear Harry talk when he's sleepy like this, it's comforting, like when Harry plays with his hair or strokes his back. In a mood like this he could listen to Harry babble on all night, and it wouldn't even matter what he said.

"Well, it's just..." Harry hesitates. It's serious, this is going to be something that will change everything. Draco suspected that before Harry even opened his mouth. He could see the question in Harry's face the moment he slipped into Draco's room, the moment after he kicked off his shoes and pulled his shirt over his head. Draco didn't want to hear it then. He doesn't like change, and there are serious conversations he normally doesn't want to have. They aren't wise, they aren't rational, and they will just mean broken promises in the end. But now, all warm and half-buried under the body he loves so well, his fingers still tingling a little and feeling as though there is nothing he can't do and can't have, he doesn't mind Harry's questions. As he speaks Draco can feel it against his cheek.

"I can't go home," he says. "I can't go back there, they're going to throw me out soon anyway."

Draco knows all this. There is nothing about Harry he doesn't know anymore, and the truth is he's thought about this eventuality already. Harry cannot go back to his family, because his family does not want him, and the moment he turns eighteen they won't have to protect him anymore, because legally they have no more reason to. He'll be a sitting duck.

Secretly Draco has a solution. In his fantasies he goes to Gringott's as soon as he finishes school and makes a large withdrawal from his trust fund. Sometimes he does this by himself; other times Harry comes with him. He takes out enough cash to buy a house, or sometimes just a flat. But a really nice one; twelve foot ceilings, hardwood floors, something that impresses people. Other times it's a hovel, some one-room hole in the middle of Knockturn alley with cats wailing outside the window and drunken neighbours pounding on the walls. After that the fantasy is just about Harry, in Draco's bed for good with nowhere to go at dawn, no false run to be taking, no bed to muss up in that stupid tower of his to hide the fact that he sleeps down in the dungeons these days.

"Hmmm," Draco says. "I'm sure they have plans for you."

They both know who 'they' are. The government, Dumbledore, the Order of the Phoenix, all the forces of light and whoever else. The people who keep Lucius Malfoy in prison, the ones who are winning the war against Voldemort. Of course they have plans for Harry Potter, they've probably been in place since he was born, or since he was orphaned, or at least since he turned up at Hogwarts with that dazed look on his face.

Harry doesn't care much for other people's plans.

What's between them (the fucking, the jerking off, the sleeping over, the I love yous) is a secret so far. No one knows but the two of them, because both of them have too much to lose if it gets out. On one hand the lies work; as long as it's a secret no one will ever guess that Draco has company at night, no one would ever suspect, should Harry's nightly absences be discovered, that he's all the way down in the bowels of the school. Of course not. Ravenclaw tower, perhaps. Maybe he's sneaking into the Gryffindor girls' dorm, charmed to get through undetected. His friends would rib him about it and be at least a little jealous. They would ask for details, which in Draco's fantasy Harry never gives. As long as it's a secret things can go on just as they are; hypothetical, dangerous, on the verge of discovery. Mutable, ephemeral, temporary, something Harry can wake up one day and pretend doesn't exist. Draco wouldn't blame him.

"What are you thinking about?" Draco asks again. Some selfish part of him wants to hear Harry say it. He wants Harry to ask to live with him, to wake up with him, he wants to hear Harry say they'll never be separated again. He wants Harry to assure Draco that he is ready to deal with the fact that Lucius Malfoy will come looking for his son, that he will protect Draco against this eventually. That he will bind himself to Draco by some unknown magical means, making it physically impossible for Draco to comply with his father's wishes, no matter how much guilt Draco feels. It will not be his fault when the time comes; Harry will absolve him. That's what he wants to hear.

But at the same time the more logical part of him doesn't know what to do once all these fantasies of his are out in the open; what if they don't work? What if there is no way for him to avoid his own destiny, what if Harry just isn't strong enough to protect him from it? What if fantasy should remain fantasy, what if it's just not practical or even possible? What if they can only make love as long as it's all a secret, with no promises, no future, no questions? If the world knows, if Draco's father finds out, maybe it would all be empty, just another starfucker and his fucked up star.

"Oh, I don't know." Harry rolls over onto his stomach, folds his hands on the pillow and rests his chin on them. He stares at the headboard. "I just don't know what to do."

"Do what you want," Draco says. Harry's elbow is grazing his cheek.

Draco knows that he could make that withdrawal, he could pound on the door of the Dursley house at six o'clock in the morning on July 31st and announce that he's come to collect Harry. He imagines a shocked uncle in a bathrobe, a terrified looking aunt. Apparently there is a fat cousin as well, maybe he would be stumbling down the stairs to see what the commotion was. And Draco would storm in, waving a wand threateningly, and walk upstairs to Harry's room. Harry is always still asleep in these fantasies, and Draco sits down next to him and ruffles his hair, or holds his hand, or kisses him. Like Sleeping Beauty he wakes up and Draco says, "Happy Birthday."

Sometimes they make love first, right there the bedroom that haunts Harry, the one with the marks of the bars still visible around the windows. In that fantasy Draco treats Harry like crystal, like he's about to break. A parody of himself, hapless victim that Harry never is. Often in this variation, he cries.

Sometimes Draco doesn't even wait for Harry to get dressed, he just picks up Harry's trunk and leads him outside, out to their new house (or flat, or hovel). When they get there Draco will undress Harry himself in the privacy of somewhere foreign but safe. The bed is always wide and soft and Harry looks like a china doll sunk into the middle of it. Sometimes they go straight to The Leaky Cauldron, where people look at the askance for saying no, It's alright, we just need the one bed. Thanks. Sometimes they walk up the stairs to the bedroom they just rented holding hands, but only when Draco is feeling particularly romantic. As Draco imagines it now he's not only holding Harry's hand, he's kissing him on the stairs too, he's so happy.

His father won't need to know about any of this. Not yet. His father shatters all his fantasies, or else helps build them. Draco often imagines killing his father rather than letting him kill Harry. A kind of face off, twitching fingers on wands and it's all a matter of timing. Draco left for dead on the floor, blood dripping from his ears or his temple, but at the last moment he sends the deathly burst of power from his wand into his father's chest and there are dozens of witnesses; a clear case of self-defense. And then after the vicious battle Harry picks up Draco's limp body and carries him home, he cradles Draco in his arms and loves him more for his heroics. In those fantasies they have hardwood floors in their townhouse and all the furniture is white.

Draco doesn't know what he's going to do about his father. He's gotten used to the idea that his father will rot in prison, and is only sorry about it part of the time. If there was a chance of his father finding out about Harry, Draco doesn't know if he would have the guts to offer up his bed every night. He might. He might not. So far he hasn't had to find out.

But his father will break out of that place eventually. And then Draco knows what he has to do when that happens.

As far as Harry's concerned the walls of Azkaban are secure. Lucius Malfoy doesn't exist as a threat in his world; he's just a touchy subject they avoid. "I want to stay with you," Harry says.

It feels just as good to hear as he thought it would. Of course Harry wants the same thing as he does; no more sneaking around, no more time limits. Lazy Sunday mornings and late night dinners with no prying eyes and no questions to answer. Draco is pleased that Harry is willing to tell his friends everything, to go against the wishes of everyone he knows for him.

"So stay with me." This is it, an offer he wants to make but can't, and really shouldn't. This is coming so close to the line of fantasy and reality he might as well leap over it. He feels a stab of fear as he says it, as if he's just offered up his head on a plate, as if he's just given Harry a gift that was meant for his father. He should have thought of this ages ago, back before he pressed Harry's shoulders up against the stacks in the library and saw his own lust reflected in Harry's eyes. He should have thought of it then, just before he learned forward to kiss him. A house divided against itself. What about a boy? He's not sure how he manages to walk around during the day let alone stand.

"I can't go to Wiltshire." Harry says. At least he's practical in that regard.

"No, of course not. London."

"You'll come to London?" Harry sounds surprised, as if Malfoys have something against London.

"Sure."

"Really?"

"It wouldn't surprise anyone."

"Will we..." Harry hesitates again. He's braver than Draco is, braver and more naive. "Will we live together?"

"Sure," Draco says. He's surprised by how nonchalant he sounds. It's the warmth of Harry's body, it's the fact that, after they make love, Draco feels guilty. He feels guilty for wanting Harry not to leave, for feeling as much as he does, and for having Harry there with him in the first place. If he buries his face in Harry's neck he can forget that there's more to his life than what's between his sheets. He's half-forgotten already, he's living in a kind of dream world where all his fantasies are true, where Harry is his and is the only thing he has.

In this state he would do it, if that's really what Harry wants. He would find a place, more expensive than Harry bargained for and probably bigger than they need, but he would buy it anyway. He would get only three keys cut; one for Harry, one for himself, and another to hide in an invisible hole cut in the wall just in case. He would tell his mother something about being charitable or lonely or about some kind of arrangement and hope she'd leave it alone.

But honestly, what else can he do? What else makes sense for someone his age? Let his mother chose some swank flat for him in a building owned by a Death Eater or one of his many cousins, and then spend all of his time wherever Harry is, trying to stay out view of the press? Or sit in Malfoy Manor and sulk for weeks, watching his mother parade girls in front of him hoping to find the one who will bear her grandchild? Wait for news of Harry's love life in the papers and develop a drinking problem? Sit outside Azkaban like the good son he is and wait? He doesn't know what to do either. There's no mark on his arm, and no expectation that there should be. Yet. Not with his father in Azkaban.

This is all a kind of hiatus, really. It's a respite between acts of war, an intermission in the lengthy drama of his life. Without his father in play he is free; when his father returns everything snaps back into place. The costumes go back on, positions resumed. Inevitably the halcyon days will end, and surely he should try to spend them where he likes.

Harry shifts over and drapes an arm across Draco. His lips meet Draco's neck and Draco knows everything he's saying is is a possibility, that these are all promises he might very well keep. At least for a little while. He rests his hand on Harry's arm.

"Really?" Harry says. He's whispering against Draco's neck, which sends shivers down Draco's spine.

"Yes, really."

He thought it would make him feel good, it would make him feel loved, to know that this is his future; a home with Harry, a place where only they made the rules. Living above board for a while. But as he falls asleep all he can think about is the day Harry comes home and finds Draco gone. No note, no warning, no word. The next day there would be an article in the paper about the escape of Lucius Malfoy, and Harry may or may not ever understand. 

End