The Price of Fear

When shall we meet again,

In thunder, lightening or in rain?

When the hurlyburly's done,

When the battle's lost, or won.

It was just a doorknocker. Gold, shiny, perfectly ordinary. But what it meant... to take hold of it, gripping it tightly and then release it and let the little knob bang against its casing. Then the door would open.

Closing his eyes, Draco let go of the knocker, hearing it report through the house. Doing it once gave him the courage to do it again, and again.

The door opened.

Sleepy green eyes stared out from underneath messy black hair. The man was fumbling for his glasses, squinting at the heavily muffled figure at the door.

"Fuck," he muttered. "It's 1AM."

"I know," Draco growled, nerves making him testy.

The man at the door, Harry, finally managed to get his glasses on.

"Fuck," he said again. Then, shocked, "Draco?"

Draco just nodded.

Harry scowled. "Guess you better come in then."

Draco stepped inside the house. Harry had disappeared into the kitchen and Draco could hear the sounds of a kettle boiling. Moments later, Harry emerged with two cups of coffee. Draco accepted one and sat down on the couch next to the other man.

They sat in silence for a while.

"Why did you do it?" Harry said, no more than that.

Draco took a long sip of the tea, forming his answer. He had imagined explaining to Harry why he'd done what he'd done a million times. He knew exactly what he should say, but he couldn't say it. In the end, all he said was the raw truth.

"I'm a coward."

In his imagination, after his brilliant confession, Harry would take him into his arms and whisper that it was all okay. Instead Harry just stared ahead, silently demanding more of an explanation.

"Fuck, Harry. How could I choose? On one side was my family, my friends and everything I'd grown up to believe. On the other side was you. So I ran."

"Yes." Harry said quietly. "You ran, and we won. Millions died, on both sides, but we won."

Draco braced himself. "My parents?"

"Your mother is dead, your father in Azkaban."

Draco nodded, numb. "The Slytherins?"

"Your year is all in Azkaban, except for Blaise, who joined our side and Goyle who was hit by a stray Killing Curse."

"Snape?"

Harry pursed his lips before finally answering. "Dead."

Draco closed his eyes and nodded. "How about your friends and your Alliance of Light?"

Harry scowled and Draco didn't think he'd answer.

"Dumbledore's weak but alive, as are most of the Hogwarts teachers. Ron's working for the Ministry."

That he didn't mention Hermione at first made Draco realise the truth, moments before Harry finally continued. "Hermione died in battle." Tears were silently rolling down his cheeks.

"Ah. I'm sorry, Harry."

"Fuck off, Malfoy. You don't care."

"Idiot!" snapped Draco. "I care because you do."

Harry stared at the ceiling. "What about you?" he asked with a slight sneer. "A nice holiday in the Bahamas?"

Draco shook his head. "To lose Voldemort, you have to lose yourself. He would have found me, Harry. I couldn't use the Malfoy money because that's what they'd expect and they could trace me. So I relied on my own skills."

Harry snorted. "What skills?"

Draco's breath felt tight. He began to talk, low and urgent. "If you ever go to Paris, there's a muggle district called Le Marais. Find the Salle d'If and ask them about la Niege de la Nuit."

"Is there a point here somewhere?"

"Le Marais is the gay district of Paris, and the Salle D'if is just a stingy little brothel. La Niege de la Nuit made that place famous." He paused, heart pounding, then added nonchalantly, "Even if I do say so myself."

Harry finally looked at Draco, his eyes widening in comprehension, then horror. "Are you telling me you were a prostitute for ten years, Draco?"

"Nine," Draco corrected. "The last year I've been living off the earnings and looking for you. I was a good whore," he added with a touch of his old arrogance.

Harry smiled ruefully, probably remembering their Hogwarts days. "I bet you were." Then he shook his head. "I can't imagine you as a whore, Draco."

"Do you want proof then?" Draco asked, eyes narrowing slightly.

"Proof?"

Without replying, Draco stood up and shucked off his overclothes. His shirt followed. Along the left side of his torso, starting at his collarbone and descending to his hip, was a fine tattoo of intricately crafted black snowflakes, falling onto a small moon. Underneath, in calligraphy was tattooed 'Niege' and below it, 'Nuit'.

Draco could see that despite his preoccupation, Harry was appreciating his chest, seeing the milky white skin with its fine tracery of veins, perhaps a bit skinnier that was healthy, all taught angles and sinew.

Of course, from there he couldn't see the scars. The neat one on the side of his neck from when a patron pulled a knife on him and the messy one on his right hip from when someone else had ground him too hard into a concrete floor. A myriad of other, tiny scars, from everyday brutalities laced his skin from forehead to ankle, but they were barely noticeable even in full light.

Draco could feel Harry straining away from him, trying to put distance between them without actually moving. Perversely irritated, he sauntered the few paces and settled himself on Harry's lap. Harry wiggled and tried to escape, inevitably to no avail.

"I'm not running away again, Potter," he snarled, lowering his head and kissing the other man on the lips. Harry responded to the viscerally familiar tone with a groan, using his greater body weight to fling Draco onto the floor and pin him down.

"I guess talk never really settled much between us, did it?" he muttered into Draco's mouth.

Ten years of meaningless sucking and fucking evaporated in the space of a kiss and they were teenagers again, in the Gryffindor Common Room, shoving their fingers into each other's mouths to keep from screaming in ecstasy and waking the whole house.

Harry's hand was in his mouth as Harry's mouth broke away from his and trailed a wet line of kisses down his tattoo, Harry's other hand reaching down to push off the black jeans. Draco shivered, loving the familiar taste of Harry's skin which he had imagined every endless night to keep him hard for men who meant nothing.

In the end, Draco stopped him from going further.

"Sex is just sex," he whispered. "Let me kiss you."

So Harry did, and Draco kissed him everywhere and that was okay, because kissing was an intimacy Draco had never allowed his clients.

Morning found the pair tangled semi-naked on the floor, Draco's head nestled on Harry's shoulder and his arm and leg thrown over Harry's side and in turn held by Harry's other hand. Their chests rose and fell in time, and both were sleeping calmly.

She crept downstairs, some premonition telling her something as wrong. When she saw the pair on the floor and recognised Harry's partner, Ginny smiled, resignation tinged with sorrow, then turned back up the stairs to retrieve her things from Harry's house and exit out the back way.

Though she'd never told him, Harry sometimes talked in his sleep, especially when he had nightmares. With the atrocities he'd seen while still at school, then the lengthy struggle against Voldemort, Harry, of all people, had a right to his nightmares. However, when he tossed and turned the hardest, there was only one name Harry cried, and those dreams almost always ended with Harry's settling into blissful somnolence, whispering Draco's name like a promise, a lovely caress.

She knew she'd lost her man to the one person who had ever commanded his love, and in the selflessness of her soul, she conceded that nothing was wrong; everything was finally right