=======
Beautiful Nightmare
=======

"What do you want from me?" Harry asked quietly, tracing random lines over Draco's smooth back.

"What do you mean?" Draco glanced up with a neutral expression. He lowered his eyelashes to hide the surprise that had flashed in his gray eyes.

"C'mon, you're the cunning Malfoy. Don't tell me you can't figure it out." Harry smirked when he felt Draco's body tense. "What do you want from me?" He slowly repeated the question, enjoying the feel of Draco's muscles going rigid underneath his idle fingers.

"I want..." He was cut off by Harry's sudden chuckle.

"Please don't tell me you want my heart, my love and my undying affection." Harry emphasized how ridiculous the idea sounded with a shake of his head.

"Of course not," Draco answered, not missing a beat. He burrowed his face into Harry's shoulder and fought to keep the tears at bay, but he knew it was a losing battle. A single tear escaped and Draco blinked furiously to erase its existence before it made contact with Harry's skin.

"Well?"

"Well what?" Draco was glad that his voice was still calm as he rolled over to the other side of the bed and pushed himself up, supporting his head on his hand with his elbow on the pillow.

"What do you want?"

"I want you to tell me if you get bored with me one day." The last part was a whisper as Draco smoothed his palm over the wrinkled sheets, the silk felt cool against his heated skin.

"Then what?"

"Then I'll leave. Don't try to stop me."

"What makes you think I'll try to stop you?" Harry asked offhandedly as he turned on his side, with his back against Draco. "Night."

Draco mumbled the same word, but stayed in the same position. He continued to stare at the stilled figure next to him as he felt a mocking smile tug at the corner of his lips. "Of course, why would you stop me?" His voice was dripping with sarcasm, directed toward himself.

"What am I to you, Harry? A lover? A toy? Nothing?" He asked in a barely audible voice as his thoughts wandered back to the past.

=======

Draco couldn't really remember when it had all started. Just one day, he and Potter started to look at each other in a different way. Eventually, the lust and fight for power transformed to foreplay, and the lust became love. Well, at least on Draco's part.

One moonless night, Harry had dragged Draco into an empty classroom and they'd shagged like the world was ending. Rough, bloody and animalistic sex had ended with Draco feeling numb in the lower parts of his body. The only sound in the room had been the sound of his blood mixed with Potter's seed hitting the floor. Potter left Draco to recover alone. Until the next time Harry felt the need to lay his claim on the blonde.

It hadn't stopped after they graduated. Once or twice a month, Draco would get an owl from Harry and the two of them would meet at Harry's flat to shag. Afterwards, Draco would pull his bloody, abused body out of Harry's place before the sun rose.

He knew Harry saw all this was as a game of dominance. To conquer the evil Slytherin, to demolish the archenemy and to make the son of a Death Eater submit to him. Draco didn't know why he kept on going back to Harry's flat. He didn't know why his body seemed to disagree with his mind when his mind was screaming for his legs to stop walking or his hands to stop using the Floo Powder. He did know that he wanted, needed, to see Harry. Even if satisfying that need came at a high price.

Harry Potter was like a bright flame, a symbol of light and goodness, and he naturally attracted many admirers. Draco knew about Harry's other bedmates, but even that knowledge couldn't tear him away from Harry. It didn't matter that he was destroying himself in the process, both physically and emotionally.

There was absolutely no way around it. Draco loved him.

He loved Harry so much that he could never accept the idea of Harry being with someone else and his heart wailed bloody tears whenever he caught a foreign scent clinging to Harry's skin.

Draco knew that, ultimately, he would never be able to show any sort of true affection for Harry, for fear that he would leave him.

He also knew that all this knowledge was slowly driving him crazy. He knew that he would go insane if Harry left, and that would be pure torture to see Harry with someone else. Knowing about Harry's other lovers was one thing, and seeing it happening was another issue all together.

Which was why he asked Harry to let him know when he grew bored. Draco didn't need to see hard evidence of Harry with another. It was easier to credit the breakup as lost of interest, rather than as a change of heart.

Harry's interest in him was based simply on the concept of revenge. A way to torture him, make him pay for all that Draco had put him through, as well as the sufferings caused by Voldemort and the Death Eaters. His parents' deaths, the death of Dumbledore, Ron, and Hermione at Lucius's hands at the beginning of the War, and for the side Draco had chosen - Voldemort's side - the one that had lost in the end.

It was easier for Harry to direct his anger at Draco than to those responsible, since neither Voldemort nor the Death Eaters were alive.

Despite the fact that Draco knew all of those things, he still couldn't stop himself from showing up at Harry's place as soon as he received an owl. If Harry was a flame, Draco was a willing moth.

=======

In the early hours of the morning, after a rather painful bout of what Draco had long-since stopped calling "lovemaking", Draco left a short note on Harry's dresser, telling the other man to meet him at Malfoy Manor at six tonight, for he had something important to tell him.

After the war ended, Draco was fined five thousand Galleons since no death was on the junior Malfoy's hands. He hadn't actually been deeply involved in the plans of the Dark Lord because Voldemort had been killed only four days after Draco had joined his circle. The reputation of being a Death Eater prevented him from getting any jobs; therefore, Draco had been living off his family fortune. Luckily for him, it was more than enough.

Draco smiled weakly as he entered the Manor, knowing that Harry would show up just to satisfy his curiosity. He knew Harry so well, down to every vital detail. True, Draco didn't know how Harry took his coffee or how he liked his steak done, but Draco did know other things, things he considered important.

He could tell the difference between Harry's fake yawn - the one he used when he wanted to avoid a subject - and the real one. He could draw a picture of Harry's back with his eyes closed, for he had memorized every muscle. He knew that Harry had the habit of kicking his blanket off during the night, because Draco would pick it up and drape it over Harry before he left.

Draco barked out a bitter laugh when he realized how pathetic his knowledge of Harry truly was. Everything he knew came from countless incidences where Harry had turned away. His elegant eyebrows furrowed as his thoughts strayed back to what he wanted to tell Harry. 'Can I do it?' he asked himself. 'Can I really go through with it?'

The question was really quite irrelevant. Draco knew that, regardless, he would tell Harry how he truly felt. Enough of the submissive Draco that he had been transformed into over the past years, it was time for the old Draco to resurface and take charge. His mouth set into a hard line and a steely-glint returned to his silver eyes, determination radiating off his skin.

'Now or never.'

=======

Harry Potter arrived at the Malfoy Manor at exactly six at night. He was led into the hall by a house elf, who informed him that Master Malfoy was waiting for him on the top floor balcony.

Nodding his thanks, Harry walked up the stairs.

On his way up, Harry wondered what Draco needed to tell him. Numerous possibilities ran through his head, and nothing seemed to match. The note was too calmly written for it to be an emergency but it could not be easily disregarded.

'Oh well,' Harry shrugged his shoulders as he reached the top floor. 'Time to find out.'

=======

Nothing could have prepared Harry for what he was hearing.

"I think we should stop doing this, Potter." Draco was perched on the balcony railing, facing Harry. He watched Harry coolly with his silvery eyes.

"Why?" Harry croaked out, his throat suddenly tight and dry.

Draco's eyes hardened. "You know why, you must have noticed it by now." At Harry's blank look, Draco rolled his eyes. "I love you."

Harry couldn't believe what he was hearing, and he was unable to stop the huge grin that lit up his face. He had been waiting since seventh year to hear those three little words, and had yet to say them himself for fear that he would be left flat on his arse in the rain, or some other rather painful scene involving Draco leaving him.

He could finally stop hurting Draco during their lovemaking. He had never enjoyed injuring Draco, but it seemed like the only thing that would wrench a response from him.

Draco always appeared to be so collected; Harry needed to shatter that icy mask, even if it had to be done in the form of violence. Any response was better than no response.

Harry loathed how Draco would stare with his eyes, as it was like looking into two ponds of dark, murky water. No emotions whatsoever were in those eyes. He would rather have Draco's howl of pain streaming out of his delectable mouth like a waterfall than having to gaze into his motionless eyes.

He had almost given up when Draco seemed unaffected by the different brands of perfume he had sprayed on himself, in an attempt to make him jealous; to get some sign that Draco did care for him.

Sure, he knew that Draco covers him when he kicked of