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The word slag caught the light of the torches like an oozing wound. Just outside the seventh floor boys’ bathroom, someone had written the letters of the message with red paint, each curve of script against stone a careful splash of nastiness.

Immediately once seeing the graffiti, Harry wondered what Malfoy’s reaction would be. Would he pretend not to notice? Would he act like it didn’t scorch him alive? Harry shouldn’t worry. Malfoy had survived worse. They all had. And yet, Harry’s pulse thundered in his ears and his heart ached all the same.

The insult ‘slag’ was recognisable enough, but what on Earth did ‘bottom’ mean…?

“What’s a bottom mean in this context?” Ron was the one to ask the question Harry shared. Both boys reflexively turned towards Hermione, since she had the largest vocabulary, and Harry saw that her cheeks had taken on a crimson tinge.

“A bottom is the receptive partner in typically anal intercourse,” Hermione reluctantly answered.

Ron’s eyebrows flew up in surprise and Harry found himself suddenly in the throes of an uncomfortable coughing fit.

Anal intercourse?

Did that mean Malfoy was bent?

Ron let out a long, low whistle as he regarded the message on the wall. “Who do we reckon Malfoy shagged?”

“It doesn’t necessarily mean he shagged anyone,” Hermione said. “This could be some bit of prejudiced bullying, you know.”

“Prejudiced — ?” Harry balked. “What, so — Malfoy is into blokes?”

“Bullying!” Ron nudged Harry in the side. “Oh, whatever. Bullies should be bullied every now and again. Malfoy gets a taste of his own medicine finally, am I right?”

Harry didn’t join in the mockery. The image of Malfoy’s face had invaded his mind, crowding out everything else. Malfoy’s pale eyes bright with tears. His lips tight with fury. His cheeks going pink with shame…

“No one deserves to be bullied for who they are, Ron,” Hermione pointed out. “For how they were born.”

“Oh, of course, but he was born an arse!”

“And are people born bottoms, as well?” Harry wondered aloud, genuinely, but then he belatedly realised he should have likely kept the query to himself.

Silence, at first.

Then, Ron doubled over laughing, wheezing, and Hermione’s blush deepened to a scarlet.

“I meant being born homosexual,” Hermione bit out. “Oh, honestly, you two. I really don’t enjoy talking about this sort of thing.” Hermione reached out to usher a still-snickering Ron further down the hallway, away from the graffiti, and gestured for Harry to move along as well. “Come on. Enough. This is none of our business, and we have so much homework to do.”

“Well, wait. Maybe we do something about…?” Harry waved his hands uselessly at the wall.

“I’m sure the portraits have already notified Filch,” Hermione said as she cast a glance over her shoulder. A nearby portrait of a mage shepherding a herd of erumpets nodded sagely. “Come on, Harry.”

Before following his friends Harry curiously traced the groove of the ‘B’ with his thumb until flecks of paint should have stained the pad of his finger. He withdrew his wand to cleanse the wall of the script himself, because it didn’t feel right to ignore such ugly and mean-spirited vandalism, but then his magic bounced right off. All the words remained glittering back at Harry, jeering and stubborn and undefeated.

Maybe that was when the obsession really took hold. Message received.

Later that night, Harry tossed and turned on his bedsheets like a sweaty ship on a restless sea. He couldn’t sleep. Not a wink. His eyes remained open. But eyes wide and alert or stubbornly closed, it didn’t even matter. The message from earlier flew ceaselessly across Harry’s vision like some sort of deranged news ticker.

Draco Malfoy is a filthy SLAG bottom!

Draco Malfoy is a FILTHY slag bottom!

Draco Malfoy is a filthy slag BOTTOM!

Harry still didn’t care for the words. They definitely sang of cruelty, like the same sort of sneering poison that used to drip from Malfoy’s own mouth. Something itched beneath Harry’s skin. A blend of sympathy, confusion, and sick curiosity.

Who wrote the message? Why? Would it still be there tomorrow? Were the words even true? Could they be verified?

Harry valiantly ignored the tightening, alarming stiffness in his shorts for what seemed like ages.

He couldn’t.

No.

Not to the thought of Malfoy!

Eventually, miraculously, Harry finally fell asleep, the perplexing anxiety of it all wrestled down by pure exhaustion. His dreams arrived in wisps of white-yellow and pink, the images not quite discernible but a deep, dark emotion lapping at the edges like ominous flood water.

When he awoke in the morning, one of his pillows had become wedged high between his knees. Grimly, he also registered a sticky, flakey residue in his pants.

Ugh.

By breakfast, Harry had convinced himself that no one could possibly tell. He’d showered and even scrubbed at his face with a towel until his cheeks glowed. Still, as soon as he walked into the Great Hall, he felt guilty. Obvious.

Harry tugged at his collar as he slid into his usual seat between Ron and Neville Longbottom — bottom — trying for normalcy, suspecting that he was failing. Ever since seeing that message, Harry felt oddly rocked and rearranged inside.

Inside.

So. Malfoy had maybe, likely, allowed another boy — boys??? — entry into his…?!

Harry gave a quiet, pained groan that elicited concerned looks from his friends. He carefully poured himself a cup of tea. He focused on evening out his breathing.

The enchanted ceiling above was a dull and fogged grey. Across the room, at the Slytherin table, Draco Malfoy sat looking immaculate as ever, cutting his toast into precise halves as his friends chattered around him.

Malfoy appeared… fine. Entirely unbothered. Normal.

Something loosened in Harry’s chest.

“See?” Ron muttered around a mouthful of eggs, noticing where Harry had settled his attention. “Nothing gets to that git. Bet he wrote it himself.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hermione said without looking up from her Arithmancy book.

Harry really tried not to stare.

Malfoy smirked at something Pansy Parkinson was saying, his pale hair all the more radiant under the gloomy cloud cover, his graceful neck working as he swallowed a sip of his tea. There was no visible shame, no nervous glance toward the professors, not even the faintest attempt to appear wounded. If anything, Malfoy appeared mildly bored.

That wasn’t how bullied people behaved.

Harry’s stomach gave a strange churn.

Malfoy looked up.

For one horrible, perfect second, their eyes met across the hall. Something like amusement flickered there, so subtle but cutting, before Malfoy tilted his chin in apparent dismissal and went back to his breakfast.

Harry forgot how to breathe.

“Mate, stop it,” Ron said.

“I’m not doing anything,” Harry snapped back, too quickly.

Hermione sighed as she smoothed a finger down the page she was on. “And here we go.”

Harry shoved his half-eaten plate aside, mumbling something about not feeling hungry, and bolted for the doors.

Enough of this.

Five minutes later, Harry was in the library. His ultimate destination: the Restricted Section.

Madam Pince eyed him across her desk like he was some trespassing criminal. Harry paid her no mind. This wasn’t like first year, scurrying about after dark under an invisibility cloak, frightened of getting into trouble. He was eighteen now. He had survived years and years of hell, and now he had some very pressing questions to answer.

Harry waltzed past Madam Pince’s suspicious squint into the stacks, his own eyes roaming the titles, deciding to assemble a respectable pile to cover his true motives. Advanced Injurious Defensive Wards. Disfiguration: Casting, Remedying, and Reversing. Suitable enough?

It took nearly fifteen minutes of sweaty-palmed searching before Harry found anything even remotely close to what he was looking for. Stumbling upon any sort of homosexual How-To guide in the bowels of the Hogwarts library was likely too much to ask. Mating Customs and Magical Bonds Through the Times. That would have to suffice.

“Find everything you need?” Madam Pince warily asked when Harry emerged from the Restricted Section with his three books. He only mustered a thin smile in response when he passed by, avoiding conversation, heading for a remote, obscured, and rather cozy corner of the library he had never before occupied.

Thirty minutes until the first class of the day. No time to waste. But he did crave a measure of privacy.

Harry cracked open Mating Customs and set to reading. The index was as promising as it was mortifying.

Harry’s face went hot enough to light a candle as he flipped through the pages. He found a passage written in lurid script about “the vulnerability of the receptive partner, whose energy must yield to channel another’s during a sexual and magical communion.”

It sounded almost poetic, beautiful, until Harry realised he was imagining Malfoy again.

Malfoy, yielding.

Except — no. Malfoy wouldn’t yield to anyone.

But would Malfoy ever…?

Harry slammed the book shut so fast that dust rose off it.

“Upsetting reading material, Potter?”

Harry’s stomach dropped. So absorbed in the tome, he hadn’t even heard the approaching footsteps.

Malfoy stood a few paces away between the shelves, his arms folded, the faintest sneer tugging at his lips. “This is my table, actually.”

Like muscle memory, Harry reared up in defense and shot back, “Interesting! I don’t see your poncy name carved anywhere.”

Malfoy coughed delicately into his fist, as if muffling a giggle, and then he pointed to something behind Harry’s left shoulder. Harry turned around to see a small but actual plaque affixed to the wall:

Study Alcove Generously Endowed by Abraxas Malfoy, in Honour of Solace and Scholarship, 1938.

“Oh, come on,” Harry muttered.

Malfoy beamed at him.

Harry groped for words. “I’m studying,” he managed, far meeker than intended.

“I see,” Malfoy murmured. He stepped closer, and Harry caught a whiff of something clean and sharp — mint, maybe, but muskier. “Expanding your knowledge of…” He angled his head to catch the spine of the book before Harry could properly shield it. “Mating, is it?”

Harry’s mouth went dry.

Malfoy’s eyes glinted with sour amusement. “Aw, Potter. Did no one ever bother to stop and teach you the facts of life?”

Harry braced his palms on the table to steady himself. “Right. Because you’re such a — ”

“An expert?” Malfoy supplied. He buffed his nails against his chest. “Anyone likely would be, compared to you.”

Harry gawked, momentarily wordless, before his wits finally caught up with him.

“Actually…” Harry leaned forward onto his palms as he half-stood into an unmistakably aggressive crouch. “Actually, I was going to say that you’re apparently the filthiest slag bottom Hogwarts has ever seen.”

Malfoy’s eyes widened.

A rather tense pause ensued.

Well. Perhaps Harry’s wits were dawdling some.

“Potter.” Malfoy said his name shakily, but not in any apparent fear. He looked more…begrudgingly impressed. “Such foul language.”

“Is it true?” The day before, immediately after seeing the message, Harry had experienced some odd protectiveness and concern. Now, in the actual face of Malfoy and his obnoxious Malfoyness, Harry couldn’t help but goad. “Are you?”

Malfoy bared his teeth in something far too sharp for a smile. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

And the thing was — Harry did want to know. Wasn’t that why he had come to the library? Wasn’t that why he had caught maybe two hours of sleep the previous night?

Why, even now, with Malfoy standing before him all tall, posh and unruffled, Harry still couldn’t stop imagining him differently — on his knees, his eyes watering, gagging, his throat stuffed full of —

GOD. Harry fisted his hands in his hair, as if he could physically squeeze and pull out all the thoughts that plagued him. What was bloody wrong with him?!

“It is true, isn’t it?” Harry had this surge of — something — behind his breast bone. The words climbed up from an evil and reckless place. A desire to see Malfoy react. An instinct to follow how far this could really go. “Everyone’s saying it.” A lie, probably, but Harry wanted to see how Malfoy would respond. “Everyone’s talking about it.”

Malfoy’s gaze dragged over Harry’s face, slow and assessing, like a jungle cat deciding whether to play with its food before sinking its teeth in.

“Everyone is talking about it,” Malfoy repeated slowly. “And you can’t stop thinking about it, can you?”

Harry bristled. “I’m not —”

“Oh, you are,” Malfoy said, stepping forward until the edge of the table pressed against his hip. “You really are. You’re thinking about me.” His eyes flicked down. Harry could feel the movement, heavy, like a caress. “You’re even picturing it now.”

Harry coughed as he shook his head. “No.”

“Mm,” Malfoy hummed. “You say that.”

Neither of them spoke for a moment.

Then Malfoy leaned in, so close that Harry felt his breath stir the hair at his temple. “For the record,” Malfoy whispered, “I’m not ashamed of anything I am. Or of anything I want. Can you say the same, Saint Potter?”

Harry’s pulse hammered as he remained silent, scared like hunted prey.

“Now…” Malfoy bit and then licked at his bottom lip. Harry felt his own lips part, parched, suddenly yearning. “Get the hell out of my alcove.”

Harry Potter didn’t typically run from danger — but after the charged encounter with Malfoy in the library, that is exactly what he did.

He fled. Past the shelves, down the corridor, heart bounding like a stallion in his chest. His hands shook. His neck was on fire. He didn’t stop until he stumbled into the nearest empty bathroom, the echo of Malfoy’s voice still in his ears — that infuriating drawl, that dangerous hiss of “you’re thinking about me.”

Harry braced both palms against the sink and stared at his reflection. His face was red, his eyes wild.

What was wrong with him?

After half a second’s contemplation, Harry slammed into one of the stalls, dropped his trousers, and then fisted himself until he came. He also cried, just a bit.

This was utterly insane.

The message on the wall had likely been intended to harass Malfoy.

Why then was HARRY the only one who felt terrorized?

Harry skived off all his morning classes. Hermione would ask questions, as would Ron, and his professors wouldn’t be pleased, but he was rendered a man truly crazed. He couldn’t sit in lectures and pretend to care about anything else. He couldn’t take notes when this newfound obsession had latched on tight and refused to release.

How could Harry be around other, normal people when he had just masturbated, quite violently, in a public loo where anyone could have walked in, to Draco Malfoy?

Harry had faced down the Dark Lord and Death Eaters. He’d died, technically. But none of that had left him feeling quite so… ruined.

It wasn’t just lust — he could have lived with lust! Bill Weasley’s shapely calves. Cedric Diggory’s kind, crooked smile. Harry knew what it was like to be attracted to someone random and pretty much untouchable.

It was the fact that Malfoy had looked at Harry with such a perfect, knowing curl of his lip. Like he’d seen right through Harry’s flimsy bravado to whatever trembling, needy core lay underneath.

The library was unsafe. The entire castle felt too claustrophobic. Harry took to the grounds, to the Quidditch pitch, borrowing an old school Cleansweep to race up into the sky, intending to leave all his cares and confusion on the earth below.

But even with a broomstick between his legs and the wet wind in his hair, Harry remained haunted. Malfoy’s face. Malfoy’s words. Malfoy.

Filthy slag bottom. How many people had Malfoy shagged? Filthy slag bottom. Slytherins? What about anyone else? Any of Harry’s housemates? Harry would know. Wouldn’t he?

As Harry flew laps around the hoops he brainstormed likely and unlikely bed partners for Malfoy. Zabini? Goyle? Nott? Who would be vengeful enough to write that sort of message? Zacharias Smith? Considering each imagined lover of Malfoy’s stung.

Harry had kissed two people his entire life. He had been busy. Draco Malfoy — he had apparently all the time in the WORLD to sleep around… Enough to get himself the target of some sort of weird sex smear campaign…!

The burning agony Harry experienced — he eventually was able to recognise it as envy. Jealousy. It seared his skin, penetrating down to his bones, and it persisted no matter how fast or high Harry flew. Oh yeah. Harry was fucking jealous.

But was he jealous of Malfoy?

Or of the others?

Harry let out a loud, feral scream as he committed to a Wronski Feint. He was suddenly so damned upset, it took everything in him to pull up at the end, yanking the broom just a second too late, so depressingly distracted, and he cocked it all up, hitting the ground hard.

Tumbling onto the wet grass, breath knocked clean from his lungs, it was amazing Harry didn’t kill himself. For a long moment he lay there, sore and sulky, his eyes locked on the colourless sky that began to rain.

He was losing it. He was properly losing it.

“I’m going through something,” Harry announced to his friends after lunch. He had pulled himself together as best he could and decided to face reality. “I don’t want you guys to worry, or to ask questions, but I need you to bear with me.”

Hermione’s hand tightened on her bag. “Alright, Harry, when you say something like that I immediately begin to worry and want to ask questions.”

“Yeah, fuck that.” Ron loomed in close. “What’s wrong and what are you keeping from us?”

“Everything,” Harry answered gloomily. He rested a forearm on a nearby pillar and leaned into it. “Everything.”

“Everything is wrong?” Ron clarified. Harry nodded. “You’re keeping everything from us?” Another miserable nod from Harry. “Mate!”

“I’m so stressed out right now, you have no idea.” Harry offered the confession into the fabric of his cloak sleeve. He couldn’t stand to look at his friends.

“Talk to us!” Hermione said.

“I am!”

“We need details!” Ron said, and then he gave a roar of frustration, which caused Harry to finally look up. “Harry, look, now you’re stressing us out!”

“Sorry.” Harry straightened his shoulders. “It’s nothing. Actually, you know what, everything is fine.”

“You literally just said — !”

“I’m going through something.” Harry winced as he caught a glimpse of white-blond hair at the end of the hall. “It’s not the most terrible thing, but also — also it maybe is.” He massaged at his chest. “And I feel rather ill.”

Hermione stepped closer, as if to examine Harry physically. “Infirmary-ill?”

“Mentally ill,” Harry corrected. Hermione and Ron exchanged looks of alarm. “As I said, please — please, just bear with me for a moment.”

“Harry, talk to us!” Hermione gripped his shoulders in a worried embrace. “You know you can tell us anything.”

Like a moth to a flame, Harry’s focus was stolen and consumed by Malfoy’s approach. Every step he took closer to where the Gryffindors stood Harry experienced like a throbbing, inevitable heartbeat.

“Talking won’t help.” Harry continued to follow Malfoy’s path with his eyes. He didn’t glance in Harry’s direction at first, but then he did, and something in Harry’s brain short-circuited. The curl of his lip, that slight tilt of the head. Harry wanted to reach out and grab Malfoy by the neck, the hair, to shake him to full attention, and then bring him closer in order to — to —

“What would help, then?” Ron asked, gently coaxing. Harry shook his head to clear it.

“Something bad,” Harry answered, tonelessly, watching as Malfoy laughed hard — too hard to be entirely natural — at something Blaise Zabini said. Harry tightened his fists at his sides. “Something unwise.”

This had all hit Harry very hard and very fast.

That evening, he passed by the stretch of wall where the message lingered, Filch still manually scrubbing at the stones as he cursed under his breath, and Harry knew that no matter what happened to the words, the damage was already done.

Harry thought of Draco Malfoy as a sexual entity now, and maybe he always would. Forever.

Some wounds were too deep to ever fully close.

But Harry would attempt to cauterize this new bleeding gash in his psyche through confrontation. He had run away earlier. That wouldn’t happen again. Avoidance was never the proper solution to something like this.

With several weeks left until end of term, barely anyone remained in the library at nine o’clock at night. Harry marched past what thin crowds there were, ignoring everything and everyone, stomping through the stacks like a man possessed.

Harry found Malfoy in the same damned alcove as before. Abraxas’ alcove. Sitting alone, expression serene, his colour-coded notes fanned out before him, lazily tapping out a rhythm with his quill. Not a care in the world. Oblivious to the carnage.

Malfoy’s tranquil studiousness was swiftly destroyed as Harry lunged over the table and spat, “I don’t care how much money your family has donated to this school — anyone can sit wherever they like!”

Malfoy paused his quill-tapping to register the form of one truly deranged and determined Harry Potter. He sat back in his chair and asked, “Excuse me?”

“You kicked me out earlier,” Harry said, panting slightly as he spoke. “I left, but I shouldn’t have had to!”

Both Harry’s arrival and his weird passion about study table territory seemed to draw Malfoy up short. “…Alright.”

“Alright?” Harry repeated in a growl. “Alright!”

“Alright.” Malfoy’s eyes dipped to his parchment. Bemused. Bored. “Are you finished?”

“No!” Harry shouted. A chorus of scolding ‘shhh’s’ floated from behind the stacks. He grimaced and hurriedly cast a noise-muffling charm. “No, I am not finished, actually. How dare you?”

“How dare I what?” Malfoy’s gaze slanted to the side, a trace of innocent uncertainty to his posture that Harry did not trust for a second. “Study?”

“Act like you don’t care!” Harry erupted. “You’ve always cared!”

Malfoy began writing something in the margins of his book as if Harry — and all of his probably misplaced rage — weren’t even there. Or, at least not worthy of his notice. “Hm? Care about what, exactly?”

“What people think about you! Have you even seen it?” Harry demanded of him, breathless. “The wall? You must have, by now!”

Malfoy didn’t look up. “Of course I’ve seen it,” he answered. He clicked his tongue once. “I wrote it.”

Harry blinked and stumbled back in his shock. “You — what?”

Malfoy turned a page delicately. “Consider it an advert, Potter. A lure.” He did look up then, practically fluttering his eyelashes in the face of Harry’s stupefied horror. “And my, look what a fat, juicy fish I’ve caught.”

“You’re serious,” Harry said, voice low, incredulous. “Are you joking?”

“Am I laughing?” Malfoy began to shuffle his papers together into an organised pile. His eyes lifted again, grey and bright with mischief. “You do look so stupid right now. Perhaps I should be.”

Harry’s mind whirled. “Why would you — why would anyone — ”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but relations within my House have recently become far too incestuous. My mother always told me it’s important to put oneself out there. So, I’m spreading my wings, so to speak.”

“Spreading your legs, you mean,” Harry couldn’t help but say.

Malfoy leered at him. “Sure.”

Harry still wasn’t satisfied with Malfoy’s explanation. “Why would you write something like that about yourself?”

“I needed to make a splash. And why does anyone do anything, Potter? For attention, obviously.” Malfoy directed his study materials into his school bag with a fastidious precision. “You, in particular, have been giving me quite a lot of it today. I have noticed.”

“That’s not — !”

“You have been,” Malfoy calmly countered. “And I’m quite tickled, to be honest. Flattered.”

“So you do like boys.” Harry sunk into a nearby seat when his knees could no longer support him. “You’re advertising your — availability — to boys. All the boys.”

“Hm, yes.”

Harry saw flashes across his vision as he processed this news. “You’re unhinged,” he decided. Malfoy’s mouth twitched at Harry’s insult. “Who does something like this? Malfoy, we thought people were BULLYING you or something!”

Malfoy snorted. “Cute.”

“You like blokes.” Harry remained impossibly entranced by the idea. Incredibly invested in the answer. “You are a homosexual?”

Flatly, Malfoy responded, “Have you never met one before?”

“I have! And I — ” Harry compelled himself to finish the statement, ignoring the fiery thunder clapping in his ears. “I think I may be, too. Not fully homosexual, alright, but like, at least partly.”

“Oh, is that so?” Malfoy tilted his head, eyes flicking over Harry with a rather detached and clinical interest. “And when did you sort that out?”

Harry took a deep steadying breath. “Recently,” he said on the exhale.

It felt momentous and cathartic to say it aloud. Brave.

“Well done.” Malfoy stood with his bag, looking unimpressed as anything. “Self-discovery is wonderful. Self-acceptance is important. Ta.”

“Wait — Where are you going?” That was it? It was like Harry had tried to sit down in a chair and his arse was falling down through the air. “Hey! Wait! Malfoy!”

Malfoy widened his arms in his surrender. “You want the table, Potter? Have the table. I’m done studying for the night.”

“That’s — ?” Harry reached out to snag Malfoy by the sleeve. Malfoy stared down at the contact like an owl had just shit on him. “That’s really it?”

“What else would there be?”

Something cracked open in Harry then. Fucking hell. Stubborn, reckless want. Don’t you leave me, you git. Harry couldn’t say that. He merely tightened his grip, enclosing his fist over Malfoy’s forearm, anchoring. He narrowed his eyes. Malfoy met them, his expression still cool and unreadable.

The utter knob. Malfoy was going to make Harry say it.

“I’m thinking about it,” Harry offered, the words tumbling out so raw and honest. Malfoy leaned back, appearing skeptical.

“It?”

“You,” Harry said, unable to restrain a shudder, but he managed to keep Malfoy’s gaze. “I’m thinking about you.”

And at that admission, Malfoy seemed to soften and glow like a fresh pat of warm butter. “Knew it!”

“Don’t get smug now,” Harry warned.

“Too late.” Malfoy fell back into his seat and arranged his limbs in a languid sprawl. “Alright. So, tell me something else,” he said, his voice dropping. “How many people have you shagged, Potter?”

Harry’s mouth opened, closed. Stalling for time, he first cleared this throat and muttered, “What kind of question — ”

“Oh, come now.” Malfoy stretched his arms up, the movement lazy and graceful. Harry tracked the tight pull of fabric across his shoulders. “It’s relevant. You’re acting like a man starved, Potter. I’m merely trying to determine the degree of famine.”

Harry’s face heated. “That’s not it.”

“What is this then?” Malfoy drawled, leaning forward. “Is this an interview? An experiment? Do you want a boyfriend? Or — is this a confession? You, skulking through the library alone, so red-eared and desperate for some queer bit of — ”

“I’M desperate?” Harry blustered with outrage. The nerve of Malfoy! “You’re the one who’s told the whole bloody school what a filthy slag bottom you are!”

“All press is good press,” Malfoy replied, tones silken, face angelic. “Stop using my own words against me, Potty. Whatever you’re trying, it isn’t working.”

“All I’m saying is, don’t act like you’re apparently choosey about this when the writing is quite literally on the wall!”

“And are you?” Malfoy slouched a bit as he nestled a foot between Harry’s meaningfully. “Are you choosey, Chosen One?”

The air between them crackled. Desire and fury tangled together, and Harry couldn’t tell them apart. What had Malfoy accused Harry of being? Starving? Maybe. He was definitely steaming, raging with a weird hot need that he was surprised hadn’t caused his brain to melt and his glasses to fog.

“Say it again,” Malfoy said softly, a challenge, a smile curving his mouth.

Harry pretended ignorance. “Say what?”

“That you’ve thought about it,” Malfoy whispered. “About me. About what a filthy, slaggy bottom boy does when someone actually takes him up on his offer.”

Harry exhaled sharply, somewhere between a gasp and a groan.

And that was how it began — the spark catching flame, burning through all reason and right, until Harry was suddenly on his feet, shooting up from his chair like a firecracker had been lit under his arse, and he basically wrestled Malfoy onto the table.

Malfoy let out a strangled noise as his back hit the wood, half indignant, half laughter.

“Potter — !” he started to say, but Harry only pressed him harder down, his hands fisted in linen and then running along all the warm, trembling muscle beneath that Harry crazily wanted to taste.

“Stop acting like this,” Harry grunted, though it wasn’t clear who he was speaking to.

Malfoy twisted beneath him, his breath coming out in sharp and quick huffs. “Like what?”

“Like you don’t — ” Harry broke off, every nerve ending screaming at him. Malfoy blinked up at him, so close and yet frustratingly distant. “Like you still don’t care. Like you don’t know what you’re doing to me. Like you don’t understand what any of this means for us.”

A beat. Malfoy stilled, his pale lashes lowering as he wore an expression close to delight. “Oh,” he said quietly. “So it’s like that, is it? You’re looking for meaning?”

Harry rocked himself forward, hard enough into Malfoy’s body that the other boy groaned. “Why is this still so funny to you?”

“It’s not funny, exactly,” Malfoy admitted in a rather high-pitched voice. Was he nervous, Harry wondered? No, because then he arched up against Harry with no trace of hesitation. “I’m simply — ” Malfoy shook his head before he continued speaking, definitely somewhat irritated as he sneered, “Look, are you going to kiss me anytime soon, Potty, or do you intend to just torture us both with sexual aggression?”

Harry didn’t answer. He moved.

Roughly dragging Malfoy closer, Harry finally claimed that sneering mouth. It was a collision so fierce and disbelieving, Harry’s brain sputtered and promptly died with the impact.

Whatever. He didn’t need it anymore.

Malfoy gasped against him, a startled and soft sound, and then his lips parted readily, his fingers finding Harry’s collar, pulling Harry down fully against him.

Harry couldn’t stop. They were in the library, and anyone could catch them, but Harry didn’t care. He couldn’t wait for each succeeding kiss. He pressed forward again and again, his lips working in a mad, ferocious rhythm. Consuming. Every thought scattered and faded. There was only the heat of Malfoy, the feel of his boney sharp body beneath Harry’s hands, the minty tang of his tongue.

And Malfoy’s hands were everywhere, tugging at Harry’s hair, clutching his shoulders, holding him impossibly close. The world narrowed to the constant, greedy slide of their mouths.

They broke apart for air and Harry registered how Malfoy’s chest heaved, his lips falling open so swollen and wet as he breathed. So pretty. Harry’s forehead pressed to Malfoy’s and he gasped, shivering from the sheer intensity. “Fuck,” he groaned. God, he was so incredibly, painfully hard.

“D’you want to?” Malfoy asked him in a kiss-drunk slur. Harry groaned again. “Fuck? D’you even know how?”

Harry didn’t, but he would figure it out.

“D’you want me — rough — over this table?” Malfoy continued in a sultry musing. “Where anyone could pass by and see?”

“Fucking hell,” Harry answered in a tortured moan.

Bad idea. Stupid, bad idea. But Harry’s brain had already died, remember? It wasn’t the one making decisions anymore. Harry’s hips thrust forward, deepening the friction and their shared, firm insanity. Malfoy moaned as Harry rocked against him, his legs lifting to cradle Harry’s hips in place.

“In me, in me,” Malfoy finally invited in a breathy whine, and Harry couldn’t really form words anymore. He buried his face in the crook of Malfoy’s neck, inhaling deeply, unable to resist sucking a bruise to the delicate skin beneath Malfoy’s ear.

“You want to, right?” Malfoy’s hand nimbly stroked Harry through his trousers as he spoke. “You want to shag me, don’t you, Potter? Stick it in me?” Harry made a garbled sound of agreement as his hips continued to buck helplessly. Malfoy went on stroking him, so calm and sure. Slag. “You want to fuck me proper? Yeah, you do. You do.”

Instead of replying, Harry again began to kiss Malfoy, who made a rumbly, pleased noise from the back of his throat. The musky, minty scent and taste of him was everywhere, intoxicating, but Harry was eventually able to withdraw enough to undo his front.

Malfoy reclined further back on the table and gave a laughing, ecstatic cry of approval as he crowed, “Yeah, show me that big, perfect Saviour cock you’ve been hiding, Potter!” He slid down his own trousers to jerk himself. “Circe, you know, I really did need this today.”

Despite the raging erection and his mission to bury himself in the shadowy place between Malfoy’s spread legs, Harry did recall that he had only cast a noise-muffling charm, and they were both quite bare-arsed in a public library. “Shut up,” he begged Malfoy as he moved himself close in another shallow thrust. “Please shut up.”

Ever a problem, never a team player, Malfoy smirked nastily as he moaned, theatrically wild, and said, “No.”

So Harry had really no other choice but to kiss Malfoy some more, to suck on his tongue, to swallow all of his giggling and petty rejoinders.

How had Harry allowed something like this to torture him so much? Harry’s dead brain may have pointed out that this boy was his rival, a first class prat, and that Harry impulsively losing his virginity on the table of the Abraxas Malfoy Study Alcove was not the best look.

Whatever. Draco Malfoy was ace at snogging and his body felt like soft molten sunshine under Harry’s hands.

Somehow Malfoy managed to reach for his wand. Before Harry could properly react, his prick was coated in a glistening lubricant. “This should be fine,” Malfoy said against Harry’s ear after he discarded the wand and began to pull at Harry’s prick some more. “I fingered myself a bit earlier. Filthy slag like me, you’ll slide right in.”

Malfoy’s words were another blow to Harry’s composure. “Fucking hell,” he rasped, blinking rapidly. His glasses were even still on! “How is this happening?”

“I dunno,” Malfoy admitted. He spun in Harry’s arms and slid himself half-way off the table, bending over it so that Harry’s cock was perfectly aligned with where it desperately wanted to land. “But look alive. It’s happening.”

Harry’s eyes became glued to Malfoy’s arse. God, Harry wanted to kiss it. Bite it and lick it. Run his tongue all over it. It didn’t matter they were in the library. They could be on the moon for all Harry cared! He was transfixed by those milky cheeks and the hole they protected and promised.

“Come on, Potter, I don’t have all night,” Malfoy groused.

Following Malfoy’s coarse instruction, Harry finally passed his prick between the pillowy mounds, guiding it through a deliciously tight channel. Once balls deep inside, his heart soaring, Harry realised something important.

Draco Malfoy may be a bottom — and Harry Potter? Harry was utterly and undeniably besotted.

“Oh yeah,” Harry grunted as he proceeded to thrust away clumsily.

“Oh yes,” Malfoy agreed with a smug satisfaction, his head hanging low between his shoulders, his spine arched and his arse readily bouncing.

Harry squeezed his eyes closed, incredibly overwhelmed. “Oh — oh, oh — yeaaah — oh — ” Shit. Something was happening. Too soon. Way too soon. Harry really couldn’t help it. The press was too tight, too warm, and also so very new for him. “Oh, oh my god, oh my god, I’m — ”

“What?” Malfoy asked, abruptly lifting his head and half-turning around. “Are you really already — ”

“Yeah,” Harry squeaked, apologetically, as with one last push he prematurely emptied his load into Malfoy’s hole, coming with a humiliating finality. “Er.”

Malfoy collapsed fully onto the table and groaned into his arms. “Unbelievable. We needed to be fast but not THAT fast!”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, dizzy, out of sorts.

“The Boy Who Lived is the boy who barely lasted,” Malfoy mumbled grouchily into the tabletop. “I am so incredibly disappointed.” Malfoy raised himself up in order to shove Harry off him and replace his trousers, shaking his head in remorse. “Alright, well, thanks for nothing, Harry. Bye.”

And Harry wanted nothing more than to drop dead.

Harry did not die. He had already done that once before.

Embarrassment didn’t even come close to describing what Harry felt. He had had sex with Draco Malfoy — and he had been bad at it!

But Harry was no quitter.

The following day, Harry discovered that the message remained on the wall outside the boys’ bathroom. Someone, likely Filch, had brought over a foldable room divider in a truly pitiful attempt to conceal the lewd writing. It wasn’t quite tall or wide enough to do the job. It was also, Harry noticed, very easy to move aside.

Draco Malfoy is a filthy slag bottom!

Harry bit his cheek, thoughtful, before drawing his wand.

Maybe the message couldn’t be erased — he wondered what kind of spell Malfoy had imbued it with, because it was actually sort of impressive — but it could certainly be addended.

Harry steadily aimed at the wall and made his mark.

Just ask Harry Potter.

Malfoy cornered Harry about two hours later. Harry wouldn’t be surprised if he regularly paroled and monitored the area.

“What the devil are you playing at?” Malfoy hissed, his eyes flashing with anger as he pushed Harry against a wall. No one was around to intervene. “Do you think you’re clever?”

Harry shoved Malfoy right back. “A bit, yeah.”

“You’re insufferable, that’s what you are.” Malfoy’s voice was quiet but dangerous, a building storm barely contained in a body. “I won’t allow this. You trying to humiliate me in front of the entire school!”

Harry boggled. “Humiliate you? You literally wrote that shit to begin with!”

“Yes, but now the whole meaning has changed. You’ve gone and EDITED it!”

“I’ve updated it,” Harry replied easily. “That’s called teamwork.”

“Teamwork? After — ?!” Malfoy made a choked noise of rage, his cheeks flushing. “You absolute arrogant — !”

“Look, alright,” Harry cut in, stepping closer, hands raised to both defend and soothe. Malfoy wasn’t the only one who understood how to lure and provoke. Harry had to be careful. He had to play this right. “I just thought it might… balance things out some. You get your flaming advert of homosexuality, and now I get mine.”

“Balance?” Malfoy’s eyes flicked over him, disbelief giving way to something faintly amused, but he still looked ready to bite. “You want your own advert, do you? More attention? As if you don’t have enough of that! What, you get a sample of me and now you’re immediately out trawling for someone else? And you’re actually proud of your performance last night, Potter? An ADVERT! Circe! You are an IDIOT!”

“Maybe,” Harry said, his buoyancy faltering slightly. “I do want a second chance.”

Malfoy’s brows lifted. “At what? Wasting someone’s time? Ruining someone’s evening?”

“At—” Harry searched Malfoy’s face for some hint of softness beyond the shrieking drama. Any betrayal of interest. “You know.”

Malfoy crossed his arms, pretending to deliberate, though his lips were already twitching. “You want another go with me,” he finally said.

Harry nodded, sheepish but determined. “Yeah. I do.” He then added, “I’m sorry.”

Malfoy’s gaze lingered on him suspiciously. “Clueless virgin,” he sniffed. “Hardly surprising, I suppose.”

“Don’t hold it against me,” Harry insisted. “And anyway, I’m not anymore — thanks to you. Progress.”

Malfoy drummed his fingers on his arms for a moment as he considered Harry closely, likely cataloguing all of Harry’s physical failures and preparing to dismantle his hopes — but then he only sighed. “Everyone,” he said, feigning a great weariness, “deserves a second chance.”

“Oh yeah?” Harry reached out to touch Malfoy on the shoulder, and Malfoy didn’t move away. “That’s a ‘yes?’” Malfoy’s eyes fell closed as he raised his eyebrows in exhausted defeat. Harry pumped his fist in triumph. “Brilliant!”

“Don’t act so pleased,” Malfoy said, eyes opening and sparkling despite his cold expression. “This is charity, on my part. You were terrible.”

“I’ll improve,” Harry promised, grinning now. “You’ll see.”

Malfoy groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose as though he could already sense the incoming chaos. “I’m sure I will witness something.” He raised a steady finger. “Prefect’s bath. Tonight at eleven. Don’t be late, and do try to last longer than this conversation, Potter, or I swear to you, I will be moving on.”

Harry’s face ached from the stretch of his smile. “It’s a date.”

Malfoy looked skyward as if appealing directly to the gods. “Sure,” he said, deadpan. “See you then.”

“Great,” Harry said with an earnest little wave. “See you.”

Harry ended up redeeming himself. More than. He made Malfoy, this time so sudsy and slick, fall apart in his arms, under him and over him, again and again and again. Malfoy split open once more on Harry’s cock. He spread out and shivered and melted, gorgeously. Harry learned that the more times Malfoy came, the sweeter he got.

When they finally left the Prefect’s bath at two-thirty in the morning, their pruned fingers found each other’s — and held — before they parted, slowly and regretfully.

The message disappeared from the wall by the end of the week, both Draco’s original and Harry’s cheeky addition.

Adverts withdrawn.

Applications closed.

No further attention sought or needed.