Chapter 22
In Which We Learn the Many Uses for a Post-Battle Adrenaline Rush

The Great Hall changed while Harry watched, dozens of house elves magically rearranging it to have beds, comfortable chairs and small tables full of chocolate and other restoratives under McGonagall's watchful eye. Neville had been sent upstairs to see if he couldn't find Madame Pomfrey, and the other students were gathered in the entry, waiting patiently as the elves finished up.

"All right, you may go in. Anyone who is injured should be on the left, with the worst in beds, starting at this end of the hall. Anyone who is not injured should take a seat to their right, and please make sure everyone eats some chocolate to help recover from any exposure you may have had to the Dementors." Her voice was strong, firm, and showed no hints of the grief and uncertainty Harry felt roiling just under the surface of his own thoughts, and Draco's.

The students piled in, some carrying their injured fellows, a few grim-faced Seventh Years levitating the limp forms of the dead. Soon all the beds were filled, the corpses lying in a cleared space beside them. House elves covered each body with a white sheet as it was laid before them, their tiny faces solemn and afraid. "Does Harry Potter think there will be more attacking?" asked a familiar squeaky voice at Harry's knee.

"No, Dobby. I think we're just about done with the attacking for now." Harry could hear the leaden weight in his own voice. He mentally identified each student even as their features were shrouded, seeing Seamus Finnigan's curiously unsmiling countenance, Luna Lovegood staring sightlessly upwards, young Graham Pritchard with his green Slytherin badge still glinting silver in the light. Half a dozen others Harry couldn't bear to think about, none of them older than his own 17 years.

Eloise Midgen was laying on a bed, her face drawn and grey, Ron already at her side looking worried. Neville Longbottom had returned at some point and was currently surrounded by a circle of uninjured admirers, asking him about the spell that had rallied the students to fight, which turned out to be a Patronus. Madame Pomfrey was moving among the beds, clucking her tongue and giving them directions as to who could go sit and who needed immediate attention.

Harry whirled, wand at the ready, and immediately felt foolish as Dumbledore and Flitwick walked in through the repaired front doors, followed by a crowd of Aurors and Mediwitches. "It's all been taken care of, Harry, never you fret," said Flitwick with alarming cheerfulness. "We got all the bits and burned them to a crisp, then cursed the ashes thoroughly and shoved the lot through the Veil. We'll not be seeing him again!"

"Quite so," said Dumbledore calmly. "I believe that we have sufficient help now to clear the castle up and see to the students. Harry, Draco, we will be having a feast later tonight in your honour. You might as well get healed and go enjoy a bit of privacy beforehand."

"Thank you, sir," said Harry, dimly aware that a white-robed Mediwitch was already prodding at his shoulder, which responded by throbbing rather painfully. "Ouch!"

The Mediwitch patted his arm absently, getting out her wand. "Sorry, luv, hold still there and you'll soon be right as rain. Claudeus!" She tapped his shoulder gently and a feeling like warm, tingly fingers ran over the cut. She then repeated it for the other side, and turned to Draco. "Why, you're all fixed!"

Harry realized that the pain was gone, and turned to see them staring at Draco's bared shoulder. "Must be the spell," said Harry absently, suddenly fascinated with the sight of Draco's skin. "We'd better see to that, Draco. In the room." He took Draco's hand and caressed a finger along his palm, sending a shiver of lust through both their bodies as the sensations echoed from one to the other.

Harry tried very hard not to notice the way Dumbledore's eyes sparkled with mischief, or Tonks winked, or Snape's face grew curiously still as they turned and made their way down to their room. He had planned to wait until they could no longer hear the chatter before shoving Draco against a wall, but found himself dragged into a semi-secluded niche barely halfway down the dungeon stairs. "I'm going to fuck you until you forget both our names, Harry Potter."

Harry could feel the wall at his back, but more immediate was the soft velvet of his robe in Draco's hands, the slight chapping of his lips underneath Draco's demanding kiss. It was confusing and arousing and he thought he might come on the spot when their hips collided violently, rubbing Draco's cock against the silky lining of those velvet pants. Harry dropped to his knees, unable to stand the wait, and tugged the trousers down only enough to free the aching shaft that throbbed its need in his mind.

"Fuck," whispered Draco harshly as Harry took him in, and Harry could feel both a mouth on his cock and a cock in his mouth, the sensations almost equal in their clarity. He was starting to lose track of where Draco ended and he began, unsure if it was his throat working to take the whole length, or his hips urging him on with tiny, jerky thrusts. Draco's scent filtered through his brain like lavender infusing fine honey, and everything seemed to glow with the thick amber magic even with his eyes closed.

It didn't take long, the overload of magic, adrenaline and sheer physical pleasure practically wrenching their orgasm from them, and he felt Draco's throat working right along with him though only one of them had seed to swallow. Harry could feel the heat spreading through his own trousers just as he could feel his mouth licking the bitter seed from Draco's shaft. It was intoxicating, bewildering and exhilarating.

"Let's go to the room," he whispered against Draco's hip, reaching up a hand. He'd need help to stand like this, his body gone boneless and confused with being suddenly half a foot taller inside his head. Draco pulled him up, their bodies like a line of fire as golden fabric slid and caught against the black. They went downstairs in silence, arm in arm and swaying drunkenly as feet kept trying to compensate for belonging to someone else's body.

They made it to their room intact, both of them already hard and impatient as the door swung shut behind them. They separated only long enough to strip, leaving torn and blood-soaked clothing scattered on the floor as they tumbled, naked, into bed. "Want you in me!" said Harry hoarsely, flinging an arm towards the nightstand as though he could summon the bottle with an act of will.

He got yet another shock when it came to him, riding a current of silver-and-gold magic that shivered through him like a wind caressing places no hand could touch. "Silencio," they whispered in unison, and quiet blanketed them despite the fact that their wands had gone the way of their clothes.

No more words were needed, then. Harry let himself be touched, moved, opened. Each caress of Draco's hand brought with it the feeling of his own skin beneath a callused palm, his own hair tangling in fingers much longer and finer than his had ever been. He was familiar by now with the breathless feel of those fingers inside him, but he thought he might lose it completely when he felt his own body heat closing around them, his own tightness clinging to them as they worked him open.

Harry wanted to do this for hours, just touch and be touched, drown himself in the feel of Draco's joy at the smallest details of his own body, to roll them over and show Draco his own echoing joy even tempered by the fine threads of Draco's apprehension. But their own burning, urgent desire spurred them on, fitting Draco's cock into his body like it belonged there, his own body arching with the pleasure of it. He'd never felt this before, nothing at all like a mouth, hotter and tighter and just so right even as he was speared and taken and owned, and he ached with the perfection of it.

Then Draco pulled back, and Harry thought he might break apart, the way his body tried to keep Draco from retreating, the place inside him that Draco brushed sending sparks of electric pleasure throughout his limbs. Draco kissed him, his mouth full of coppery fear and warm golden magic, tongues tangling and teeth clacking as they lost track of who was who and began to just move.

Something clicked in place and it became a dance, rhythm and motion, this hand goes here to smooth along a jutting hipbone, this leg slides that way to make more room for them both, these teeth bite here just to taste the sweat of it, just to feel the flesh give and spring back and spark with bright pain in a sea of languid pleasure. Nothing mattered but the slide and bump and thrust of it, the bite and lick and kiss of it, the in and out and oh of it.

The power was building and building again, racing along both their bodies, twining with Draco's oh-so-recently-shared energy to make a silvergold ribbon that tied them to one another, binding tighter and tighter until something had to give. They might have cried out, words lost in the silencing spell as heat exploded from them in a shower of sparks and seed, tight-closed eyelids no match for the burst of light and magic.

Draco collapsed against him, and Harry opened his eyes just long enough to assure himself that, while the room was lit up like a Christmas tree with traceries of silver and gold energy, nothing had, in fact, caught on fire. Then he wrapped Draco in his arms and held on, their bodies slick with sweat and come and limp with real exhaustion. His last thought as they began to drift off was for the cold just starting to settle in, and he was unsurprised by now when a thick feather comforter appeared, to settle over them as they slept.

---

Harry awoke to the gentle, inquiring thrust of Draco's hips, the well-oiled length sliding easily into space it had never actually left. "Want to touch you," said Harry, words lost but meaning clear as his hands slid over Draco's pale, silken flesh. Draco's eyes flashed with lust as he rolled them over so Harry was straddling him, cock still buried in Harry's ass. It was almost too much to let it go, but Harry wanted more freedom than he'd get if they were still joined, so he pulled away regretfully.

He slid his entire body down, sweat-slicked flesh moving easily against Draco's as thighs and chest rubbed together. He started at Draco's feet, sucking the wriggling toes into his mouth, biting along the high arch of the foot. He licked and nipped his way upwards, sometimes tracing a scar but mostly ignoring them in favour of the pale stretches of unblemished flesh between them.

It was oddly jarring to feel the way sensation stopped when he ran over the deep wound where Draco's knee had been sliced open by a bowtruckle during a trip to the Forest for Care of Magical Creatures, but soothing to know the sensual tickle of his fingers at the back of Draco's knee. He worked upwards methodically, etching the body-memory into his brain as he found and caressed places he hadn't known Draco craved to have touched.

Harry felt Draco's surprise as he buried his face between his legs, spending long minutes leaving love bites peppered over taut thighs, suckling the soft-furred balls into his mouth and licking enthusiastically at the most sensitive, needy centre of him. Something in Draco longed to be opened, touched, taken, but Harry let it go with a single apologetic caress of his fingers when he felt fear thread through Draco's desire.

Instead, he nibbled over ticklishly sensitive hipbones, sucking another love bite in the hollow of one until Draco was curled almost double with silent laughter. He revelled in the sure knowledge of the pleasure that had tugged to the surface, tightening both their groins as his teeth scraped over the livid mark. He tongued his way over a stomach still fluttering with laughter, chin rubbing deliberately against the sensitive head of Draco's cock and making them both gasp at the intensity of it.

He worked his way up to those eager nipples, biting just to the point of perfect torment before leaving more marks up along the smooth column of Draco's throat. He found the spot just behind Draco's ear that made him sigh with pleasure, sighed himself as his own hands smoothed down Draco's back against the sheets. The dual sensations were less urgent now, softer around the edges or perhaps he'd just grown used to them, but no less powerful for all that.

Finally, face buried in Draco's fragrant hair, he slid his body down and onto Draco's waiting shaft, finding the head with just the knowledge of where they both were and taking it deep into the heart of him. That silver-and-gold energy spiked through them both as they were joined, bringing their earlier need back with in a rush of pleasure. He sat up, feeling Draco brush that place inside him as he rose and fell in a soft, easy rhythm like breathing, like the beat of their two hearts.

Draco's hands came up, then, and caressed not Harry's chest but his own, tweaking his nipples so Harry could feel it, running blunt nails over flesh already scored with old pain. Harry gasped and threw his head back, raking his own nails up his thighs and onto Draco, feeling the line blurring again, the heat of his own body surrounding a cock he knew was also his, the feel of hands on flesh that didn't matter whose was whose, it just was, and it felt oh so good.

Their hearts hammered in their chests, twin beating like a drum that sped their hips right along with it. Pleasure rose up past need and found its own heights, and Harry opened his eyes to see them both shining with love, silver and gold threads that ran between them thickly, that spread out and away towards friends, family, all the love they possessed brought to shining visibility by their combined magics. He was almost shocked when those threads expanded into blinding brightness as his body reached its own peak, releasing seed to glisten between them in the afterglow.

He fell in slow motion, collapsing against Draco with an, "Oof," that made them both giggle faintly as they lay there. Draco gestured, and the blanket settled back over them as their sweat cooled; gestured again, and their harsh breathing echoed in the previously muffled silence. "I love you, Harry, but if we don't undo this spell, I'm going to die very young. Happy, but young."

Harry nodded, grinning, and tried to drag the release word out of a brain gone completely to mush. "The word you searching for is 'Salvus," said Draco, his voice weary but full of humour and love.

"Right," said Harry. "On three?" Draco nodded. "One. Two. Three. Salvus!"

Harry thought he might cry as the amber faded from his sight, the strange underwater glow of it dimming until the room was dark and silent. He felt cold, bereft, and alone for all of a millisecond. Then his heart beat, in perfect time with Draco's, with the pulse of Draco's cock in his ass and the soft sound of Draco's chest beneath his ear, and he remembered that they were, in fact, still very much joined. "I love you too," said Harry softly, feeling life slowly returning to his limbs.

"I know," Draco murmured, and Harry ached more for the core of grief he could still feel inside his lover's chest than he did for his own. "I think... we'd better shower. Dumbledore said something about a feast?"

Harry closed his eyes, wrapping himself in Draco one last time before they had to go face the mob and be Heroes once again. "Right. A feast."

Draco's arms tightened around him. "Don't worry, Harry. This time, I'll be right beside you."