@drarrymicrofic Prompt: Tie. Wc: 1099

@drarrymicrofic prompt: tie. wc: 1099

"Harry, why is there a hair tie on your wrist?"

"Don't lose it," Draco says. "That one's my favourite." Harry slips the blue elastic onto his wrist, as the fall of soft, white-blond hair cascades over his hand, his forearm, the ends tickling Harry's face.

"I won't," Harry says, surrounded by the coconut scent of Draco's shampoo, by the curtain of sleek, lustrous hair, isolating them from the world.

"Er... found it," Harry said. Hermione raised an eyebrow.

"Really?"

"Yeah, they're good for..." Harry cast around for a less ridiculous lie, "wand grips."

Hermione frowned in disbelief, but looked down in thought at her own wand. "Huh."

Harry removed the elastic from his wrist and twisted it around the hilt of his wand, to demonstrate—it felt closer to his heart that way, anyway, mingling with his magic under his fingers.

"I want to tell them," Harry says, his head pillowed on Draco's chest. "I want to be yours." His face rises and falls with Draco's heavy sigh.

"No, you don't," Draco mumbles. "You don't."

"I do." Harry rolls on top of him—his hair isn't long enough to hide them. Draco's hair is splayed out on the pillow, tangled from sex and sleep, his pretty mouth pursed in a familiar, stubborn line. Morning light shines through the window, illuminating them with a reality they can't escape.

No one saw the ambush coming. Aurors lunged and dodged and threw protego after protego, but they were surrounded, they were sitting ducks, and something had to give. Harry ran out from behind the shipping container, reductos on his lips, red light and destruction bursting from his wand, his grip tight and unmovable around a thin blue elastic—

"Harry," Draco pleads. "Why would you want to be tied to someone like me?"

"Draco." Harry leans down and kisses him. "I've been tied to you, for so many years—" —Tangled and knotted and twisted in him, since the day Harry learned he was a wizard.

Draco doesn't let him speak for the rest of the morning.

Harry blinked himself awake, his mind heavy and hazy with anesthesia. The quiet, rhythmic beeping of monitoring charms interrupted the silence, and he took a deep breath of a familiar sterile scent—St. Mungo's—then coughed violently as his ribs throbbed, which only made the pain worse.

A slender hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him down, a wash of warm, soothing magic in his throat. As his coughing subsided, someone slid his glasses carefully onto his face, and he could finally see.

Draco stepped back, his handsome face exhausted and unreadable. His eyes were bloodshot, his lime green Healer's robes partially buttoned over his normal clothes, a shocking discomposure. His long hair fell loose and limp over his shoulder, frizzing where he'd run his hand through it too many times.

"Hi," Harry rasped. Draco didn't answer, his mouth set in that familiar, foreboding line. "Can I sit up?"

Draco frowned a little, but swished his wand, maneuvering Harry's bed until he was sitting upright. He then stood there, awkward and silent and sullen, apparently unwilling to take his eyes off Harry for even a second, and even more unwilling to admit it.

"Come sit," Harry said. Draco hesitated, but eventually made his way to Harry's bed, sitting gingerly on the edge. Harry tugged on his sleeve until he rolled his eyes and scooted closer.

"Mind if I sit?" Harry asks, his hand on the back of the empty barstool. Draco looks up, surprised, then schools his face quickly into a sneer.

"Far be it from me to turn away the Saviour," Draco says, but it sounds ingenuine, automatic. He tucks a stray lock of hair behind his ear. Harry smiles, excited and curious and something else, like he's found something he hadn't known he was looking for. He feels real, now.

"Good." Harry sits, feeling triumphant. He waves down the bartender. "Two of what he's having."

Harry reached up to Draco's neck, gathering his soft hair to one side, separating it into three sections. Draco's whole body was tense, holding himself still, his face strained. Harry began to weave his hair with practiced ease, over and under.

"You're reckless," Draco finally said, his voice cracking. "Utterly harebrained. You could have been killed, Potter. You nearly were. There was so much—you weren't breathing—" he cut off with a harsh breath, trying to compose himself. His eyes were wet, his cheeks flushed.

Harry finished the plait, smoothing it down and holding the end with his fingers.

"My wand," Harry said. Draco tensed further, but slowly pulled out the familiar length of wood from the pocket of his robes, holding it out hilt first. Harry slid off the blue elastic, returning it to its rightful place on the end of Draco's plait.

"I didn't lose it," Harry murmured. A tear escaped down Draco's cheek, and he sighed, his whole body sagging.

"I knew you wouldn't." He took Harry's hand in both of his, watching his own thumb move over the scars on Harry's skin. "That's not what I was afraid of."

"What are you afraid of, then?"

Draco looked up. He looked awful, agonized, wretched—and so, so beautiful.

"This, Harry." His hands started to shake, where they held Harry's. "I was sure that losing you couldn't hurt me, if I didn't let you have me to begin with... I was wrong. It hurts, no matter what."

"You haven't lost me," Harry said, uselessly. "You won't."

"Don't you dare, Harry."

"You won't," Harry insisted. "Draco, I'm yours. And I already—I put in my notice a week ago." Draco's jaw dropped. "I'm tired of the violence. I'm tired of not being around, for you. I don't know what I'll do, but I have time and money to figure it out, and I'm hoping—I'm hoping I'll have you, too—"

He was cut off by Draco's kiss, hard and fierce and relieved.

"You look like you're about to kiss me," Draco says. He looks equal parts hopeful and terrified.

"You look like you're going to let me," Harry replies. He's close enough to taste Draco's breath; gin and lime. He's right.

"It's about time," Ron declared from the doorway, startling them both. He had one arm around a smug, triumphant Pansy, the other around a shrewd, fond Hermione. For a second, Harry worried that Draco would bolt, but he only groaned in annoyance, hiding his embarrassment in Harry's shoulder.

"'Wand grips', indeed," Hermione muttered, and Harry tried not to laugh, for his ribs. When his joy spilled over, it was with a kiss in Draco’s coconut-scented hair.