Title: Virgin Revelry

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

Warnings: Fluff (oh the fluffy fluff), profanity, magic, first time sex. This is an AU that takes off after the fifth book and assumes HBP and DH never happened, and that there were no Horcruxes.

Pairing: Harry/Draco

Rating: R

Summary: AU. After Hermione finds a ritual that will make Voldemort disappear forever as long as Harry agrees to remain a virgin for the rest of his life, she and Harry perform it, and it works exactly as advertised. Now Harry's major problem seems to be how to remain a virgin in a world that is obsessed with the Boy-Who-Lived. But then Draco Malfoy reveals a tiny complication…

Wordcount: 27,500

Author's Notes: I had such fun writing this fic! I hope everyone enjoys it.

Virgin Revelry

"Are you sure this is necessary?"

Hermione paused, the tip of her wand dripping with blood, and gave Harry a single stern look. That look told Harry everything. Hermione never would have begun this ritual unless she thought it was necessary. He nodded, sighed, and lay face-down on the floor, grimacing at the feel of blood drying on his skin.

He heard Hermione chant something. Her voice moved too fast, and he'd never been good at Latin even when she tried to force him to become good at it, so he didn't bother listening. Instead, he shut his eyes and tried not to think about the lines that she was painting on him now, which radiated out from the small of his back and down to his arse as well as up to his shoulders. It was cold lying starkers on the floor of the Hogwarts dungeons, and Harry shivered as they waited for the blood to dry.

Finally, Hermione tapped him on the shoulder, the signal to roll over. Harry did, glad that the chill had at least prevented him from having any uncomfortable reactions that he wouldn't want Hermione to see. He was embarrassed enough just being naked in front of her, but Ron would have been worse.

Hermione, to her credit, never stopped her steady chanting as she traced the lines up from the center of his chest to his mouth. Harry nearly jumped as she circled his nipples with more lines, and then told himself not to be stupid. Jumping would ruin the ritual because it would disrupt the lines, and then they would have to start everything all over again. That would be the worst fate imaginable.

No, Voldemort killing you and everyone else would be the worst fate imaginable, Harry thought, and tried to hold onto that as Hermione delicately trailed blood through the curls of hair at his groin. That really was worse. It had to be.

No matter how his skin burned right now with embarrassment, having Voldemort win would be worse.

He thought.

Hermione had finished the circle around his cock. She connected it to the lines in the center of his chest, and then circled the lines around his hips. Harry could feel the moment in which those drawings joined with the ones sketched on his back.

In fact, he didn't have to feel it; he could bloody well see it. A thunderclap of white light exploded from his body and flipped itself over and over in the air above them. Squinting, Harry thought he could make out a central body of some sort in the light, something that was small and round and busily turning. His irreverent thought was that it looked sort of like one of the Weasley twins' fireworks.

"Harry!" Hermione shrieked. "This is the time that you have to say the promise!"

Oh. Right. Harry blinked, and, for just a moment, all the careful words that Hermione had made him rehearse fled his mind. But his mouth seemed more faithful than his brain, or maybe something about the magic of the ritual compelled the words, because he opened his mouth and they spilled out.

"I promise to remain a virgin for the rest of my life. By sacrifice of blood and purity and power, I may make an appeal to the old powers of magic. By the blood on my skin, you know my promise for the truth."

The small white thing stopped turning over and over. Then it shot towards him, hovering right above his nose. Harry crossed his eyes to see it, hoping desperately that he didn't look ridiculous.

Then he decided that he might as well give that up as a lost cause and continue with his promise. Again, Hermione had told him exactly what to say. She had told him that she didn't trust him not to fuck it up if he was left to himself, and Harry had to agree. She had told him to speak only when he had the wild magic's attention, but Harry didn't think there could be any doubt on that score.

"My appeal is for the banishment of the one who calls himself the Dark Lord Voldemort from the world." Harry was amazed at how steady his voice sounded, how he could stare at the thing spitting with power less than an inch from his face and not wet himself. "I wish that he may have no way to return as long as I keep my promise and remain a virgin. Nor may his evil linger after him in the form of doubles, Dark Marks, or Dark artifacts." Harry still thought he should have said something about the Death Eaters, but Hermione had argued that he couldn't banish people, and that getting rid of the Dark Marks on their arms ought to take care of it.

The small, plump thing at the center of the magic appeared to bow to Harry, and for a moment he had an impression of thick arms and a bulging waist, as if the thing was a dwarf or a gnome. Then it shot up further.

All the blood painted across Harry's body began to burn.

Harry bit his tongue so he didn't scream. It wasn't really painful, he reassured himself frantically several times when he thought he might forget. Just uncomfortable. The flames were as white as the one that surrounded the small being of the wild magic, and they thrummed against his skin as though he were a harp someone was playing. The tapping increased as flames raced up and down all the trails of blood, and Harry carefully avoided looking down. Painless or not, he didn't need the sight of his groin on fire right now, thank you very much.

The glow increased until Harry had to shut his eyes. Then he realized the fire was speaking, whispering the words he had spoken back to him in a low, buzzing voice, and he was doubly glad that he wasn't looking.

Finally, a second thunderclap answered him, followed by the death of the flames.

And Harry gasped and jerked a hand up. Something had happened to his face, but he didn't know what it was. It felt as though someone had pulled a scab off, or something. Gingerly, he traced the lines of his eyes and nose. Hermione had warned him that the wild magic might claim a bigger price than his sex life if it thought that his promise wasn't sincere. Was he blind now?

"Harry." He'd never heard Hermione's voice sound so subdued. "Your scar. It's gone."

Harry's eyes flew open, and he groped about. He remembered that there'd been a mirror there, somewhere, when Hermione first began doing the ritual. It had fallen on the floor, or should have, after they were finished with it.

Hermione had it, and she held it out for him. Harry took it, noting with idle wonder that his arms were free of blood now.

And that he was still naked in front of Hermione. He tried discreetly to curl away from her as he examined himself in the mirror.

His face was pale and startled, his eyes wider than he had known they could go. The bridge of his nose looked sharper, but Harry was mostly sure that was his imagination. It was a minute before he could make himself brush his fringe aside and look at his forehead.

Smooth. Scarless. Harry licked his lips and let his fingers explore, but he couldn't even find a trace or a ridge where the scar would have been.

Then Hermione knocked him over, laughing and hugging him and stepping on his chest as she tried to hug him even more than she was already doing, which Harry thought was impossible. He grabbed her and held her still. He didn't know until he heard his voice that he was laughing, too.

"Oh, Harry, we did it, we did it!" Hermione's words were shrill, but Harry didn't care. He stood up and danced her around the middle of the room, tripping over the stacks of parchment and the books and the ropes and the other tools that she'd thought they might need. His foot got tangled up in a bucket, and he fell over on top of Hermione. Hermione giggled and blushed, and Harry rolled away, stretching his arms over his head.

It was done. He'd made the promise, and he was free. The world was free of Voldemort.

And all it had meant was the sacrifice of any chance that he had for love and romance.

Harry sighed. He wasn't happy about that, but it was the best alternative they'd found when searching among all the rituals, and the safest. Certainly safer than dueling with Voldemort in front of an audience, or waiting until the Death Eaters came raiding into Hogwarts and forced the issue.

Better than giving up his life for the wizarding world, the way that Harry knew everyone, even Dumbledore, had expected him to do. Most people thought of it in vague terms, but Dumbledore had known about the prophecy. He had spoken kindly, but Harry could see the steel in the back of his eyes. He had feared that only Harry's death could stop the worst Dark Lord the wizarding world had ever known.

If it had to be something like this, something that Harry hadn't really got to know yet, instead of giving up his friends or magic or life…

I'll take it.

*

"There's no doubt about it, sir?" Harry yawned and slumped in his chair in Dumbledore's office, and then wondered why he felt so exhausted. There was no rhyme or reason to it. Hermione had done all the hard work of the ritual—collecting his blood over the months leading up to it, slowly enough that he wouldn't die from the amount required, and looking up the ritual and which words to use, and then teaching it to him. All he'd had to do was lie there and speak.

"No doubt at all." Dumbledore's voice was thick with satisfaction, the closest Harry had ever heard him come to gloating. "We had spies watching him, you know. Remus had managed to gain the trust of some of the werewolves who were his servants, and had an excellent seat to see Voldemort grow smaller and thinner, and fade from the world. And there were wizards there who would have known, even better than Remus, what the smell of thunder and the white light of the wild magic meant. They can search for a way to bring him back, but the only thing that truly could is if they managed to convince you to break your promise." He paused and eyed Harry.

"I won't do that, sir." Harry tried to sit up and speak with more confidence than he felt. It would have been easier if not for the bloody tiredness wrapping him around and around like rope. "I promise. There's—I mean, it's not easy, but Hermione and I have been discussing this since September." It was April now, and Harry looked out the window of Dumbledore's office at the sunlight, wondering if this was one spring he would manage to enjoy. "I'm used to the idea by now."

Dumbledore softened and reached across the desk to pat his shoulder. "I know, Harry. And you have always kept your promises." He sighed wistfully. "If anything, I simply wish that we could have done something that would have spared you this particular vow. You have given up too much already."

Harry smiled and shook his head, staring at the floor. "The vow isn't as restrictive as it probably sounds, sir." At least it still lets me wank. Harry had been insistent about Hermione finding one that would work like that. It was one thing to go celibate for the rest of his life, and another to explode from unreleased sexual tension. "I mean," he added hastily, realizing that Dumbledore might be thinking along the same lines as he was and not wanting the Headmaster to have that much insight into his mind, "it's not as though I had a girlfriend right now. I want kids, and that's hard to give up, but at least I do have Teddy to spoil." He found a new reason to smile then. Tonks and Remus would both be happier, now that Remus didn't have to spy anymore and they could raise their son openly instead of in hiding.

"Yes, that is true." Dumbledore patted his arm this time. "I congratulate you, my boy. The world owes you a great debt."

Harry smiled at him, and then found his eyes sliding shut. He made a small noise of irritation and forced them open once more. "Headmaster," he asked, his words slurring, "do you know why this is happening to me?"

Dumbledore chuckled. "Close contact with the wild magic does that to many wizards, Harry. You touched nothing less than the raw force of creation. It is only its small, tame cousin that we channel through our wands, you know."

"Oh." Harry was impressed for a minute as he thought of the wild magic shaping planets and breeds of creatures and creating the first wizards in the dawn of time. Then he yawned again.

This time, Dumbledore laughed outright. "Do go to bed, Harry. You'll want to be up in time for your celebration party, won't you?"

Harry mumbled something that he thought contained the word, "Yes," and stepped out of the Headmaster's office. He had to ride the moving staircase down by leaning against the wall. His yawns were so constant that he paused near the gargoyle to catch his breath and force his eyes open.

"Well, well. So the conquering hero comes."

At least that voice made Harry start up with an instinctive need to defend himself. Malfoy leaned on the wall on the other side of the gargoyle, staring at Harry with an intensity that Harry thought was probably caused by jealousy. Or fear, maybe. Harry's eyes flickered to Malfoy's left arm. He'd never been sure whether Malfoy had the Dark Mark or not. The last two years, he'd mostly dedicated himself to keeping out of the way, and his spats with the Gryffindors had become occasional rather than constant.

"You heard about that, huh?" Harry yawned again, and gave up. He'd make sure Malfoy couldn't cast any sneaky Slytherin curses on him, but he simply wasn't up to a duel right now. "Yeah, he's gone. Took a lot to do it, but there you go." He shrugged and started to step around Malfoy in the direction of Gryffindor Tower.

Malfoy moved with him, a hungry expression on his face, and Harry groaned. "Look," he said crossly, "I think a lot of people would notice if I ended up dead on the floor a mere few hours after I defeated Voldemort." He noticed with a visceral satisfaction that the name still made Malfoy flinch. "Save it, all right? I'll duel with people after I've had some sleep. That will probably make it better for you anyway."

Malfoy licked his lips. "Is that the only way it will be better for you?"

Harry stared at him. "What are you talking about? Of course it will be better when I'm not tripping over my feet and you can say that you defeated me without an unfair advantage. Not that you'll defeat me anyway," he added, because he had to. He couldn't bear himself if he didn't at least say that to Malfoy.

Malfoy moved closer. He actually looked around for spectators before he did, which Harry thought was weird. Malfoy liked to have an audience. Maybe he thought he should fight Harry now when he was weak and tired and didn't want any professors interfering. Harry gripped his wand and set his back against the wall. He wouldn't be moving fast no matter what happened, but at least this way, Malfoy couldn't sneak up on him.

"I saw," Malfoy breathed. "I saw you traipsing through the dungeons with ritual equipment, and I followed you."

Harry stared at him, breath cold in his lungs. His first thought was that Malfoy had done something to interfere in the ritual and make it useless, and he lunged forwards, grabbing Malfoy's shirt and slamming him into the wall so hard that Malfoy groaned shakily. "If you made it so that the ritual didn't work—"

"What nasty suspicious minds Gryffindors have, I must say." Malfoy didn't sound angry as he murmured the words. Instead, there was a sleepy tone in his voice that made Harry wonder if he was the only one affected by contact with the wild magic. "No, I mean that I saw." His fingers curled around Harry's wrist, and he leaned near enough that his voice was the merest rasp of a whisper of a breath in Harry's ear. "I thought those stories in the Daily Prophet and the chatter I sometimes heard from your teammates was exaggeration. I reckon not."

It took Harry more than a minute to understand what he meant, and he didn't know if he could blame that on his tiredness or some strange working of his vow, which meant that he wasn't thinking as much about sex as he would have ordinarily. When he did, he shoved Malfoy away from him again. How could he know whether the magic would count even that as a breaking of his promise?

Then he remembered what Hermione had said before they began the ritual, and relaxed slightly. The wild magic works with what you think of as the loss of virginity, Harry. Other people brushing against you or kissing or touching you against your will isn't going to harm anything.

Malfoy cradled his wrist in one hand as though it was his hand and not his head Harry had hurt by pushing him away. His eyes never moved from Harry's face and chest, and Harry wondered if he could move them right now. "I saw," he whispered. His voice had sunk, muffling the taunting tone.

"Yeah, good for you," Harry snapped, stepping around him this time. "I'm sure you'll sell it to the Prophet for an excellent price. Too bad that you didn't bring a camera with you, huh?"

Malfoy's eyes flared with the feral anger Harry was more used to seeing, and he smiled. But Malfoy shook his head, mouth distended in a snarl, and Harry realized that the anger wasn't directed at him.

"I saw," Malfoy whispered again. "It's mine. They can't have it."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "So you're even more of a pervert than I expected. Well. Enjoy." He walked up the corridor with firm steps, telling himself that he couldn't do anything about Malfoy and his strange little fetish for seeing naked people with stripes of blood on their bodies right now. He would think better for some sleep.

His bed was the most wonderful thing he had ever felt, much better than cold dungeon floors. Harry closed his eyes and sighed.

For a single moment he wondered where Malfoy had been standing so that both Harry and Hermione couldn't see him, and pictured him peering into the room, his hands curled around the edge of the stones, his breath coming faster—

There was the beginning of what could have been an uncomfortable stirring from his groin, and then Harry dropped headlong into sleep, leaving all the possible confusions behind.

*

The next few weeks were mad, but Harry had known they would be.

The wizarding world decided they loved their hero again—there had been a burst of coldness that had lasted almost a year as the war escalated and people demanded to know why Voldemort was still alive—and they showered him with attention. Harry received so many packages from strangers that he gave up on opening them all and devised a series of simple spells that would show him whether they contained sweets, clothing, exotic pets, potions brewed in gratitude, magical objects like the glass birds that sang his name in descending notes, or poison. After a few adventures with the clothing, he refined the spells so that they would tell him whether the garments inside were meant for him or had come from someone else. He didn't want to find himself hand-deep in used knickers again.

Then there were the letters. The proposals of marriage, the proposals for sex, the proposals to be his friend, the demands to contribute to this or that mad cause (Harry's favorite was the Home for Kneazles Deranged by Magical Mange), and the invitations from people who wanted to hire him or have him at their parties or introduce him to their friends poured in. Harry had to spend a large portion of every evening consigning things to the fire, and also more time than he had expected trying to avoid the naked photographs and used knickers there.

When he went outside the castle, even when it was just for the Quidditch game with Ravenclaw, the lights of cameras burned and burst in his face, and he had to wrap his arms around his head and run for shelter. Sometimes, when he was in a good enough mood, he would stand still and talk to and shake hands with people, but that wasn't often, especially when he found out how many people tried to fling themselves on him, or rip hairs from his head for "good luck," or kiss him.

The madness reigned in the world outside the school and would have reigned inside Hogwarts too if the professors weren't sterner than that. After Snape took fifty points from Ravenclaw in the NEWT Potions class because Luna snapped a picture of him for the Quibbler, most people tried to avoid taking that much notice of Harry in their classes.

Harry was glad for it. He was working hard on studying for the NEWTs, trying his best to make sure that he would actually get a reasonable amount of them. He would go into the Auror training program in the autumn, and they wouldn't necessarily make any exceptions for a "hero" who'd spent the last few years apparently standing about and then defeated Voldemort no one knew how, except that it wasn't with fighting.

That was the only part about his new peak of fame that Harry enjoyed: the speculation as to what exactly he had done to get rid of Voldemort. The whispers ranged from demon summoning to turning Voldemort to a shadow that the sun had burned away. Then again, some people preferred to ignore the accounts of eyewitnesses, including tried Death Eaters, that had circulated. They simply claimed that Harry had Apparated into Voldemort's stronghold in a flash of blue lightning and dueled him to the death, complete with an appearance by Merlin.

Some people did talk about wild magic, but only as one possibility among many. No one came close to the truth, because no one except Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore, and McGonagall knew the truth.

Except for Malfoy.

*

"Malfoy's staring at you, mate."

Harry didn't look up from the long in-class essay they were supposed to be writing for NEWT Transfigurations. McGonagall had said that it was a chance for them to prepare for the NEWT practical section, and Harry was finding the questions much more difficult than he had expected. "Yeah, I know, Ron," he muttered back. "And you know that, during the real practical, you wouldn't be able to talk to me, right?"

"But it's not the first time he's done it," Ron insisted in a whisper. That was one of the good things about the research all three of them had done on the wild magic. It could have been deadly if anyone had found out about what they were doing; they could have taken away Harry's virginity in a fairly simple way and foiled all their plans. So Ron had learned to discuss things in a low voice no matter how startled or disgusted he was.

"I know." Harry finally untangled the last sentence of the question to his own satisfaction in his mind and began scratching away industriously at it. "But we'll talk about it later, all right?"

Ron sighed, but returned to his own paper. Harry breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't that he didn't want to talk to Ron—

No, wait, that was exactly it. He wasn't looking forward to explaining to Ron and Hermione that Malfoy had managed to spy on the ritual.

He wasn't going to tell them about what Malfoy had said afterwards, in the corridor outside Dumbledore's office. That was the business of no one but him and Malfoy and Malfoy's perverted imagination.

McGonagall called for them to give her the essays just as Harry scribbled his last tormented sentence. He sat back, sighing, and felt his hair sticking to his forehead with the sweat. Hermione sat with her hands folded and the smug, cool expression of someone who had been done for twenty minutes. Ron tried to shield his final scribble with the back of his hand.

"Essays, Mr. Weasley." McGonagall hadn't lost her keenness of eyesight at all in the last two troublesome years, though she seemed to have developed a permanent squint. Ron sighed mournfully and handed his in along with Harry's and Hermione's.

"You can't have done that badly," Harry said, nudging his shoulder into Ron's to cheer him up as they left the classroom. "You got into this class in the first place."

"Yes, but if the class kills me, that's not much of an accomplishment," Ron said, and tried to bury his head in his hands.

"You'll do fine," Hermione said, with a smile on her face for Ron that Harry hadn't expected to see there, even if they were practically dating by now. "Harry was the one I was worried about, with all the things he's had to distract him." And she turned a knowing eye on Harry, as if she thought that he was about to melt away.

Harry rolled his eyes. "I'm fine," he said. Sexually frustrated, of course, but I expected to feel that way. "It helps that I can laugh at all those marriage proposals, and no one will ever know why."

Ron turned to face him, fists clenched. "I wish you hadn't had to do that," he whispered. "Couldn't you find something else to give up?"

Harry blinked, surprised. He knew Ron had opposed this plan—apparently because he couldn't imagine going without sex the rest of his life, either—but he'd stopped protesting several weeks ago. Harry had thought he was over it.

"Not something else that was as powerful and symbolic," he said, "except my magic or my life. And I like those more."

Ron gave another mournful sigh, this one seeming to start with his toenails and travel through every part of his body before it emerged from his mouth. "All right," he said. "But it seems hard."

"It has to be, Ron," Hermione said, moving into lecture tone and causing Ron to make a horrible face at Harry behind her head. "It was a sacrifice. The ritual wouldn't have any power if it wasn't for the price, and the price has to be something you wouldn't give up willingly…"

Off they went, with Ron pantomiming drowning and strangling and dying of boredom at Harry. Harry grinned and shook his head. Ron loved Hermione, he even loved her lectures, and he didn't need rescuing.

"Alone at last, Potter."

Harry was annoyed at how quickly his body responded to that voice, not only tensing but shivering as though Malfoy had promised him a beating and had come to deliver it. Harry turned around, hand on his wand, and shook his head. "Hardly alone," he said, with a tiny flick of his head to indicate the people coming in and out of the Transfiguration classroom, many of whom were sneaking glances at him.

"None of them know anything about it," Malfoy whispered, coming a step or two closer. He knew how to whisper in a different way from Ron. His words really did make it seem they stood in a bubble of silence, and Harry wasn't surprised about the hand he reached out as if he would lay it on Harry's shoulder. Harry sucked in his breath and avoided the touch. Malfoy let his hand drop, but stood there still staring at him, his words sounding like the rustle of autumn leaves. "None of them know about the price, like I do. No one shares this. You haven't even told your friends that I spied or that I confronted you, did you?"

"So what if I haven't?" Harry snapped. "Do you enjoy being a thin, flat cake of flesh so much that you want Ron to pound you into one?"

"You wouldn't let that happen." Malfoy moved a few steps closer, his eyes enormous, his mouth wet and gleaming. Harry wondered when that had happened, and pictured Malfoy's tongue licking his lips, and then told himself Malfoy had probably done it out of sheer nervousness while he was writing his Transfiguration essay.

"Why not?" Harry shook his head when Malfoy stared at him with a hungry expression on his face. "Look, what you're doing makes no sense. You're all very proud of this secret knowledge, but you're not the only one who has it, and there's nothing you can do to blackmail me, even if you tell everyone. Hermione made sure of that vow. I would have to break it willingly for Voldemort to come back."

Ha, Harry thought smugly a moment later. He still flinches at the name.

"It's not about the knowledge," Malfoy said. "It's about what I want."

"I'm not going to pay you Galleons or anything like that," Harry said.

Malfoy abruptly rushed closer to him, and suddenly Harry found himself pressed against the wall again, the way he had been outside Dumbledore's office, with Malfoy's hand around his wrist and Malfoy's mouth against his ear. He was breathing rapidly. Harry thought, Out of shape, and braced his hands against Malfoy's shoulders to push him away.

His words froze Harry before that could happen.

"You're very stupid," Malfoy breathed. "What I saw was you. What I want is you. I want to touch what no one else gets to touch. I want to have what no one else has had. Everyone in Britain, wanting you, and I want to be the one who gets to touch." His hand clamped down so hard that the bones of Harry's wrist ached. "I want to fuck you."

Harry stared at Malfoy some more. His lips were wet, and parted as if he wanted to allow something, or someone, to crawl between them. His face was flushed in a way that Harry had never seen. When Malfoy was angry, it seemed that his pale skin broke out in hectic blotches, as if he had a fever. This was a smooth swell of pink, and it seemed to add its heat to his breath, which Harry had never felt stroke his face with this urgency, even when they'd stood so close before.

Harry waited. But Malfoy didn't change or move, and didn't speak again. He seemed to think he'd said enough and Harry should answer now.

His hands were still in place, so Harry could shove and send Malfoy staggering away from him, and he did. He winced as Malfoy's fingers ripped free of his wrist. It hurt. He'd probably have a fine bruise, and have to make up some story for Ron and Hermione. Luckily, they should accept that he'd been fighting with Malfoy.

Which is really no less than the truth, he thought grimly as he stood up and stared at Malfoy, who had shut his lips into a thin line.

"Why?" Malfoy whispered.

"Are you mad?" Harry demanded. "Yeah, I can understand all the people who don't know about it wanting to fuck me, but you're one of the only people in the school to know I can't. I don't—this makes no sense, Malfoy. Sure, dream about it if you really want to, or get someone to take Polyjuice and turn into me—"

Malfoy was already shaking his head. "I would know it wasn't real," he said.

"How? How in the world would you know, and why would you care if you did?" Harry put his hand over his eyes. "This makes no sense, I'm telling you. Someone who was Polyjuiced would look and smell and taste just like me."

He had to work hard to keep speaking instead of breaking down into hysterical giggles. I'm standing in a corridor with Draco Malfoy and trying to persuade him to fuck my look-alike. I have no words for this. I barely have emotions.

"I would know," Malfoy said stubbornly. "And that's enough."

"Then you'll have to try something else," Harry snapped, turning away. "Because having Voldemort come back isn't worth the pathetic little groping I'm sure would be the only thing you could manage."

He could practically feel Malfoy gaping behind him. He counted to three before he heard the sharp trotting sounds of Malfoy's feet that indicated he was coming after Harry.

"Pathetic, am I?" Malfoy snarled, grabbing his wrist and swinging him around again as Harry stopped with the pain of it. "At least I'm not a virgin."

Harry found himself relaxing and laughing openly into Malfoy's face. Malfoy blinked at him and retreated, stupefied. Harry followed him this time, making sure he wore a small smirk. Other people who looked at this row had to think it was an ordinary one, and that would include the sight of Harry either angry or not affected at all by Malfoy's words.

"That's the whole point, that I am," Harry whispered. "It doesn't matter what you say to me. That won't change what I did, or my determination to keep on doing it, because saving the world matters more to me than your poor little insults or your poor little hurt feelings. I've been coming to terms with this for months, Malfoy. I don't care what you think, what you say, what you do. In a month we'll both leave Hogwarts forever and I'll never see you again. Why should I care about what you like or want?"

And he turned his back with a fine flourish that he heard a few people watching them cheer for. He thought he could feel Malfoy's eyes on his arse, but so what? Every word he had spoken was true. Malfoy could change nothing.

And if Harry could torture him a little by showing off what Malfoy could never have, well, that was just fine.

*

"I can't believe it, mate!"

Harry laughed and grabbed Ron, joining him in prancing around the middle of the Gryffindor common room as the seventh-years around them laughed and whooped, too. Neville was half-drunk already, and kept explaining that he had got more NEWTs in Herbology than the exam proctor had ever seen. Dean and Seamus were toasting each other with Firewhisky, and probably well on their way to join Neville by now. Lavender was celebrating with a sixth-year boy by sticking her tongue down his throat. Parvati was holding a parchment of some sort that contained a job offer and sitting in a chair in the corner with quiet happiness in her eyes. Hermione watched the rest of them and smiled indulgently.

It was the final night they would spend at Hogwarts, and the news was good. They'd received it unusually early because of the Ministry's recognition that most of them had contributed in some way to the war effort, and their desire to ease those anxieties.

And, Harry thought though he couldn't prove it, they had also received it early because Hermione had made certain threats by letter, and no one in the Ministry wanted those threats to come true.

They had their NEWTs, and while not everyone had done as brilliantly as they wanted, they all had enough to take their places in the outside world. Harry was trying to think about entering Auror training and leaving school behind, but the image didn't seem real right now.

What was real was dancing with Ron's hands on his shoulders, and the thump of their feet on the carpet, and the drunken laughter echoing around them, and the smell of burning paper from the fireplace where Harry had thrown the latest bunch of mad post that contained marriage proposals and invitations he wouldn't be able to accept. He made an absent note to himself to live in a house that had a larger fireplace. He and Ron had talked about getting a flat together, but Harry didn't expect that plan to last for very long. Ron and Hermione would start living together as soon as they had admitted some things.

Ron fell over at last, and Harry hopped backwards so that he wasn't dragged down with him, shaking his head dizzily. Ron was laughing, and the laughter seemed to work itself down Harry's ears and into his veins, bubbling and fizzing in his blood like champagne.

He was free. Finally. It had taken years of toil and torment and struggle, but he was free.

And he knew the toil and torment and struggle would begin all over again when he entered the Auror program. He would have to study harder than he ever had at Hogwarts. He would be facing more dangerous training. Because he hadn't killed Voldemort in battle, a lot of people had doubts about his fighting ability. He would have to prove himself over and over again, and deal with the same disgusting amount of fawning that he did here. Maybe even worse, because at least here some of the professors wouldn't allow it in their classes.

But for right now, he was going to enjoy this feeling of freedom.

The common room was too tight, too hot, too enclosed. Harry grabbed a bottle of Firewhisky and slipped out the portrait hole when most people were daring Lavender to kiss Seamus. Hermione noticed his going, but all she did was smile and wave a hand, and Harry thought he could count that as approval if anything was.

The corridor was dark and cool and quiet; a lot of people were at the Leaving Feast still, or the impromptu end-of-the-year parties that spilled out of many rooms on the lower floors. Harry turned towards the Astronomy Tower, scratching his chin as he walked. He was starting to get a ragged beard, which he hadn't done anything about during the mad days of taking NEWTs. He'd have to shave.

He leaned against the wall for a minute and closed his eyes, then laughed quietly. He could think about things like shaving.

I'm free.

If he'd felt a whit less joyful he would have gone and got his Firebolt and ridden circles above the pitch until he collapsed from dizziness, but this wasn't like that. It was a quiet joy. The only thing Harry could really compare it to was how he'd felt lying in his cupboard the first night after he found out he was a wizard, with a warmth in his chest to keep him company—the first thing, other than spiders, that ever kept him company in the cupboard.

I can feel things like this now. I can have a quiet life if I want, and no one is going to prevent me from having it, not fans and not enemies and not Malfoy.

And not that stupid vow.

That was what they didn't understand, Harry thought as he wandered out onto the roof of the Astronomy Tower, not Ron and not Hermione—whom he'd caught giving him pitying looks sometimes—and certainly not Malfoy. They thought of the vow as a kind of death sentence. Harry couldn't do something. That was horrible. He'd made the sacrifice against his will. That was awful. He would never be able to have sex. That was terrible.

The only part Harry agreed with was the last one, and even that was less terrible than Voldemort. That was what they didn't get. They thought that he couldn't really be happy, at least the ones who knew about the vow, unless he had a wife and kids or some kind of grand and passionate romance like his parents had. The ones who didn't know about the vow usually thought that one of them was necessary to complete his happiness.

They weren't. No one was. There were people he loved, but if they died, he would grieve for them, like Sirius, and then live on. He wasn't going to cast himself off the roof of the Astronomy Tower over anybody or any promise he had to make. He knew what the alternative would have been.

Harry leaned his elbows on the battlements, and sipped at his Firewhisky, and thought about the contrast between the burn in his throat and the bubbling tea-heat in his heart and tasted the night wind. If he could look into a series of mirrors, he thought, and see all the versions of Harry Potter that ever existed, he was sure he would be one of the happiest.

"Potter."

Well, I was one of the happiest a minute ago, Harry thought, as he pivoted slowly to face Malfoy. He was determined that he wouldn't let Malfoy hurry him. Nothing Malfoy said mattered now.

"Hullo," he said, with a nod and a little smile. "Come for one last spat before we go off tomorrow?"

Malfoy said nothing, and didn't smile back, or sneer, or smirk. He just stood at a little distance and stared at Harry with hot eyes. Harry shifted in place, uneasy despite himself. It was stupid, but Malfoy's desperate hunger made him feel—

What? Not obliged. I can't oblige the stupid git by having sex with him, and he knows that.

Burdened, maybe. Here's one of the few people in the world who knows what I sacrificed, and the only one who doesn't respect that.

"Potter," Malfoy said at last, and Harry knew he was trying to achieve the kind of voice that would make the hair on the back of Harry's neck prickle. He refused to show the prat that he'd succeeded.

"I know what you want," Harry said. "You've told me several times. The answer is still no." He turned away, took another drink, and determinedly scanned the view, telling himself that he should memorize it since he would probably never see it again.

"What if I told you," Malfoy whispered, stepping closer, "that your vow might actually have left the way open for the Dark Lord to return?"

Harry couldn't help it; he glanced over quickly, and Malfoy smiled in a superior way that said he was gratified he'd made Harry pay attention. Harry shook his head. "I'd say that this is some cleverer method than usual to get me to have sex with you," he said, "and also that it's still not going to work."

Malfoy came a few steps nearer yet. Harry backed up, turning so that he could see Malfoy, as well as the entrance he'd come out of, and so that he couldn't be thrown over the battlements. He'd suddenly thought of a different explanation for Malfoy's strange behavior, one that made a lot more sense. Maybe he wanted revenge for Voldemort's disappearance and had decided to come up with a way to get rid of Harry.

"Haven't you ever felt what I'm feeling, Potter?" Malfoy said, his voice hoarse. Harry frowned and wished he could see his face better. The moon wasn't full tonight, and the starlight was dim. Harry would have cast a Lumos, but he still didn't do well with non-verbal magic, and he didn't want to take his attention away from Malfoy for as long as the casting of the spell would require. "Simple lust? Or are you above that, and that was why it was so easy for you to make that vow?"

"You know nothing about me at all," Harry responded, with a quiet force that finally seemed to impress Malfoy. At least, he stopped and stood tracing his tongue over his teeth in quiet contemplation for a moment before he nodded.

"I'm willing to grant that," he said. "Except for one thing. By staying a virgin, you've opened up a path for the people who want to see the Dark Lord to come back to use you as a virgin sacrifice."

Harry stared at him. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to demand that Malfoy tell him more. He wanted to accuse him of working for the enemy, but then he decided that Malfoy would hardly tell him about this supremely evil plan the Slytherins, or someone else, had if he was working with them.

Unless he's trying to throw me off the trail.

Harry shook his head and stood up straighter. He liked to think that he'd grown up a little in the last two years, since he had started thinking about an actual, workable plan to defeat Voldemort instead of charging onto the battlefield and hoping for the best. He wouldn't get trapped in overthinking and double-thinking himself.

"Say that I believe you," Harry said. "Who are we talking about? Give me names."

"Theodore Nott's father," Malfoy said promptly. "He's trying to gather support among the other former Death Eaters. My father won't go for it; he thinks that you command some kind of powerful magic and would just defeat them if they tried." His voice held a sneer. Harry smiled in relief. Back on ground that I understand, now. "But Vince and Greg's fathers might listen, and I know there are others."

Harry leaned slowly back against the wall, his arms folded, and studied Malfoy until he was shifting uneasily. "That sounds reasonable," Harry said. "Except for one thing. How would they know that I'd made that vow in the first place? Someone must have told them." He lifted his wand so it pointed directly at Malfoy's heart. "Someone like you."

Infuriatingly when Harry was trying to be serious and threatening, Malfoy only smiled. "No. I want to fuck you, not kill you."

Harry rolled his eyes. "It's still the simplest solution, that you told them about this."

Malfoy shook his head. "I don't expect you to believe me now, but you can put me under Veritaserum later, if you want." The casual offer made Harry's mouth drop open, and Malfoy rushed on with his argument before Harry could recover. "There are two ways. Someone could have cast a detection spell at you, seen that you were still a virgin, and simply decided to use that fact. In which case, they'll want to move quickly, because they have no way of knowing that you won't decide to cure that little disease tomorrow." Malfoy was smiling in delight now, and Harry glared at him and waited for him to finish.

"Or someone could have performed a ritual and made a sacrifice of his own, and then asked the wild magic how you defeated the Dark Lord," Malfoy finished. "The wild magic is neutral, you know, that old power. It doesn't care if someone does something that could kill someone else who's vowed to it. If the proper price was paid, it would answer the question."

Harry kept his wand and his eyes on Malfoy, but he had to admit that made sense. Of course, since Malfoy wanted to fuck him anyway, the simplest solution was that he had made this up so Harry would jump at him in panic and beg him to get rid of his dreaded virginity.

The thought made Harry snort, because he was sure that Malfoy really would see it as a disease, and that made Malfoy's confident expression falter for the first time.

"I've heard them talking about it," he insisted in a heated whisper. He inched forwards a step, but stopped when Harry's wand swung at him like the hand of a clock. "You'll never be allowed to live a normal life. You'll have to deal with them somehow. And isn't it better to know about it so that you can pick the time for dealing with it?"

"Yes, it is," Harry said. He had made up his mind. There would be no harm in asking Hermione to cast some of the spying spells they'd become expert in during the months before the ritual because they had to make sure that no one suspected what they were doing. "Thanks for the information, Malfoy." He slipped around him, heading for the stairs down from the Astronomy Tower. Already his stride felt more powerful, his breaths deeper.

He had loved the peace, but it wasn't what he was used to. In fact, it was sort of a relief to have the danger back again.

Malfoy caught his arm. Harry punched back with his elbow; Mad-Eye Moody had taught him techniques like this when they had still thought that he'd have to fight Voldemort face-to-face. Malfoy gave a little wheezing moan and tumbled over.

"Don't touch me," Harry said sweetly, and then began to clatter down the stairs, his mind busy with the paradox.

How could he stay a virgin so that Voldemort would stay vanished, and yet avoid being a virgin so that his enemies, or anyone else who thought to ask the wild magic—and there were plenty of people who were curious—wouldn't be able to use his vow against him?

*

"Yes, I'm afraid he's right, Harry." Hermione held up what looked like a mirror made of frosted glass. "I've been using those spells to spy on the Slytherin common room, and people there are whispering about a vow of virginity and plans to try and eliminate it."

Harry sighed. "Well, maybe I was foolish to think it would stay a secret," he said, wrapping his arms around his knees. All three of them were sitting in Ron's room at the Burrow, and there wasn't much space. "After all, everyone's always been too curious about me for their own good."

Hermione patted his shoulder and gave him a look of sympathy, but she'd already said all the words she had to say on the subject, and Harry didn't ask for more. Ron did mutter, "Why did Malfoy tell us about it? You'd think it would be his perfect world if You-Know-Who came back."

Hermione regarded her boyfriend levelly. "Ron. He's gone."

Ron hid his mouth behind his arm and glared at her.

Hermione leaned forwards and touched Ron's shoulder the way she did sometimes when she was encouraging him to do well in a difficult Quidditch match. "Come on. You can say the name."

Ron dropped his arm and slowly opened his mouth. Hermione nodded encouragingly and beamed the way Harry had seen Mrs. Weasley beam when one of her children said something particularly smart.

"Old Snake-Face," Ron said, with exactly as much flourish and drama as he'd probably bring to actually saying Voldemort's name.

Harry started laughing. Ron gave him a triumphant look. Hermione pouted and tried to look seriously displeased, but she'd never been that good an actress.

"I don't know why Malfoy told me about it," Harry said, "to answer your original question, Ron." He'd been forced to tell his friends about Malfoy getting a glimpse of the ritual in order to make sense of where the information came from, and he'd got a scolding from Hermione in return for keeping such dangerous information to himself. "Perhaps he doesn't like the people who are talking about it. Perhaps he wants to gain our trust and betray us somehow. I don't know. But the important thing is that we know now, and we can come up with a way to counter them." He looked hopefully at Hermione.

Hermione frowned for the first time since they'd started discussing their enemies' tactics. "I can try, Harry. And there's some magic that thrives on paradoxes. But…" She turned her palms up. "I have to admit, right now I don't know how you can be a virgin and not be a virgin at the same time."

Ron cleared his throat, his face so red that it looked painful. "Does he have to—I mean, the vow depends on what Harry thinks of as virginity, right? So he could still wank?" Harry nodded, feeling sure his face was a mirror of Ron's as far as the embarrassment went. "Well, then, can't he get someone to—to have sex with him, just not all the way? That way, he could be sort of half a virgin?" He was mumbling by now, staring at the quilt and tracing a finger over it so that he didn't have to catch Harry's eye.

"It's worth trying," Harry started, but Hermione shook her head firmly.

"The vow depends on that," she said, in the gentle way she had first explained her idea to banish Voldemort to Harry, "but also on what the wild magic thinks. And the wild magic has a tradition, with vows like this, of defining the loss of virginity as focused on the penis." Harry was impressed how she managed to maintain her clinical, detached tone, though her face had turned as red as both of theirs. "So the only way Harry could keep safe from his enemies completely would be to have sex 'fully,' to lose his virginity—"

"And that would mean Voldemort came back," Harry finished.

Hermione nodded, then abruptly flung her arms around him and wailed, "It's not fair that this is all so focused on you!"

Harry patted her back and looked up helplessly at Ron. After all, Hermione was his girlfriend, and Harry had always felt helpless when Hermione started crying. Ron got the hint and hugged Hermione from behind, drawing her gently away and into his embrace.

"It's all right," he whispered. "Magic thrives on paradoxes, you said. And no one would have noticed that except you. No one else could give us this much hope. Harry's going to be fine, I promise." Harry nodded and tried to look as fine as he could. In fact, he felt a lot less threatened than Hermione seemed to think. He'd had years of being a target. And no matter how evil the remaining Death Eaters were, they weren't as powerful as Voldemort.

Hermione sniffled and dried her tears with the back of her hand, straightening up with a little gasp. "Right," she said. "And the first thing I think we should do is ask Malfoy to help us."

Harry opened his mouth to say something, but then found he couldn't say a word, so dumb with surprise was he. Ron stared in a similar gape-mouthed condition from the other side of Hermione.

Ron recovered faster. "What?" he spluttered. "The little ferret?"

"Right," Hermione said without missing a beat, pulling herself away from Ron and pawing through the book that she'd brought with her. She didn't look up, and Harry thought she was even more embarrassed about her tears. "Ferrets are good at getting into places where no one notices them. He can be our spy among the Slytherins—former Slytherins," she corrected herself. "He knows them, and we don't. We can have the spying spells through the mirrors follow them, of course, but we can't stay awake and attend the mirrors all the time. The chances that we'll miss something are high. Malfoy knows the right questions to ask and the right places to be."

"He'll never do it," Ron proclaimed. "Why should he? We don't have anything he wants."

"He must have had some motive for telling Harry in the first place," Hermione said briskly. "We'll find out what he wants and give it to him."

Harry groaned and put his hand over his eyes.

There was silence, and then Hermione asked, in a suspicious voice, "Harry, is there something you're not telling us?"