Malfoy took to the research into the virginity vow and the wild magic like a hippogriff to courtesy. He shut himself up into the library at Hermione's parents' house with Hermione and sixteen books he'd brought from the Malfoy library the very next day.

He also didn't blow up the house, and no matter how long Harry listened to the library door, he only heard intense murmuring, not bickering. He shook his head. I wonder why they never got along this well before.

Then again, it took the sight of my naked body to convert Malfoy to lusting after me. It probably takes the fate of the world to make him willingly cooperate with Hermione.

When Malfoy came out at last, he looked dazed but smug. Harry sometimes thought that had been his permanent expression since they'd had sex. "She does have a mind," he said, leaning against the doorway of the library and shaking his head. "The things she could have done in Slytherin, if she'd been wise enough to be born to pure-blood parents."

Harry bit his tongue until he could taste blood. "You said that you would have at least two options for keeping me a virgin and not a virgin," he said. "Do you?"

"Better," Malfoy said, moving so that he was leaning more fully against the doorway. Harry tensed, thinking that Malfoy was heading towards him, and not sure what would happen if they touched right now, when his mind was full of images from yesterday. Then he realized that Malfoy was simply draping himself against the wall so that he showed to full advantage, and glared at him. From Malfoy's smile, Harry was sure the glare held more heat than he had hoped it would. "I have a combination of two options, and Granger agrees that they'll work."

That made Harry stare, and took his mind away from sex. From the way Malfoy pouted, he sensed that and was upset about it. But Harry didn't give him a chance to voice his disappointment. "What are they?"

"Well," Malfoy said consideringly, pulling away from the doorway and taking a step closer, "what do you know about the theory of magical doubles?"

"Assume that I'm as ignorant as you always thought I was," Harry said. His hand reached out, and he frowned and pulled it back. He was sure that he hadn't said it could do that. "Because of my unfortunate Muggle upbringing and Muggleborn mother and all."

Malfoy looked at him from under one drooping lid. He did that too often, Harry thought absently. His eyes were beautiful enough that he should have shown them fully all the time. "You're not," Malfoy said, voice curiously low and clear. "I know that you aren't what I was trained to despise, and ready to despise from the moment you chose Weasley over me."

Harry shook his head. He didn't want to think about this, about the tone in Malfoy's voice or anything else that might touch the dangerous thing brewing between them. They were supposed to be thinking about ways to save the world right now, and that and sex didn't mix. He stepped back and said, "The theory of magical doubles?"

Malfoy paused, and sighed, and rolled his eyes as if he thought that Harry was being the ridiculous one. But he nodded obediently and said, "It says that two copies of a person actually are the same person, on the magical level. Not on the physical one. Of course there's a difference between identical twins—" he sneered, and Harry was sure that he was thinking of Fred and George "—or between a real person and an illusion that's been cast of him. But when the copy is good enough, there's no difference between their magic."

Harry frowned at him. Malfoy rolled his eyes again. "Look, while I don't think you're completely stupid, your mind is a map with certain areas filled in and islands of knowledge floating around in huge seas of ignorance, all right? I'm explaining this as clearly as I can without explaining all the magical theory behind it, or expecting you to have read that theory."

Harry nodded and motioned for him to go on. Malfoy continued in a softer and more intense voice, now and then glancing back towards the library. Harry thought he was afraid Hermione might come out and steal his thunder by explaining it herself. "It's the magic in you that the wild magic responds to, that the promise of your virginity vow rests on. And it's the magic in you that a virgin sacrifice would depend on, too. Therefore, if we create a sort of magical copy of you and have that lose its virginity, then it should satisfy the conditions of the paradox. Harry Potter will stay a virgin, and Harry Potter won't be one."

"But that's not going to help if my physical body is still seized and sacrificed for the ritual to bring Voldemort back," Harry said slowly. "After all, we can't fool people the same way we can satisfy the wild magic. And they could use some other kind of ritual, one that didn't depend on the wild magic, couldn't they?"

Malfoy nodded. "That's why the solution has to go further, and be combined with the second one I thought of. Why not ask the wild magic to make you a virgin and not a virgin at once? You made one promise to it. You can make another. The wild magic is neutral and doesn't care; Granger must have told you that. It's perfectly willing to let one promise obviate another, as long as the promise is good enough, as long as the sacrifice is high enough. The burden of keeping the promise rests on you, not the wild magic. All it will do if you break it is reverse what it made happen."

Harry shook his head. He thought he was following this, but he wasn't sure. "But what can be a good enough sacrifice to the wild magic? I can't promise my life." He paused and then swallowed. "Or I could," he added slowly, "or maybe my power. I would do it if that meant that the world would be protected from Voldemort."

He became aware of a freezing silence in the corridor with him, and looked up to see Malfoy running his eyes up and down Harry's body. Harry tried to manage a smile, but had the feeling he didn't do a very good job. "I know you don't want that to happen," he said. "After all, I need to be alive so that you can fuck me."

"I have no idea how Weasley and Granger put up with you for so many years," Malfoy said, speaking in a low, precise voice. "I was pitying you for being their friend, but now I see that my pity should have gone the other way."

Harry stared at him. "What?"

Malfoy pressed closer to him, and even though he didn't actually shove him into the wall, Harry felt trapped anyway. His eyes were small and his breath was harsh, and Harry felt more cowed than excited.

Well, he thought he did, anyway. Perhaps not cowed by much more.

"You'll give up your life at a moment's notice," Malfoy whispered. "Or your magic. And then you'll make stupid, joking statements about it. Is it so strange that I might want you alive for some reason beyond the fucking? I told you, I enjoy spending time with you even when we're not doing that."

Harry tried to swallow. "You don't understand," he said. "I was only saying that because I didn't know what else to offer. What is there? I don't think the wild magic cares about money or my Firebolt or my wand, and there's nothing else I have that's precious. If you have something else I can promise, then say it."

Malfoy paused, his breath shallow. Then he sighed and actually rested his head on Harry's shoulder. Harry stood there, blinking, unsure if he should touch him, and wondering what would happen if Hermione came out of the library.

"I thought the clue was there, in my words," Malfoy breathed. "But I can see how it might not have been. We'll give the wild magic a show, Potter. Such a show that it can't look away, such a show that it'll be pleased. Where do you think magical rituals came from in the first place? Shows to please the wild magic, to make it more inclined to grant whatever the petitioner was asking for. If you want to get technical, the wild magic is formless most of the time. The rituals give it a place to manifest and show off. A new ritual, one that combines magical copies of yourself with the plea to the wild magic? One that's beautiful and splendid? We're going to charm the wild magic, Potter. We'll sweep it off its feet."

Harry blinked. His mind was filled with dissolving images of gold and light and darkness and hope.

"We can do that?" he asked. "And it'll really—consent to be fooled like that?" He thought he should be able to call it something else, but he didn't know what.

Malfoy smiled up at him. "Yes. And it'll be the best thing we could possibly do, because it combines those two options and because it'll make the wild magic protect you and the wizarding world without any more sacrifices, and because it was my idea." He paused, then added, "And because it'll get rid of that stupid virginity vow. Perhaps I harp on that a bit much, but it's important to me."

Harry laughed in spite of himself. I don't know if I always like him, but he charms me in the same way that he's arguing we should charm the wild magic.

"I give you permission to put your arms around me," Malfoy said grandly.

*

Despite his skepticism, Harry quickly discovered that Hermione not only didn't resent Malfoy for coming up with an idea that she hadn't had, she was enthusiastic about it.

"It's really quite simple, Harry," she explained as she spread out a piece of parchment in front of him. Harry's eyes tried to cross. The parchment was covered with darting lines and scribbled notes and what looked like a replication of ritual circles. It reminded him of how Hermione had first tried to explain the virginity vow ritual in all its technical aspects to him. "We have to have magical doubles. It's best if we have a lot of them, both to give the wild magic more of a show and because that means we can distribute any magical consequences or backlash among them and diminish the effect on you. I don't think any of us are good enough illusionists to create that many illusions of you, though. And especially not illusions as perfect as they would have to be for the wild magic to think of them as you."

Harry nodded, and tried his best to listen by closing his eyes. Maybe he would do better if he didn't have to see the overwhelming complexity of this ritual, but only listen to it.

"Now," Hermione was continuing, voice sliding and slicing past his ears in a blizzard of excitement, "there are other ways we could do this. By creating models of you—but that would take wizarding alchemy, a Potions master, and a lot of time. I think we should do this as soon as we possibly can."

Harry stared at her. Hermione sighed and said in a patient voice, "Because that way there's less chance that the Death Eaters can kidnap you and use as a virgin sacrifice."

"Oh. Right." Harry nodded several times. He hadn't really thought she was as anxious as Malfoy to have him able to have sex, or for the same reason, but it was best to make sure. So many essential truths of the world had changed for him in the last few months, and "Malfoy is not sexy" was only the most profound of them.

Hermione eyed him suspiciously, but didn't seem to find enough in his manner to latch onto and lecture him about, so she continued. "By casting your shadow," she said. "Multiple shadows are one way to create magical models. But that would involve a lot of light spells, and a lot of time to get right, the same as for the model plan. And you don't have a twin that we can build off of."

"So how are we going to do it, then?" Harry propped his chin on his hand and stared gloomily at the figures on the parchment. It sounded as though all the best plans were impossible.

"Mirrors," Hermione said.

Harry lifted his eyebrows and his head and stared at her again, but this time he couldn't help smiling in excitement. Hermione noticed and smiled back, bouncing slightly on her heels. She reached out and drew her wand down the side of the parchment, and one of the complex dotted lines came to life. Peering closely at it now, Harry could see that it represented a line of what looked like different circles, connected to each other with arrows.

"It's the easiest way," Hermione said. "Reflections are magical doubles, too. And we can set up mirrors so that they reflect each other—two lines of mirrors, or even more. And the reflections will have their own reflections inside them. That means that we can create a possible infinity of them, an infinity from one person. It's another paradox. The wild magic likes paradoxes."

Harry nodded, really absorbed in this for the first time. "But I think I see a problem. Malfoy's idea was that one magical double of me would stay a virgin and one wouldn't. If the mirrors are all reflecting the same thing, then won't all the magical doubles stay virgins or not-virgins?" Why isn't there one single word for people who aren't virgins? he wondered irrelevantly.

"That's why the ritual really folds two rituals into itself." By now, Hermione was practically dancing in place, spinning around in circles, waving her wand as her words became faster and faster. "In the first part of it, you do something that will seemingly render you a virgin forever. The mirrors pick up and reflect that—and we cast a spell that will preserve that reflection in one set of them. Then you do something that takes away your virginity in front of the other line, and they reflect that. We allow that one to continue until your virginity is gone and the danger of your being used as a sacrifice is past."

But Harry had fastened on the most important part of all that, which he thought Hermione had unfairly skipped past. "I have to have sex as part of the ritual?"

Hermione paused and glanced sideways at him. "Well, that is rather to be expected when you're trying to avoid virginity," she said slowly, as if she suspected him of joking. "And don't you want to? You've been complaining about the vow more than usual lately, and now we know it's dangerous, too."

"Well, all right, but—" Harry ran a hand through his hair. He had a hard time explaining to Hermione that sex in private was one thing, and sex in public quite another. Especially if there was someone hanging around like Malfoy had who managed to snap photographs.

And there's also a problem with the choice of partner, he thought, but that was less relevant, and he focused on the objection that Hermione seemed to want to hear. "I don't like having sex in public," he said.

Hermione gave him a look of pity. "I'm sorry, Harry," she said. "But we shouldn't have to see the whole thing, just the part that will confirm to one set of reflections that you'll stay a virgin and the beginning of the other. After all, you don't have to cast a spell to keep the second set of reflections." She paused, and Harry knew what her question would be before she spoke. "Who are you going to get to do this?"

Harry licked his lips. "I don't know."

He knew who he would like to have, but it was an open question whether his friends would accept Malfoy or if Malfoy would want to. No, scratch that, Harry knew he would want to. But Harry thought he would like it too much only because it was sex, and not enough because it was Harry.

Then Harry told himself he was being ridiculous. This was only a little thing, only a ritual that he was undergoing because he had to, not something he wanted to choose. He would ask Malfoy, and Malfoy would laugh and agree, and they would have sex, and it would mean nothing.

And that is exactly the problem, Harry thought, but he couldn't tell Hermione, whose eyes were growing more and more curious, that. Harry added as casually as he could, "I'll look around. There are a few people I would trust to do it; I just don't know if they'd want to."

Hermione nodded and patted his hand, looking both sad and affectionate. "Of course, Harry. I'm sorry; I got so excited about solving the problem that I didn't think much about what it would cost you." Then she brightened and looked down again at her diagram. "But it's a good solution, at least, isn't it?"

Harry smiled and kissed her on the forehead. It was something to know he had friends he could depend on, whether or not he ever had a lover. "Yes, it is. Thank you."

*

Harry closed his eyes to strengthen himself and then knocked hard on the iron gates of Malfoy Manor. He hadn't pictured himself doing this when he first wanted to ask Malfoy if he would have sex with him in the ritual, but in the end, it seemed best. After all, an owl might sound too casual, and an abrupt request when Malfoy had come over for something else might seem too much like he'd planned it.

Harry shook his head then. I think you're giving this much more consideration than he ever would. You're hesitating and fidgeting and humming the way you would if he really was your boyfriend.

"Finally."

Harry looked up, and then stepped back as Malfoy practically popped out of the gates and onto the grass in front of him. His smile was hard, and there was something predatory in the back of his eyes that Harry couldn't help regarding uneasily. Malfoy reached out, and then suddenly stopped, put his hands in his robe pockets in a casual gesture Harry had never seen from him, and leaned back against the gates.

"I had a note from Granger yesterday saying that she'd figured out what to do, and explaining the ritual," he said. "I'd been expecting to hear from you since, and didn't. Why not?"

Harry caught his breath and tried to explain, but Malfoy tilted his head, and his face was pale and handsome, and Harry gulped all the breath away again, and the explanation with it.

"I think I deserve to know," Malfoy said at last, in the dangerously smooth tone that Harry had heard from his mouth when he came back and found Harry wanking. "If anyone does."

Harry swore and put his head in his hands, and just hoped that Malfoy could hear what he was saying, because he didn't want to have to repeat it all again. "I didn't tell you because it mattered too much to me what you thought, all right? And it seemed you'd be willing to have sex with me if I just asked, but I didn't want to treat you that way. God knows why, since you've talked more about fucking me than anything else. But even if you only see me as someone to lust after, I don't see you that way. And I don't know why. It doesn't make sense." He stood up straight again and took a few steps towards Malfoy. "Tell me why I should like you, when you've been lusty, and petty, and demanding, and horrid before that."

Malfoy reached out and clasped his wrists, hauling Harry closer than he had meant to come. His face had a new expression: his eyes sparkling, his lips pressed tight in a way that seemed meant to stifle a cry of intense delight. He ran his fingers up and down Harry's wrists, and then leaned in to kiss him. Harry made a half-strangled sound and struggled, pulling back.

"Why?" he repeated.

"I don't know why you like me, specifically," Malfoy said, his voice low and sweet, like the sound of some instrument Harry had never heard before. "But I'll tell you what I hope for, and then you can tell me whether it matches what you have in mind, all right? You only have to nod yes or shake your head no."

Baffled, staring at him, Harry nodded permission.

"I hope that you like me because I'm a challenge," Malfoy said. "Because I was honest from the beginning about how I wanted you and why. And because I've certainly shown, through my sense of humor and my willingness to help you and not press you except when you'd already begun what I hoped to join in with, that I regard you as more than a body to fuck. But I didn't want to say so openly, because for all I knew you would laugh at me, or disbelieve me because I talked about fucking first." He stroked Harry's wrists again. "And I don't want any more distrust between us. I'm sick of it."

Harry shut his eyes. It was what he had wanted Malfoy to say, though he hadn't known it. It was like being hungry for a long time but only realizing it when you smelled the bread that someone was baking in the next room.

"Well?" Malfoy whispered. "Is that what you were hoping for? Yes or no?"

Harry nodded.

Malfoy drew him into his arms and kissed him again. This time, though still warm and wet and exciting all the other adjectives that Harry had ever applied to Malfoy's kisses, it was also sweet, drowning sweet. Harry put his arms around Malfoy's neck and lost himself utterly in the kiss, gasping when it was done and resting his head against Malfoy's chest.

"And about the other thing that you came to ask me," Malfoy said, playing with Harry's hair, "of course the answer is yes. I would be delighted to fuck you."

*

"But Malfoy, mate?"

Harry rolled his eyes. The hardest part of making his friends understand that he'd chosen Malfoy as his partner in the ritual was making them understand it was Malfoy. Or Ron, at least. Hermione had grasped it right away, and, after waving her wand over Harry's head to make sure that he wasn't under the influence of the Imperius Curse or a binding potion, had accepted his suggestion as given.

Ron, though, still sat on his bed in the Burrow and looked at Harry with a piteous expression that begged him to make it untrue.

"Yes," Harry said. "I've been—well, I've been meeting with him for a while, you know, and giving him kisses as his price for giving us the reports on the Slytherins, and one thing led to another." He shrugged helplessly.

Ron rubbed his hand over his face as if he was hot and sought to cool himself with a soothing touch. Then he dropped the hand and looked at Harry and said again, "But Malfoy, mate?"

"Yes, Malfoy," Hermione said briskly. "Malfoy is going to join Harry in the ritual and fuck him, or be fucked. I don't think that's been decided yet. But when it is, it will happen with Malfoy."

Ron and Harry both stared at her. Harry blinked a few times and then decided, She must have thought it was better to be as shocking as possible, since easing Ron into the truth wasn't working.

Ron stood up slowly. Harry braced himself for a punch. He had always known that Ron wouldn't take the news that Malfoy was his lover well, though he had hoped they would escape without too much unpleasantness.

But instead of hitting Harry, Ron said in a low, hoarse voice, "This is not happening. Not at all. This is a bad dream. I'm going to wake up in a few minutes and find myself in my own bed, with the world all bright around me and no trace of those images in my head."

"Ron," Hermione began, sounding as if she was struggling for sympathy amidst a welter of impatience.

"No," Ron interrupted suddenly. "No, it can't be over yet, not until the ritual is over. So. I'll walk through this bad dream, and help Harry. And then I can wake up in my own bed, and the sun will be shining. And the birds! The birds will be singing outside the window, and I can listen to them and forget this horrible thing ever happened."

He wandered out of the bedroom. Harry stared after him, then looked at Hermione, who lifted both hands and shoulders in a small shrug.

"Whatever works," she said.

*

Harry closed his eyes. He wondered if that would allow him to be calm enough to bear what he knew was coming.

It didn't work.

Harry opened his eyes and pulled his shirt over his head. He dropped it on the bed next to him and then took off his trousers. He could see his movements in the mirror he had placed on the wall across from his bed, so that he could get used to the reflection. But he didn't look up, not yet.

Another motion, so that he pulled off his pants, and then he couldn't wait any longer. He stepped forwards and looked into the mirror.

He was still scrawny, but not as skinny as he had been in his fifth year. He'd grown. He had black hair that would never be tamed, but did that really matter, when he was satisfied with it, and Malfoy seemed content enough to hold it and tug it when they kissed? He had had a scar on his forehead that had gone when he made the promise to the wild magic to keep his virginity, and he still had countless tiny scars on his body where he'd scraped his palms or fought Dudley or been wounded in the fights with Voldemort, and he had knees that he thought would always look knobby, despite everything.

But this was the body he lived in. This was the body he had to accept, if he was going to accept anything about himself.

This was the body he was going to give as a gift to Malfoy.

Harry closed his eyes, then, and felt a strange swelling in himself, as if he was caught up in a wave that was of the heart more than of the body. Excitement and fear and wild joy; for some reason he wanted to laugh. He looked again, and this time his reflection looked back at him calmly, with only a gleam in its eyes to betray that it was feeling something more than absolute tranquility.

I'm ready.

*

Bright white sparks leaped into the air from the conjured bonfire. Banners snapped above them, purple and deep green and red and bright gold, so brilliant that they looked as if they were made of fire themselves. Horses, white horses made of illusion, pranced around the fires, tossing their manes and the next moment leaping and blending into the banners, or breaking into flights of magical white birds, skimming the ground and the poles of the banners with their wings.

Harry caught his breath. Hermione had said they had to put on a show for the wild magic; what he hadn't anticipated was that it would be a show for him, too. Or for anyone who wanted to watch, really.

He glanced sideways at Hermione, who nodded and held up her wand. The grass sparked, and the sparks from the bonfire leaped down to meet it. Together, they grew up into a pillared hall that stretched out before Harry down a lane of grass, marking the path that he would have to walk. Harry swallowed and started forwards with his heart banging so strongly in his ears that he almost couldn't hear the spitting sounds of the fire.

He heard the noise of trumpets that wailed around him, though, and the flutes and drums that joined it a minute later. Harry jumped, but took a deep breath to keep himself steady and continued walking. He had known that Hermione was going to conjure the sounds of instruments; he hadn't expected them to sound so much like the real thing.

A show. Remember that this is a show, and it's important and meaningful at the same time. We have to remember that.

Already the air seemed hotter than it had, thicker, and shimmering with strange traces when Harry glanced at it out of the corners of his eyes that he didn't think were all afterimages of the fire and the banners. The wild magic was taking an interest, drawing near and wondering what they were doing. That was a good beginning, but now they had to hold its attention.

Harry, looking ahead to the mirrors that awaited him, and the flicker of a white robe beyond that, thought he could do that.

The fiery path ran out where the lines of mirrors began. For a moment, as Hermione had told him he should do, Harry halted between the first pair of mirrors, looking down the line. Hermione had practiced conjuring and copying mirrors until she could do it in her sleep. These mirrors all looked identical: all large and oval, all made of the purest glass, all in large, golden, tilted frames covered with curlicues, and all perfectly placed so that they reflected each other.

Harry reached into his robe pocket and took out a small box. Opening that, he produced two rings of gold.

The wild magic's attention sharpened. Harry couldn't say why he knew that, since the only effect was that the air grew hotter and a few more sparks appeared—sparks that could easily have escaped from the fire—but he did. And now he was confident that he could do this.

I thought you were before? he asked himself wryly as he held the rings up to the light and the air. Hermione wouldn't have wanted you to go through with the ritual if you weren't confident.

Well, maybe it's just that I'm more confident now.

One ring held an emerald, and the other had a diamond. Harry started to slide the diamond ring onto his finger, as if it was a wedding ring, and then took it and threw it violently onto the ground. Holding out his wand, he pointed it at the ring and said, "Flamma aeterna."

The ring burst into a pinwheel of colored fire. The wild magic's attention was so heavy on the air now that Harry found it a struggle to breathe. The ring rose up, sparking as it melted, the gold flowing, the diamond dropping free of the flames but lying lonely on the ground. Harry sniffed and turned his back on it.

He could practically feel Hermione's wand whistling through the air as she performed the incantations necessary to hold that reflection in one of the sets of mirrors. And he could feel the heated gaze of someone watching from the other end of the line.

But the rejection of marriage wasn't going to be enough to convince the wild magic, or at least Hermione had thought so. After all, someone could have still have sex even if he never intended to marry. They needed something else to give the illusion of perpetual virginity that one side of the ritual demanded.

Harry drew another deep breath. He knew he was blushing, but he reached up nonetheless and began to unbutton his robes.

The wild magic was hovering around him in darting trails of white light now, panting heavily as it watched. Harry lowered his eyes, mostly so that he wouldn't have to watch himself undressing in the mirrors, as he shed his robes and then the clothes beneath. He was relieved that he had remained unaroused so far. That would render what he had to do next easier.

He dropped his pants to the ground and wondered if he could really feel the way the regard from the other end of the row of mirrors was now heavier than the wild magic's, or if that was delusion.

He held up the emerald ring, turning in a slow circle, trying to think very hard about how this was for the ritual and not for showing off before Malfoy, or being embarrassed in front of Hermione. Then he touched the ring with his wand and whispered, "Numquam cupiditas."

The wild magic was literally breathing down his neck now. Harry lowered his hand and slipped the band of the ring over his cock.

A strange giddy feeling filled him as he did. This was uncomfortable, and ridiculous, and a demonstration of something he wasn't sure he wanted to demonstrate, and many other things besides. But it was also so different from anything he had done in his life before that it gave him a sense of power. He had the strength to get up and parade like this in front of the man who wanted to fuck him and in front of his best friend. It was something, wasn't it, to turn circles with a ring that would supposedly charm him never to get an erection again around his cock, all the while knowing that he wouldn't wear it forever?

Hermione had said that the wild magic thrived on paradox. It was just occurring to Harry that maybe he did, too.

He could hear her chanting now, strong and forceful, and he could see the wild magic clearly for the first time. Small white creatures, largely formless except that Harry thought he could make out folded wings and four legs on each one, scampered around the edge of the mirrors. They were all circling with eyes on him, and Harry lifted his head higher and waited, one arm arched so that he could show off his encircled cock in all its glory, until Hermione called to him.

That was the signal that the first part of the ritual was completed, the reflection preserved, and the set of mirrors on the left would confirm that he had sworn himself to perpetual virginity. Harry felt the wild magic settle around his shoulders like a cloak of fire, purring drowsily in his ear with satisfaction.

He took the ring off and cast it aside, not caring where it landed, as long as it didn't smash any of the mirrors. The wild magic's purring didn't change when Harry turned to face the other end of the row of mirrors.

And Malfoy, in a transparent white robe that showed off everything it was supposed to be hiding, came forwards at a slow stalk.

Harry felt his mouth dry out. It was one thing to know that Malfoy was probably magnificent under all his clothes, another to see it. And another thing, even more, to see it an environment like this, with the mirrors multiplying his brilliant hair and his vivid pale skin to infinity.

Malfoy paused halfway up the aisle of mirrors and cast off the white robe. Harry caught his breath in relief. Malfoy had been so intent on him that Harry half-feared he'd forgotten the instructions for the ritual that Hermione had been so careful to impress on both of them.

Malfoy turned back and forth, arms lifted high, and his reflections turned with him on the right side of the aisle, reflecting back and forth forever, shining perfection that made Harry's eyes water with pressure and his tongue seem two sizes too big for his mouth. Malfoy had a settled smile when he turned around again, a lazy smile that Harry liked. He cocked his head and advanced, and though he no longer had a robe to swing behind him, arrogance and beauty traveled behind him like his own train.

Harry locked his hands into fists so that he couldn't reach out and touch Malfoy too soon, and disrupt the ritual. The wild magic gathered on his shoulder into a white-hot dragon that stood up and looked at Malfoy with interest. Harry winced, wondering if perhaps it would take too much of an interest and burn or hurt Malfoy before he could get to Harry.

But that didn't happen. Malfoy came to a halt a few feet away and turned in another slow circle, though somehow he arched his neck back over his shoulder so that he never took his eyes off Harry. And then he stopped and spread his arms wide, tossing his head back like someone going to be a sacrifice.

The message was clear: Come and take me.

Harry groaned, and it was torture to force himself to walk towards Malfoy slowly enough to maintain the solemn pace the ritual demanded. Malfoy was erect, his penis poking towards Harry as if to offer an extra place for his hands to grip. Malfoy was flushed, his skin a delicate pink Harry would have found funny in other situations but didn't in this one. Malfoy was clear-eyed, accepting what this meant and demanding a kind of courtship at the same time, which so far he had offered more to Harry than the other way around.

Malfoy was irresistible.

Harry didn't know why it should be so, but he accepted it as of a piece with the strange sensation of wearing a ring on his cock, and reached out, and took Malfoy in his arms, and kissed him.

The wild magic leaped into the kiss, filling their saliva with a buzz as if they'd swallowed too much Firewhisky at once, and stabbing down their throats and up to the palates of their mouths. Malfoy moaned and struggled a moment, as if he assumed that he would lose his teeth or his tongue if he continued to kiss Harry. Harry wrapped an arm around his neck and bound him more firmly into the embrace.

Malfoy surrendered a moment later, and sucked on Harry's tongue. The wild magic galloped around them in a soft bright ring.

Harry slid slowly to a kneeling position, leaving Malfoy upright. Their mouths stayed joined as long as possible, and then Harry had to leave the kiss behind. He was kneeling at Malfoy's feet, and Malfoy spread his legs and looked down at Harry with a supremely contented expression.

His lips formed soundless words. You were born to kneel there.

The wild magic rose to a sharp crooning pitch as if it agreed. Harry ducked his head in response and licked a long stripe up the inside of Malfoy's left thigh.

Malfoy stopped breathing.

Harry decided smugly that that was a good response, and leaned forwards to suck the inside of Malfoy's knee. Then he moved his mouth slowly around his leg, licking the front of his knee, and down his leg towards his toes, before he moved to the right leg and nuzzled gently at the skin.

Malfoy had started a soundless chant, which Harry knew was happening because he could feel his body shaking from the effect of the words. Harry thought for a moment that this was a part of the ritual Malfoy had to perform that Hermione hadn't told him about, but then realized he was whispering Harry's name.

Harry's first name.

Harry smiled and grasped Malfoy's arse with both hands, driving his hips forwards. Malfoy's gasp said that he hadn't yet recovered from that when Harry sucked his cock into his mouth.

That was harder than he had thought it would be, because Malfoy immediately began to writhe, forcing himself deeper and deeper into Harry's throat, but that didn't matter, because Harry wanted to do this. The desire had been there even before the ritual began. Harry had sneaked sideways glances at Malfoy's erection many times during their rehearsal sessions. But the ritual had kindled it into burning.

So he did something with his throat to make it deeper—he wasn't sure that he would be able to describe it in words, really—and sucked even harder, and Malfoy uttered a trembling cry and stood there on his toes, poised, shivering, ready to come if Harry didn't stop in a minute.

Harry knew that, and reluctantly pulled back with a final stroke of his tongue to the head of Malfoy's cock. Making him lose it down Harry's throat wasn't part of the ritual, however attractive it sounded.

Malfoy caught his breath faster than Harry thought was flattering, and then fell to his knees in turn. He urged Harry to his back. Harry lay down and spread his legs wide.

The wild magic had formed a blazing curtain around them by now, shining with eagerness and tiny flickers of blue that Harry hoped weren't a sign of hotter fire that would consume them. That reassured him Hermione wouldn't be able to see what was happening, and he could be as shameless as he wanted.

He reached down and ran his fingers lightly along the top of Malfoy's skull, teasing his hair. Malfoy looked up at him with eyes so dark with lust that Harry had to work to force the words out of his mouth.

"Draco," he whispered. "Draco."

The ritual they had designed was big on exchanges of all kinds, so that the wild magic couldn't find a loophole to say Harry hadn't lost his virginity yet and so that they could put on a better show, but Harry wasn't speaking the name solely because Draco had earlier said his. Things were shifting. He wanted to acknowledge them, because after this, nothing between him and Draco could ever be the same again.

Draco smiled at him and then ran a lazy finger up the bottom of Harry's penis. His tongue joined it. Harry began to feel oddly constricted, which was what it took for him to realize he was holding his breath. He released it with a whoosh.

Draco raised a smug eyebrow and bent to his task.

Harry tossed his head back, accompanied by a line of reflections in the mirrors, and cried out. He'd dreamed about this, of course, and wanked to pictures of Draco (and other people before him) performing it, but the reality was on another plane altogether. It was soft and wet and dazzlingly warm, like lying in sunshine on a summer day, and it was—

It was sucking.

Harry whined and trembled and tensed his legs, but even that couldn't keep him from bucking. Or thrusting. Or traveling embarrassingly close to the edge embarrassingly fast. Or chanting Draco's name as solemnly as if Draco were a god he was worshipping.

Draco pulled back just in time. Harry had to close his eyes anyway, in case Draco licked his lips and prompted an unfortunate kind of release.

When he looked up, the wild magic was swirling above them, a cloudy corona that made a constant low rumbling noise, like the approach of the gentlest thunderstorm on earth. Harry held out his hand, and Draco drew him to his feet, and they stood there, embracing, under the blessing of the wild magic.

"Now," Draco whispered in Harry's ear.

Harry didn't ask him if he was sure. The great thing about this ritual was the eagerness with which Draco had entered into it, so Harry could be sure that he was willing all the time. He kissed Draco and stepped back, drawing his wand to conjure a cushion beneath him.

The wild magic sent a long white tendril down. Harry blinked when it became a fleecy pallet beneath Draco. Draco laughed breathlessly as he lay down and spread his legs. Harry's eyes jerked down to his erection, and then he tried to look as hard as he could at Draco's face, to drink his full draught of the excitement and sly appreciation there.

"I assume it wants me to be as comfortable as possible," Draco said. "Now, put your wand to a better purpose."

Harry fell to his knees, weakened by the lust in Draco's voice. He aimed the wand at Draco's hole, which looked small even though Draco was parting his cheeks with his hands and arching his legs wide above his head, and murmured the lubrication charm Hermione had taught them. Harry would never forget that moment, because it had turned her face redder than Ron's hair.

Draco gasped. His arse loosened and glistened in the more than adequate illumination of the wild magic. Harry dropped his wand, staring at it, and then began to crawl forwards on his hands and knees.

He knew, dimly, that this wasn't the confident stride that Hermione had recommended, but the magic rang like bells and seemed to like it well enough. Besides, Harry didn't think he was capable of doing anything else right now.

Harry lifted Draco's legs over his shoulders, and then discovered that wasn't the right angle. He shifted around and tried to line his cock up with Draco's arse, and then discovered that Draco's legs were in the way. He grabbed one ankle, and Draco got nervous and kicked out at him. Harry sat back on his heels and glared at him.

"Sorry," Draco said, having the gall to laugh. His hair was disordered, his face glistening like his arse, his mouth gaping wide. That made Harry forgive him at once. "Let's try again."

Harry rose carefully to his heels, lifted Draco's legs partway, shuffled forwards, went through some more awkward maneuvering, and finally managed to get Draco's calves where they needed to go and his cock aimed where it needed to go. He glanced up at Draco to see if he had any opinion about this, but encountered only shut-eyed, open-mouthed bliss.

"Yes," Draco whispered.

Harry took that as permission along with encouragement, and thrust forwards.

If he had thought the sensation of having his cock sucked was amazing, it was nothing to this. In he went, and in, and in. There didn't seem to be an end. Nor was there an end to the heat and tightness around him, so much that he sagged forwards, dizzy black spots bursting in front of his eyes.

"Harry Potter," Draco said gravely, "I will never forgive you if you faint on me. And I'll laugh at you until the end of time."

Harry couldn't have asked for a better spur. He lifted his head, snapped, "No, you won't," and shoved in again.

Draco gasped as though someone was torturing him. Harry stopped at once, dread cutting through his pleasure.

"Oh, honestly, you're hopeless," Draco said, and kicked him in the back with his heels that hung over Harry's shoulders. "Don't you recognize the sound of someone touching my prostate when you hear it?"

"Forgive me for not having been privileged enough to listen in on any of your sessions with your other lovers," Harry said, and shoved one more time. And that was really it, he thought. His groin rested flush against Draco's arse. Both he and Draco were panting, so hard that it was difficult to speak, and Harry had to mentally edit out the little gasps and pauses between his own words so that he would sound vaguely dignified in his memory. "Ready?"

"I was ready from the first moment I saw you naked," Draco replied hoarsely.

Harry rolled his eyes and began to thrust.

It was—an education. When he moved, Draco moved, too, rocking more than Harry would have thought was possible, and traveling up the cushion that the wild magic had been thoughtful enough to provide for them. It was a much slicker procedure than Harry had thought it would be; sweat rained all around them, and at one point he had to shake his head so that some of the sweat flowing down into his eyes would migrate in other directions. His body seemed to take over at times, thrusting and shoving and even twisting and gripping Draco's ankles without his permission.

"Harry," Draco said, the sound so rich with resonances that Harry couldn't help but look into his eyes. He saw Draco clutching at his own hair, tearing up and down with his hands as if that would help him bear the pleasure better.

"Oh, Harry," Draco breathed, and looked up at him with dazed eyes in which Harry saw a new emotion. He started to bend down, wanting to kiss Draco or speak, to acknowledge it.

In the end, that didn't work, because his body had decided that now was the time to come.

Harry felt the seizing begin in his groin, but it radiated through his body like the rays of a sunrise and then traveled back to the source before he felt the first rush of warmth and goodness and strength. Harry had often felt weak, wrung-out, exhausted, when he came, but not this time. The orgasm seemed to build him up, to add strength to his spirit and magic even as it weakened his body.

He still fell forwards on top of Draco, but he didn't think that should be taken as proof of weakness.

Draco caressed his hair and whispered, "We need to move on, before the magic gets bored."

Harry groaned and pried himself up slowly. Long strings of sweat joined him to Draco, and, when he pulled out, long strings of semen. "You don't believe much in letting people enjoy the afterglow, do you?" he muttered, as he half-turned in place, half let Draco turn him.

"I will let you do whatever you want when there isn't wild magic watching us and judging us on how well we do it," Draco said into his ear, and then he was kissing Harry, bearing him forcefully down. Harry struggled weakly.

"Oh, stop it," Draco said, and bit his earlobe.

Harry gave in at once, hazily wondering how Draco had known he liked that. They had discussed the plans for the ritual together, sure, but never the individual motions and, the way Hermione had insisted on phrasing it, "dance steps" in such detail. They had simply known that they needed to show the wild magic Harry had lost his virginity in every way possible.

Harry looked up when he lay fully on his back, and saw Draco hovering above him, face soft and brilliant with excitement. Harry felt his spent cock try to stir. If he had ever seen Draco looking at him like this, he would have surrendered at once to anything he asked, whether it was friendship or a love affair.

"You're so beautiful," he murmured.

"Isn't that my line?" Draco asked, with a smile that seemed to light his entire body. Then he picked up his wand and aimed it at Harry's arse.

Harry would have tensed when the strange sensation of lubrication flooded him, but he was incapable of tension right now. The whole world was bright. Draco's face shone. The air above them had a hazy luminescence from the wild magic. Draco was flushed pink and white and dark and brown, and it was wonderful.

"Mine," Draco said in a tone of deep satisfaction, as he picked up Harry's legs and began to move them into place. He was much more graceful about it than Harry had been, Harry noted absent-mindedly. "At least I know that no one else has ever done this to or with you."

"Someone's jealous," Harry said, laughing.

"Of you? Always," Draco said, and flashed a sharp smile that led Harry to wonder which sense he meant the words in before he got in the right position.

The first push of Draco's cock into him made Harry moan. He had wondered if he would like this. He expected to enjoy being inside Draco, of course, but this was an entirely new sensation, one he hadn't at all pictured when he thought about the consequences of giving up his virginity.

He did like it, though. There was too much about it to like, from the way he writhed with his shoulders against the blanket to the fullness that he automatically bore down against, trying to expel.

To the expression on Draco's face, as he paused above Harry, gasping with wonder and exhaustion.

"So tight," Draco whispered to him. "Anyone could tell that you were a virgin." Already he was rocking, trying to thrust, which Harry knew he hadn't done until he was all the way inside Draco.

"Stop being a pervert in your mind and start being a pervert in more productive ways," Harry whispered back to him.

Draco took the challenge with a growl, and shoved so hard that Harry actually did arch his back in pain. But then he was fully inside, and he was hitting something that had to be the prostate, and it was so wonderful Harry would have clawed Draco's back to get more, if he had been able to reach up that far.

The wild magic was swirling very close to them now, constantly traveling, filling the air with the shapes of galloping horses and running cheetahs, all white. Then it became a pale bird that landed on Harry's shoulder and sang a song sweet enough to bring tears to his eyes before dissolving into a puff of smoke with a scent like rose petals.

Or maybe the tears came from the expression of intense concentration on Draco's face as he took Harry, rocking in him, pursuing both their pleasures with a familiar intensity. This was the way Draco played during Quidditch, Harry thought, only this time he was striving for sensation for the both of them rather than a simple golden Snitch for one of them.

It's official, Harry thought. Sex is more complicated than Quidditch. And more satisfying.

Draco pushed into him suddenly, and gasped, and held still. Harry looked up at him as he watched Draco release, the orgasm pushing out of his body, making him flex, making him cry out and bounce, making him come.

Harry found that he couldn't wait until he could watch that orgasm happen from the outside. He was greedy about it, and though the splash and the warmth were nice, they weren't enough.

Which at least settled any questions about their doing these things again.

Draco dropped onto his chest, moaning. Harry hooked an arm over his back and then looked up at the wild magic.

It danced above them, tossing small plumed dissolving heads, scraping the air with white cloven hooves, and then settled in front of them. Harry caught a glimpse, or thought he did, of the same intense eyes that had watched over his virginity vow.

Then the wild magic bowed its head to him, a head that looked almost antlered, and blazed into the air, kicking out once. Harry felt the world around them shiver. That was the only word for it. It was as if all the mirrors had shattered at once, and he looked instinctively at them to make sure they hadn't.

The next moment, they were gone. A wind wafted the mirrors and the fires and the banners and, for all Harry knew, the illusion spells that had produced the music, into the air from around them, leaving only the cushion that Harry and Draco lay on. The wild magic swirled up all the trappings of their ritual and took them away with it, perhaps as a memorial.

And perhaps so it can watch us having sex whenever it wants, Harry thought, having to close his eyes due to his own relief. It had worked. Voldemort was gone, and there was no sensation in his forehead that showed the scar or pain coming back.

And he wasn't condemned to being a virgin for the rest of his life, either.

Harry heard Hermione laughing and running towards them. "It worked!" she was babbling. "It worked! I felt the clash as the wild magic changed things, the clash between the original vow that it preserved, in a way, and the new condition so that no one can use you as a virgin sacrifice. It worked—"

Then she stopped running, and cleared her throat. Harry opened one eye to study her.

Hermione stood there with her cheeks so red that she looked as if she'd used all the blood of her body there. She looked at them, and Harry raised one eyebrow and gave her a lazy smile.

"Oh, put some clothes on!" she snapped, and conjured a cloak that snapped out in the air above them before it fell on them. Harry moved to unfold it, and embrace both himself and Draco within the soft folds.

"We can't help that we needed nakedness for the ritual to work," Harry said. Draco stirred on his chest, nodding in agreement.

"Yes, but—" Hermione stood there, struggling to explain what she meant, and growing more and more frustrated. Harry watched her, entertained. He heard Draco snicker, distantly.

Hermione finally stamped her foot, said, "I'd better tell Ron," and then turned and ran off.

Harry and Draco laughed so hard that Draco rolled off his chest and lay on the cushion beside him. Then Draco lifted a hand and stroked Harry's hair back from his ear.

"Where do we go from here?" he asked.

Harry's breath caught. After all the ways he'd imagined this could go, Draco was the one who had the courage to say it, after all.

He promptly grabbed Draco and tugged him into a deep kiss. Draco went with it, but pulled back before Harry would have thought he could, shaking his head and cradling Harry's chin.

"I know where I want this to go, and kisses aren't a substitute for words," he said. "If you don't want the same thing, you'd better tell me now."

"I want you," Harry said, deciding graciously not to point out that he couldn't tell whether he agreed with Draco because Draco hadn't actually said what he wanted yet. "I want to date you, and sleep with you, and be seen in public with you and have obscene remarks made about us. I want that to last for as long as we both want it."

Draco stared at him, face locked silent, and Harry had a moment to wonder if he had said the wrong thing, if Draco didn't want this at all—

Then he broke into a smile that looked half-helpless, and wrapped his arms around Harry, and kissed him again. Harry was the one to draw back this time and look a demand for answers at Draco.

"I want that, too," Draco whispered. "Just—wasn't sure you'd agree." His hand played with the hair behind Harry's ear. "Just because I've been your only lover doesn't mean you'd feel loyal to me, after all."

Harry kissed his chin and said, "I feel loyal to you and a lot more than that. I think I'm probably in love with you, as inconvenient as that is." He made sure to sound grumpy.

Draco looked at him with abject gratitude. That's it, Harry thought. Treat this lightly, the way it's been between us so far. We can always get serious later, when we see if this works.

"I have the same complaint," Draco said. "It leads to a lot of heart trouble, I can tell you." He kissed Harry's chin in return and said, "At some point we should probably take Granger's suggestion. We are lying in an open field, after all, on a cushion of wild magic and with only a conjured cloak for cover." They had chosen a field outside Ottery St. Catchpole, some distance from the Burrow, to conduct the ritual.

"We'll take it," Harry agreed, and drew Draco back down to him. "But not yet."

A moment later, Draco was exploring his body with eager hands and more eager kisses, and Harry opened his arms in triumph to welcome his future in.

The End.