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"Mate? Are you all right?"

Harry sighed and nodded. He was, once again, drinking with Ron and Hermione, but as he had promised Lucius, he was doing it on a weekend. "Yes. Lucius is confusing, that's all."

"Of course he is. He was probably born knowing how to be confusing. Or they taught him to do that in those secret Malfoy lessons that we all know they give Malfoys."

"Secret Malfoy lessons?"

Ron nodded vigorously, his hair flopping into his eyes. Harry leaned his elbow on the table and smiled at Ron. Lucius was so confusing that it was sometimes a relief to spend time with his friends. Ron would always be straightforward and shining and completely honest, even when he shouldn't be.

"Yes. You know, they take their kids—" Ron waved his hand to indicate a whole legion of nonexistent Malfoys "—and sit them down and tell them to confuse the shit out of everybody. To smile mysteriously. To make these cryptic remarks."

"Why, though?" Hermione asked, suddenly looking up from her glass. "Why would they do that? It has to have some purpose if they dedicate a whole education to it."

Ron started out inventing a new curriculum, and Harry smiled and listened, but his mind was on Lucius. He wondered if he was the only one who didn't find the man mysterious. He'd been wrong about him on multiple occasions since they started living together, but he didn't think Lucius was being confusing on purpose. Instead, Harry assumed some things and thought others didn't have a purpose when they did.

The thought made him restless. He couldn't read Lucius from this far away. He stood up.

"Mate?" Ron tilted his head back.

"I think I've had enough to drink. I'm going home." Harry smiled at both of them and left his empty mug on the table. "Lucius will probably be happy to see me so early in the evening, anyway."

"Yes, I think he will be." Hermione gave him a cryptic smile of her own and hid behind her mug when Harry stared at her.

Harry rolled his eyes and reminded himself that Hermione wasn't always wise—she hadn't realized why Harry would want to stay handfasted to Lucius—and then Apparated home.

Lucius was sitting at the table, reading. He looked at Harry when he walked through the door and frowned a little. "Did you have an argument with your friends?"

"No," Harry said, and cast a Sobering Charm on himself so that what had seemed like a good idea when he was drunk would still seem like a good idea. Luckily, it did. He smiled at Lucius and walked a little closer. "I just decided that I wanted to spend time with you."

This time, he was paying attention enough to see the subtle cues. Lucius's eyes darkened enough that Harry could see the change, and his breathing quickened a touch. He didn't lay aside the newspaper he held, but Harry hadn't expected him to. He stepped up behind Lucius and bent down, making sure to freshen his breath with a charm, too, before he kissed Lucius.

Lucius held himself still in the chair, only shifting a little and opening his mouth so that the tip of his tongue touched Harry's. Harry shuddered with pleasure and moved around in front of Lucius, stroking his arms and his mouth at the same time.

When he won a tiny groan, he pulled back, smiled at Lucius, sat down across the table, and began talking about the article on the front page of the Prophet, which concerned corruption accusations against the new Minister.

Lucius watched him with hot eyes, but he was the one who had wanted to stretch this out. That meant he could wait a little while, and have a normal evening conversation with his handfasted.

The man who might become his husband.

Harry shivered himself, and from the deepening of Lucius's smile, he knew Lucius had noticed. He smiled back and continued the conversation, then made sure to trail his fingers across Lucius's shoulder as he stood up and went up to bed.

By himself, for now. But maybe not for much longer, if their compatibility had anything to say about it.

Harry was driving him mental.

Lucius considered the word, and nodded over it. It was one he never would have said aloud, because it would sound less than dignified, but he had no reason to be so dignified in the confines of his own head.

Harry knew exactly how to seduce, when he wanted to. That he seemed to have left those talents unexercised until now didn't matter. He knew how to smile sidelong, and make Lucius start thinking about activities not suitable for the public eye by the way his tongue darted along the edge of his lip. He knew how to toss his head back so that his eyes gleamed and his throat was bare, and Lucius had to think about how the one would change when he was sucking on the other.

He touched Lucius all the time now: shoulder, arm, cheek, hair. The touches to his hair in particular were maddening. Lucius found himself holding still under Harry's caresses there as if he was a wild animal being tamed, and Harry would give him a faint smile and glide away, and Lucius would fight to keep his hands, that wanted to snatch, in his lap.

He had wanted to be pursued. He had wanted to be courted. Harry was obliging with a vengeance.

And then it occurred to Lucius that Harry might want to be pursued and courted himself, and he could get back some of his own.

Harry blinked his eyes open slowly. He'd stumbled out of the Floo earlier and simply collapsed onto the chair in front of the fire. He hadn't really meant to, but he was so exhausted by the multiple chases he'd done today that he hadn't had a choice. Several cells had had their spells that kept criminals from using magic or moving out of them fail, and Harry had hunted people he had already captured down the corridors of the Ministry.

Several of them had been able to use wandless or accidental magic, too, and Harry had been limping, bruised, and a little bloodied by the time he made it home.

Now, hands were running down his neck and shoulders. They had magic or maybe a soothing potion on them, and Harry groaned and arched back as he realized how much better he already felt, the aches flowing away as if he'd taken a painkiller.

Someone had pushed his Auror robes away from his shoulders and neck to reach bare skin, he realized in a daze. He found himself unable to really care. He only tipped forwards in encouragement and groaned again.

"Yes, I thought so," Lucius said, in a voice that Harry would curse him out for later when he wasn't bringing heaven to Harry's shoulders with his hands. And then he let him go.

Harry tried to sit up and yell a protest, but Lucius made a soothing noise and came around the couch. In a second, he'd steered Harry down so that he was lying on his stomach, and his robes were gone completely. Harry didn't know if Lucius had taken them off or just Vanished them, and honestly, at the moment he didn't much care.

He moaned as Lucius touched him, and for a second Lucius's hands faltered. Harry wriggled against him, and after a second, Lucius did resort to carefully massaging him again.

"You're almost melting into the couch," Lucius said, and his voice had gone quiet and smug, in a way that meant Harry would have to murder him when he managed to open his eyes. For now, he couldn't, feeling the aches and the bruises dissolve and puddle away. "I had no idea I was so good at this."

"Keep on being good at it," Harry said, his own words warped and blurred in a fashion he'd never experienced. Well, maybe a few times when someone cast a Mouth-Melting Curse at him, but that was hardly the same thing. He stretched luxuriously when Lucius finally pulled his hands away, and sighed. "Wonderful. I won't be sore and stiff in the morning, thanks to you."

"Would you like to be stiff and sore in the morning thanks to me?"

Harry's eyes flew open. Suddenly his relaxation was—not gone, but transmuted into something else. He turned slowly, so that he was meeting Lucius's eyes. Lucius was leaning over the back of the couch still, but now it looked like a deliberate, calculated pose, not just something he was doing because it would let him reach Harry's back.

Harry sighed out slowly. "If you really—if you're not sure that you want to get married or handfasted at midsummer, don't say that, Lucius."

"I am sure."

Harry stood up. He was shaking, which was ridiculous, since he'd certainly had sex before. But nothing in any of his other relationships had ever felt as important as the moment when he held out his hand to Lucius. "Come on, then."

They swung into Harry's bedroom almost by default. It was closer, and when Harry was kissing him against the wall and Lucius couldn't think, it was the door Lucius instinctively groped towards. He only had a minute to look at the framed photographs on the walls, most of them of dead people, before Harry impatiently stripped off the rest of his clothes and crawled onto the bed.

"One thing I'm going to tell you."

Lucius paused in the middle of removing his own robes. Harry was looking at him with strong, stern, clear eyes. Lucius felt a little insulted. Harry was supposed to be considerably more melted than that, after the massage Lucius had given him.

"Yes?" Lucius replied, when he realized that Harry was still staring at him, waiting for him to say something.

"I sometimes had a problem with my lovers in the past because they had misconceptions about me." Harry leaned forwards, his arms resting on his knees. Lucius couldn't help his gaze dipping to Harry's cock, but even though it was hard and impressive, that mattered less than Harry's eyes right now. "They thought I needed gentle handling. Sometimes they knew about my past and decided that was why. Other times they couldn't see themselves being rough with the hero of the wizarding world."

Lucius felt a sharp tingle making its way through him, something he had almost never felt in the past except when he was casting Dark Arts spells. He swallowed. "Yes?" he said again.

"I want to be fucked hard, Lucius."

It was perfection. It was the way Lucius felt, the way he preferred to handle his lovers. He smiled and dropped his robes on the floor. "That will not be a problem."

Harry's own gaze went straight to his cock, in both meanings of the word. Harry looked as if he was about to drool when Lucius moved away from the side of the bed and up to him in the middle. "Oh, good," Harry sighed, reaching out to caress him.

Lucius stood still, biting his lip and shutting his eyes, until Harry made a sound too much like a chuckle. Then he grabbed Harry and pinned him to the bed. He got a startled breath, but also immediately fluttering eyes and arching hips.

"Yes, that's what you want," Lucius said. "How fortunate that it's what I want, too." He cast the spell that would slick his cock and also slicken his way. Harry bit his own wrist to hide his reaction to that.

Lucius reached out and moved Harry's hand away from his mouth with a patient air. "No," he said. "We both want you to be fucked, but in return, I also want to hear all the noise you make."

"You might be sorry you said that," Harry muttered.

Lucius found out what he meant when he sank into Harry. Harry almost yowled, and then clawed up his back and kept up a litany of muttered swear-words, mouthed obscenities, and bitten-off words that sounded like Lucius's name. That wasn't to mention the way that he drummed his hands on Lucius's back and his heels against his legs and told him to move faster, faster, harder, harder.

Lucius came to the realization that he was still holding back. It wasn't because of Harry's past or nonsense such as that. It was only because part of him always had held back, not wanting to hurt Narcissa, not wanting to hurt the rare witch or wizard he'd been with before her.

"I can feel you're not giving me everything, Lucius. Bastard. Come on, give it to me!"

Lucius let the last barrier fall, and began to move.

Harry cried out, but it was a cry of satisfaction, and Lucius honestly didn't know if he could have stopped himself even if it wasn't. Harry was contracting around him, clawing down his back, babbling in his ear, his own cock pushing firm and distracting against Lucius's stomach. Lucius was gasping, and the muscles in his shoulders and hips and legs clenched as though he was surging through the air on a broom.

He could only do this a little while. It wasn't going to be much longer...

And then the moment hit, and Lucius knew it wasn't going to be much longer, and he was bruised and sore and racked and triumphant, and he didn't care. He pushed forwards and released into Harry as though it was the only thing that mattered, them and this joining and this bed.

Harry followed right behind him, muttering soft things in his throat. When Lucius reared his head back, blinking and twitching, Harry reached up and caressed his cheek. His smile was smooth and small and self-aware.

"I think it's going to be the marriage, isn't it? Not another handfasting year?"

If Lucius hadn't given of himself so completely, he might have missed the anxiety hovering in the back of Harry's voice. He turned his head, kissed Harry's palm, and said only, "It is."

Harry closed his eyes and went to sleep all in one final collapse, leaving Lucius with the sticky and slightly risky problem of disentangling himself and casting enough spells to clean them up without waking Harry.

But it didn't matter, any more than his own pain had while he was giving Harry what Harry had asked for. This was worth it.

In the end, the marriage ceremony was so simple Harry wondered why more couples didn't go through with it.

Lucius had found him a bracelet, something he said was appropriate for a second marriage of the kind they were going to make. When Harry had reminded Lucius this was his first marriage, Lucius only smiled and said, "And this is your second to the man you've been handfasted to for six months."

Well. Put that way—and with the assurance that Lucius would never love him less than Narcissa, just in a different way—what could Harry do but yield?

He stood in front of Hermione, who'd been the officiant right from the beginning, with no opposition from Lucius. They were alone in the garden of Ron and Hermione's house. The rest of the Weasleys didn't feel that comfortable attending Harry's marriage to a Malfoy, and Harry could understand. He would let them come closer to him in little rushes or skitters as they needed to, and always leave the possibility of friendship or conversation open.

Besides, he was getting married for himself. Not other people.

Lucius didn't seem to need a larger audience at all. His gaze had fastened on Harry the minute Harry brought his own bracelet out, set with the rubies that were emblematic of Midsummer in some traditions, representing the roses said to bloom then. And he stood still while Harry fastened the bracelet around his wrist, and he pulled out his own when Harry was done.

"Topaz?" Ron muttered, forgetting his manners the way he rarely did anymore.

Harry nudged him with one elbow. But Lucius only smiled a little at Ron and said, "It was a topaz that we were trapped in. It is fitting." He clasped the bracelet around Harry's wrist, and Harry tilted his arm back and forth to admire it.

And he heard Ron choke a little, and he smiled. It seemed that Ron had only just realized that the entire bracelet was made of topaz, rather than set with them. Harry shook his head at Lucius. "Do I want to know how much this cost you?"

"Not as much as my foolishness would have cost me if I had allowed you to walk away."

Harry lowered his head. He honestly couldn't meet Lucius's eyes at the moment. He felt the gentle touch of Lucius's fingers on his arm, and then Lucius withdrew his hand and nodded to Hermione.

Hermione sounded a little choked-up as she recited the traditional vows, the ones that asked for health and happiness and harmony and other things beginning with "h" that Harry didn't pay that much attention to. All of his attention was for Lucius even if he couldn't look him in the eye right now. The way he shifted, the pattern of his breathing, how he kept one hand on the bracelet Harry had given him as though he wasn't sure it was real.

And then the moment came when the magic around them coalesced into waiting silhouettes of a couple leaning forwards to kiss, and paused, expectant. Harry blushed as he leaned in and kissed Lucius, but he had known he would have to do this in front of his friends, and although his cheeks scalded, he wanted to.

Lucius's lips were just as warm and tender as they were when he kissed Harry in private. He drew back and let his hand rest on Harry's cheek as it had been resting on the bracelet. Harry stared at him for a second, and then broke into a wide grin.

"We're married."

"You are," said Hermione, shaking the sleeve of the official silver gown back from her wrist. "And I hope you're happy."

The tone of her voice was a warning. Both she and Ron felt that Harry had rushed into the marriage with Lucius. But Harry only grinned at her and said, "We will be."

Hermione finally rolled her eyes and smiled. Both she and Ron would support him no matter what or who he chose, Harry knew, just as they would support him if it didn't work out. "Congratulations, Harry. Mr. Malfoy."

"Thank you," said Lucius, and drew Harry against him for another kiss. This was the one where Ron and Hermione turned politely away.

Harry bowed his head and let Lucius's hands and lips both travel through his hair, sighing with pleasure. He could feel Lucius smile, and then his husband murmured, "Shall we go somewhere else, away from prying eyes?"

"Please."

And Lucius laughed softly, and led Harry to the point outside Ron and Hermione's garden where they could Apparate. For the first time since Lucius had given him the bracelet, Harry looked at him directly.

It was still almost too much. It was still almost like looking into a sun of happiness and pleasure. But he would have to learn to carry this joy.

I made the right decision.

This was the right thing to do.

And Lucius was utterly sure—because of the six months they had spent handfasted as much as their compatibility in bed—that they would enjoy what was to come.

Together.

The End.