Change Of Tactics

Rhetoric

drarry | E | 1k | kinktober, public sex, exhibitionism, sort-of enemies to lovers

Summary: Harry thought he was past being lured in by Malfoy’s dares.

Read on Ao3

“I dare you.”

Harry ignored him, glancing across the room of well-dressed gala attendees. It was tedious, one of the many little performances he was required to put on to maintain the goodwill and good behaviour of the political elite of their world. Malfoy loved it all though. He loved the formal robes and the glittering chandeliers that floated above the party, he loved the tiny hors d’oeuvres and the sparkling elfwine. He loved the pantomime of getting along.

“Come on, Potter, don’t be so fucking dull. I know you like the idea.” Malfoy paused, stepped close enough for Harry to catch the scent of him, and leaned in as though he was telling secrets. “You’re bored and I’m offering to help.”

His breath was warm against Harry’s ear. Harry stifled the shiver it prompted, but not quickly enough; the only person who noticed it was the only person he wanted to hide it from.

Malfoy lowered his tone, injected a breathy note of excitement to his voice that could have been entirely manufactured for all Harry knew. “You like the idea, don’t you? Dirty bastard.”

At the very moment Harry was about to deliver his stinging reply, the vast gong in the corner of the hall was battered by an over-enthusiastic waiter, and an usher came to hurry them to their seats.

Harry was put in pride of place at the top table—ready to give his speech and convince the landed elite of the wizarding world that donating vast sums of money to causes they shouldn’t need persuading to support was the sensible and elegant thing to do. Malfoy was seated next to him; he’d had the common sense to start throwing his money at good causes as soon as he was spared a sentence in the post-war trials.

At first Harry had thought it was pure self-interest, and he was still sure that accounted for at least eighty percent of Malfoy’s motivation, but Harry was on the board of governors of most of the charities Malfoy donated to, so he knew the sums he was donating and they were not insubstantial. These days Malfoy didn’t even talk about most of his philanthropy publicly, so it wasn’t like he was benefiting in any real way.

He was still a bastard though, and never failed to sidle up to Harry at parties and galas with a mean quip about someone’s outfit, or a suggestion so scandalous Harry would have to work not to blush.

Harry had learned to take it all with a pinch of salt though, even if sometimes he wondered whether Malfoy was actually just joking.

Benedict Hughes—rich, alcoholic, and a desperate social climber—was tonight’s host. He stood to a polite smattering of applause and began one of his infamously nasal and long-winded speeches of introduction—he was clearly pleased to have scored the prize of Harry Potter at his high table and made no attempt at subtlety in his exploitation of it. He opened his address by listing Harry’s medals of honour—awarded long after the war, when the Ministry decided a bit of a history rewrite was needed—and Harry immediately tuned out everything the man said.

“Utterly intolerable, isn’t he?” Malfoy whispered as he leaned in. He was probably only doing it to make it look like the two of them were friendly. They weren’t. They didn’t talk outside of these events. “I might actually fall asleep if I don’t take drastic action.”

Malfoy never fell asleep at parties—he glided around looking bright and engaged until the sun came up, he was the definition of a social butterfly and everyone loved him, even if he spent the entire the time criticising one half of the room to the other.

“You’re just annoyed it’s not you giving the speech,” Harry replied.

Malfoy hummed, then rearranged himself in his seat. “I’m annoyed because you used to be interesting. Can’t even rely on you to throw a punch, these days.”

“Is that what you want, then?”

Harry looked out across the room, more than fifty tables were filled with the beatifically smiling faces of people who had never been touched by the poverty this fundraiser was supposed to fight.

“I told you exactly what I want,” Malfoy muttered. And then his hand slipped under the table and he leaned against the side of his chair—it looked comfortable, insouciant, but it brought him within inches of Harry. Close enough to reach across and undo the zip of Harry’s finely tailored suit trousers.

“What the fuck are you doing, Malfoy?” Harry whispered, carefully maintaining the bland smile that was the particular mask he wore when he was being paraded on stage like this.

Malfoy’s hand was deft, he had his fingers trailing up and down Harry’s cock before Harry’s words were out of his mouth. Harry stared ahead, desperately trying not to give away what was happening. Malfoy’s hand was warm, and Benedict was droning on, and Harry was getting hard.

Malfoy laughed along with whatever asinine joke Benedict had made—Harry didn’t hear it, couldn’t hear anything above the roar of shocked arousal and pumping blood in his ears—and thumbed at Harry’s foreskin. It was wet now, with precome, which Malfoy smeared around to make the tiny, gentle twists of his wrist even slicker, smoother, more devastatingly aching. Harry held his breath.

“Potter,” Malfoy said, before he used his free hand to lift his wine and take a sip. “I’m going to make you come before dear old Benedict has finished his speech. I’ll even charm you clean before you have to stand up.”

“I’m not—”

Malfoy continued as though Harry hadn’t spoken. “You are.”

He was. He was dangerously close already; hundreds of eyes on him, and one hand, and Harry couldn’t think of anything but the strength of Malfoy’s fingers and how gently, how expertly they dragged pleasure out of him. If they got caught—he clenched his hands into fists, grit his teeth, and tried to ignore the way that thought made his belly hot and tangled with anticipation.

“You are going to come,” Malfoy said. “And then after this farce of a night, I’m going to let you bend me over and fuck a load into me. How’s that for fair play?”

Harry’s balls tightened. Fair play, indeed.

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October 5th from this prompt list

Read the series here on Tumblr or here on Ao3

the weed which strings the hangman's bag, by peachpety

A gift for @gryffindorhearts

A Wheel of Drarry Mini-Exchange 2.0

* * *

Rating: M || TW blood & injury || angst; hopeful ending; mild hurt/comfort; smoking

Lightning flickers in the clouds above the narrow alleyway. Harry counts three Godric’s-Hollows before the boom of thunder rattles his bones. The storm approaches quickly; the last gap had been five. He pulls up his hood, muscling a shiver into submission at the caress of soft cotton against his shorn scalp.

He had been slouched at the kitchen table, his curls a dark scattering of commas on the table around him, carving stripes into the label of an empty beer bottle with the shears, when the folded crane note had flitted through Grimmauld’s kitchen window.

Gallows | 20:37

His upended chair hadn’t even hit the floor before he Apparated.

Wind howls through the pub’s alleyway like the hollow note singing from the bottleneck of a stout. Another lightning strike bleaches Harry’s vision, but it’s the crack of Apparition a moment later that shocks him. His magic eddies in his palms, coiled and ready.

Thunder rolls, and Malfoy steps from the shadows, an agonizing emergence, each step a revelation that he’s alive—a scarred Chelsea boot, soft-worn jeans sagging below a Ramones t-shirt, his blond hair.

Alive, not dead.

Relief softens Harry’s muscles, followed quickly by clenching anger. “It’s been a fucking month.”

Malfoy chuckles blithely. “It’s good to see you, too, Potter,” he says.

Harry intentionally limited interactions with his undercover agents, but this was borderline negligence. And insubordinate and dangerous and...

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck me yourself.”

Harry's shoulders relax. “You wish.”

Malfoy leans against the opposite brick wall. He lolls his head back and juts his hips forward, watching Harry with hooded eyes. The cigarette tucked behind his ear flits into his hand, and he lights it with the snap of a Muggle lighter. The flame’s glow highlights his knuckles, mangled and bloody.

Harry’s magic spikes, warming his fingertips. “You’re hurt.” He reaches for Malfoy’s hand.

Malfoy jerks his arm away. “Don’t.”

“It looks fractured.”

“It is.” Malfoy cinches his grin around the cigarette, inhaling his cheeks hollow.

Harry exhales a curse. He used to believe that Malfoy bloodied and beaten was retribution, that his broken bones were recompense. It had happened often enough at the hands of fellow trainees, and once by Harry. Only once. Instead of vindication, he’d felt as he does now—nauseated and repentant at the realization that he was the only one who could beat life into eyes as dead as slate.

“I have the information,” Draco announces.

Harry straightens. “I’ll take you in,” he says in a rush. “We can debrief Robards—”

“No.”

Harry frowns. He’d been warned by his superiors, cautious tales of undercover Aurors gone rogue, good men and women who got too involved, who couldn’t separate the job from reality.

“There’s another meeting next month,” Malfoy says. “Bigger fish.”

The clouds light up, revealing Malfoy’s face in a kinetoscope series of flashes—earnest, focused, resolute. Like that day in Robards' office when he demanded to be given the mission and Harry was assigned point. Like later that same day in the showers when Harry was on his knees and Malfoy moaned Harry’s name like a prayer.

He’d left on assignment an hour later.

Smoke curls from the tip of Malfoy’s cigarette, an ephemeral rope cast asunder by the wind, as murky as the puddles peppering the cobblestones between them. Slick film coats the water’s grey surface, shiny with misshapen rainbows.

Like Malfoy’s eyes, Harry thinks madly. Alive, not dead. Alive, not dead.

“There are other Aurors—” he begins.

“This goes deeper in the organization than we thought—”

Harry’s plea raises his voice over Malfoy’s. “Others who can do this—”

“I can do this—”

“No!”

A flash and a boom announces the storm’s arrival seconds before the sky opens up.

Malfoy narrows his eyes, mouth twisting in the rain. “You think I can’t—”

“Of course you can!” Harry slumps against the wall. The bricks dig into his shoulder blades. “You’re the best agent the Ministry’s seen since the First War.” He punches his hands into his hoodie pocket and finds a siege of paper cranes. He wads them in his fist. “You’re”—brilliant, insufferable, everything—”a twat.”

Malfoy stares. Rain pelts his face and drips from his eyelashes. He summons a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket, and in two steps he’s in front of Harry, Amazonian-tall and weed-thin. A crescent bruise mars his cheekbone.

“I only have one left,” Malfoy says softly. Blood pools in the inner white of his eye. It’s shaped like a heart, and Harry wants to drown in it.

“I don’t smoke.”

“Hey, blondie,” a greasy voice cuts through the rain. A Muggle bloke stands nearby—too close, Harry thinks. The man sways in a drunken cloud of stale beer. “You got a cigarette for me?” He licks his lips, leering at Malfoy, and Harry’s magical hackles rise.

Malfoy moves as if to offer, and Harry yanks his hand from his pocket, littering the stones with papers. He digs the cigarette out of the pack and puts it in his mouth. The taste is sharp and biting.

The drunk shuffles away. Harry wrinkles his nose and the stones beneath the man’s feet lift to trip him.

A sly grin slides onto Malfoy’s face. He crowds in closer, igniting the Muggle lighter, protecting the flame from the rain with a bubble of dry magic from his elegant broken hand. Harry cups his hand over Malfoy’s. His healing magic leaches into pale skin, knitting sinew and bone. With a deep inhale, he draws the flame onto the cigarette, smoke into his lungs, only to collapse into a coughing fit.

Malfoy’s smirk softens, and he sweeps his gaze over Harry’s face. He pauses, eyebrows furrowed, and in a swift movement he yanks the hoodie off Harry’s head. Rain wets Harry’s scalp, a pitter-pat beat matching Malfoy’s deepening inhales and exhales.

“Harry.”

“It’s been a month,” Harry rasps. “A fucking month.” He drops his gaze to his own feet. He’s not wearing shoes.

Malfoy vanishes the cigarettes and draws Harry to him with a firm hand to the back of Harry’s neck. Harry goes easily, melting into Malfoy’s comforting solidity and warming magic, tension slackening like a stayed hangman’s rope.

Alive, not dead.

“It’ll grow back by morning,” he mutters into Malfoy’s shoulder. “It always does.”

Draco chuckles. “Good. We can’t have you looking like a naked mole rat when we debrief Robards tomorrow, now can we?”

Harry’s heart shudders in his chest like paper cranes in the rain. “Fuck you.”

Malfoy guides Harry’s face to whisper against his lips, “Fuck me yourself.”

And he kisses Harry’s smile.

* * *

For the brilliant and wonderful @gryffindorhearts! It's been a long time coming and I apologize for making you wait, but FINALLY here is your gift! Writing this was an entire journey...and while the fic is short, the path was long and I thank you for your patience in allowing me to travel at my own pace.

Big thanks to toluene and @wheezykat for the beta & encouragement. It takes a village y'all and I'm blessed.

Thanks to @hogwartsfirebolt and @drarrymicrofic for this gift exchange - it's wonderful!

READ ON AO3

LV should be wearing the fanciest robes. I said it.

Praise

@drarrymicrofic​ prompt: Good   NSFW

It started as a joke. A throwaway comment and a patronising pat on the head. Only then Harry’s eyes had dilated and Draco knew he’d uncovered something special.

The next time he’s entirely serious when he says it, with Harry all spit-slick lips and cum drunk beneath him.

“Good boy.”

Thanks so much for including my fic!!

🖤 mind the tags 💞 surprisingly sweet 🔥 this sex is on fire

Neville/Percy

It's Yours by @greenmegsnoham E // 3K // 💞🔥

oh ho ho - what a FUN pairing! this fic went for the "coming untouched" prompt and my oh my was it a fun one. I'd not thought of these two as working well together before but, phew: "'Well, you see,' said Neville, looking down at his Butterbeer. 'I know people look at me and think otherwise, but…' He lifted his gaze to meet Percy's. 'This Longbottom is the bottom.'"

Lily/Narcissa

Narcissa's Kindness by @thistlecat M // 3K // 🖤

intense. Narcissa rescues Lily from the Death Eaters, but at what cost? "'I didn’t realize how much blood there was in your hair. The red disguised it.' / 'Not all of us can have white blonde hair to show off our pure blood, Narcissa.' / She hoped her blood - her mudblood - got under Narcissa’s nails and never came out."

Other Pairings

Choke On It by @p1013 E // 498 // Drarry // 🔥

god I was hoping p1013 would be doing kinkuary again and, friends, the universe has blessed us: "Malfoy pulls back, and Harry gasps in a breath. His eyes are watering when he looks up, and through the blur of tears, Malfoy's expression is difficult to make out. There's pleasure in the curl of his lip, in the darkened shade of his grey eyes. But it's unclear if Malfoy really wants to feel pleasure from Harry's mouth wrapped around Malfoy's cock."

The Prisoner by @lushrooms E // 1695 // Drarry // 🖤🔥

we've got gagging on gagging, folks. 👀 "Malfoy’s gaze dropped down to Harry’s crotch and then back up again, eyebrow raised — somehow managing to look mocking despite being gagged and bound. Harry’s resolve to leave the gag on only strengthened."

This artwork by @kryptidfox E // Pansy/Ginny 🔥

For more info on my Kinky Shipuary posts, check out this post. Tomorrow we'll be back with "Voyeurism" and Draco/Pansy, Remus/Peter, and Hermione/Bellatrix.

American Psycho (2000) Hannibal (2013-2015)

1x02 || 1x09

writing should be fun.

make oc playlists. spend hours on moodboards that have no purpose. write self-indulgent fluff that’s never going to be published. scribble three lines of poetry in the back of your history notebook. draw fanart of your own characters. write stupid dialogue that your publishers might hate. start new wips that you might never finish but write those three chapters that make you happy because if you don’t write them, who else will?

writing shouldn’t always be about “will publishers like this” or “i have to reach this word count” or “how do i get the most likes”.

have fun with your writing.

where would we be without those 60s housewives and their gay little kirk/spock fanzines. where would we fucking be