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Draco curled up in his favourite spot, nibbling on a piece of cheese discontentedly. He should probably go back to Pansy’s. But he didn’t know if he could stand it—now that she had started dating the most annoying ginger Draco had ever met, the flat didn’t seem very comfortable anymore.
Draco sputtered a bit as he realised there was a bloody hair on his cheese. For Salazar’s sake, he was better than this. He hissed in annoyance as he abandoned the cheese and stretched languidly.
It wasn’t Pansy’s fault. Granted, she would tell him to fuck off and get over himself if she knew what he was putting himself through just to avoid seeing Weasley in his pants again. It was even possible that she would be right. But if Draco had one thing, it was his bloody pride.
And oh, how the mighty had fallen.
Refusing to move back into the Manor had been a calculated decision, but a worthy risk—it was one thing when he had had no choice, but he refused to be traumatised any more than necessary. His father had thrown a fit about it, of course, and his mother had dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief (she didn’t cry; that would be terribly unseemly, after all), but Draco had stood firm.
And then, after three years of wheedling, bribing, and threatening, Lucius had invoked the clause of Draco’s trust that deemed that until the Malfoy heir had produced a new heir of his own, he was required to live in the Manor or give up all access to any Malfoy funds.
Fine, Draco had snapped. No problem. I’ll be just fine on my own.
Draco had his pride … and also his stubbornness.
So he had stomped out of Claridge’s (a calculated venue for tea; one which had had his father on edge from the start) and hadn’t been home since. He had corresponded with his father by owl; his mother, it happened, quite liked Claridge’s, which ensured that he at least got a proper tea once a week.
It was fine though. In another year, he’d be finished with his Mastery, and he’d be able to get a proper job. In any case, surely Pansy’s little fling with the Weasel would be over soon enough, and Draco could move back in. And if not, Blaise would be off to the continent in two months, and he’d already told Draco he was welcome to the flat after he was gone, but “your stubbornness might have gotten in the way of your own ability to get laid, but it’s not going to ruin mine, old boy.”
It was fine. Draco was fine. If nothing else, Draco had always been capable of taking care of himself.
Or, well, keeping himself alive, anyway.
Stretching again, he decided to go poke around next to Fortescue’s. He wasn’t going to satisfy himself with hairy cheese, but maybe he could manage a decent ice cream.
* * *
Harry was sulking into his ice cream and doing his best to ignore the gawkers who slowed as they passed. For Merlin’s sake, it had been over three years. You’d think people would get the fuck over it.
It would have been easier, he thought, with someone around to distract him from the peering eyes. Sitting on the patio of Fortescue’s alone had seemed nice when he was looking up at the clear, sunny sky, but less so now.
The problem was, Harry was lonely. He hated it—he felt so codependent, being at his wit’s end without Hermione and Ron attached to him at the hip—but, well. Maybe he was codependent.
The problem, he thought, with getting amicably dumped by your turns-out-she’s-gay-actually girlfriend whom everyone thought you would end up with forever, but not really minding because turns-out-you’re-gay-too-actually, was that now Harry was trying to be, well, gay, and single, and bloody famous, and he’d actually rather like to do all that without everybody looking at him all the time. He could pull at a Muggle club easily enough, and had done, but he couldn’t bring them home, not unless he officially gave up on Grimmauld Place right after he’d learnt to talk to the damned house. He couldn’t take them to his favourite ice cream shop, or explain how he got his scars (“I got it in the car crash that killed my parents when I was a baby,” it turned out, not only made him feel like he was going to throw up, it was a good way to send a potential boyfriend running away from all that baggage).
So, while Harry had no shortage of shags when he wanted them, he wouldn’t have minded an actual boyfriend. And for a while, it had been fine, being single, because he had his friends, and who needs a bloody boyfriend anyway. Boyfriends were overrated (though, it was Ginny who said that, so).
But then Hermione had decided that healer training wasn’t enough, and she wanted to go to medical school while she was in healer training (because she was the smartest person he’d ever known and also had zero sense of self-preservation—hadn’t she learnt anything after third year?), and Harry hadn’t seen her for weeks save one harried cup of coffee in the Pret next to St Mungo’s.
And then Ron. Well. Ron started dating Pansy fucking Parkinson.
Harry thought the worst part might be that he didn’t hate Pansy. Not at all, actually. Pansy was funny, in a sharp, I’m-laughing-at-that-joke-now-but-this-just-created-a-new-insecurity-about-how-I-eat-peas-that-will-keep-my-therapist-going-for-month-so-thanks-for-that sort of way. She had apologised, sort of, for the whole “trying to give Harry to Voldemort” thing, and Harry honestly didn’t mind—she was right; Harry was going to do it anyway, so who fucking cared.
No, the problem with Pansy was that Harry couldn’t look at her without thinking about Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy, who had gone on a bona fide redemption tour, and still got spat on in Diagon Alley (Pansy threatened to disembowel Harry if he ever mentioned it) but held his head high as he volunteered for the new Anti-Radicalisation: Reverse Our Wrongs League that Hermione had founded (in her “spare time”). Draco Malfoy, who had looked intently at Harry when he returned his wand, biting that plump lower lip, and said, “Thank you, Harry,” before turning away and disappearing into the crowd as Harry stared after him. Draco Malfoy, who had taken to wearing Muggle clothing, and Merlin alive could that man wear a waistcoat.
Draco Malfoy, who had had an argument with his father (if that wasn’t a sign of him having changed, Harry didn’t know what was) and had given up his inheritance, despite not being allowed to earn money brewing potions until he finished his mastery.
Draco Malfoy, who had been living with Pansy, but had disappeared a few weeks after Ron had started showing up, and Pansy wouldn’t tell Ron or Harry another word about it.
“Draco Malfoy doesn’t need to be fucking saved,” Pansy had snapped at the pub just the previous week, when Harry tried to make a casual enquiry that wasn’t laced with desperation to see that pretty hair again. “Not by you, not by me. Draco can take care of himself. And I promise you, if he needs help, he will ask me. He might be too stubborn to ask literally anyone else in the world. But he’ll ask me.”
Harry shook himself and took another bite of ice cream, ignoring the small child pointing at him. He looked down when he saw movement by his foot.
“Well hello,” he said. “Do you want some ice cream? Not sure it’s good for you.”
“Oh bloody hell, it’s you,” the snake said.
* * *
Draco reared back a bit in … well, he’d call it disgust. Annoyance, at being caught out by the one person he’d least like to see Draco fallen on hard times. Consternation, at running across his childhood nemesis who had the gall to not only be the most obnoxious person on the planet, but who’d grown up to be scorchingly hot. He might be feeling … a little bit of something else related to that scorching hotness, though everything felt a little different in this form.
“You know who I am?” Harry said, and—
“Oh, shit,” Draco said, staring up into Harry’s eyes. Harry fucking Potter spoke fucking Parseltongue, of course he did. And Draco, evidently, spoke it too, in this form. And understood it.
And found Harry’s hissing just as fucking sexy as any other time, only minimally reduced by being able to understand the drivel that he said.
“Are you okay?” Harry asked, and Draco wanted to shriek hysterically at the irony, of Harry looking at him with such care and attention.
“I am not even a little bit okay,” Draco said, which was true.
“I … can I help?”
“You’ve really never met a single creature you didn’t want to save, have you? Pathetic. Grow a fucking spine. Be selfish for once.”
Harry snorted. “So you do know who I am. Do all snakes know?”
Draco scoffed. “You’re Harry fucking Potter. Every cockroach in the city has probably heard stories of your derring-do.”
Harry was smirking. Smirking! At something Draco said.
“So … you don’t want my help?”
Draco curled his tail. “Well … I’ll take some ice cream.”
Harry grinned. “Do you want it down there? You seem rather … civilised for eating on the ground.”
“Of course I’m civilised. More than you. Look at your shoes!”
Harry looked down at his battered trainers and laughed. Draco felt a rush of exhilaration from having achieved a boyhood dream, created and dashed in fifteen short minutes on the Hogwarts Express over ten years earlier. It felt as good as he imagined it would.
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t dressing to impress, you know,” Harry said. “I didn’t know I’d be meeting a posh snake today. May I?”
“What a fucking gentleman,” Draco groused, but he slithered into Harry’s hand and let himself be lifted onto the table.
“Caramel-Fudge-Brownie? Are you trying to put yourself in a sugar coma?” Draco asked, nosing at the ice cream.
“Yes, because most ice cream is so low in sugar. Are all snakes so fussy?”
“… Yes,” Draco said after a pause, realising that he didn’t have a single clue what all snakes were like, and if Harry had talked to even one other snake, he might realise that Draco was not, in fact, like other snakes. “We are refined and discerning creatures. Smart, as well. Articulate. That means well-spoken.”
Harry grinned. “I know what articulate means, you tosser.”
“We are also far more polite to strangers than you are. In fact,” he added, wondering if he was pressing his luck. “It’s generally quite rude to talk to a snake you don’t know, so you’d best watch yourself.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. So, will the Caramel-Fudge-Brownie suffice, or do I need to get you your own ice cream?”
“This will be fine,” Draco said, letting his tongue flick out, then biting at a piece of brownie. “Next time, get raspberry ripple.”
“Next time?”
Draco ignored him.
* * *
Harry watched the snake, bemused, as it struggled with a bite of brownie. The snake was pretty—pink, with bands of paler pink, about two feet long. He wondered why he’d never considered a pet snake. He’d never been able to bring himself to get another owl, and he wasn’t sure he ever would, but a snake was different. And this snake was … well, Harry didn’t know enough about snakes to say why, but he was different, too. She?
“Er, Snake—do you have a name?”
“Obviously I have a name.”
Harry laughed again. He tried not to think about how long it had been since he had laughed. “Er. Might you be so kind as to inform me of your name?”
The snake turned and raised its head, tilting it to the side as if it were contemplating Harry. “So you do have manners, when it suits you.”
“Occasionally.”
The snake paused, before turning back to its ice cream. “Names are very private, for snakes. Call me what you like.”
“Okay. Are you … a boy snake? Or a girl snake. Snakette?” Harry grimaced.
“Are you serious? Snakette? Anyway, why on earth would that matter? You’re not planning to date me, I presume.”
Harry laughed again. “No, I suppose not. All right, well, I’ll have a think, provided that you want to come home with me.”
The snake was silent for a long moment. “That would be suitable,” it said slowly. “In that case, take this piece of brownie. It’s highly undignified for me to eat it in public, but I’ll want it later.”
Smiling a little at the creature’s caustic tone, Harry wrapped the chunk of brownie in a serviette. “Do you want to ride in my pocket?” Harry asked as he stood.
“What did I just say about preferring my dignity? Put me around your neck.”
“Promise you won’t choke me?”
“I shan’t … promise, that is.”
Harry laughed and wrapped the snake over his shoulders; it curled round his neck and draped its head over its tail next to Harry’s left ear, like a macabre necklace.
“Right then,” Harry said, “off we go.”
Harry tried to stop at the Magical Menagerie to get some supplies, but the snake got agitated.
“I don’t want to go in there. No, I don’t want to. Please, I don’t want to live in a cage—if that’s what you want for me I’ll just go back to my bloody alley.” It sounded distressed, and Harry found himself murmuring soothingly, despite his annoyance at its drama.
“All right, all right, fine, nothing but the finest human food and lodgings for you, my friend.”
The snake jumped a bit, then let out a quiet hiss—of approval, Harry thought?
“Shall we apparate?” Harry asked. “I think it’s like side-alonging a human, yeah?”
“Well, with that rousing statement of your expertise apparating with animals, I cannot wait to endure this,” the snake said in a caustic tone.
“I wish I could get away with having as much of an attitude as you have.”
“You couldn’t handle as much attitude as I have.”
* * *
Harry Potter had gone round the twist. That was the only explanation for any of this. Picking up a wayward snake and bringing it home was eccentric on the best of days, but what Draco saw when they arrived at the door of Twelve Grimmauld Place (which should have been his, but that was all right, Draco didn’t begrudge Harry the place) made him generally worry for Harry’s well being.
“You … live here?”
“No need to sound so judgy.”
“There is absolutely need to sound judgy. I am judging you. This place is a mess! You don’t need to adopt a snake, you need a pig to come join you in this sty.”
Harry frowned around the drawing room. “I guess … yeah. I guess it’s gotten a little messy, hasn’t it. Sorry, I just. It’s so overwhelming. And then after a while I just don’t see it.”
“Don’t you have friends to judge you?”
“Not sure about snakes, but that’s not really what human friends do. But my friends are … occupied.”
Draco curled round Harry’s neck and through the shaggy hair at the back of his neck. Harry shivered a bit as Draco’s tongue flicked in his hair. “What do you mean?”
Soon, Draco was listening to Harry spill everything, from his worries for Granger (as it happened, Draco shared those worries; the poor woman was going to have a nervous breakdown before the age of twenty-five) to his frustrations about Weasley spending all his time with Pansy (alarmed, Draco found himself in agreement with Harry again) to his reluctant liking of Pansy (Draco felt oddly smug) to, well, Draco (a mixture of complaints and reluctant admiration).
“I don’t know what your problem is with the man,” Draco said primly from where he had curled up on the back of the sofa, watching Harry and sipping tea from a saucer Harry had placed there. “He sounds lovely, if you ask me. Discerning. Elegant.”
“Caustic.” Harry said. “Snarky.”
“All very fine qualities indeed,” Draco said, preening a little bit. He slumped. “Is he really so terrible?”
Harry slumped too. “No, Draco's … Merlin, I just wish he weren’t so fucking pretty.”
Draco jerked so hard that the saucer slipped and crashed to the floor.
* * *
Harry felt better after venting to the snake—he really needed to come up with a name for it. It had become less talkative after a while, but it was a good listener, curled up next to Harry’s shoulder, tongue tickling his skin from time to time. He supposed it wasn’t altogether healthy, talking to a snake you barely met as if it were a human.
“Less weird than a dog, though,” Harry muttered to himself.
“What is?”
“You.”
“Fuck you, I’m far better than a dog,” it snapped. “How dare you! Really, I have half a mind to leave if you won’t just—”
“All right, all right, I’m sorry, Merlin’s sake,” Harry said with a laugh. “Come on, I need to shower. The humidity will probably be good for you; want to join?
“You want me … to take a shower with you?”
There was something strange in its voice.
“I meant you could sit in the bathroom and enjoy the steam. Unless that’s—I don’t know, is that a snake faux pas?”
“How do you know what the word faux pas means? Is it from committing so many of them?”
“You never stop, do you?” Harry said, shaking his head as he stood. “Do you always have to have the last word?”
“I suppose not, but I do prefer it, and you don’t seem to have the wit to leave me speechless.”
Harry snorted, scooped up the snake, and headed to his en suite.
“Well, this is a far sight better than I feared when I saw your drawing room,” the snake muttered, slithering across the commode and sniffing fastidiously at the copper taps.
“Glad it meets with your approval,” Harry muttered, turning on the shower. Steam began billowing around the room as Harry tugged off his shirt and tossed it at the hamper. He heard a muffled curse as he pulled down his jeans and his pants together and turned.
“What was that?”
“Nothing, I just stubbed my … tail.”
Harry rolled his eyes at the obvious lie as he stepped into the shower. Honestly, who knew that snakes could be so secretive? Harry sighed, feeling his shoulders relax as he stood under the shower spray. He thought about their conversation as he washed his hair. Everything he’d said about Draco Malfoy was true. He was obnoxious, and prissy, and dramatic … and pretty. Harry didn’t like to admit it, even to himself, but he had hoped, when Ron and Pansy had started dating, that Harry might have an excuse to be around Draco on occasion. They’d declared a truce, of sorts, but he would have liked … well, friendship wasn’t exactly what was on Harry’s mind, was it, he thought, looking down at his cock, which had thickened. He glanced in the direction of the commode where the snake sat, then back at his cock.
“I—do snakes…” Harry shook himself. No, he wasn’t wanking in front of his new snake. A snake might not be a person, as he was sure his mind healer would remind him in his next appointment, but if could have a full (and infuriating) conversation with the thing, surely he couldn’t wank with it around.
“Do snakes what,” came the crisp voice opposite the shower curtain.
“Er … nothing. I forgot.”
“You really could do with coming up with better lies, you know.”
Harry glared down at his cock. Later, he thought. Later.
* * *
Draco wasn’t upset that Harry set him up with a little nest in the drawing room that evening, but he was suspicious. Earlier, he had been talking about setting up a spot on his nightstand for Draco, and while Draco did think the velvet settee was far more dignified (and afforded him a chance to transform and stretch his legs without too much difficulty), Harry had been acting cagey ever since his shower. Shifty.
And the shower itself was … well. Draco should have looked away. A gentleman would have looked away, he supposed. But Draco had fallen on hard times, hadn’t he, and he was shaken, from having heard Harry call him “pretty” just minutes before, and, well, he wasn’t evil anymore, but that didn’t mean he was an entirely good person, did it? It took time, redemption. He was a work in progress.
And Merlin and Morgana both, did Potter have a cock. Draco was barely able to restrain himself from saying something, and even then, he only did so because he thought Harry might find it suspicious if his pet snake had a hard on for his … other pet snake. Also, Draco thought he might be more likely to see it again if he pretended there was nothing at all untoward about being carried around to various locations while Harry disrobed. Totally normal. Nothing inappropriate. No pervy thoughts.
When Harry brought him back to the drawing room after dinner and said, “I think I’m off to bed now, but you should be fine here, yeah?” Draco knew something was up. He waited fifteen minutes after Harry went upstairs before he transformed.
Draco stretched his arms and twisted his neck from side to side; his limbs always felt a little off after being without them for very long. First order of business: he’d really rather a proper shower of his own (he was not going to think about showering with Harry), but lacking that, he did a cleaning charm on his clothing and hair. Feeling fresher, he peered around the room, then cast a silencing spell on his shoes, and another on the stairs, and crept up towards Harry’s bedroom, brow furrowed in concentration. He froze outside the door, which was ajar, as he heard a sound. Was Harry having a nightmare? Should Draco do something? He bit his lip for a moment, then transformed again and slipped through the door.
Harry was sitting up in bed—maybe he had woken. Then he made that noise again. It was dark in the room, and while Draco’s vision wasn’t as poor as an actual snake’s, it wasn’t nearly as sharp as in his human form, especially in the dark. He moved closer. Harry moaned.
Draco froze for a moment. Then, as though his body were out of his control, he felt himself slithering around the bedpost and up to the foot of the bed.
Salazar sucking off Merlin in a rowboat. Harry was wanking. Magnificently. Salaciously. Draco spared a moment to wonder if a memory from when he was a snake could be put into a Pensieve. Then he spared one more moment to marvel at the fact that he was sitting on Harry’s bed whilst Harry wanked, which was highly inappropriate. Then he mentally shrugged (because becoming a good person took time, didn’t it, and Draco wasn’t an expert yet), and simply watched.
Harry was kneeling near the head of the bed, face buried in pillows, arse in the air. One hand was clenched around his cock; the other was guiding a dildo in and out of his arse at a slow speed that Draco found quite impressive. Draco could see every time Harry hit his prostate: his body jerked, and he let out a little cry, muffled by the pillows.
His other hand wasn’t wanking himself, Draco realised, watching in wonder. He was clamping down on his cock, preventing himself from coming. For fifteen minutes, Draco watched in rapt attention, both grateful and frustrated that his snake body didn’t react to arousal the same way his human body did (he figured wanking in the same room as Harry without his knowledge was probably even farther from being a good person than just watching Harry wank), until Harry finally sped up and began stroking his cock in time with the thrusts of the dildo. He also sat up straighter, his moans carrying further as he lifted his head from the pillows. Draco watched, aroused and in awe, as Harry came in streaks across his pillows and headboard, then continued to pound himself with the dildo, grabbing the headboard with a cum-smeared hand while he shouted and gasped his way through a second orgasm.
As Harry panted, forehead on his forearm, dildo still in his arse, Draco quietly slipped off the bed and slithered out the door and back downstairs.
* * *
The snake was in a weird mood.
Harry had woken feeling wonderful—he hadn’t had a wank like that in ages. He didn’t allow himself to wank like that often. Hermione had once told him that it was totally normal to fantasise about specific people you knew whilst masturbating, and that she had done it “loads of times—but only about you once; that was a bit weird” (bless her for her forthrightness, but Harry didn’t really want to talk specifics of sex with Hermione ever again). But Harry couldn’t help but feel like there was something wrong with edging himself with his favourite dildo whilst imagining that his childhood nemesis was railing him. For Merlin’s sake, Harry had hardly spent any time with Draco as adults, and what time he had spent, Draco had been cordial but certainly had shown no sign of having any interest in Harry.
He’d gone downstairs to find the snake had already departed its velvet settee.
“Er, Snake?”
He headed downstairs. “Snake?” he called again.
“Honestly, are you just going to call me ‘Snake’? That’s rather rude, don’t you think?”
“Good morning to you too,” Harry said, starting water for tea and noticing that the snake had helped itself to the packet of Hobnobs on the kitchen table. “Hey, maybe I’ll call you Hobnob. Because you like biscuits, and you like a little gab, don’t you?”
“I have never in my life wished to be venomous more than I do right now,” said Hobnob, glaring at him.
Harry grinned and started to make eggs.
A little later, Hobnob was giving him a weird look.
“What,” Harry said, and he was almost positive Hobnob rolled its eyes at him.
“You need to clean today.”
“Why don’t you do it?”
“With what hands? Honestly, this place is alarming. The kitchen’s not too bad, but it’s an embarrassment. If you don’t have anyone else around to tell you to do it, it’ll have to be me.”
“Yeah, having to boss me about is really putting you out, too, eh?”
“You could have adopted a kitten if you wanted to get off on saving a poor defenceless creature, and it would never have spoken a word to you about the squalor you’re living in.” Hobnob slithered up to Harry and raised its head close to his face. “You invited me into your home, knowing full well that I am a sentient creature who can and will tell you what I think of you.”
“Yeah, I did catch that part pretty early on, I guess.”
“So. Your house is filthy. You said you were overwhelmed. Do you need me to tell you what specifically to do?”
Harry ran a hand through his hair. “Actually? I mean … would you?”
Hobnob sighed. “Pick me up. And after you’ve cleaned, you should invite Hermione over for tea. From what you’ve told me, she could use a break, anyway, and you could use a human friend.”
So Harry spent the morning cleaning. It was oddly companionable, the little pink snake wrapped round his neck, peevishly snapping, “Obviously you should dust before you clean the floors, otherwise you’re just going to knock dirt all over again,” or “Good grief, Potter, is that a custard tart under the sofa? It should be sent to St Mungo’s for study.”
Eventually, the main floor was tidied and cleaned, and Harry had done the laundry, and then he’d texted Hermione—Hobnob professed to have never seen a mobile “up close” before, and Harry had to demonstrate how it worked—before taking a shower, Hobnob curled up in the sink under a trickle of warm water. Afterwards, Harry draped the snake round his shoulders again and headed downstairs in just his joggers, checking his phone as he went.
“Oh, perfect—Hermione says she can come over round four for tea. That gives me time to pop to the shop for some groceries beforehand.” He looked at the snake on his shoulder. “Do you want to come to Tescos? You might have to stay in my pocket; but I know it’s undignified, not sure they fancy snakes in the grocery store.”
The snake slithered down his arm and descended upon the biscuits that were his namesake in the middle of the table before turning to regard Harry. “I’ve never been to a grocery store. I think I might find that experience rather edifying, so I will endure the indignity of hiding in your pocket like some sort of vermin.”
“Whatever, Hobnob.”
“Are you really going to call me that?” Hobnob asked, its mouth full of … well, Hobnob.
Harry grinned. “Seems apt to me.”
“I am a highly dignified snake. I deserve a highly dignified name.”
“Yeah, okay. Roast beef okay for lunch?”
They managed at the grocery store well enough (though Hobnob kept asking questions, and Harry had to find a quiet aisle before whispering his responses), and soon enough, Harry had made some passable cucumber sandwiches and they were ready to greet Hermione for tea.
“Harry!” Hermione said, hugging him as she tumbled through the Floo, pulling her healer robes off as she went. “I’m sorry, it’s been ages—I promise things will be better after this rotation!”
“It’s fine, Hermione. It’s good to see you.”
“Oh!” she said, peering at the snake that had wrapped itself round Harry’s neck and was eyeing her with bright eyes. “You got a pet?”
The snake hissed, and Harry laughed. “It says ‘over my dead body.’ It’s got quite the attitude. It’s my … friend.” The snake reared back a bit at that. “This is—” Harry paused and gave the snake a long look, before turning to a curious-looking Hermione. “This is Hepzibah Winifred Hobnob III.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Hobnob said in an icy tone. Harry smirked.
“It’s a girl snake?”
“Oh, do tell her the correct term is ‘snakette’—I dare you.”
Harry grinned. “It won’t tell me its name or its sex. It told me to come up with a name.”
“And you chose Hepzibah?”
“I chose Hobnob, but it said that wasn’t dignified enough.”
“And you chose Hepzibah?” Hermione asked again. Harry snickered.
“Why not?”
“Hepzibah’s a girl’s name,” Hermione said. “Winifred too.”
“But not Hobnob, so there’s the gender neutral moniker I was dreaming of,” Hobnob muttered.
“I don’t know, Hermione, what do you want me to call it?”
“I don’t know, it’s awfully pretty, that lovely shade of pink. What about Rose?”
“Do you only socialise with me and people who are as banal as you?” Hobnob asked.
“Er … it says no to Rose.”
“Just fucking call me Hobnob,” Hobnob finally sighed. “At least you didn’t call me Custard Cream.”
* * *
Draco was seething from his spot on the settee.
Hermione fucking Granger might have been the first person who forgave him after the war. She might have accepted his apology without criticism or complaint. She might have given him advice, strangely, about how to talk to Harry (not that he had used that advice until he was a bloody snake, but still). But Hermione Granger had come to tea this afternoon to set Harry up on a blind date, and she was officially dead to Draco.
Harry hadn’t seemed entirely taken with the idea, but Hermione had talked up her coworker (Lucien, who was fucking French, and wanted to take Harry out to a Muggle restaurant, and who knew that Harry was famous but “that Boy Who Lived stuff never mattered so much in France, you know”).
Eventually, she said, “He’s blond, too,” with a little smirk that made Harry snap, “Sod off,” and left Draco wondering, with a little fluttering feeling, if Harry had a thing for blonds generally, before reminding himself that Harry would still find plenty of room in his heart to hate Draco specifically, even if he did think Draco was pretty.
But it was only after he learned about Lucien’s blondness that Harry had agreed to go to dinner with the prat, and he had said, “Sorry, Hobnob, but I think it might be a bad show to bring a snake on a date to a Muggle restaurant,” and swanned out the door not half an hour after Hermione left.
Draco had transformed immediately, eaten four cucumber sandwiches, and paced the room in fury. His primary comfort was that Harry made an absolutely terrible first impression. He’d gone on this date in ratty trainers and jeans, for Merlin’s sake. It would be fine. Nothing would come of it.
Draco barely had time to transform again when he heard the front door crash open. He sat curled on the sofa, waiting for Harry to come in and tell him how awful his date was, when he heard. Fuck.
Moments later, Harry was staggering backwards into the drawing room, a tall (though not as tall as Draco), blond (though not as blond as Draco), beautiful (certainly not as beautiful as Draco) man attached to his mouth.
“Fuck, yes,” Harry gasped, pulling both of them towards the armchair in the corner. It was an exceptional stroke of cruelty. If Draco left now, it was like he was personally offended by this little show. So he sat there and watched as Harry pulled another man onto his lap, as the other man ground his hips against Harry’s, as the other man murmured, “j’veux t’bouffer le cul, oh my God,” and Harry let out a garbled moan (Draco would have done too, if he were human, but in affront). He sat there as that fucking tosser pulled off his (silk, exquisite, from the same haberdasher Draco used to shop at, the bastard) shirt and tossed it to the floor, then dug his fingers into Harry’s exasperating, beautiful hair.
Draco sat there, realising that he was almost as turned on as he was furious, as Lucien the Horrible slid to his knees and scrabbled at Harry’s flies. He did his best to produce a wandless, wordless hex (any hex would do) as he watched Lucien the Terrible tug down Harry’s jeans and feast his eyes on that perfect fucking cock that Draco would never get to touch.
Draco watched and seethed and was gratified when Lucien the Mediocre couldn’t take Harry’s cock at all, satisfying himself with one hand to cover the real estate that his throat wouldn’t take. Draco could take that cock. Draco would swallow that cock down and make Harry ascend to another fucking plane of existence.
At some point, Draco realised he had been staring fixedly for some time. He didn’t know how long it had been that Harry was staring back at him.
He did know that he was making very uncomfortable eye contact with Harry when Harry dug his fingers into Lucien the Middling’s hair and came.
* * *
Harry reflected that he might have developed a bit of a weird relationship with Hobnob, as he came into the mouth of Lucien, whom he had thought of as an “off-the-rack Draco Malfoy” from the moment he had met him. He might have to revise that thought—even an off-the-rack Draco Malfoy would surely give better head than that.
No, it was the intense, perceptive, judgy gaze that Harry thought might have driven him over the edge, and the thought was a little disturbing. Like Hobnob was thinking, “Surely you can do better than this tosser,” and despite all its haranguing, the snake actually believed it. Like it was thinking, “You know what you want, and it’s someone snarky, and brilliant, and a little bit mean, but not evil, and it’s certainly not this bloke.”
Harry realised, as he continued to stare at Hobnob whilst having a little crisis, that he liked Hobnob so much because it was so much like Draco. He wanted Draco, dammit.
Harry turned back to Lucien, biting his lip. It didn’t seem very sporting to kick him out after he’d just sucked Harry off.
“Er, Lucien, I—”
“I want to eat your arse,” Lucien said, and Harry’s mouth fell open. Well. He was only a man.
“I—”
“Over my fucking dead body,” said Hobnob in acid tones. It slithered off the sofa as Harry choked back a laugh.
“No!” Harry said. “I—I mean, here, get back up, I’ll wank you, I—”
“You do not want—”
There was a strange, wet, hacking sound, and they both turned. Lucien screeched in horror as the little pink snake heaved and vomited a shocking amount of food onto the silk shirt he had been wearing.
“My shirt! That was custom made from Chemiserie Shalimar! Your snake just—”
“There’s a problem with my snake,” Harry said, then winced as he, Hobnob, and Lucien all looked down at his cock, soft now but still hanging out for all to see.
“Not that snake,” he added. “Hobnob. He’s … sick. I can reimburse you for the shirt, but I think it might be best if you—”
“Yes, I think I am no longer in the mood,” Lucien said, glaring down at the snake, which had approached the chair. He stood, vanished the shirt, and had Flooed away before Harry had even put his cock back in his pants.
“Well. That’s one way to get rid of a mediocre date,” Harry said. He turned to Hobnob. “Did you do that on purpose?”
“He made me sick.” Hobnob said, then turned and left the room.
Harry followed him. “Are you mad at me? For going on a date?”
Hobnob hissed over its shoulder. “I’m mad at you for parading your date in front of my face afterwards. I have feelings, you know!”
“You’re a snake!”
“What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”
“Are you—” Harry stopped and looked at Hobnob, who had stopped at the stairs to the kitchen—Harry knew it hated going up and down stairs. “Are you jealous?”
Hobnob huffed. “As you just pointed out, I am a snake. Snakes don’t get jealous.”
“You’re acting jealous. You sound jealous.”
“What are we, fucking married? Have as many mediocre blow jobs as you want, just don’t make me watch. Wanking is one thing, but—” Hobnob broke off.
“Wanking—” Harry went very still. “You watched me wank?”
A long pause. “Maybe.”
Harry stared. He thought about that wank. He thought about the way Hobnob had been watching him when Lucien was sucking him off. “Are you … attracted to me, Hobnob?”
“Oh my God, this is the most mortifying conversation I’ve had in my entire life,” Hobnob said.
Harry bit his lip, blushing a bit. “I mean, it’s okay. Well, actually, that’s pretty wrong all around, but the fact that you like me is okay. I don’t—I mean, I’d just want to be frien—”
“Potter, if you finish that sentence, I will strangle you in your sleep.”
Harry laughed. “Yeah, that’s fair. I just. It’s not personal. You’re just not—”
“Yes, I’m not human, and you draw the line at dating a snake—I’m well aware. That’s quite reasonable.”
“I was going to say: you’re not Draco Malfoy.”
Hobnob went very still. “What did you say?”
“I like Draco. I want … I know it’s stupid, and it took me having a date with an off-the-rack version of him—” Hobnob snickered at that “—which, by the way, was absolutely Hermione’s plan, because she’s been trying to convince me to ask Draco out for months. But then Draco fucking disappeared, and I haven’t seen him in weeks, and I miss him, and I just—”
Harry gaped as Draco Malfoy appeared in front of him, teetered, and nearly fell down the stairs.
* * *
The thing about being an animagus was, maintaining your form, with practise, became second nature. And once it became second nature, turning back to human was as simple as mentally expressing your desire to be human again.
But if you had a large enough shock—like, say, the man you’d been half in love with for years telling you to your face (which he didn’t know was your face) that he couldn’t date the snake version of you because he had a crush on the human version of you—and that shock was paired with a desire to be human (for example, because the man you were half in love with had just expressed his desire to date the human version of you, which you also very much desired), you could spontaneously return to your human form.
Draco’s snake form had kept him safe through many, many things, but accidentally confessing to having a crush on Harry, and having Harry accidentally confess to having a crush right back, was evidently too much for Hobnob to bear.
Harry recovered from his shock quickly—quickly enough to prevent Draco from falling to his death on the stairs to the kitchen, snatching Draco’s wrist and pulling him away from the edge. Draco stumbled. Harry steadied him, hands on his waist, then snatched them away.
“Draco?”
“Er. Hello.”
“You’re … Hobnob?”
“I … yes.”
Harry stood there for a moment, staring. Then, he said, “I’m going to need a cup of tea for this conversation, I think.” Draco raised an eyebrow—surely Harry being this calm was a bad sign—but followed him to the kitchen.
Draco seated himself and grabbed a Hobnob from the table whilst Harry bustled in silence. A few minutes later, they were seated with steaming cups.
“So,” Harry said. “You’re an animagus.”
“Illegal, by the way.” Draco’s voice was quiet. “Please don’t report me. It’s kept me … safe.”
“You were. You were scrounging, in Diagon Alley. Are you. You’re not … homeless?”
“Oh, sod off with the saving,” Draco snapped. “I was doing fine. I just didn’t fancy having to see Weasley starkers any more than I had to, so I fucked off for a bit from Pansy’s. And then you invited me home, and—”
“A snake. I invited a snake home and you—oh my God, I took a shower with you. You just watched Lucien—”
“Do a very poor job with a very nice cock, yes.”
Harry flushed a bit. “You said you had a crush on me, before. When you were Hobnob.”
Draco frowned. “I’m sure I used no such undignified term to describe my … affections.”
“How on earth didn’t I realise it was you sooner,” Harry muttered. “The way you fucking talk. It’s exactly the same.”
“Sue me for being eloquent in English, French, and Parseltongue.”
“Wait—” Harry was gaping now. “You said you watched me wank.”
Draco had the good grace to look guilty—he had the good grace to feel guilty, even. “I thought something was wrong, at first, and I—”
“And you stayed … the whole time?”
Draco felt his cheeks heating. “Well, it was hot.” Not the most rousing defence.
“You fucking pervert,” Harry breathed.
“Turns out, yeah,” Draco said, standing. “Sorry. I can go.”
Harry followed him. He grabbed a fistful of Draco’s shirt and pulled him close. “I was thinking about you, you know.”
Draco frowned. “When off-the-rack me was sucking you off?”
Harry laughed. “Well, yeah, if you mean I was thinking in that moment that there was no way you would ever be that bad at blowjobs.”
Draco smirked; his heartbeat quickened. “Accurate. I’m exceptional.”
“I meant … I was thinking about you. You know, in bed.”
Draco stepped closer still; he felt dizzy. “You mean when you edged yourself until you were almost crying and fucked yourself so hard you screamed when you came?”
Harry groaned and screwed his eyes shut; his face was pink. “You really did watch.”
“It was exquisite,” Draco said. Their faces were very close. “It would be even more exquisite if it were my cock fucking you instead of a dildo, don’t you think?”
“Oh my God, yes.”
“You’re not mad?” Draco asked.
Harry rolled his eyes. “About which fucking part, Draco? I’m sure once I’ve recovered from the shock I’ll be incandescent. Can’t you just let me be happy for a bit first?”
Draco bit his lip. He placed his hands on Harry’s face. “All I want is to make you happy. I’ve wanted that for a long time now. I think … I think I maybe could make you happy.”
Harry’s lips parted; his hands were on Draco’s waist. “Hobnob did make me happy, for what it’s worth.”
“So what you’re saying is … you like my snake.”
Harry snorted. “You are not going to say that and then try to kiss me for the first time.”
Draco smirked. “I’m caustic, snarky, discerning, and elegant. I’m going to say that, and then I’m going to ask you for permission to kiss you.”
“And the whole watching me wank thing?”
“A momentary lapse. May I kiss you?”
Harry leaned closer. “Yeah, Hobnob. You can kiss me.”