Thank you for the reviews!

When the owl came and hammered on his window, Harry sighed and got out of bed. He had already failed to fall asleep for the last two hours. He might as well get an early start on the day's business.

The owl wasn't a Ministry one, though, with the silver ring around its foot that would have identified it. It was a large, nondescript tawny, holding out its leg as though to disassociate itself from the message. Harry frowned as he cast a few spells that would search for curses of the kind personal post often carried, at least if you were Harry Potter.

Nothing. Harry slit the envelope and opened it. The owl immediately took flight through the open window.

If you want to see your betrothed again, you will come to the Apparition point at Diagon Alley by dawn.

There was no signature except a large, black heart shape, cut in half by the teardrop that split it. Harry had seen it before, on a few ransom demands and sometimes cut into the stone where a pair of lovers under the influence of the potion had been kidnapped.

The signature of the Dark Lover.

"…contribute to my collection. I know that you never took any of the special potions I brewed, so you must be a spontaneous example of true love. My last one died, and now you're going to be the new centerpiece, the opposing image to the loves I create. You ought to feel honored."

Draco came groggily back to himself; Stunners always did that to him. It was one reason Harry always tried to slide in between Draco and the Stunners. Well, that reason and others, like his stupid nobility.

But after a pair of fingers snapped under his nose and then a bucket of cold water doused him, Draco was pretty bloody wide awake.

He found himself strapped to a chair in the center of a room so showy even his ancestors might have found it in bad taste. It was enormous, gilded, with mirrors strapped to the walls so they flashed back every small drop of light from candles and torches and fires and oil lamps. Down the center marched pillars wreathed with gold leaf in the shape of ivy, holly, roses, lilies, and other plants Draco couldn't see enough of to identify. And the chair was on a dais, and facing him on another dais, and throne, was the Dark Lover.

Draco knew him immediately, even though he had never seen him before. For one thing, an enormous black mask in the shape of his symbol, a dark heart broken by a teardrop, covered his face.

For another, he was obviously insane.

He leaned forwards and looked at Draco. "Have you been listening to a word I said?"

"I just woke up from a Stunner." Draco had Auror instincts of his own, maybe not as good as Harry's, but no one had Auror instincts as good as Harry's, and he kept his voice polite as he replied. This was one of those criminals, he thought, who would like to be seen as sophisticated, an aristocrat, and talked to as honestly as the situation permitted. "I'm not good with them. I'm sorry."

"Oh, of course. If I knew you weren't good with them, I would have told them to collect you some other way." The Dark Lover waved his hand and leaped off the throne, which Draco saw had a gold lion stalking along the back where his head had rested, and bustled up to Draco. His smile was visible below the mask, and he was a taller man than Draco had thought at first, with wavy brown hair around the edges of the heart. "But you're awake now. Behold my collection!"

He waved his wand, and the dais with Draco's chair on it rotated, letting him look around the room. Draco did so with interest. The Dark Lover took wizards and witches who drank his potions, and ransomed back some, and let others go, but none of them had ever been able to tell the Aurors what happened while they were captive.

A second later, Draco thought, No fucking wonder.

The room had other daises in it, scattered among the pillars, gleaming gold (of course) and platinum. On each platform stood a glittering glass cage, or perhaps one made of enchanted light, and in each one stood a couple arranged with a Stasis Charm.

Directly in front of Draco once the dais had rotated was a red-haired woman swooning over the arm of a black-clad man. Draco recognized them as the latest "lovers"—they hadn't known each other before—to disappear, Jennifer Gordon and Blaine Yanelma.

On other sides were men rescuing women from illusory dragons, women kissing women, wizards clasping hands across tables lit only by candles, couples cuddling in front of fireplaces, or feeding each other sweets, or gazing into each other's eyes, or dancing frozen waltzes. Draco could feel the hum of the magic that kept them imprisoned but suspended and undying from here.

"I love to look at them," said the Dark Lover, and his voice became a bit petulant. "Only as long as their love lasts, of course. All of them come in the end to heartbreak, but they never do it in an interesting way! It's all silent! I just look at them and know they're out of love one day, but I can never catch them at it!"

Of course you can't, because your potion and your imagination made up all these scenarios in the first place.

But a trainee Auror would have known better than to say that. Draco bowed his head. "I assume, since you captured me without my partner, that you think you might have an example of love that doesn't end?"

"Well, and I want an example of spontaneous love sometimes, you know," said the Dark Lover, stalking back towards him. Draco had the feeling that he was trying to be impressive. The cloak that hung limply behind him instead of flapping as it should rather ruined the effect. "But more than that, I want to make sure that I have someone frozen in an actually dramatic act of rescuing, instead of having to pose them that way."

"So when my partner comes to rescue me…?"

"I freeze him as he charges in, of course." The Dark Lover beamed, or at least his mouth did.

And there's no way to prevent Harry from doing that, not when the Dark Lover must have given him some message that I was in danger. Draco did his best to relax, to breathe evenly, not shout the way he wanted to. "How long will you keep us here?"

"You're an example of spontaneous true love. I know you didn't touch any of my potions—"

"How did you know that?" Draco demanded. They had counted on fooling the Dark Lover with Harry's sudden proposal, and using that to lure him out of hiding.

"Oh, I know where my potions go, and who distributes them, and it was easy enough to find out from my spy in your department."

Draco stared, and felt a harsh stirring of anger beneath his breastbone. One of the other Aurors who had been entrusted with the knowledge of their special project had betrayed them, and all of them were Aurors Harry and Draco had known for years.

"You needn't worry your head over a proper punishment for them," said the Dark Lover, interrupting Draco's calculations, and reached out to pat his head. "I intend to keep you forever. After your lover comes charging in, then I'll freeze you staring longingly at him. Your little traitor will never have that perfection. He'll probably die of envy."

The pronoun narrowed it down, but only by one person. Draco didn't have time to open his mouth and try to convince the Dark Lover to spill more information before he warbled, "Showtime!" and turned around with his wand lifted, as the light darkened in front of them and Harry came charging in.

Draco shouted a warning he knew would go unheard in the wake of the Dark Lover's spellcasting, and threw himself against the bonds on his chair as hard as he could. He might go down uselessly, but he was at least going down, not sitting there.

I love him. I can't let this happen.

The man waiting at the Apparition point in Diagon Alley had a mask so thick over his face that Harry was surprised he could breathe. The mask had little hearts and teardrops all along the sides, and completely covered his hair and his mouth and everything but his chin. Still, Harry narrowed his eyes, thinking there was something familiar about him.

"You're here for the Portkey," said the voice, echoing and maybe distorted by the mask, but also with something familiar about it. Harry set his instincts to try and figure it out in the back of his mind while he responded.

"What proof do I have that you actually have Draco?"

In answer, the man held up a thick, shining piece of blond hair. Harry wanted to hiss as he recognized it. Draco was probably going to be pissed when he found out it was cut. This was too small to come from his comb or something similar.

"And this," the man added, and held out a photograph taken with a wizarding camera. There was Draco slumped in a chair on a platform, and lit by a single shaft of glittering light. Harry crowded close to the picture to figure out that he still breathed.

"And where does the Portkey take me?" Harry asked, glaring at the hank of dirty rope held out to him.

"For you to find out, and me to know, Potter."

Harry jerked his head up, because there was one person in the Auror Department who said shit like that all the time, reversing common phrases, and Harry wasn't going to let it just pass, not this time. He shot out his hand and grabbed hold of the man's robes, spinning him around. He choked, obviously not expecting that, and Harry tore the mask from his face.

"Auror Robinson," he said. The man was one of those who had mocked their engagement in the Department this morning.

The man stared at him, panting. He acted dazed, as though he had thought Harry would never pull his mask off, or do anything but go along obediently with the Dark Lover's instructions. Harry wanted to sneer. How could the man have been part of the same Department as him for this length of time and never noticed the way Harry operated?

"You have to—you have to go and do what he says," Robinson panted.

Harry smiled, and leaned closer. He smelled heavy cinnamon on the man's breath, and nodded a little. It was a prime ingredient in some mind control potions. It made sense that the Dark Lover would rely on potions to do more than collect the victims he preferred.

"I think you have to tell me what he's planning on doing to me when I get there," he said softly, digging his wand into the vulnerable base of Robinson's throat, between the edges of his collarbone. "Now."

Robinson abruptly tried to snatch his wand and Apparate out, but Harry had already taken the wand away, and slid it safely into a pocket. Robinson snarled at him, and the scent of cinnamon surrounded then more and more heavily.

"You have to do what you're told!"

"No," said Harry, and dug his wand in so forcefully that Robinson reared back and snarled breathlessly. Normally, Harry would have felt bad about that, but not when Robinson was asking for it. "Tell me what the Dark Lover is planning on doing to me."

Robinson still stood there and looked confused. Harry shrugged. It was probably the effect of the potion. And he was filled with a rage so heavy it looked like calm, and pushed against the pounding, frantic fear for Draco's life.

"If you want to play it that way," he said, and aimed his wand lower, so it was pointed at Robinson's chest instead of his throat. "Do you want to know what happens when the Cruciatus Curse gets cast on someone's ribs? Directly?"

"You wouldn't-you're an Auror!"

"And so are you, you piece of shit," Harry said, and probably startled Robinson the more because he roared the words while keeping his smile in place. "I'm going to do it, Robinson, unless you tell me."

"You wouldn't torture me."

"Cruc-"

"Okay, okay!" Robinson cowered some more and babbled. "The Dark Lover collects people. He poses them in some scenario he finds romantic. Then he lets them go when he gets bored or feels their love has died, or sometimes when the ransom is paid. He likes examples of true love, though. He thinks you and Malfoy have it." Even through the fear and the confusion of whatever potion the Dark Lover had fed him, Robinson managed a sneer at Harry that said he doubted it. "He's going to pose you forever."

"And hit me with the Stasis Charm or whatever it is the minute I take the Portkey in," Harry summarized.

Robinson bobbed his head. "That's all I know about. That's all I know about what the Dark Lover is going to do. You have to believe-"

"Stupefy," Harry said, and watched Robinson collapse at his feet. Then he bound him with ropes and stuck a note on his robes explaining what had happened to make Robinson betray the Aurors, and what he thought was probably in the potion the Dark Lover had given him. When he cast the final spell, the one the Aurors had developed that would Apparate someone unconscious to the Ministry, he wished he could have been more vicious.

But Draco wouldn't be saved by his stopping for vengeance. Harry gave in to his fear and grasped the Portkey he'd made sure not to touch as it fell from Robinson's limp hand.

The minute he stepped out of the swirling colors into the darkness, he heard Draco scream. Harry knifed to the side, and felt something, probably the Dark Lover's Stasis Charm, storm past him. He rolled across the floor and felt his instincts rise like walls around him, protecting him from the Stunner that followed, and yet another charm, and a spell that looked like blue fire with black edges.

"Harry! Harry!"

At least that means he's still alive, Harry thought, and he bolted back to his feet. The Dark Lover, with an immense, stupid mask, loomed in front of him and said something. Harry didn't bother listening to it, or getting distracted by the sight of the posed lovers around him. What he did was shoot a leaping Stunner of his own.

It reflected from the Dark Lover's mask, and he laughed, a grim sound that Harry hoped was partially distorted from the mask. "You dare to cross wands with me?" he asked, and drew his wand across his waist and bowed. "Then come, and let us duel! True love against love's end!"

Harry hoped that the Dark Lover's dueling style would be as silly as his pronouncements, but it seemed not. He kept using Dark Arts spells and laughing as if this was the finest fun in the world. Harry ducked and leaped, and still he managed to lead the Dark Lover away from Draco, but not to actually disarm him.

Maybe I shouldn't be thinking in terms of disarming him. Maybe I should think in terms of ways to use his weapons against him.

The next time that they circled past one of the displays on a dais in a frozen fall of light, Harry turned and cast as strong a Finite as he could muster at it. The Dark Lover shrieked as the two men inside staggered and nearly fell out of their chairs. Harry had chosen one where they were sitting on purpose, so they wouldn't be hurt by the sudden ending of the spell.

"You cannot!"

"You haven't captured true love, or even love that fades," Harry said, following his instincts, not sure where the words were coming from, but knowing they were the right ones. "You've only made up a scenario in your own head and then insisted on trying to make it come true. All of these people are your puppets, your manipulations, your—"

The Dark Lover screamed at him and whipped back around. He was still fighting impressively, using spells that Harry could barely counter, and surging forwards when Harry fell back.

But he was no longer fighting defensively. And Harry, a defensive expert, saw the small gaps in his wandwork, and surged forwards himself.

The Dark Lover tilted onto his heels without ever realizing what had happened, from his expression. He screamed again, but this time that was less impressive. Harry turned a complete circle and cast a Stunner at one of the walls at an angle from the Dark Lover.

It bounced from the mirror there, and stormed back, and caught the Dark Lover when he was turning because he thought Harry was threatening another one of his exhibits. He slumped over immediately, his head dangling.

Harry crouched down, with his hands on his knees, and panted into the silence. The confused murmurs of the two men who had woken up when Harry shattered the light that held them were the only sound for long moments.

"You could have freed me, and then I could have helped you."

Harry smiled as he stood up and turned back to Draco. "Always with the dramatics," he teased, as he waved his wand and the ropes binding Draco fell away, severed. "Yes, I could have done a lot of things. This is what I did."

Draco gave him such a look that Harry staggered. And there wasn't anger in that look. There was desire as thick and scarlet as velvet, and gratitude and relief that Harry knew he would treasure more later.

For now, he went up and took his time unbinding the ropes around Draco's legs, even though they were cut through. He ignored the questions of the men on the other platform, and the amount of work waiting for him. He knew he would have to rescue the other people the Dark Lover had "collected," and then summon the other Aurors and explain Robinson's treachery to them, as well as the unexpected ending of the case.

He and Draco didn't have to pretend to be married anymore. Harry felt Draco tense when his fingers brushed the finger that Draco had the diamond ring on.

But Harry only lowered his face to kiss that finger, and said nothing else about it.

Draco watched, standing well back in the meeting room, as Harry explained what had happened to the Minister and the other Aurors. He was good at it, describing the battle with the Dark Lover economically and yet vividly. Draco would have been hard put to it to use words the same way.

Of course, words weren't what he wanted to use right now. There was something low and dark red in his stomach that had been there since Harry kissed his finger.

But he had to wait until the report was done, and that took several hours. Then he had to give his perspective as a victim of the Dark Lover, and he had to listen as the Aurors unmasked the man and gave his identity. He was a Potions master Draco had never heard of before. Unsurprising. Draco no longer kept up with Potions and the newest inventions in that field the way he once had.

Harry turned and smiled at him sweetly, then, as if to say that they would be out of here soon since they had the Dark Lover's identity secure.

I have better things to keep up with, Draco thought, and stared back until Harry flushed and had to look away to respond to a question from Dawlish.

"Remarkable, Auror Potter. Truly remarkable. Our plot didn't work the way we expected, but you uncovered both the Dark Lover and a traitor in the Aurors."

Harry gave a tight smile at Dawlish, one of the Aurors who had doubted the scheme of him and Draco going undercover as an engaged couple would work. "Given what we know about the Dark Lover's potions distribution network, it was folly to suppose it would work out that way. We thought he was relying on other people to distribute the potions. We didn't know he made them himself."

"I'm aware of that, Potter."

"Now," Harry couldn't help muttering.

Kingsley literally stepped into the fray, his hands out, as though he though Harry and Dawlish would lunge at each other across the interrogation room. "Everything worked out, and I'm glad that both you and Auror Malfoy escaped without injury, Auror Potter," he said soothingly. "Why don't you and Auror Malfoy go home and rest?"

"Whose home?" someone asked, not under their breath.

Kingsley turned to administer some discipline Harry thought was sorely needed. The Aurors who had been here from the beginning had known about the plot. They couldn't think it was a good and a bad idea for Harry and Draco to get that close, simultaneously.

Harry sighed as he turned and offered Draco his hand. Well, maybe they could. People believed all sorts of stupid things.

Draco took his hand and rose to his feet with a feral grace that Harry couldn't help admiring. His eyes were fastened on Harry's, and the expression of hunger there was one that Harry thought only he saw.

Then again, he would be happy if he was the only one who saw it.

Draco was amazed at his own restraint. They had walked from the interrogation room, to their offices to drop off a few of the files they'd been handed, to the Floos in the Atrium, and then through the Floo to Harry's flat. They had done all that without Draco shoving Harry into the nearest wall and doing his best to snog him breathless and senseless.

But then, Draco thought, as he turned around and saw Harry reaching for him with hands that looked as though they were made of iron, I am an amazing person.

Harry was the one who snogged Draco senseless, one hand lodged in his hair as though he was counting the strands with his fingers. Draco shivered and drew back, wanting more than anything to head through the doorway to the bedroom, but needing to know something.

"What happened about needing to wait a fortnight?"

Harry stared at him with dark, devouring eyes. "Fancy you remembering that."

"I do. I always remember obstacles that stand in the way of what I want."

Harry shivered sharply at the sound of the last word, and then leaned forwards and began to nip at Draco's chin. "I think," he said, in between the little bites that made it so hard for Draco to concentrate, "that we can skip the fortnight."

And Draco felt as though someone had taken iron bars off his chest, and he reached with relentless hands for Harry, who opened his mouth and made a soft, reflective, singing moan before they collapsed into each other.

They did get into the bedroom, and into the middle of Harry's enormous, canopied, four-postered bed, exactly like the one he'd had at Hogwarts, except bigger. Draco teased him about it all the time, and the Gryffindor colors in the room, and the Chudley Cannons poster on the wall.

But, for now, all Draco cared about was that the bed was comfortable, and had plenty of things he could grab onto while Harry first stripped him of his clothes and then bent down to suck on various places on his skin.

Draco tilted his head back and closed his eyes, picturing the world whirling around him, and Harry sucking on him like that for the rest of time, for him to always have Harry's lips fastened to him, for Harry to be preoccupied with him and only him—

He had to stop thinking that before he came.

And when he opened his eyes, he had better things to think about, anyway. Again. Harry was pulling off his robes, and beneath them, he wore only pants that made Draco's cock stir from half-hardness to full hardness. He scrambled up and reached out to touch.

He traced his fingers lightly along the full length of Harry's erection, and sighed when he reached the tip. There was dampness there. It was the answer to a wordless question, the question being how much Harry wanted him. Draco sat back on his heels and looked up.

Harry was breathing slowly, his eyes closed. Draco rejoiced in the sight of his chest, and the slightly guilty pleasure in knowing that he'd made Harry stand still while he touched him and touched him, and Harry had had to fight for self-control.

"You can do it now," Draco said softly.

Harry somehow managed to yank down his pants with one hand and Summon lube with the other, even though Draco hadn't even seen the wand in his hand. Then again, he'd been distracted by the other wand in the picture, he thought with a faint smirk as Harry bore him back into the pillows and started kissing him again.

He would have to keep that pun to himself. Harry might break off getting Draco ready to hit him, and Draco had no desire to delay what he wanted any longer.

Harry coated his fingers with lube and spent forever rubbing them softly and up down outside where Draco wanted them to go, which finally made Draco give a muffled, impatient howl and open his legs. Then Harry chuckled and slid the tip of his thumb slowly inside. Draco writhed.

"Sure you want it?" Harry breathed, and added more lube, and then slid two fingers fully inside before Draco could respond.

Draco wheezed through the sudden jolt, and then nodded determinedly and would have moved downwards, except Harry's sheets caught his heels and wouldn't let him do it. But at least Harry got the point, and from there, the moments disappeared into mad flickers of warmth, and strength, and Harry lubing himself up, and adding even more fingers, and finally believing Draco when he said he was as prepared as he was going to get.

And when Harry slid inside, it was bliss worth the wait.

Draco let himself melt into the warmth of feeling perfectly safe as Harry fucked him, softly at first, then fast enough to make the bed shake. Harry had come for him when Draco was held captive by the Dark Lover. Harry protected his back in battle. Harry had stood up for him in Pan's when that man had abused him all those months ago for being a former Death Eater.

Draco didn't need to do anything right now but relax and enjoy.

And if he kept his opening his eyes to look up at Harry's, and run a hand down his face when he could, and trace the lines of his sweat—

If he murmured words that not even torture could have forced from him if they were for anyone but Harry—

If his orgasm caught him by surprise and swept him away in a tumbling flood that meant he never felt when Harry came—

That was all right.

They would have plenty of other times.

"I wanted to give you this."

Harry didn't know what time it was, except that it was far too early. He groaned a little and opened his eyes. "Draco?" he muttered, not caring if he sounded grumpy. "What are you doing out of bed already?" Didn't I satisfy you better than that?

"Fetching your ring."

Harry sat up and nearly fell out of bed. He hadn't realized how near the side he was, or that Draco was kneeling on the floor next to him, in the same position Harry had taken in the middle of the Auror Department, holding up a box that was open to reveal a ring.

Except that the emotions in his eyes didn't include impatience and dread and the other things Harry had been feeling when he did that.

Harry swallowed and looked at the ring to keep from having to speak. It was a plain gold band, simpler than the one that adorned Draco's finger. But the gem in it was different—smaller than the diamond, and glowing as deep a red as the heart of blood on fire.

A ruby.

Harry shivered. He didn't care if it was smaller than the diamond. He knew rubies were even more valuable than diamonds, and it wouldn't surprise him if Draco had spent exactly as much on this ring as Harry had on his. And without Auror Department compensation, at that.

"Draco," he whispered.

"I bought this for you because I thought the gem symbolized you," Draco said. His voice was as rough as the prickle of tears against Harry's eyelashes. "But more than that—I bought it, and then I realized nothing I could give you would symbolize what you mean to me." He tilted his head, and Harry got a glimpse of those eyes that made him shiver. "I value you more than rubies, Harry. More than anything I can imagine."

Harry slid to his knees, nerveless. He had never thought Draco would make a gesture like this. He had feared, in the back of his mind, that he would be the one making all the gestures, and Draco demanding a diamond engagement ring and a proposal in the middle of the Auror Department that Harry would have to back out of when the case was over had solidified that fear. He might want Draco, but he could never live up to his standards.

Now, he believed Draco when he said that Harry was the one who set his standards.

Trying to speak now would be a mistake, and Harry didn't know the right words anyway. He extended his hand instead, and Draco slid the ruby ring onto the proper finger.

Then he turned his hand, and the diamond flashed in the sunlight, and the ruby answered it with the softest, deepest of glows, and Harry cupped Draco's face and answered him with the softest, deepest of kisses.

The End.