Side

SIDE BY SIDE IN ORBIT

"...what if there were two,
side by side in orbit..."
R.E.M., "Nightswimming"

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CHAPTER 4 - Kisses

" How does he love me?

With adorations, fertile tears,
With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire."
W. Shakespeare, "Twelfth Night", I.5

Draco lingers in the doorway like a guest who is not sure of the layout of the flat, but to my relief Hermione is at his side within seconds. She reaches up to kiss him and his eyes soften into hers. She says something to him and her hand is on his arm. If it hadn't been for last night I would have been jealous. If I hadn't still had the sound of his moans in my ears, and if my fingers hadn't remembered the wet silk of his mouth... Now my heart warms at the sight of two of the people I love most in the world smiling at each other with such genuine affection. I notice Ron's scowl. He has grudgingly accepted us being together but he still doesn't like Draco.

A little later, when I dance with Hermione, she says:

"You've read Shakespeare, I suppose? We Muggles tend to do that."

"Some," I say, surprised.

"Well, if he wasn't a wizard, I don't know who is... Anyway, he said a lot of beautiful and true things about love. How about this: 'Journeys end in lovers meeting; every wise man's son doth know'. You are a wise man's son, Harry. Believe him."

God, I love Hermione. She always knows what I want, sometimes before I know it myself, but she also knows what I need, and what I need is usually exactly what she gives me. It's not always pleasant but always effective, and this time want and need coincide. I laugh and hold her closer.

"Thanks, Hermione. I will."

It's midnight when I finally go up to Draco. He has talked to Hermione and Sirius for most of the evening, but also danced with the few girls who have ventured to ask him. He's a beautiful dancer, of course; why shouldn't he be when everything else about him is so graceful. I watched him dance with Parvati, who glanced up at his face now and again with a kind of awed longing, and it made me feel fiercely possessive of him. All that beauty. All that contained fire. It's mine.

Now he is standing by himself, watching other people dance, his half-filled wine glass placed on the low bookshelf beside him. Absent-mindedly he wets the tip of his finger and traces it lightly around the rim of the glass, making it sing on a weirdly thin, clear note. He looks up when I'm at his elbow, and his eyes do strange things to my pulse. He says nothing but his hands speak a language of their own, and I have no difficulty understanding it. The air between us seems to shift and breathe like something alive. I open my mouth but before I've said anything, he says:

"It's hot in here. Let's get some air."

There are people out on the balcony smoking, but we move over to the other end which is empty and dark. We stand there for a while without talking, and the darkness is warm and soft and clings to the skin like velvet. Big white summer stars hang ripe and low like jewel fruit on the branches of the sky. If I hold out my hand they will fall into it.

Draco's pale face is shimmering in front of me. He looks almost luminous in the sparse light; his beauty hurts and I can't look at him. I focus on some point beyond his left ear.

"Thank you for coming." I'm almost whispering.

"It's your birthday party. I wouldn't have missed it," he says politely. He smiles but I hear something in his voice that makes my stomach contract.

"About last night. I'm really sorry."

"So am I."

"It was stupid of me, but when you pounced on me like that I overreacted."

"I know. My fault. And I know some good healing charms."

"Draco..."

His name is cool and sweet on my tongue. I must look at him now, however much it hurts. His eyes are so dark, they still have that impenetrable slate colour and I know it's because of me. There is no point in prolonging this.

"Yes."

"When you left... a month ago... What we were talking about. You never let me finish what I was saying."

He tenses immediately, eyes turning even darker, almost black now. All defenses are up. But I know he remembers every word we said; they are etched into his memory as clearly as they are in mine.

"You think I should have let you go on?" His voice is low, soft, menacing, and again I'm the one who has to avert my eyes. "And what else would you have said to me, Harry? What other sanctimonious, patronising little things about gratitude and debt? Or perhaps even pity?"

I suddenly understand what it is I hear in his voice, this edge that disturbs me. Draco is scared. I have hardly ever seen him scared, and it shakes me to the core. He sounds hateful but he is only trying to protect himself, defend himself, like a frightened animal hissing and raising its hackles. And why would he need to protect himself, if not... Oh God, Draco, what have I done to you? What are you afraid I'm going to say?

"I said I think about that debt every day. And every day I'm grateful to you for never mentioning it. That's as far as I got before you interrupted me." I lift my hand to his face. He flinches almost invisibly, as if he thinks I'm going to hit him but can't afford to let me know that. But I can't not touch him now. I trace my fingertips lightly down his cheek, the touch so electric I imagine I can hear the sound of it, a hushed whisper like snowflakes settling. A hot seed of pain inside me seems to grow and open dark flowers. He means everything to me. If he could only see that. If I could only tell him. I move a step closer to him, so close I can feel the familiar smell of him, surprisingly spicy and warm. I say softly: "If you had let me go on, I would have said... thank you for being so generous. And I would have told you that every day I love you more."

His eyes widen but they don't leave mine. The slate colour dissolves, they are cloudy silver again, and they begin to shine with a strange radiant light I have never seen before, almost as bright as the summer stars. I can barely breathe. My fingers are resting against his cheekbone and he takes my wrist gently, kisses my palm, the inside of my wrist, lets his lips linger on my beating pulse as if he wants my blood to carry his kiss to my heart. He leans in and kisses my mouth, slowly, beautifully, as if he is afraid I'm going to vanish and he wants his lips to remember me. What I feel for him this moment, whatever gratitude or protectiveness or love, goes beyond words, beyond anything I've ever felt. I stand still and let it fill me. He withdraws to meet my eyes again. And I do it. I open my soul to him, I let him read all my emotions in my eyes. I know he can see everything now. The moment seems to go on forever. Then his eyelids come down like shutters, but not before I have seen the shimmer of tears.

"Draco..."

He shakes his head. "Harry, don't. Please."

"Don't what?" If he doesn't want me, if he turns away now, I will die. That's how it feels.

"Don't make me cry," he whispers, but he is smiling. "Not at your birthday party, not in front of all these people. Give me a minute."

He takes deep breaths, eyes still closed, and I stand there watching the starlit planes of his sharp face, hoping for a way to keep this picture, this stillness, this emotion for ever.

He opens his eyes again. They are still radiant but the tears are gone.

"Let's go in," he says. "People will start to wonder where you are."

He gestures to me to go in before him, and I feel his hand touch my back very lightly when I do. The touch sends a current through me and makes my fingertips tingle. It's like entering another world, coming in from the dark stillness and the stars out there into the warm, noisy, candle-lit room. I turn to face him.

"Draco."

"Yes?"

"Will you stay?"

He knows I'm not talking about the party. He knows I'm talking about our life. The look he gives me is one of pure beauty.

"Yes, Harry, I'll stay."

* * *

"Thank you for saying it," he says, much later, so late or so early that it's light again and the first cautious rays of sun have found their way through the windows.

The last guests have just left, and we are alone, finally alone, but finding it difficult to look at each other, a strange shyness invading us both. He has remedied our awkwardness by gently pulling me to him so we don't have to meet each other's eyes just yet. It would be too much. He's holding me and my fingers are entangled in his impossibly soft hair.

"For saying what?"

He swallows hard; he seems to have trouble finding his voice. "What you said... out there... on the balcony. You said..."

"Yes." I'm blushing deeply, my face burning from embarrassment, from desire, from truth as I say it again. "I love you. I love you so much I don't know where to begin."

I bury my face in his neck and he hugs me to him, holds me almost viciously, as if he is trying to avert the pain of love with violent tenderness. I hear a small, choked sound from deep inside him and I realise he is crying. I can't bear it. I take his face in my hands, hold it delicately as if holding a frightened bird, and start to kiss him.

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I stand still with my face upturned, enthralled, the tears stinging my eyelids. I feel Harry's mouth on my forehead, eyelashes, cheeks, nose, chin... He's kissing the tears away and his kisses leave traces of light on my skin, like comets' tails. The combination of love and magic can sometimes create vibrant colours in a touch or a sound, leaving tingling, sparkling traces. Love is magic, after all.

"You're talking about debts, Harry." It seems wrong to talk above a whisper. This moment is too frail. "There is no debt. You don´t owe me anything, anything at all. I did it purely out of selfishness. I would have died without you, so I had to save you."

He starts kissing my half-open mouth, softly kissing the outline of my lips, kissing the words as I say "I love you".

And when I've said it, I start kissing him back with a kind of sweet intensity that wells up from deep inside me. Tongue deep in his mouth, hands in his hair, I try to convey to him the terrible desolate longing of the past four weeks, all the misery turning into beauty this very moment. I want us to stay in this kiss, our lips hot and firm, our tongues still carrying the warm, rich taste of our recent declarations of love.

The old, reliable lust and desire between us is returning with all the fierce strength it has always had, ever since our first nervous kisses. Our bodies have always reacted to each other this way, hard and immediate. I feel the increasing urgency in his caresses and I respond with eagerness. He pulls me into the bedroom. The room is dim behind its dark blinds, and it smells of him, of ferns and greenery and a hint of pine resin. His mouth wanders down my throat, lips grazing my Adam's apple, teeth gently nipping at my collarbone. I run my hands up his back, feeling the ridges of muscle along his spine. He unbuttons my shirt and his own at the same time, tugs at them, pulls me to him to let skin meet skin in a soft, hot shock that makes us both gasp. Our clothes come off in liquid, practised movements, as we smooth the bared, shivering skin with hot palms. We have done this so many times before, and yet every single time it's a new adventure in a well-known land. I let my hands glide all over him, I read his tension, I want to feel his entire body at once. I let my fingers worship his skin, so wonderfully smooth and alive, three shades darker than mine, bronzed with summer sun, shaded with dark hair. We are twin columns of light and darkness, one unable to exist without the other. His mouth is on my shoulder, teeth sharp, almost enough to draw blood. His tongue follows, slowly licking at the imprint his teeth have left. I shudder, my mouth on his ear. I want him so much it hurts. He runs his palms down my chest and stomach, takes the last little step that closes the remaining distance between us. His eyes catch mine and hold them as he rubs himself slowly against me, reading my desire and answering it with their own slow, green fire.

He pushes me down on the bed, none too gently. My skin feels tender and over-sensitive, burning with the friction of the sheets. Usually Harry is a tentative lover, not at all passive but not eager to lead. Tonight he wants to be in charge. I can sense his need to possess me, to dictate me, to make up for time lost. And I'm happy to surrender myself to him, to my own need for him.

We lose ourselves in each other. An earlobe between lips, a tongue on a stiffening nipple, fingers in hair, thighs along hips. The pine scent in the room is gradually mingling with the close, salty, unmistakable smell of arousal. He presses me down into the mattress, whispering my name into my skin as he moves down my body. But I'm not ready for him yet. I push his shoulders away from me and we roll around; he is writhing under me, damp with sweat now, and his fingers tighten in my hair as I lick his stomach. I know his skin knows how to read the Braille on my tongue, and his moans confirm it. We shift again and he is on his hands and knees over me, turning me over on my stomach, straddling me; biting the back of my neck, licking at my shoulder blades as if he wants to eat me. He is very intense tonight, slow and intense. Usually he is - well, not impatient, but very straightforward; he never teases, never lingers. Tonight he does. His fingertips slowly travel the length of my spine, his mouth burning at the small of my back.

"Volite Linguae," he mumbles, and I feel a shockingly warm, wet, fluttering sensation all over my neck, my back, sides, buttocks, the back of my thighs, like hundreds of tongues simultaneously licking my skin. It's wonderful, it's thrilling and deeply erotic, but also on the edge of being unpleasant, and I writhe under it, gasping and shuddering. I hear Harry's soft laugh above me, excited and with a curious undertone of triumph. When the sensation has passed he bends down, hard silky heat touching the damp skin of my back, and his lips brush my ear as he breathes into it: "I've always wanted to fit all of you into my mouth at once. I suppose that was as close as I'll ever get." I almost whimper as I turn around to face him, pulling his head down to me, desperate to have his mouth on mine, to push my tongue into it and taste him. He lets me do it for a second, and then he starts moving down my body again. He goes slowly, kissing every inch of my skin, licking and lapping as if I'm glazed with some sweet substance he can't get enough of. I want to tell him how much I have missed him, tell him how much I have missed what we are doing now, but then I feel his satin mouth slowly sliding down to envelop me, moving down to take me all the way in. His tongue starts doing marvellous, incredible things to me and my coherence goes to the winds. I give myself up to a wave of pleasure so intense I almost faint. He moves agonizingly slowly, lingers, waits so long it's torture and I'm almost begging, and then he slowly moves down again, his tongue playing a game so tantalising it borders on pain. My moans fill the room with desperate need. I can't take this teasing; I'm pushing my hips up at him to make him move faster, to push my own rhythm into his mouth by force, but he holds me down so hard his fingertips will leave bruises. When he finally starts to move faster the relief and the pleasure is so enormous I nearly scream. I move into his rhythm, move against his tongue, sinking into a soft rush of darkness.

Suddenly he withdraws and I gasp in shock at the broken rhythm and the abrupt change from hot wetness to cold wetness. No! Oh god, no, don´t stop! But I´m so close to climax I can´t articulate. I try to push him back down but I only fumble. I hardly recognise my own moans; they are almost cries now. This desperation can´t be mine.

"You're close now, aren't you?" he whispers, like he didn´t know. Like he didn't know what he does to me. Like he didn´t know the way I tense before I dissolve.

"Yes!"

It's hardly even a word. Where is my dignity? But dignity is irrelevant. I just need his mouth.

"Do you want me to go on...?"

His lips on my throat, the faintest touch of the tip of his tongue. I can´t answer him, can't think, I´m lost in some blissful, painful place. Lips on my ear now, tongue plunging. I almost scream. He knows that my hands in his hair is a yes.

He slides down my body and his mouth is hot around me again, as if we have reached a compromise, as if he gives me this as a gift in exchange for my surrender. The sweet silky heat, the pressure of his tongue in exactly the right place, yes, like that, oh, yes, and I push my fingers through his hair and my cry is his name without words.

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"Best birthday present I´ve ever had," I murmur sleepily as we're lying relaxed and luxuriously close among sheets damp with sweat, his arm across my chest, his lips against my throat.

I can still taste him, I'm still warm and heavy with our intense pleasure, with the knowledge that we have found our way back to each other.

"I´m very good at finding just the right gift."

I laugh. His voice is a caress and I love the weight of him on my shoulder, the heat of him down my side. How could we ever have been fools enough to think we wanted to leave this. We need to be together. We have to be.

Without each other, we are nothing, but together we can be anything and everything. We can be two planets moving side by side, orbiting the sun of our love.