Nightfall

Note: Giftficlet for Emiime, prompted by Bryonia Alba.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I still don't like you much," Percy told the slender-limbed figure sprawled over his pillows. "You're arrogant, rude, belligerent..."

"Ah." Arms were folded over a thin but, Percy couldn't help but acknowledge, rather nice-looking chest. "You like the way I fuck, then."

"Obscene too," Percy groused, pushing his horn-rimmed glasses onto his nose to properly glare at the saviour of the wizarding world draped naked over his bed.

"Oh yes," said saviour agreed, running a suggestive fingertip over his soft prick. Percy liked Potter's eyes without glasses. Not because they were as pretty as the papers claimed - though they were - but because they made his face softer, looking innocent even when he was stroking himself.

"You still shouldn't have brushed off the Minister like that." Even the morning after the evening before, it rankled. "Offering you Senior Aurorship, with no formal training..."

"Scrimgeour just wants a figurehead," Potter said flatly, and in a flash Percy understood why this could never work. Potter was being offered everything Percy had to slave for on a silver platter, and didn't give a damn. Better end this now, when it was nothing but a mad flash of passion. For Potter, sleeping with men was just one more thing that set him apart from all others. For Percy, it would mean the end of his career.

"You took a mad risk yesterday," he mumbled, the words strangely bulky on his tongue. "If someone had seen us-"

Potter, silencing Percy's accusatory snarl under his mouth with the carpeted door to Scrimgeour's office not even fully closed, sharp fingers immobilising Percy's wrists, a hot body trapping him against the wall... Percy's world had tilted sharply, and then some raw, half-forgotten part of him had clutched back, a fierce, feral thing that had wrung a whimper out of Potter himself. They'd made it out of the Ministry - unseen, Percy prayed in retrospect - and tumbled into the Floo to Percy's flat still wrapped around each other.

Clear-headed now, Percy worried what signals he'd been sending. Was there something... obvious about him, or had it all been Potter, Legilimens and flaunting it?

It looked as if Potter picked lovers who disliked him - the papers had squeezed the most out of his disastrous affair with Draco Malfoy right after the war. Not that Percy followed Potter's press, of course, but the Minister expected his staff to be familiar with the things that occupied the wizard on the street. Percy certainly fit the pattern.

"That's all right," Potter said, arching his back into the pillow. "I don't mind being your dirty little secret."

"That's not it!" Percy protested, even though it was, wasn't it? "I can't see you jumping to tell my brothers either!"

Potter's face closed, and made Percy wonder how Ron had taken Harry's public coming out. He couldn't very well ask, not after what had happened when Arthur had found out about Percy only weeks after Percy'd left Hogwarts. Only now, years later, Percy was able to consider that his father's fury at him joining Fudge's staff might have had other reasons than that a queer son must needs be a traitor. Back then, though, Percy's skin had been fairywing-thin, and rejection had cut him to the bone beyond repair. Either way, Harry hooking up with the family traitor would not be something the Weasleys would accept.

He hadn't had anyone in his bed, no chance to lazily explore skin and revel in gasped responses since he'd started work at the Ministry.

Potter grabbed him when Percy reached for his robes, pulling him down on the bed to stroke his mouth over Percy's collarbone before nibbling at the most prominent freckles there. A glimpse at the clock told Percy that he was nowhere near late yet, apart from his habit of showing up at the office one hour before everybody else just in case. Well, bugger it only this once! He relaxed under Potter's lips, running fingertips up and down his flank and smiled at the soft intake of breath against his chest.

And found himself flipped onto his back, grinning green eyes sparkling when Potter kissed the tip of his nose. Then the sinful mouth trailed downwards, pausing to nip at nipples and belly-button before Potter buried his face in the crease between Percy's hip and thigh where Percy's legs had splayed open. Hair tickled Percy's prick and made it twitch for all that it had certainly been sated and more during the night. The feel of Potter sucking small red marks on the most tender flesh on Percy's body left all his hairs standing up in the most pleasurable way possible.

Potter had turned out a generous, wicked lover, although the awed surprise he'd shown at Percy's tenderness had told Percy that whatever skills Draco Malfoy must have imparted on him, acquiring them had come with a price.

But even as Percy shuddered under the ministrations, he wondered. Surely Potter could not think he had to seduce him to be allowed to return, not a non-entity like Percy? Still, the young man's gaze was hooded in a way that reminded Percy of the shy boy squeezed between Ron and a twin at the Burrow's kitchen table, smiling nervously and trying to take up as little space as possible.

Almost regretfully, he pulled Potter up and into his arms until they lay chest to chest and Potter's mad hair tickled the side of Percy's face. He kissed Potter's light frown and then his mouth, gentle and without any of the urgency that had coloured the night before. Then he shooed the boy off the bed and reached for his robes at last.

"Will I see you at nightfall?" Potter asked, glasses in hand and not quite meeting Percy's eyes under the pretense of shaking out his crumpled jumper.

"Yes," Percy said, eyes full of wild mop of black hair and tense spine, and then again, "Yes, Harry. Until nightfall."

~ finis ~