Title: A Night Under the Stars
Author: Dancing Rain
Author Email: dancingrain7@yahoo.com
Rating:PG-13/R
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Harry rolled over in the sleeping bag, his leg brushing against Draco's until he pulled it back to himself with a whimper. It was much too hot for snuggling. Much too hot. In fact, Harry mused, it was odd that they were using the sleeping bag at all. He shifted against the oppressively soft down and listened to the wind run through the leaves of the trees surrounding their campsite. What he wouldn't give to be out there, under the bare sky, instead of stuck in a stifling tent because someone was afraid of sleeping out in the open. He'd patiently explained to Draco that the wards he'd set up around the campsite would have been strong enough to keep out Voldemort himself, nevermind the average stray bear or coyote. For someone who'd grown up in a mansion, Draco was unusually fond of small spaces.

Sighing, Harry disentangled himself from the double-wide sleeping bag and crawled to the front of the tent. He unzipped the flap and closed his eyes at the rush of chill air that met his sweat-damped hair. Behind him, Draco groaned in his sleep and flung an arm across the space where Harry had been. His fist curling against the bedding, he mumbled something unintelligible before sighing and slipping back into deeper sleep. Satisfied that his lover would sleep through his absence, Harry lowered the front flap just far enough to slip out, biting his lip at the soft rustle of fabric against his bare legs.

The moon was at the pregnant phase of waxing nearly full, giving it an eerie, debauched look when viewed through the spiky tips of the tall, stark pines surrounding the small clearing. Harry gazed past the glow surrounding the moon to the stars, absently noting constellations that seemed familiar friends after years of summer nights spent in the Astronomy Tower. Sometimes he'd been staring at the sky; sometimes it was the face of a lover or friend that had stolen his eyes from the stars. Just briefly, finally, at the end of his final year, it had become Draco who'd shared his midnight expeditions, Draco whose face he'd memorized against the moonlight.

Harry smiled and hugged his arms to his chest at the thought of his blond lover lying tangled in the heat of the tent behind him. Closing his eyes, he pictured Draco's slim lines, ran the tendril of his thought against the softness of Draco's chest, the dip and circle of his collarbone, the slender definition of pale arms that felt so good wrapped around him. His skin so pale, the color of fine cream, so easily diffused with blush as he would crawl into desire, lips murmuring as his body pressed back against Harry's caress. The way his hair would fall back against the pillow as his eyes opened wide with such heat it always left Harry breathless, in awe that he could be wanted by anyone so completely. Being locked in Draco's gaze was like being bathed with light, and Harry felt his skin warm at the memory, despite the chill breeze.

"You left."

The voice came from halfway across the clearing, and Harry turned to see his lover making his way towards him, holding the sleeping bag around his body like a shield against the night. Draco's expression was petulant, a look he had long ago perfected, but Harry could see the smile in his eyes that forgave the admonition in his voice.

"I was hot in the tent." His eyes locked with Draco's as the blond man came closer, his sleep-rumpled hair silver-white as it always was in the moonlight, the pale skin of his arms and shoulders nearly glowing against the darkness around them.

"And I was lonely without you."

They stood that way for a moment, neither willing to shift the tableau by motion, two figures softly breathing into the mountain air, skin shivering into gooseflesh at the rising wind as they rested in the comfort of each others' gaze.

"I'm sorry." Harry spoke first, raising his hands to clasp Draco's against the bedding wrapped round his chest. "I hadn't meant to wake you."

"It's okay." Draco smiled and pulled himself closer into Harry, their arms tangling between their bodies, their eyes becoming so close that Harry could see the green beneath the gray of Draco's irises, soft rings of light around pupils dilated for night vision. "It's just that sometimes..."

A soft kiss before Harry spoke again. "You know there's nothing that can hurt us here." Here, a continent and a world away from all that they were fleeing. Where not even those who loved them best could disturb this time of peace.

Curling into Harry's body, Draco nodded, the light tremble running through his body calming as warmth spread from the press of their chests and one of Harry's hands came up to hover against his neck, curving to hold Draco's chin.

"It's not... it's not Voldemort. Out here, where it's so open..." Draco paused, looked down, a flush creeping up his cheeks as he leaned closer to whisper, hot breath ghosting against Harry's now cool skin. "Sometimes, I'm afraid of the dark."

And suddenly the most urgent thing in Harry's mind was finding those lips and taking that heat into himself, eating the words and the aftertaste of fear from his lover's mouth. His hand had slipped from Draco's face to crush the other body against his own, his other arm sliding to circle slim hips as Draco's own hands rose to cup Harry's face. The sleeping bag fell to the ground and Draco shivered, suddenly naked in Harry's arms.

Neither of them was aware who tumbled first to that ground, still hard with cold and craving the warmth of day. One of them had the presence of mind to remember the sleeping bag, and they crawled without words into its cavernous warmth, mouths busy seeking tongue and teeth and flesh. It was easy in these tumbled masses of bedding to forget, as they sometimes did, which body held claim over which fevered parts, whose breath, whose hand, whose thigh. Whose voice it was that arched into the night like an arrow.

There was a time, once, when rhythms between these two had not been so easy to find as now, when neither boy had yet thought to try balancing himself against the other. When the looks exchanged by these pairs of eyes had not glowed with lust as coals beneath these twin blankets, the soft down underneath stars. Harry's body draped across his lover's, echoing his slenderness if not his otherworldly pale. Draco's skin glowed as if lit from within, one light arm embodying grace as it lifted to bring Harry's face back to his own.

They moved. The wind lifted branches against the trees, soft whistles penetrating the night air, smoothing the gasps that rose from the tangles below into patterns of lift and leaf and motion that no lover's hands are small enough to make. Arms rose, chests fell, heels drew grooves in the dirt.

As the morning broke, two soft cries joined the joyous shouts from each treetop welcoming the dawn. And there was one patch of ground that no longer awaited warming.

Story is © 2002 by Dancing Rain and may NOT be archived without prior permission of author.