Take This Longing

On the night that Harry Potter failed to return from the Order's latest mission, Draco Malfoy called to Ron's tent.

Casualties of war were frequent, of course, even with the intelligence gleaned by Order members who had successfully infiltrated Death Eater circles. Ron was weary of fighting, and wearier still of the dull ache of loss they had all been feeling, right since the start of the war. On the night that Harry was expected back, and didn't arrive, Ron sat outside his tent, desperately not thinking - not thinking of Harry.

Instead, in the swollen, murky clouds of the summer night he saw the ghosts of all those who had been lost already.

Neville, who fell cold and unseeing outside his parents' ward in St. Mungo's, as Aurors and Mediwizards fought desperately around him, trying to repel the storming Death Eaters. Zabini, unmasked as an Order spy, dark face still haughty in the flash of the Killing Curse, his Death Eater mother wiping away the tears even as she uttered the Avada Kedavra. Poor, silly Hannah Abbot, who chose to forego Dumbledore's protection in favour of joining her Slytherin boyfriend, caught in the cross-spells of an Order ambush.

But Harry...Harry could not, must not, be taken. The Boy Who Lived, symbol of two generations' battle against the Dark, bearer, not maker, of his own meaning, Ron's best friend.

And without Harry, who would Ron be? Harry, who spurned the hand of a Malfoy for the friendship of a freckled, over-tall, forgotten last son. Harry, who went alone through the Basilisk's lair to save a girl he barely knew. Harry, who on the giant chessboard turned his face away and allowed the graven Queen to claim Ron as her prize, for the sake of the greater good. Harry, who drove Ron almost blind with jealousy and frustration, but who needed Ron as no one had before, and who Ron loved more than a brother. Harry, who for the sake of morale had insisted on undertaking this last mission, and who was now over four hours late in the returning.

And so it was, with thoughts of loss and sorrow in his mind, that Ron Weasley cried aloud in fear and shock at the appearance beside him of a cowled and muffled figure.

"Yes, Weasley, I'm the Angel of Death, come to whisk you away to your eternal doom. Forgive me for having left my scythe at home, but it's really quite unwieldy, especially on a broom," the figure muttered, with that mixture of amusement and disdain only Draco Malfoy could muster. "Do you think you could possibly contain your girlish squeals until we get inside the tent? Only it's a bit muggy out here for my taste, and even your quarters," and here he cocked one glinting eye at Ron's lopsided, mustard-coloured tent, "are preferable to this humidity."

Malfoy ducked through the tent flap, impatiently pushing the cloak's hood from his gleaming head as he disappeared into the gloom. He looked like a shard of moonlight as he went, the sheen of his golden skin luminescent against the faded charcoal of his cotton Muggle t-shirt, the clean line of his jaw tilted with that inherent, graceful Malfoy arrogance.

"Not bad, Weasley. You did this yourself? At least your Charms are better than your Potions," Malfoy continued, as he inspected the tent's interior. Cool stone walls were lit by guttering torches, a low, carved wooden bed sat in the farthest corner of the room. "Spacious." Malfoy's gaze was cool, appraising, approximating...what, exactly? Interest, perhaps.

"Comes from growing up in a crowded house, I guess. I like my space these days," Ron replied. It would have been unthinkable, in school, for Ron to acknowledge his feelings of suffocation to Malfoy. An indication of the changes wrought since the day Malfoy and most of his Slytherin circle (Parkinson but not Bulstrode, Goyle but not Crabbe) had swaggered back to Hogwarts and professed loyalty to Dumbledore and the side of Light. Slytherin loyalty had seemed like poison to Ron that day, and for many months after, but the Slytherins fought hard and fought bravely and fought smart (like they had on the Quidditch pitches those many months before). But after Malfoy blinked away the unshed tears long enough to stun and capture both his own father and Millicent Bulstrode in the first big battle, and after Malfoy testified to the Wizengamot of his father's affiliation with Voldemort, and produced supporting evidence, Ron began to appreciate that Slytherin loyalty. And Malfoy may have been aggravating and proud and critical and snide, but he could also be refreshingly honest, and interesting when he forgot to act aloof and began to get passionate about things, and he was true as steel. And now he was here, in Ron's tent, and Ron was wondering why.

Meanwhile, Malfoy had poured himself a Firewhiskey, and was standing by the window which overlooked the broomstick landing area.

"So, I suppose that imbecile Potter has gotten himself tangled up in another seemingly hopeless stand-off against Voldemort," Malfoy intoned. "Your boyfriend is

a reckless idiot, Weasley."

And because clearly the correct response to that comment should be some non-committal yet convincing mumble of support for Harry, Ron was not entirely sure why he answered so emphatically and so honestly. "He's not my boyfriend. Never was, in fact. Too much baggage for me, haha." And he certainly wasn't sure why he was blushing, that dreadful, flaming Weasley blush, or why he felt strangely gratified by the flash of what he thought might have been relief in Malfoy's eyes.

And so it was that when Malfoy demanded "So you think he'll come back, then?", Ron answered honestly, as he would not have done to any of the others, and said, simply, "No."

Malfoy's eyes narrowed at that, and Ron knew that look - knew it from seeing Malfoy's face moments after Harry snatched the Snitch a second before Malfoy in the Slytherin/ Gryffindor matches. He knew it from the day that Harry, not yet grown to trust Malfoy, had grabbed Malfoy during an argument and forced his left sleeve up, checking for the Mark. He knew it from the day he oversaw Malfoy in the Owlery, returning his father's signet ring and thus sealing the rift with his parents for good.

It was the closest Malfoy got to showing pain, and loss, and fear, and Ron thought later that realisation must have flared in his eyes at that, for Malfoy whispered, "Don't say it."

Images flashed through Ron's mind then; how Malfoy and Harry used to fight those bloody, vicious fistfights - as if wands and coolly uttered spells weren't immediate and heated enough. How it had been Harry and Malfoy who had lead the school's acceptance of the Slytherin crowd, by shaking hands in public, practising flying together, even eating at each other's tables at times. How, at the final Yule ball, designed as a morale-boosting exercise in those fraught times, Harry and Malfoy had bumped into each other on the dance floor, and instead of stepping away from each other, had laughed. Malfoy had been drinking, of course, the bold Slytherin, and Ron remembered hating the sheen of sweat that lay across his cheekbones and the way his silver head glowed in the torchlight as he danced. And then Malfoy had bowed exaggeratedly to Harry and had swept Harry into an elaborate parody of a waltz, Harry still laughing - and everyone else laughing now too - as the two dipped and weaved around the room. And Ron had never asked Harry where he had learned to dance like that, so perfectly in harmony with Malfoy.

All of these images crashed into Ron's mind with sudden clarity, but as soon as they did, they were gone, and Ron was too busy blinking in amazement. For

Malfoy's mouth had set into a determined line and he was now approaching Ron with the air of a very supple ("Did I just think of Malfoy as 'supple'?" Ron's brain screamed) and predatory feline.

"Well, Weasley," Malfoy murmured, and he was so close now that his breath ghosted against Ron's cheek. "I suppose we can...only...hope he makes it back." The last word was almost a sigh, and then Malfoy very deliberately and very, very slowly, licked a trail across Ron's jaw line.

And then Ron had turned his head to face Malfoy, who was so close that Ron could see how his pale lashes touched the curve of his cheekbone when he cast his eyes down, and how the inside of his bottom lip gleamed as he touched his tongue to it. And then nothing else seemed important for Ron except that he needed to capture Malfoy's bottom lip with his own mouth, and run his own tongue across it, because nothing could surely taste as good as that looked. And then a lock of Malfoy's silk-spun, silver hair fell across his face, and obviously in the pushing back of the lock Ron had to anchor his hand in the warm spot at the back of Malfoy's neck, where curls were forming from the heat in the air.

All of a sudden Malfoy was pushing him back, muttering "Such finesse, Weasley, how typical of you," but Malfoy's mouth had taken on the somewhat cruel curl which Ron now knew well enough to know that it covered strong emotion, and Malfoy's voice was slightly harsh with want, and the silver of Malfoy's eyes was almost obliterated by his swollen pupils, so Ron knew that he could keep touching Malfoy.

After, Ron remembered the incident in sensory snapshots, clear and bright in his mind as if trapped in a shutter flash. The feel of Malfoy gliding into the circle of Ron's arms in order to, almost tenderly, affix his mouth to the rapid pulse point at the base of Ron's neck. The sight of Malfoy's collarbone gleaming like a knife-edge under the moonlight and Ron's mouth. The taste of Malfoy's tapered fingers, and when Malfoy clutched at Ron's shoulder Ron felt the fingers skid across his skin, damp with his own saliva. The slight hitch in Malfoy's breath, at which Ron had to squeeze his eyes closed in case he came apart at the very sound of it. The memory of Ron's sense of triumph when he saw a flush cresting across the sheer curve of Malfoy's cheeks, and the jolt of pleasure he felt at having caused the livid bitemarks on Malfoy's tensed torso.

It was only afterward, when Malfoy was gone and Ron's senses no longer felt bludgeoned by need and heat and desire, that Ron thought more clearly about the whole thing. About the bruises that he had seen on Malfoy's hips when he tugged Malfoy's t-shirt off - bruises indented there by a desperate clutch, formed by a hand longer and narrower than Ron's own. About how Malfoy's eyes fluttered shut as he came hot into Ron's hand. About how far away Malfoy seemed, even with his mouth so wet and immediate around Ron's cock. About how Malfoy gently but firmly pressed Ron's sweat-slicked body away from his before turning to retrieve his clothes. About how Malfoy's final words before he left were, "You will tell him to come and find me when he returns."

After all that, Ron wondered why he had not asked who had caused the bruises, and why Malfoy had not gone to the Mediwizards to get them healed.

But deep down, he knew he did not need to ask.