A/N: So... this is the LAST CHAPTER! Sorry if that disappoints anyone. I probably could have explored the story more, but I felt there's no point in whipping a flagging horse, right? For anyone who's interested, however, I have a SEQUEL/epilogue/oneshot thingo title "Through Onlooking Eyes" if anyone is interested. Just a sort of fluffy piece to give yours truly some closure :p

As a WARNING this chapter contains depictions of a sexual nature, as well as profuse fluff, symbolism and potioneering. Tread with caution.

But otherwise, enjoy! Thank you so much everyone for reading! I hope you liked my story as much as I did writing it. Please leave a review if you have the chance. I love to hear from you. Thanks!

Chapter 15: Bound For Eternity

The night of June the twenty-eighth was settled and warm. Not a faint breeze stirred the stillness, nor a cloud streaked the sky to mask the brilliant luminescence of the full moon.

Stepping down the stairs of the back patio, Draco cast a glance over his shoulder at Harry. His partner followed at barely a pace behind him and, noticing Draco's glance, offered him a subdued smile. He was nervous – maybe even as nervous as Draco. Holding out his wandless hand, Harry readily latched onto Draco's proffered fingers and allowed himself to be tugged across the open, shorn grass of the back gardens. Or the acreage, more correctly, but who was splitting hairs? The crystal cauldron, caked in ice at the base and emitting a thin, veil-like smoke of dissipating dry ice smoke into the night air, hovered behind and above them at Draco's direction.

Behind them, Draco could feel the gaze of his mother and Severus as they watched them depart, could almost feel their apprehension. They wouldn't follow, however. They'd promised.

It was the perfect conditions for the ritual, so perfect that Draco would even venture to suggest too perfect. He was a sceptic when it came to deities and divine forces, but it seemed almost like fate that, on the night they had chosen, possibly the most important night of Draco and Harry's lives, everything simply fit.

It had been a long and complex build to the final product of the potion used to build the Eternity bond. Long not so much in duration – it had taken only a week to prepare – but in sheer requisite for attention. Draco had hardly slept a wink in the last seven days. Harry was a little better only because Draco had been so paranoid about something going wrong with the potion that he had hardly been able to blink away from the potion, even when Harry took over monitoring its progress. It was a finicky brew, requiring short, sharp bursts of heat to rapidly bring to the boil and dissolve the ground ingredients – moonstone was unreactive under less than thirty-degree heats – and to fumigate the viscous semi-liquids – as Moke paste congealed to a hard crystal if allowed to cool before completely mixing. But more infuriatingly, the presence of Ashwinder eggs added as one of the first steps became denatured and rendered useless if exposed to temperatures above zero for more than twenty minute bouts.

That was to say nothing of the near constant stirring, and in an intricate pattern at that. Not for the first time Draco speculated as to the sheer complexity – a complexity that seemed to refute any eagerness to forge what was historically the 'strongest bond of love' in existence – of the potion. Surely if the original brewers were altruistic and favoured their future descendants enough, wanted them to be happy and successful, they wouldn't have configured a procedure quite so tailored towards failure? Draco could only be incredibly thankful that Severus – though not involved in the actual brewing – had embedded the finer points of potion-making into him from such a young age.

Shaking his head at the thought, Draco peered ahead through the monochromatic light of the grounds in search of their site of ritual. It had to be at a pure water source, the instructions explicitly stated, and that source had to be bathed in magic to enhance that purity. The spring that was little more than an oversized puddle at the far end of the Malfoy estate would serve perfectly. It was just another element that lessened Draco scepticism in godly input; what were the odds of the perfect context, the perfect site, existing right in his backyard?

As they neared the spring, Draco cast another glance towards Harry. They had been silent the whole trip, a silence brought on by a combination of nervousness, weariness, and an innate urge to maintain a respectful hush. Harry offered him another smile – he must have already been looking at Draco to respond so quickly – and without a word released his grasp on Draco's hand and carefully reached for the pale cauldron to lift it from the air. Draco had to bite back the urge to step forward and assist the manoeuvre. Not that he didn't trust Harry to be able to lift one of the smallest cauldrons he owned, but he was just so worried that something would happen.

Harry didn't drop the cauldron. He appeared just as tense as Draco for fear of dropping their brew, and moved with the measured, slow steps of one desperate 'not to break anything'. Silently stepping towards the spring, he lowered the cauldron into the shallow water. Draco didn't hear a word, but from the near complete stillness and stability of its float he assumed that Harry must have cast a Motionless Charm upon it. It didn't drift even an inch from the spot he'd placed it.

With a faintly ragged sigh, Harry sunk down onto his knees beside the spring, his shoulders lowering in a deliberate release of tension. Pausing in his step to his partner's side, Draco took a moment to appreciate the sight Harry made. Clad all in white, in a loose, long-sleeved silk robe, the twin of the one Draco wore, he seemed to glow in the luminescence of the moon. With his hair untied and falling across his shoulders, his head tilted slightly forward and eyes downcast, he looked like a mage of old, sinking into the meditation the preceded a ritual. Which, Draco considered distractedly, he sort of was.

It was a beautiful sight.

Drawing a deep breath, Draco strode the last few steps to the edge of the spring and similarly lowered himself to his knees. Glancing at Harry sideways, he opened his mouth to finally break the lulling silence. "Do you have the…?"

Without a word of reply, Harry shifted slightly and unhooked the small leather pouch from the back of his belt-loop. He reached inside and withdrew first a long, thin feather, then a plain hemp pouch that Draco knew contained their requisite herbs, the mouth knotted by twine. He passed the feather to Draco.

The contour feather of a living dove, unbroken and whole. Draco brought the feather up to his eyes and cast a quick scan over its length, checking for what could have been the thousandth time for the slightest imperfection.

"It's fine, Draco," Harry murmured, his voice faintly chiding yet still soothing. Draco spared him a half smile but couldn't push through his nerves to make a snarky remark, to divert his apparently obvious jitteriness. With a deep breath, he leant forward and dropped the feather into the cauldron. For a moment nothing happened, then the swirling, mercurial substance seemed to rise, swell, and embrace the feather like a siren wrapping thick arms around a drowning sailor. Not a trace was left on the surface that stilled almost instantly.

Holding out his hand mutely, Draco accepted the little herb pouch. A glance at his partner showed that, as always, Harry was moving in tandem with him if not a step ahead. Glowing on the back of his wrist like a Muggle digital watch, he peered at the figures of the Tempus Charm, idly flicking his fringe out of his eyes.

"Tell me when," Draco murmured unnecessarily. Harry didn't mock him for the statement – of course he didn't, Harry never would – and simply nodded in acknowledgement.

The seconds seemed to tick past with incremental slowness. It was a struggle for Draco to refrain from fidgeting in his folded seiza position, but he managed. Instead he focused on tugging at the knot of twine. It fell away loosely to his fingers.

"Eleven thirty-seven," Harry whispered, his voice barely audible. "Thirty seconds."

Nodding, Draco counted down in his head, his hand already rising to poise over the cauldron. From hereon in, time was of the essence. Spare a moment in tripping over a phrase, or too long in pouring the final ground ingredients into the mix, and the potion was just as likely to fizzle and spurt, rendered impotent, as fulfil their desires. He took a deep breath.

"Three… two… one…"

With a tilt of his hand, Draco began to pour the fragrant mix into the swirling cauldron with the precise consistency of a trickling hourglass. The granulated herbs felt smooth against his fingers, like powdered sugar as they fell. Almost without his direction, his mouth opened and he began to speak the words of the Merlecue language, twisted and unfamiliar on his tongue, which he'd drilled into his memory. In his mind, the translation chanted along with him, even as his magic rose to curl from his tongue alongside the resonant syllables.

"Breath of my Arbovitae, my friend through trial and hardship, to stand strong beside me through rain, through hail, through shine."

As if in response, a wafting scent of woodiness, an evergreen tang, puffed from the cauldron in a brief thickening of gossamer mist. Draco poured.

"Drink deep of my Honeysuckle, witness my devotion and faith, the depth of my affection."

In a shimmer of iridescent pink that faded to white, the potion spun in a single, rapid swirl before slowing once more. The scatter of pouring herbs dotted the stilled surface.

"Behold my Lily of the Valley, my tenderness, my faith, my trust; to revel in the tender bells of happiness."

It could have been his imagination, but Draco felt certain that he hear the faintest, pale chiming of minute bells, chirping like newborn chicks.

"Taste of my Ambrosia, the sweetmeat of the Gods, and share in a feast of reciprocation."

His own words were lulling, deceptive; Draco felt sure that a honey-like flavour glossed his tongue in a thin coating of sweetness, the magic springing to life in response to his summons. His fingers speckled the last of the herbs over the cauldron.

"Feel my Amaranth, the immortality of my love, an everlasting devotion, an eternity."

Blessedly, the moment the last word fell from his lips the final grains of powdered flora tumbled into the cauldron. As it should have been, synching perfectly, but he hadn't been certain it would. Draco breathed a sigh and shared a glance with Harry. Harry who, in a recognisably admirable feat of procedural finesses, barely spared him a moment to meet his glance before seeming to conjure from nowhere a needle-thin knife balanced delicately between index finger and thumb.

Turning over his left hand, Draco remained immobile as Harry leant forwards and pricked his ring finger, a faint and barely perceivable stab that brought an upwelling of blood to pool on his skin. A mythological fallacy, to be sure, but the belief in the sole, direct connection of the finger to the heart held weight, even in modern times when anatomical studies disproved it.

Reaching across the cauldron, Draco suspended his hand until three slow, deliberate drops tumbled into the glittering potion. Almost too swift to see, the colour darkened to a deep, rich crimson.

Holding out his right hand, Draco took the knife from Harry and repeated the process with Harry's own left hand. His slender, pale fingers contrasted starkly to the almost-black blood, and when Harry reached forwards to drop his own blood into the cauldron it seemed to roil and glisten and glow more vibrantly before darkening to a red so deep it too appeared almost black. For a split second Draco was captivated.

"Draco."

A hand on his wrist drew his attention. From the little leather pouch at his waist, Harry had dutifully drawn a long strip of satin ribbon and held it aloft between them. Shaking himself into action – maybe he was more tired than he'd thought – Draco held out his right hand. Harry raised his left beside it and, with another unspoken command of Harry's magic, the shimmering strip of material wove itself intricately around their wrists, tugging in a demanding pull that encouraged an overlap and the linking of fingers. It tied itself into a neat knot above their aligned thumbs.

Sparing a glance for Harry once more, meeting his wide eyes of darkly dilated pupils, Draco nodded. "You ready?"

In reply, Harry reached into the leather pouch and extracted the final item with a snick of stone on fingernails. The chalcedony chalice, as white as the crystal of the cauldron cradling its deep red brew, was simple and unadorned, a shallow cup and unremarkable stem. Draco didn't cared; it had been hard enough to find one of adequate purity for him to complain of a lack in elaborate decoration.

Without comment, Harry leant forwards and scooped a full cup of the liquid into the concave stone. It swirled an ominous shade about the rim of the cup.

As soon as Harry drew the chalice to his chin, Draco began to speak, his tongue weaving through the Merlecue vowels as practiced more times than he could count. As he spoke, Harry tilted his head back and slowly downed the potion.

"Friendship and companionship, kindness and tenderness. Faithfulness and loyalty, support and trust. Eternal devotion and undying love. I pledge myself bound."

Harry slowly lowered the chalice at his final word and swallowed the last mouthful. His lips were stained darkly red, yet barely perceivable in the black and white hues that bathed their scene. Offering the chalice to Draco, Harry nodded and afforded him his small smile. A slight, nonchalant shrug accompanied the deliberate placement of the chalcedony stem into Draco's unbound hand.

Not so bad.

Draco almost laughed at the words that nearly verbalised themselves from the gesture. It was a nervous response, his body thrumming with weary tension, but the thought eased him nonetheless. Apparently the potion wasn't as unpalatable as he'd feared.

Scooping up his own cupful of the potion, Draco paused to synchronise his first swallow with Harry's words.

"Friendship and companionship…"

It tasted… like the best potion Draco had ever tasted. The medicinal and magical brews of the Wizarding world were notoriously sickening; more often than not it was a hefty decision to consider taking a prescribed potion because it simply tasted so bad.

Not this one. Perhaps there was something to be said for the complexity of the procedure, the incremental steps and absolute precision of the ingredient's additions. Maybe the original brewers were more concerned with the welfare of their taste buds than future brewers were capable of and deliberately configured the potion to make it taste good. Or perhaps it was simply because of what it was; who truly expected unconditional love to taste unpleasant?

There was a hint of the cinnamon enhanced by a clear, sweet coolness as the liquid passed over Draco's tongue. A citrusy overlay followed quickly, accompanied by a flooding warmth that seemed to rush beneath Draco's skin like a burst of adrenaline. More than that, it was actually easy to swallow, which made it a better even than Severus' Calming Draughts.

Lowering the chalice at Harry's final words, Draco immediately placed it to the side and tightened his hold on their joined hands. It was nearly done. Nearly there, only one more…

In perfect synchrony, just as they had practiced, Draco and Harry began to speak. "With you I forge this bond, through sickness and health, through pain and fear, through joys and delights. For all my life and eternity beyond. So we are bound."

Then everything went white.

The silence erupted in a chorus of joyful cries.

Draco wasn't sure if it was a product of magic only. The gloriously pure and captivating whiteness, the melody of voices, could have been real or ethereal, he wasn't sure. All he knew was that the faint warmth that had rippled through him upon swallowing the potion magnified tenfold, thrumming through his limbs and rippling over his skin, raising hairs to stand to attention at the caress of a magical embrace. Warm, a warmth that should have been too warm but simply wasn't, shrouded him and engulfed him in a blanket of comfort and softness, in kindness, in the very embodiment of love. It hardly mattered that the piercing brightness blinded his eyes. He didn't need so see, because he felt.

And in that moment, Draco knew. He felt. He felt Him.

It was the shadow of fingers laid atop his own, perfectly aligned so that their hands appeared as one. It was the memory of the warmth of his body pressed against Draco's chest, crushed against him to eradicate every breath, every whisper of space, between them. It was the steady thud of a heartbeat, a constant and hollow thu-thump that Draco had never realised was the most wondrous sound in the world.

It was what he felt.

An echo, an echo of Draco's own thoughts, of his feelings, of the indescribable emotions that flooded him whenever he turned upon Him. That wonder, that sheer joy, had never faltered, not once, and far be it from mellowing, from settling with time, Draco's adoration only seemed to grow stronger with each passing second.

It was an echo, and yet it resounded in a tune of its own. That same, familiar, overwhelming tide of affection, amusement, delight, exasperation, adoration… Love… All a mirror of Draco's and yet flavoured with a shine that was entirely foreign.

Entirely different, yet addictive to behold. And Draco… Draco would always have that.

The blinding light faded from his eyes, but the warmth remained. The absence of night-blindness as Draco blinked rapidly around himself told him that their surroundings had not been illuminated, that the glorious light had been magical, had been impressed into his very eyes rather than the world at large.

His eyes, that turned towards Him, and suddenly he could breathe. He saw Him.

Harry gazed upon him with an expression that embodied exactly what he was feeling. Exactly what Draco was feeling as well. Their emotions coiled in tandem, kindred spirits in shape and origin. He knew this, he knew because…

"I can feel you."

Draco's voice was awed, a whisper, and without thought he reached his unbound hand – though somewhere his other too had become unbound, the tie fizzling with the spell – towards Harry and interlocked their empty fingers. He felt like he would never, ever let go.

Harry's eyes met his own, and within them roared a torrent of emotion, a cascade of feelings. Emotions that Draco could feel, even if they weren't his own. Harry's reply was as breathless as Draco's had been. "I… you love me…"

Awe. It was awe-inspiring. There was awe in Harry's voice, just as there was coursing through Draco's veins. For what could be more exhilarating than to know, to feel with absolute certainty, that the only person in the world that truly existed for him could see nothing but him in return?

It was a race. A race with no loser, because regardless of who came first they both won.

Harry wasn't sure which of them moved first, which set of arms locked around the other faster, but it hardly mattered. He could barely spare the consideration thought. All that was truly of import was being with Draco, of feeling him physically as he did the dancing song of emotions that wove through his mind, which resonated with him so strong that he could nearly mistake them for his own.

Their lips crashed together with little elegance and all passion. Harry curled his arms around Draco's neck, drawing him as close as two bodies could be, just as Draco wrapped his own arms around Harry's waist and tugged him tightly against him with an identical urgency. It still wasn't close enough, but…

Gasping between smattering kisses, between the nip of teeth into lips, through the coil of tongues and the frantic press of their mouths together, Harry drank in the very essence of what was Draco. His warmth, his softness, the tensing ripple of muscles as he shifted to hold Harry tighter, the tightness of his neck as he strained to push further into him. It was heady, intoxicating; there wasn't enough contact, while at the same time every inch of their bodies that touched flared with an intense heat that should have burned but rather sizzled them in a delightful burn of sensitive skin.

But most of all… best of all… was the desire, the need, the want that rushed through Harry that he could have mistaken as his own except that it came from Draco. And coursing through it all, overwhelming even the ferocity of passion and lust, was a deep, pervasive and unerring love.

Love. A reciprocated union of unconditional dedication.

Harry hadn't truly understood just what it meant to love, to be loved, until he greeted the other half. And with that knowledge came absolute certainty: I will never let this go.

Breaking from the throughs of a passionate kiss, gasping in ragged pants, Harry fluttered open eyes he hadn't realised had fallen closed. Chest heaving, rising and falling in parallel inhalations with Draco's pressed against him, he rested his forehead against his bond-partner's. "Draco, I…"

Draco's forehead was prickled with dampness, or maybe that was just Harry's. He didn't care, and neither did Draco. He knew this. With a rapid nod of flushed skin and slick brow swiping his own, Draco croaked a reply. "Please… yes, I need, we need –"

He didn't have to finish his words. They could both feel the urgency, both revelled in the sore and desperate need, suppressed only by the knowledge that it would come, that the thrumming ache of notcloseenough would be broken.

In a frenzy of silken robes, flung with careless haste in cloud-like pools of material around them, Harry and Draco relieved themselves of the thin barriers that were the only elements that hung in the way of merging into one. As the last garment fell, Harry flinging the clinging material from him with blind urgency, Draco locked his arms around him once more and dragged him onto his lap. As his strong, slender arms locked around Harry's back, Harry curled himself tightly around Draco in return, wrapping fingers, arms, legs and toes around him in an embrace that would have put a strangler vine to shame. The radiation of body heat, pressed directly skin-to-skin, was intoxicating.

"Harry," Draco murmured, directly into his ear in a rush of heated breath. "Can I…?"

Harry didn't even need to think. There wasn't a question in the matter. His cheek pressed against Draco's, he replied in a breathless "God, yes".

The charms were not entirely unpleasant, exactly, but they would hardly be used preferentially. Charms to ease the initial discomfort of penetration, to hasten the preparation of a needy couple as they strove for rapid release. Harry and Draco rarely used such methods, and not only because of they often left the receiver with the uneasy feeling of disjointedness. There was just something so much more intimate about approaching their lovemaking slowly, with consideration for one's partner and revelling in the unravelling of tightness, the easing of tension to welcome one's lover into their embrace.

Harry couldn't object, however, when he heard Draco whisper the charms and felt his body respond. He didn't complain, for Hell, he would have cuffed Draco over the head had he not taken the effective shortcut. As it was, he could only utter a moan, locking his arms more tightly around Draco's neck and pressing his lips in successive kisses along his shoulder, his cheek, his jaw.

An instant later, Draco shifted them with fluid grace until Harry felt himself pressed against the ground, the solid flatness cushioned by dry grass. It could have been – should have been – an awkward motion, as even only for an instant Harry couldn't bring himself to let Draco go. Neither could Draco to him, Harry could feel. The need to be pressed together at every inch was nearly painful. It would have been like chopping off a limb to separate at this point.

Easily raising his leg at Draco's urging, Harry hitched his knee to his shoulder with a hand held around his thigh. Coiling his other leg around Draco's waist, he drew him closer until the crushing heat of impassioned skin was triumphed only by the throbbing warmth of their shared arousals. The soft, sensitive skin, hardened and quivering in desperate need, was pressed between them. Draco uttered a choked groan, his forehead pressed once more against Harry's. In a disoriented flutter of lashes, Harry locked eyes with him. His voice panted, gasped, as he urged him, "Draco…"

It was all Draco needed to relinquish any remaining vestiges of restraint. Positioning himself, balancing himself just enough to gain sufficient leverage but never – never – lose contact, and he thrust forward. Harry loosed in his own broken groan, warmth settling in his belly as he felt himself filled with Draco.

Nothing in the world could feel so perfect, and not only for his own swelling sense of fulfilment at their joining. The mirroring relief, the bliss that rippled through him that came purely from Draco… there was nothing that could compare to that. It cast even their previous lovemaking in a shadow in comparison.

Draco had asked him once, months ago, how he managed. It was a hesitant question, wary, as though he prodded cautiously at a healing bone fearing descent into broken relapse should he nudge too hard. But he had asked, because he'd said he couldn't fathom how, after experiencing such overwhelming trauma with Defaux, Harry could possibly readily and eagerly desire to pursue further intimacy.

Harry had replied easily: because it was with Draco.

They had experimented, the two of them, had reversed their positions and attempted to discern that which suited them most. Harry could still recall every moment of each time he'd taken Draco; there was nothing equal in the world, the pleasure that sprung from such a union.

And yet, pleasurable though it may be, it couldn't quite compare to that which he felt when Draco took him. Some may consider his masochistic, others unhinged, that he could enjoy, could find ultimate pleasure, from an act so fundamentally similar to that which had been forcibly impressed upon him by Defaux. They would be wrong. Because being with Draco, being taken why him and embraced by him… it was so completely opposite, so far removed from the shadowed memories of the past, that it washed away any lingering traces. There was nothing – nothing – that could possibly tarnish the act of being so utterly cherished, so tenderly cared for and completely needed, like air to a drowning man, that came from being loved by Draco.

Shifting his hips slightly, Harry tightened his thighs around Draco, one lifting to hook of his shoulder and the other around his waist, in an attempt to draw them ever closer. It would never be close enough, but feeling Draco within him, feeling the throb of desire that mirrored his own and being cradled in unyielding arms in much the same way that Harry wrapped his own, was so close that it sufficed.

"Love you… I love you, so much, I can't even…"

"I know, I can feel it…"

Their words, on an endless repeat, were indiscernible from origin. Not that it mattered. Each utterance could have come from either of them anyway.

With slow, haphazard thrusts, Draco set up a pace that lasted only briefly for the pleasure it elicited. Harry moaned at the sparking of sensations, unconsciously tightening the grip of his legs at the glide of Draco's length withdrawing and entering him again and again. At the shudder of mind-numbing pleasure as Draco angled himself with remarkable precision and drew his hardness over the bundle of nerves that triggered a lightning strike signal to race towards Harry's brain. But most overwhelmingly, it was the duality of experiences that enticed a flare of overpowering and unrestrainable lust to rush through him. For it wasn't only his own pleasure that Harry felt; the deafening, indescribable pleasure that emanated from Draco, that thrummed through their new bond… it heightened the experience tenfold.

Gentle and tender may have been the intention, but intentions fell to the wind at such a discovery. Harry gasped as Draco's arm wrapped around his raised leg, fingers digging with pain-pleasure into his skin, while the other grasped his waist in a steadying hold. He set a rigorous pace, of ragged pants and rapid thrusts that rocked Harry's body already writhing in the pleasure of the moment. The sight of Draco, his blonde hair falling across his forehead, thin brows wrinkled and eyes closing briefly only to flare open to meet his own intensely, of his mouth open and panting in faint moans, was captivating.

Quite without realising it, Harry lost his embracing grasp on Draco's neck. His hands scrambled at the ground above his head, seeking purchase, a handhold, anything to ground him in the assault of wave after wave of euphoric pleasure that rumbled through him with each snap of Draco's hips. His vision blurred – or maybe he just closed his eyes – and a weight of heat and dizzying ecstasy built within him. Hand dropping frantically to grasp himself, his own throbbing length almost painful to touch under such arousal, and within moment, swift, short jerks of his hand in synchrony with Draco's thrusts, and he reached his climax in pulses of blessed release, muscles seizing in an attempt to draw every second of pleasure to its utmost. He released a strangled cry, more like a whimper, head falling back and mouth gasping as every nerve ending seemed to light afire.

Draco wasn't long in following. The frantic thrusting, the muffled groans and slap of skin on skin, abruptly stuttered to a halt with a flooding of wet warmth inside of Harry. His own strangled moan tumbled from his lips, his eyes squeezing shut tightly to revel in the sheer feeling of it. Harry, still tumbling down from the crest of his own climax, felt his body shudder in the echoing rise and crash of pleasure, a second cresting that, even muffled as it was being of only secondary nature, triggered the pleasure centres in his brain into overload. He groaned in an almost pained utterance of release.

Draco slumped atop him at the dwindling of their high. The flurry of emotions, of passion, paused in its onward flight and demand if only momentarily, and in that moment Harry and Draco seemed to sink into each other. Arms and legs clasped around shoulders, behind necks, around waists, and the stuttering rise and fall of chests was no deterrent to crushing them together as close as physically possible.

Dropping his head to Harry's Draco slowly blinked his eyes open. Even in the darkness Harry could make out his blown pupils, grey eyes turned silver in the unshakable grasp of realised love. He met Harry's own and slowly a smile, a smile of pure Draco, spread across his face. It was only when their lips locked in a kiss that Harry realised he had been mirroring his smile.

Words weren't necessary, but that had never stopped Draco before. In between an exchange of smattering kisses, feather-light and impeccably sweet, between the tilt of heads to stroke nose upon nose, press cheek to cheek, Draco murmured the perfect words. The perfect word, over and over. "Love you… I love you so much… I'm never, ever going to let you go… I love you."

And if Harry couldn't dredge from within himself the ability reply with words, it hardly mattered. For they were bonded, and the feelings he couldn't quite express spoke for themselves. The expression of sheer delight on Draco's face told him his 'words' were heard loud and clear.

Dawn found them nestled together in a tangle of limbs and the blanketing cover of their discarded white robes. Robes markedly less white, stained with streaks of green, after a night used as cushions and blankets on tufted grass. Harry didn't care a wit, and he knew Draco didn't because, well… he knew it.

Exhaustion had settled upon them, and it was not solely because of their recent string of sleepless nights preparing the potion that had catalysed their bonding. There had been even less sleep that night in particular than any in the week before it.

Not that Harry was complaining, of course. Far from it. He couldn't have thought of a better way to spend their bond-night, a night that, to him, held ever greater significance than that of any potential wedding in their future.

The dual passion between them had enticed them into the wild dance of lust with more fervour than a pair of maenads at a Bacchanalia. One bout ended, sinking into heady grogginess, only to reinitiate with the slightest spark of rekindled ardour, with every renewed understanding of the depth of the bond they now shared. And the best part of it was that they completely and utterly shared every moment of it, every sensation and every instant of release and gratification.

Harry rested atop of Draco, more a blanket himself than that their clothes made. He turned his head from where it rested on Draco's chest, listening to the solid, constant thump of a heartbeat that already resonated on an inaudible level in his mind. He propped his chin on one hand, peering at Draco's face as his bond-partner gazed up at the pale pink skies of dawn.

As thought feeling the weight of Harry's stare – which, really, he probably did – Draco turned his eyes towards him. A small smile, filled with every element of love and adoration he held, spread across his face. It was an expression that Harry could never get tired of, could stare at for hours to simply fall into its depths.

"What?"

Shrugging at Draco's query, Harry turned his head to rest his cheek over the resounding thud of heartbeat once more. "Nothing. Just thinking."

"About?"

You. He didn't say it aloud, but the huff of laughter that jostled the smooth rise and fall of Draco's chest said he heard it anyway. "Just that, if we spend too long out here then I worry your mother might send the house elves out."

Another chuckle, more amused that concerned, rumbled through Draco's chest. "Yes, she might at that. It seems a very likely possibility."

"Or she might come out herself."

"Oh Merlin, no, that would be even worse."

It was Harry's turn to laugh, but Draco caught his breath and continued thoughtfully before he could reply. "You know…"

There was a pause, a lull. Harry turned his face towards Draco once more, peering up at his face that had turned to the dawn sky once more. There was a faintly chiding cast to his smile and Harry could feel the… relief? that coursed through him through the bond.

"What?"

Draco shook his head, the sound of grass crinkling beneath him as he shifted. "Nothing. Just that, I'm really, really glad I didn't bond with my mother."

Harry was speechless for a moment before he felt a bubble of amusement rise within him. A moment later was chortle into Draco's chest, not even bothering to hide his merriment.

"It's not funny," Draco grumbled, though the amusement that thrummed through their bond spoke otherwise of his consideration.

"Oh, of course it's not funny. I positively cringe to think of you bonded to your mother after what sort of response it elicited between us."

A playful cuff, barely more than a pat, caught the back of Harry's head, which only made him struggle to suppress his laughter further. "Shut up, you. I do not want to think about that."

With a roll and tug of Harry's arms, Draco dragged him further up his chest until they faced one another at head height. A grin spread across his face, a grin that was entirely too Draco for Harry to not lean forward and kiss him.

Curling around one another, they settled into a cocoon of slow, drifting, shared emotions. Seemingly unconsciously, Draco's hand slipped into Harry's, fingers interweaving as they had so often that previous night. Harry gripped his hand tightly, with the promise that he would never let go.

Somehow, Draco always managed to make his cold fingers warm.