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“Malcolm Baddock?”

“That’s right,” Blaise said, swirling his whiskey sour.

“How do you know this?” Draco demanded.

“He told me.”

“Malcolm did?”

Blaise nodded with a tranquillity that was at complete odds with the news he was relating.

“Malcolm Baddock told you that he had sex with Harry Potter,” Draco said, enunciating carefully as he leaned across the high-top. It was surprisingly busy at Seekers and Keepers for a Sunday night—it was possible his ears had fed him a lie over the din of the crowd.

“Yes.”

“Gay sex.”

“I should think so.”

“At the curse-breaking conference.”

“Yes.”

The scandal of the century and Blaise sounded scarcely more invested than when Seekers and Keepers had moved their sangria special from Wednesdays to Tuesdays. Draco cast his eyes heavenward and had his aesthetic senses accosted by the neon sign hanging over the bar that read save a broomstick, ride a wizard. He implored the neon sign to grant him serenity.

“Why didn’t he tell me?”

It seemed clear to Draco that if a person were to sleep with Harry Potter, the only possible course of action would be to tell no one at all, or else to tell every last soul who would listen. Baddock’s half measures baffled Draco and had him one step down the path towards what his mother would call hysterics and his mind healer liked to refer to as a state of emotional dysregulation.

“Must have assumed you wouldn’t be interested,” Blaise said. There was a conspicuous note of amusement in his voice that Draco took great offence to. He fixed Blaise with his most powerful glare.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Remember how I was the one who told you, just now? That’s how you know. That’s the reason we’re having this conversation,” Blaise said with a level of condescension that Draco simply had to overlook, given everything else he was being required to process.

“And how many hours have you been harbouring this information?”

“He told me last night at Pansy’s after you left.”

“Yesterday? This is simply unacceptable, Blaise. You will single-handedly bring the wheels of gossip grinding to a halt with this blasé attitude. The saviour of the wizarding world is having sex with men—do you not see that this is a once in a lifetime gossip event? Do you not feel it is your duty as a gay man, as a friend, as a member of civil society, to spread the word?”

“Well, all we know is he had sex with one man.”

“Yes, with Malcolm Baddock of all people. Let’s talk about that,” Draco said with a huff, reaching for his cabernet sauvignon, “Who chooses Malcolm Baddock as their first? Baddock isn’t a first-time shag. He may be many men’s nth, but not their first.”

“Nth,” Blaise repeated derisively, “You know I don’t like it when you speak banker to me.”

“It’s a good thing I’m not a banker then. Nth is basic maths.”

“There’s nothing basic about maths,” Blaise said, with the most feeling he’d mustered up about anything all night.

“First you deprive me of the gossip of the century and now you reveal you don’t even know what my job is. How do you like that for friendship?” Draco sulked into his wine.

“So dramatic. You work at the bank, you’re a banker.”

“You wouldn’t call Potter a banker,” Draco scowled, “You’d call him a curse-breaker.”

Blaise had the nerve to give a world-weary sigh as if he was the one who had been grievously wronged. “When, pray tell, would I do that? Some of us don’t make a habit of spending all our free time talking about him.”

“Yes, and look where that’s landed us! In light of recent events this is simply no longer an acceptable practice, so—”

With a wave he ceded the floor to Blaise, but was met with only a raised eyebrow.

“Out with it,” he snapped.

“Pardon?”

“The details, Blaise. Don’t be cute. What else did he say?”

“They were having drinks after the reception dinner and Potter seemed interested, and so he invited him up to his hotel room and they fucked,” Blaise recited with all the narrative flair of an insurance policy. Still, the elaboration provoked a vast world of new questions.

“They fucked? Cock-in-hole, you’re saying?”

“That would be my interpretation.”

“Whose cock and whose hole?” Draco demanded.

“You expect me to know this? But it’s Malcolm, so one could venture a guess.”

Draco took another fortifying sip of his wine.

“You think Potter topped.”

“I don’t dare speculate.”

“Dare, Blaise, what fun are you? Have you no respect for the art of gossip? The science of conjecture? Where’s your curiosity, where’s your joie de vivre?”

“Mm, so pedestrian,” Blaise said, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

“Have you no loyalty—” Draco pleaded, despairing. He had to find himself some more suitable friends.

“If you’re so curious why don’t you just ask Malcolm?”

“Oh, I intend to. I consider it my public duty to investigate further.”

—

“So, Malcolm,” Draco said to himself as he burst out of the floo and into his living room later that night, “rumour has it you found Harry Potter at the back of a closet at that conference last week.”

“So, I heard you were doing the horizontal tango with that ill-tempered glory hound they call the saviour,” he grumbled as he flung that day’s clothes into the laundry hamper.

“That self-important, thrill-seeking brute,” he said experimentally, “That cocky hunk of meat.”

He frowned.

“Say, Baddock, word on the street is you tripped and fell on some chosen dick,” he muttered, applying his nighttime moisturizing potion in front of the bathroom mirror.

“So, rumour has it you fucked Potter,” he mumbled around a mouthful of toothpaste before he spat into the sink. Raising his head, he looked his reflection square in the eye. “You fucked Potter.”

It had a ring to it.

—

Draco waited around the corner from the office of the director of curse-breaking until he heard her leave for her weekly lunch with Gawain Robards. He counted silently to one hundred before he made his entrance.

“Knock knock,” he sang, peering in the doorway to the reception area, “Oh, is it just you, Malcolm? I hope you’re in the mood to spoil your appetite because someone brought a truly offensive number of pastries to this morning’s economancy debrief.“ He gave Malcolm his most ingratiating smile, brandishing the box of pastries that he’d picked up on his way to work and kept sequestered in his desk drawer under Stasis all morning.

“Cheers Draco,” Malcolm said brightly, accepting a pastry, “So who were you planning to bribe with these?”

“Oh, you know. It never hurts to bolster favour with the directors when the opportunity arises,” Draco improvised, waving his hand in the air, “I’m headed to Griffiths’s office next.”

He set the box down and assumed a casual perch on the arm of the visitor’s chair that sat before Malcolm’s desk. “But how are things with you? I hear you decided to take the meaning of ‘team bonding’ to innovative new levels at the conference last week,” he said, chuckling with a nonchalance that was flawlessly executed, if he said so himself.

“Oh, did you hear about that?” Malcolm said with the same bright, easygoing smile he must have used to seduce Potter. He was far too approachable for a Slytherin, Draco had always thought so.

“Word gets around fast. So—tell me.”

“You want to hear about it?”

“Yes, I’m all ears,” Draco said, making himself comfortable on the chair and exuding an air of receptiveness.

“Well,” Malcolm gave a hesitant shrug, “I’m not sure quite what to say about it.”

So that was the game Malcolm wanted to play, was it?

Draco called upon the calming visualization exercise his mind healer had taught him, picturing a fleet of clear bubbles rising from the roiling cauldron of his mind, floating gracefully towards the sky and carrying his agitated thoughts with them. He plastered on his own most charming smile.

“Come now, Malcolm, don’t be shy. We’re good friends, aren’t we?”

“Are we?” Malcolm asked, sounding a little surprised but not displeased.

“There was a time we were very friendly.” This was a moment for charisma, and Draco laid it on thick.

“Oh, I see now,” Malcolm said with a cheeky little grin that Potter had surely been taken in by, “You want to know how he compares to you?”

“Well, if that’s the angle you wish to take.” Draco would take whatever opening he could get. “Though it hardly seems a fair competition,” he couldn’t help adding—he was at risk of perishing from curiosity, but he still had his pride.

“Well,” Malcolm said with a capitulating shrug.

Draco nodded encouragingly.

Malcolm scrunched up his nose with a reluctant smile. “The two can’t really be compared, can they?”

Gears churned furiously in Draco’s mind.

“You fucked him, you mean?” Draco ventured, inwardly shrieking like a tea kettle. Outwardly he raised a single inquisitive brow, and it felt likely he was eligible for some sort of compensation for his sheer restraint.

“No, no, he topped. Or—well, for a bit anyway.”

For a bit! The shroud of mystery around this affair thickened with each word uttered. A bit—and then what? Baddock must have been determined to taste the full menu, to check every first off Potter’s list, like the meticulous little administrator he was.

“Oh?” Draco prompted. He glanced down and—no, he wasn’t visibly vibrating.

“Well, you know,” Baddock said in a confidential tone, leaning forward, “It was his first time with a man, so.”

It was terribly tacky of Baddock to brag about it, like it was any sort of accomplishment. Potter hadn’t exactly announced he was open to male applicants. Baddock just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

“So…? Oh,” the realisation had Draco reeling. He reached into the box, seeking the reassurance of carbohydrates. “You’re telling me Potter’s cock has—seeker reflexes?”

“No, no. Nothing like that, just—well, I had to ask him to stop.”

“You had to ask him to stop?” Draco hadn’t been prepared for the Potter/Baddock affair to have subplots. Never in Draco’s life had he worked so hard for a bit of gossip—he truly was the only gay man left with any sense of the sanctity of gab.

“It was a little, mm—uncomfortable,” Malcolm said regretfully.

“That big?” Draco breathed. Merlin.

“Oh, I’ve taken larger. More an issue of technique, I think? But as I said, it was all new for him,” Malcolm said, as if these were things that could simply be spoken and moved on from, “We found other things to do.”

Draco realised he was gaping like a fish, and raised the pastry he was holding to his mouth in an attempt to recover. He chewed, untasting. These revelations had him feeling terribly uncentered, and he hadn’t a single visualization exercise fit for the task. The topic of Potter’s technique begged to be delved into but, with a head full of suds and an entire chorus of whistling kettles, Draco found himself unable to form a single coherent question. Not to mention—other things? Baddock’s coy reticence would surely send Draco to an early grave.

“Got creative, did you?” he said, once he had swallowed and regained trust in his voice.

“I mean, it was nothing to write home about,” Malcolm said with another apologetic wince, as if with these vague statements he’d already said more than he should, “but everyone left satisfied.”

“Good, what a—relief,” Draco said, dazed.

—

“The saviour of the wizarding world is having gay sex and he’s not good at it!”

“Uh-huh,” Blaise said distractedly, wandering out of Draco’s field of vision.

“Blaise! Blaise, are you even listening?” Draco shouted from the flames of Blaise’s floo.

“I’m listening,” Blaise said, coming back into view holding a small watering can—evidence of his traitorous multitasking, “Has it ever occurred to you that this topic simply doesn’t hold the same level of interest for the rest of us that it does for you?”

“You’re talking nonsense, Blaise,” Draco snapped, “As a gay man this is highly relevant to your interests. Think of the cultural implications! People should be studying it—they should be composing entire theses on the subject. You should write your thesis on it.”

“Oh? Who’s the bad friend now?” Blaise said, disappearing from view again, “I’m in the history department,” he called from the other room.

“This is a historical event!” Draco shouted back.

“I study the history of spellwork.”

“You should reevaluate. You could be a pioneer in the field!”

Blaise reappeared, engrossed in the task of watering the small potted plant he held in his hand.

“'Nothing to write home about,' he said. Do you realise—?” Draco exclaimed, “‘An issue of technique,’ he said! And he definitely implied at one point that Potter is large. He’s packing significant inches and he doesn’t even know what to do with them!”

“It’s possible Malcolm was intentionally downplaying,” Blaise said, deigning to glance up.

“Explain,” Draco demanded.

What reason did Malcolm Baddock have to go about tarnishing Potter’s reputation? Did he have a vendetta against him? No one other than Draco was allowed to have one of those.

“Well, he may have been keeping his audience in mind,” Blaise said, finally setting down his precious plant and looking properly at where Draco’s head sat glowering amongst the flames.

Had Baddock developed a vendetta against Draco when he wasn’t paying attention? What a devious way of acting on it—the makings of a true Slytherin after all. But that couldn’t be right.

“I don’t follow,” Draco said, fixing Blaise with a stern narrow-eyed stare.

“Of course you don’t,” Blaise said in a tone that was humouring and reeking of implication, “I’m saying it’s possible he saw an opportunity to help put your schoolboy crush to rest once and for all by telling you you weren’t missing out on anything special.”

“Schoolboy—” Draco sputtered, “Blaise! That is the grossest sort of hearsay!”

“It’s not hearsay,” Blaise said, having the nerve to laugh, right in Draco’s face, “it’s an eyewitness statement.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what on Merlin’s green Earth you’re talking about. In fact I’m concerned for your mental wellbeing, such is the nonsense you’re spewing.” Draco huffed. He glared. Shook his head in disbelief. He had half a mind to end the call, but— “You think Baddock was lying?”

“Well, Draco, there’s only one way to find out for sure,” Blaise said, carrying his vile plant out of sight, taking his terrible amusement with him.

“You’re right,” Draco said, “There’s one way to find out for sure.”

Through the fog of indignation a plan had begun to form.

“Naturally,” Blaise’s voice drifted in from the other room, “So do us all a favour and—”

“You’re going to have to seduce Potter.”

—

Draco didn’t have a Potter obsession, despite Blaise’s accusations to the contrary. If there had been an obsession, it would have started the day that dreadful photo had appeared in the staff newsletter. The one of Potter sweaty and scowling outside a cursed vault during a weeklong expedition to Iceland, during which time he’d apparently been too busy righteously untangling dark spells to bother with a simple shaving charm.

Just to prove how unaffected Draco was by the whole thing he’d made it a point, when he’d been made the consulting economancer on Potter’s next assignment, to stick two fingers up at him the moment no one else was looking during the first meeting. Of course this meant that Potter had made it a point to do the same at the following meeting, and a sort of ongoing feud had arisen that lasted the entire eight weeks of the project. Indulging this type of behaviour was in theory the sort of thing that could lead to obsessive tendencies, but in this case the nature of the challenge meant Draco spent those meetings resolutely not staring at Potter, which was the opposite of what someone with that type of obsession would do.

“How many nights in a row do we have to stake out this place? I have other things to be doing, you know,” Blaise said.

If Draco was obsessed then he would know Potter’s schedule well enough to not have to bother sitting here night after night waiting for him to show up. Repeat exposure to the tacky neon signs of Seekers and Keepers was making them both irritable, and this week had also marked the first time in ages that they’d come on a Wednesday, which they’d learned, to their horror, was now trivia night.

“You are an attractive young gay man in the prime of life, what better place do you have to be than here among your community?”

“Don’t you see him every day at work, anyway?”

“Curse-breakers never come to the economancy department. They’re almost always in the field and they’re scared of all the numbers,” Draco explained irritably, “Not that that is in any way relevant, seeing as we’re here for you. I’m only here as your wingman.”

“Uh-huh.”

Draco scanned the room for the hundredth time, but every head of hair was too impeccably styled. How just like Potter, to be too good to show his face at the gay bar. Drumming his fingers in agitation, he turned back to Blaise.

“Are you going to let him fuck you?”

Blaise sighed. “I don’t know, am I, Draco?”

“My goodness Blaise, you should do whatever you like. Do what your body tells you is right.”

“He is easy enough on the eyes.”

“Well, sure, he’s good-looking, if that’s the sort of thing you’re into,” Draco said, glaring at the neon sign behind Blaise’s head that read hey sexy.

“But you know very well I prefer to top.”

“Well, Blaise, this is the 21st century. If you keep your mind open to possibility you’ll find the art of topping can be practiced in a wide variety of ways,” Draco said, bristling.

“Oh, please, enlighten me, Mister ‘whose cock, whose hole.’”

Draco had been reflecting on this very topic a lot recently, for no particular reason.

“If we put penetration aside, the defining question is this: does a given man get off on the act of doing, or of being done to? A top we can define as one who gets off on the former and a bottom, the latter. Thus the compatibility. The top provides pleasure, the bottom gets off, the top gets off on the bottom getting off, the bottom gets off further on the top getting off on him getting off, and so on. Everyone gets off.”

Seeing Blaise’s skeptically raised brow, Draco reached for one of the wretched little pencils left over from trivia night.

“The sexual pleasure, you see, is a function f of x and y, where x is the man’s top/bottom preference, and y is the activity taking place,” Draco scribbled the equation on a cocktail napkin, ignoring the way Blaise began blatantly dissociating, “and we need another parameter z, representing his partner’s pleasure. Here we discover another demographic, one we can refer to as arseholes, for whom pleasure is not a function of z. But any proper top isn’t going to get off if his partner isn’t getting off. Thus the incompatibility between two tops.”

He paused to consider the grimly irrefutable conclusions of his work.

“If we wish to optimize for maximum sexual gratification across a population, then the only conclusion is that those of us who remain versatile are the most valuable contributors to the pleasure economy.”

Draco circled versatile on his napkin with a flourish and raised his head to see Blaise looking at him with the utmost disrespect, shaking his head. “I hardly know where to begin.”

“Do you wish to present a rebuttal?”

“Did you just call bottoms lazy?”

“What? I love bottoms.”

“Did you just call yourself versatile?”

“I am versatile! The pinnacle of versatility.”

“You? Draco ‘I love bottoms’ Malfoy,” Blaise laughed rudely, “You’re not vers.”

“I’ve had your actual cock in my actual arse on multiple occasions, need I remind you?”

“You bottomed, what, four times when we were together? You never wanted to.”

“You never wanted to bottom. I’m more versatile than you are.”

“You’re contradicting your own ludicrous theory, you realise. You just finished pontificating about how bottoming is about being pleasured—not what goes where. And now you’re arguing that you’re versatile because you’ve taken a cock four times half a decade ago? I suppose you’re saying you’d cheerfully bottom for Potter, is that it?”

“I love pleasure,” Draco said defensively, “Though that’s a non sequitur if I’ve ever heard one, seeing as you’re the one who’s going to seduce Potter.”

“Can we agree this is you having a mental breakdown?”

“No,” Draco said crisply.

“Need I point out that Potter could be the one who’s versatile? All you know is he made one aborted effort at topping—with Malcolm, who we both know wasn’t going to do it.”

Draco glared daggers at him. It was quite gauche of Blaise to come right out and state this distinct possibility that Draco had long since filed away under doesn’t bear thinking about.

“I suppose I’ll find out soon enough and let you know, shall I?” Blaise went on tastelessly as Draco turned back to his cocktail napkin.

Top/vers—compatible, Draco scribbled. Vers/top—compatible. That much was incontrovertibly true.

“Or maybe he even prefers to bottom. As far as you know he’s never tried it,” Blaise continued.

If Draco listened carefully, through the chatter of the crowd and the bassline thudding out of the overhead speakers, he could make out the faint cry of a creature in distress. It was the sound of his own imagination. Pleading for mercy.

“He strikes me as a ‘try everything once’ kind of fellow, don’t you think?” Blaise said.

If Potter didn’t show his face at the bar by the end of the week maybe Draco would have to resort to workplace encounters. He could orchestrate another chance meeting in the lift, or perhaps just leave a flyer for the bar’s sangria special in Potter’s inbox.

“Draco?”

He would have to make the flyers first, of course.

“I’m getting another drink,” he announced, pushing shakily to his feet, turning towards the bar, his eyes landing on—

“The snitch is on the pitch,” he hissed, seizing Blaise’s arm.

“Sweet Salazar,” Blaise muttered.

Draco had assumed that it would be obvious the moment Potter stepped in the building—an audible buzz of excitement would overtake the crowd, or perhaps the opposite, with a hush falling over the room. Whichever it was, he must have missed it, because there Potter sat.

“No cause for alarm,” Draco said, absently petting Blaise’s arm, “I’ll just go warm him up. I’ll give you the signal when it’s time to come over.”

“I won’t hold my breath.”

Potter was inexplicably alone at one of the high tops by the bar, looking like he gave not a single care that his recent conduct had set the community on its head. Looking for all the world—despite reports to the contrary—like he would be a fantastic shag.

—

“So, the rumours are true.”

Harry knew who the posh voice belonged to before turning his head to look. Malfoy, standing by his elbow, had traded the expensive-looking navy robes he’d been wearing at work that day for an all black Muggle ensemble that was just as expensive-looking, and which revealed considerably more of his silhouette than Harry was accustomed to seeing.

“Rumours?” he asked, watching Malfoy’s waist disappear below the table as he slid into the seat Ginny had abandoned when she’d taken to the dancefloor with Padma.

Harry had anticipated that he’d likely run into Malfoy at the gay bar at some point, but he hadn’t been prepared for it to happen so immediately. He’d thought that encounter was one he could maybe sort of. Work up to. Get his bearings first.

Malfoy leaned over the table towards him, propping up his smirking face.

“I heard about your catastrophic foray into homosexuality.”

Harry choked on his drink. “My—? What?”

So he’d just come over to mess with Harry, like he always did. Harry could already anticipate a new segment appearing in the quarterly Potter reports Malfoy insisted on delivering to Harry’s inbox—a chart of his valuation as a lover over time, right below the sections on the going rates for paparazzi shots of him and the market demand for saviour memorabilia. And the last report had already been twenty pages long—soon Harry was going to need to clear out a second desk drawer to store them in.

“Now, I’m not judging,” Malfoy said gleefully as Harry suffered a coughing fit.

“No, that wouldn’t be like you at all,” Harry finally managed to croak.

Harry had been a little bit drunk with Malcolm, but not so drunk he wouldn’t have noticed if anything catastrophic was happening. Sure, it could have been better—he knew the night hadn’t ranked for Malcolm, who clearly had extensive experience. But it had been decent enough to confirm a realisation or two on Harry’s end. And besides, surely sex that ended in orgasms for everyone involved had to count as at least acceptable.

Didn’t it?

Furiously clearing his throat, Harry took a moment to mourn the version of his night where he wasn’t about to get into this with Malfoy. The version where he got to chatting with a charming and handsome man who’d take him home and help him catch up on all the mindblowing gay sex he’d been missing out on.

“What are you on about, then?” he said, straight and to the point, in hopes that Malfoy would follow suit.

“You don’t want to get a reputation for being bad in bed,” Malfoy warned, like this was some kind of sage advice, “The gay community is quick to judge, eager to talk, and slow to forget. Regrettable,” he said, raising an apologetic palm, “but there you have it.”

“Thanks,” Harry said, frowning, “but I’m pretty used to people spreading lies about me.” Which was the truth—it was almost impossible to care what people were saying about him at this point in his life.

“So you claim it’s a lie.” Malfoy leaned in with a sudden intensity.

“I’m not bad in bed,” Harry laughed, only an inch more defensive than he would have liked. He couldn’t be bothered about what random strangers thought, but. Malfoy wasn’t exactly a random stranger. He was, frankly, the opposite. Their interactions for the past several years may have largely consisted of silent antagonism punctuated by unavoidable moments of forced corporate civility and the occasional verbal skirmish—invigorating but limited to the length of a lift ride—but he was the last person Harry wanted believing he had failed at gay sex. Malfoy starting a rumour that Harry was bad in bed would be one thing—par for the course really—but believing such a rumour was another thing entirely.

“That’s not what I heard.” Malfoy said it with a coy tilt of his head, like it didn’t make any difference to him either way, but his raised eyebrows posed a challenge.

“From where?”

“Only from Malcolm Baddock himself.”

Well. Malcolm Baddock was hardly a random stranger either, when it came to this topic. So that was a bit. Less than ideal.

“Surely this doesn’t come as a surprise to you,” Malfoy chided.

“Fuck off,” Harry scoffed, almost laughing in disbelief at Malfoy’s nerve. Harry was used to harassment from him—in-office weeks had become less intolerably dull since Malfoy had started working at Gringotts for that very reason. Sexual harassment, though, was new.

“He said your topping was—what was the wording,” Malfoy placed a thoughtful finger to his lips, settling in like there was no topic more riveting to him, “There was an issue of technique, he said. And of course being on the larger side of average can also be a liability when it comes to such things.”

But since harassment was the baseline with Malfoy, that aspect could pretty much be disregarded. Leaving only—sexual.

“Did you ask Malcolm how big my dick is?” Harry asked, suddenly interested in how exactly that conversation had gone down. The baser parts of his nervous system were perking up.

“The information was offered!” Malfoy said, wide-eyed, tossing his hands about like he was throwing invisible confetti in the air. And the confetti was the knowledge of Harry’s dick size. “I told you, men talk. But don’t think it’s any kind of saving grace, because it isn’t.” Malfoy pointed at him with a stubby little pink pencil that he’d inexplicably produced from somewhere. Harry wondered if there would be diagrams to look forward to—the man loved a diagram. “No one’s impressed by your big dick, Potter. What you need to do is get some positive performance reviews out there.”

“Yeah, thanks, I’ll get right on it.”

“You really should. Every moment you hesitate is another relentless churn of the gossip mill’s unfeeling gears,” Malfoy made urgent little circles in the air with the pencil, “And if you’re not in fact bad in bed, as you claim, then it’s just a matter of spreading the word.”

“Really touching to know I have you looking out for my reputation,” Harry said mildly, leaning forward to rest his head on his hand. He found himself eager to find out where Malfoy would go with this topic given a receptive audience.

“Of course you’ll want to be strategic when it comes to selecting the right partner. The wrong chemistry could throw the whole thing off, and that’s something you can’t afford at this juncture,” Malfoy told him, showing no signs of slowing down.

“Yeah, do you have opinions on that too?”

“I can offer more than opinions,” Malfoy said haughtily, swivelling in his chair to drape an arm along its back.

The muscles of Malfoy’s arm shifted under his sleeve as he raised a hand to examine his nails. Harry eyed his biceps with unconcealed interest. “Oh?” he said, hopeful.

“This is wisdom, Potter. Wisdom born from experience.” Malfoy made a grand sweeping motion, the repressed thespian in him making itself known.

“Experience with people thinking you’re bad in bed?” Harry couldn’t resist saying. There was a limit to how agreeable he could be, even at the gay bar. Even with aspirations of a second location.

“Experience maintaining a spotless and entirely accurate reputation for being phenomenal in bed,” Malfoy said, stabbing the table with wide-eyed intensity, “You can ask anyone. Ask Malcolm, ask Blaise—”

Harry followed the arc of Malfoy’s outflung arm to see Blaise Zabini giving a little wave of his fingers from across the bar. Blaise tilted his head questioningly and Malfoy started making a series of inscrutable gestures that primarily involved sharp slashing motions across his throat.

“So…” Harry said carefully, waiting for Malfoy to refocus. He needed to feel things out before—well. Before anything else. “You came over here to offer, what, words of advice?”

Malfoy abruptly ceased his gesturing. “What did you think was on offer?”

Harry dipped his head to the side, eyebrows raised. “Something else,” he said after what he hoped registered as a meaningful pause.

“You want me to give you pointers,” Malfoy said with a smirk.

“Are you offering?”

Malfoy’s smirk turned promising—a cocky smile that reached his eyes. “After all, why ask a man to simply tell people you’re good in bed when you could ask him to make you good in bed?”

“I didn’t exactly ask,” Harry pointed out, an echo of the words make you shivering down the back of his neck.

“Maybe you should.”

“I thought you were offering,” Harry said lightly, shrugging and trying to keep the smile from his face.

“I was saying it would be a wise idea,” Malfoy said, reaching across the table to tap the side of Harry’s glass with his pencil, punctuating his words.

He was a thoroughly ridiculous person, but everything about him suggested he would be able to do all manner of things to Harry, and do them very well.

“And it sounds like I can’t afford to say no, according to you, so,” he paused until he saw Malfoy lean forward an almost imperceptible amount further, “I accept.”

“You—I beg your pardon?” Malfoy intoned, frozen in his stretch across the table.

“I accept your offer to give me sex lessons. Phenomenal, you said?” Harry plucked the pencil from between Malfoy’s fingers and leaned back in his chair, enjoying the startled blinking Malfoy was doing, “Yeah, I’ll take you up on that.”

Malfoy stood abruptly, seeming to have recovered. “Very well,” he said, briskly patting down his pockets, “A wise decision. You’ll be learning from the best.”

Harry bit his lip to keep from grinning as Malfoy consulted his watch with a preposterously businesslike air. “Be at my place in one hour.”

—

Draco apparated straight home and in record time he was showered and shaved, variously trimmed and plucked to perfection, cavities clean as a whistle for however the evening may unfold. Ideally he would’ve had a couple of days to workshop some material with a series of taciturn and wild-haired but otherwise nondescript men, but under the circumstances he was as prepared as he could be for all contingencies.

He reapplied his cologne and then spent half of his precious hour on his hair—though if things went to plan it would be thoroughly mussed sooner rather than later.

With eight minutes to spare he cultivated a hint of manly musk with a quick dozen pushups, and then cast the mere suggestion of a laundry charm at his bedsheets. Regardless of what other orifices he would be granted access to, he wanted Potter’s lungs to be filled with Draco as he indoctrinated him to the wild ecstasies of gay sex.

When Potter made his appearance at 11:32 Draco was by the window, a letter in hand that he was pretending to read, as he had been since 11:27 when he got into position.

He must have crossed the room after that. Must have greeted Potter in some manner—hopefully a nonchalant one—before laying hands on him. Or maybe Potter had been the one to pounce, since Draco certainly didn’t remember doing it. Either way, those were Potter’s lips beneath his, Potter’s ridiculous curls between Draco fingers, Potter’s glasses clutched in Draco’s other hand. The glasses he ditched—with great prejudice—on some surface en route to his bedroom. The curls and the lips—those he wouldn’t be relinquishing.

Draco used his height to his advantage, forcing Potter to keep his face tilted up to maintain the kiss. A hand pressed to Potter’s lower back had Potter’s arms wrapping around Draco’s neck as he guided them one stumbling step at a time across the bedroom. His animal instincts told him to shove Potter onto his bed and spread himself on top like pâté over an infuriatingly sexy cracker, but he practiced restraint. He needed to check something first.

Releasing Potter, he lowered himself to the bed and shifted back to recline against the pillows, his legs parted a careful thirty degrees.

There was a theory he had. Or rather—a heuristic. He called it the straddle test, and while it wasn’t backed by any kind of rigorous study, it hadn’t failed him yet.

Time slowed down as Potter crawled across the mattress towards him and, without hesitation, swung a knee over Draco’s hips—situating Draco’s cock squarely between his legs, nestled against his arse.

Draco could hardly think for all the confetti cannons detonating in his skull, but he needed to play this next part ever so carefully—to make a declaration of intent that was as unambiguous as it was irresistible.

With an arm wrapped around Potter’s back Draco swiftly flipped them over, rolling his hips purposefully between Potter’s legs as he came to a rest—in his rightful place—on top.

As if in confirmation Potter’s hips surged up to meet Draco’s, his legs wrapping eagerly around him, and Draco, heart thudding in glorious anticipation, was sure now—he was going to defile Potter so thoroughly that the entire DMLE and every Weasley in a hundred kilometre radius would come bursting through his floo in scandalised protest.

He pushed up onto his elbows to speak before Potter’s hand on the back of his head could bring their lips back together. “Your mistake of course was attempting to top without any frame of reference for what it’s like on the receiving end,” he said, with all the indifferent authority he could muster.

“Oh,” was Potter’s reply, his eyes trained on Draco’s lips.

“Or do I assume incorrectly?”

“Er, no.” Potter’s eyes drifted down Draco’s body.

He forged on. “So then the first order of business is to give you a frame of reference.”

“Right,” Potter said absently, staring again at Draco’s mouth, “that makes sense.” And as easy as that, he was drawing Draco’s head back down towards his.

Draco indulged in one fleeting kiss before moving to lick a stripe up Potter’s neck, inhaling the salty masculine smell of him.

“Oh fuck,” Potter breathed as Draco began to grind his cock against him in slow simulation of what was to come. Potter’s hands clenched in Draco’s shirt and Draco, recklessly—no market research whatsoever on whether Potter would go for such a thing—scraped his teeth over the skin of Potter’s neck. The gasp from Potter was so stirring that Draco was spurred into a—well, the wrong way to describe it would be a mindless frenzy.

It took until Potter was fully naked—in Draco’s bed! Potter! Naked!—with his fully erect—fully erect! Potter! In Draco’s bed!—cock fully enveloped in Draco’s mouth before his vocalizations could be parsed as words again.

“I thought you were going to—?”

Draco took him deeper into his throat and Potter descended once more into non-verbals.

“—demonstrate how to—?”

Draco pulled off to respond, but got waylaid for a number of minutes by the siren call of Potter’s balls and the unsteadiness of Potter’s breath when Draco took them into his mouth.

“But of course I am demonstrating,” Draco insisted when—in good time—he came up for air.
“It’s about the entire experience,” he babbled through the Potter-induced haze of lust, “That was your next mistake—the first rule of topping is you don’t put your cock in someone until he’s absolutely gagging for it.”

“Okay then,” was Potter’s faint reply. His head dropped back onto the pillow.

Draco dove back down before Potter could make any further attempts at coherency, and this time he didn’t stop. Not until Potter was thrusting greedily up into Draco’s mouth, his fists tangled in Draco’s hair. Not until he had Potter clenched eagerly around Draco’s middle finger, until he had Potter throwing a hand out in restless desperation as Draco curled the finger inside him and lifted off his cock just long enough—

“This is what you’re after,” he said feverishly, staring entranced at Potter’s jaw falling open as if in disbelief at the feeling, “Got it?”

Potter nodded with a vaguely affirmative sound.

“Some men don’t like the feeling,” Draco prompted. He knew now that Potter wasn’t one of them, and he wanted to hear him say it. He wanted to hear him beg for it.

“No, I, ah—” Potter gasped out a strangled breath as Draco increased the pressure of his finger, “I get the appeal.”

Draco took the admission as an invitation to slip a second slicked finger in beside the first—earning another ragged breath—before ducking his head to imbibe for several more long minutes on Potter’s cock (an extravagant mouthful—Malcolm had been exaggerating, but only slightly), on Potter’s sounds (hazardous, enough to drive a man to madness), on Potter’s palpable and growing desire (Potter’s desire! Palpable and growing! In Draco’s bed!)

Time passed in a blur as Draco indulged himself between Potter’s legs, until at last he was driven to sanity’s brink by Potter’s barrage of wicked sex noises. “Turn over,” he demanded, delirious.

Upon withdrawing he was immediately outraged to find himself still clothed. He ripped off his shirt and socks and trousers and pants in a fury as Potter watched, in defiance of Draco’s instructions.

“Turn over,” he repeated, crawling back onto the bed and over Potter, “so I can show you how to take my cock.”

“You’re kind of in the way,” Potter mumbled, sounding devoid of air as he tugged Draco close enough to kiss, close enough for skin to touch bare skin. More minutes were lost. In the end Potter was the one to push Draco away long enough for him to turn onto his hands and knees.

Potter on all fours was a sinful sight that no amount of workshopping could have prepared Draco for. And he’d brought it on himself. Flying blind, drawn forward like a magnet, he pressed the pad of his thumb against the rim of Potter’s hole and was nearly toppled by the way Potter’s breath caught at the gesture.

It wasn’t clear if Potter was listening to Draco’s narration as he lavished him with lube, but it didn’t matter a whit. Because if one thing was clear it was this—Potter was born to be done to. The low, half-swallowed sounds he made, as if he was trying not to, the way he swayed back into every touch, luring Draco’s fingers back inside him—it had Draco waxing poetric on the merits of lubrication for, in truth, far longer than was called for, until he couldn’t even hear himself over the sound of his cock berating him to get inside already.

Keeping a desperate white-knuckled grip on his composure, which was two wisps away from flying out the chimney, Draco acquainted the leaking head of his cock with Potter’s hole. He half expected Potter to recoil, to object, to suddenly realise this was going to a place he couldn’t stomach. But he only sucked in an audible breath and arched his back in anticipation, burying his face in Draco’s pillow.

“Don’t hold your breath,” Draco remembered to say as he lined himself up, placing a hand on Potter’s back and waiting until he could feel him breathing.

“Now push back against me.”

And then, lust crackling like fireworks in his skull, fizzing in his blood like champagne, he pushed slowly in.

—

Malfoy was narrating again, but the only thing Harry could hear was the strain in his voice, from having his cock inside Harry, from wanting to be even further inside, from resisting the urge. It was the hottest thing he’d ever heard.

The size and the strain were almost too much to bear, but —slowly, until you feel him relax, Malfoy was saying, and Harry must have done so because then Malfoy was pressing in further and Harry’s body was stretching to accommodate him. But even more prominent than the burning pressure was the ungodly erotic feeling of what could only be described as occupation.

Harry had expected it to feel invasive, but to call it an invasion—even a welcome one—would be inaccurate. It felt like an annexation—a relinquishing, helpless and complete. The cartography of Harry’s body reoriented itself in relation to Malfoy’s cock as he finally bottomed out inside him, filling Harry’s consciousness to the exclusion of anything else.

Malfoy was going on about how some men always went soft when bottoming, even if it felt good. Just a question of anatomy for some, he said as he reached around Harry.

“But I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s quite nice when a man stays hard.”

He pulled out and timed the slow press back in with a stroke of his hand over Harry’s cock—hard, so hard—and Harry heard himself gasp as a jolt of hot pleasure shot up his spine.

“The angle is of utmost importance,” Malfoy said, still lecturing, “dependent on the position, of course, but coming from behind you’ll want to pitch slightly downward as you push in, like so—”

The movement had a trap door swinging open in the depths of Harry’s core, nudging him to peer wondering over the edge by the ebb of Malfoy’s cock, and then, before he could get his bearings, the solid slide back in—deeper than before—tipped him head-first into a plummeting cavernous hunger. He heard himself moan, pushed back against Malfoy, chasing the devastating feeling, moaning again when it washed over him a second time. That feeling. He needed it. He needed it like air.

—the angle’s different when you’re face to face, Malfoy was saying, though Harry, straining for sensation, could barely process the words. “What?” he said, or something close, and then uttered a wordless sound as Malfoy withdrew.

“Turn over,” Malfoy instructed, pushing at him, urging Harry to move, like he was eager to be inside him again.

Harry pushed over onto his back, meaning to move swiftly, but his limbs had gone syrupy and slow.

Malfoy’s eyes roved over his body as he pushed back in—Harry felt the gaze like fire in his chest and his legs and in his leaking cock in turn as Malfoy’s eyes passed over him, stalling on Harry’s face as he bottomed out inside him.

Malfoy licked his lips before he spoke again, watching Harry with a focused hunger. “This way the angle is more like—this.” The molten pleasure had Harry’s head rolling back on the pillow.

He hadn’t known, before, what it meant to want, Harry realised. The insufficient excess consumed him, ensnared him with a desperation for what he already had—a desperation that was renewed with every slow retreat and affirmed by every firm thrust.

—want to neglect his cock, Malfoy was taking Harry in hand, wrenching a helpless sound from his throat, plain and unadorned. Malfoy’s hand on him was volcanic. —risky, if you’re doing too good a job, Malfoy continued, —over too quickly, don’t you agree?

Yeah, Harry said, a strangled sigh that became a whine when everything stopped.

Malfoy was breathing hard, flushed from his cheeks to his chest. His skin was sweaty under Harry’s hands where they gripped him, feeling his lungs working in his chest. His voice was half breath when he spoke again.

“It’s a bit of an advanced move, but—some men like to be held down. Shall I show you?”

“Why the hell not,” Harry breathed, his mind lost somewhere among the tangled sheets.

Malfoy’s hand slid down Harry’s arm to his wrist, raised it over his head, pinned it to the pillow. The other one followed, and—as hips resumed their work—a honey-drizzled sound spread itself over his tongue. Malfoy swooped in to lick it from his mouth, his sharp teeth sweet and mean in the flesh of Harry’s lip. The air in his lungs abandoned him. Everything was hot and smoky and good.

Harry chased after Malfoy’s lips as he pulled back. “That’s why—” Malfoy panted between thrust after devastating thrust, “you want a bottom who’s. Expressive. So you can see what he likes—or what he likes too much—so you can make it last—until you’ve decided he’s had enough—”

His hand was reaching between them again and with the first slow stroke Harry’s gasping breaths grew reverent—the spectacle of his need and ecstasy laid bare for Malfoy’s consumption.

“Yes, like that,” Malfoy urged breathlessly, eyes shut in concentration, “that’s perfect, you’re perfect—”

He must have released Harry’s wrists because Harry’s hands were back in Malfoy’s hair, and Malfoy’s were everywhere. Harry pulled him in by the back of the neck, until he could feel the warmth of Malfoy’s breaths, heavy from exertion.

“Just,” Malfoy said, his eyes flying open, “Some things I might say. When topping.”

“What else would you say?” Harry said, lost and unthinking.

“I’d say,” Malfoy swallowed, his eyes roving over Harry’s face, “you’re a natural.”

“What else?” Harry said, pulling Malfoy closer, until they were breathing the same air.

“You take my cock so well,” Malfoy said against Harry’s lips.

“Yeah,” Harry breathed. And from there it was: Harry’s legs folded into shapes he didn’t know were possible, sounds extracted from him that he didn’t know he was capable of, his entire body awash in a frenzied pleasure, clinging to Malfoy in a desperate plea for more.

—

Draco had been misled and whoever had said Potter was bad in bed should be given a good what for, because in truth Potter was absolutely prodigious, and Draco thought he may have even said so out loud. He was in far over his head, so badly unmoored by Potter’s sheer eroticism that he was forced to spew all manner of incriminating nonsense and assorted sweet nothings into Potter’s criminally luscious lips.

Don’t stop was all Potter had to say for himself in return, and by god Draco didn’t stop—couldn’t, in fact—even as he was subjected to an assault on all five senses and then some, even as he was groped within an inch of his life, even as every thrust had him barrelling ever closer to bursting, had him stirred, kneaded, leavened—baked until the juices sputtered through the shell. Potter had to be close as well, surely, or he wouldn’t be making those unholy sounds, wouldn’t be urging Draco faster, his mouth sucking succubus-like at Draco’s neck, his callused hands gripping Draco’s arse like it owed him money. Between their bodies, Draco manipulated Potter’s cock with an imploring pace, and Potter bucked up eagerly into his grip, but he didn’t yield, the menace. At this point it was a test of wills, and Draco could outlast him, he could, he would—

On second thought, better to get out while demand exceeds supply he told himself as he shuddered and succumbed to the heat of Potter’s body, to Potter’s lips on his skin, his fingers digging into Draco’s back, the urgency of his wordless sounds in Draco’s ear.

Then Potter was coming too—clenched incandescent and throbbing around Draco’s cock while he was still in the throes of indignant ecstasy, drawing something close to a whimper from his throat. Potter, mouth fallen open, made a low, ragged sound as he wrapped his legs around Draco’s back. Trapped like a fish caught euphoric on its hook.

Only after Draco had been released and was laying flat on his back next to Potter, who was feigning innocence, did he attempt to speak.

“Any questions?”

He was still breathing hard in the wake of his great exertions, but he hoped the breathiness of his voice would serve as a reminder to Potter that, despite all his showboating, it was Draco who had been fucking him six ways to Sunday just then.

“Hmm?” Potter said, his limbs sprawled every which way, “Oh, yeah. Loads. I think it’s best if you take me through it again from the top, actually.”

“Well,” Draco said grimly, addressing the ceiling, “seeing as my reputation is now also on the line as your coach, I’m afraid we’re going to have to do as many repetitions as it takes to get it right.”

“It’ll take a lot of repetitions, I’m thinking. Dozens,” Potter said, voice serious.

“That seems likely,” Draco said, keeping his features measured, “Even with the most talented of educators, you always were a hopelessly inattentive student.”

“Maybe more than dozens.” It sounded like Potter might be watching him, but Draco couldn’t confirm the suspicion without risking dangerously exposing eye contact.

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” Draco said in his steadiest voice as his personal space was encroached upon, “But it’s a price I’m willing to pay.”