Merry Smutmas, furiosity!

To: furiosity
From: lisaroquin

Title: Deadly Green, Come Back To Life
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Harry/Draco, passing mention of other couples.
Disclaimer: All copyrighted characters and their "universes" belong to their respective authors, writers, creators, production companies, producers and long lists of people that are so very much not me. Quite simply, if you recognize it, it isn't mine. No profit made, no harm intended, just having fun.
Summary: The war is finally over, and even the prophecy said the survivor could live. In the immediate aftermath of the final battle, Harry and Draco begin to do just that.
Warnings: Angst, hurt/comfort, character deaths (though primarily those on the DE side)
Author's note: merry_smutmas gift for Furiosity. My apologies, the boys didn't want to do light and fun for me at all. Thanks to my betas for the unbelievably fast and excellent beta.


Draco shivered. He could feel the magic still crackling around Harry as the battle around them began to wind down.

The cackle, horrible and familiar, was far too near. Before Draco could react Harry's wand was up. "For Sirius," he whispered, a bare thread of a sound before he softly breathed out the Killing Curse that sent the deadly green bolt of light at Bellatrix.

Draco swallowed, uncomfortably numb as he watched his Aunt fall to the ground, dead. Her expression twisted in death by shock and rage, as twisted as her mind and soul had been in life.

And suddenly, it was over. Just...stopped.

The snow was stained red, fallen were bodies everywhere. Some screaming, some twitching or moaning, and some, like his Aunt Bella, were deathly still. There, in the middle of the frozen road that led from Hogsmeade to Hogwarts, a charred blackened spot where He Who Must Not Be Named went up in flames.

Weeks later Harry said Muggles called it "autopilot," the mindless mechanical state they both fell into as they moved to help take their wounded to Hogwarts. The St. Mungo's staff called up especially for this "emergency" that was more an inevitability than anything else took the Aurors to the Wizarding Hospital. The Aurors still standing rounded up the injured Death Eaters, transporting them to Ministry holding cells where there were supposedly Ministry Healers waiting. Draco doubted they were given much more care than what was necessary to keep them alive until trial and execution.

Blood red and Weasley red covered the back of the head face down in the snow. The chest still rose and fell. Draco turned the man over, unsure which one it was. Charlie Weasley. Severus' Weasley. Alive, but barely. Severus was a few feet away, badly burned by a curse. A curse that Draco recognized by the damage left on Severus. The curse his father had taken as his "signature" these last few years.

Just a little further on, a body still as death. He was face down in the snow, long silver hair obscured the face. Draco studiously ignored that body and that hair. Stretchers were conjured. Draco carefully shifted first Weasley, then Severus, onto them.

His wand arm trembled, his chest burned and his whole body screamed with a burning pain only marginally less than the Cruciatus as he ran toward the Hogwarts gates, visible in the distance, stretchers levitated carefully in front of him.

McGonagall had only secured a few portkeys. Flitwick had been injured a month before and unable to make more. They'd all been warned not to risk the most critical with the portkeys they did have. While effective, they were too rough, made by witches and wizards too inexperienced to risk it.

Draco only had glimpses of Harry in the next hours as he made the trip back and forth from the battle field to Hogwarts.

"Wotcher, little cos."

"Shut up." Draco glared at the pink-haired Tonks and awkwardly cast a pressure spell to stem the bleeding from her leg.

She laughed.

Draco frowned. "You've lost so much blood you're dottier than usual."

"Remus?"

"Haven't seen your werewolf," Draco said a little less roughly. "Up. Can you hang on and not do anything stupid to splinch us? I'll Apparate us to the gates."

"Think so, yeah."

Draco didn't waste any more breath as he helped her to her feet. A glance around told him the final ones were being cleared off. Tonks was one of only five left and they were all being helped, a couple walking. One was a Patil twin he thought, though from the distance he was at in the quickly falling twilight he couldn't begin to guess which.

The explosion made him jump, wand drawn. Tonks tumbled to the ground, her own wand pulled as she rolled in the direction of Hogsmeade and the sound.

Fireworks.

Draco could only stare in horror. Bloody damned fireworks. The bangs and whistles, booms and crackles cut through the air as blues, yellows, reds, greens, purples, oranges, silvers, and golds lit up the darkening sky over the wizarding village. Faint strains of sound, possibly music, flittered past his ears.

Gray eyes went hard as steel. "Fools," he spat.

Tonks snarled something, low and vicious, which Draco didn't quite catch as another round of explosions lit up the just-dark sky.

"Let's go." Draco helped her to her feet again. "Get you fixed up and find your werewolf."

~*~*~

The Great Hall had been turned into a hospital by the handful of sixth years that remained at the school during the battle. The Hogwarts hospital wing simply wasn't large enough to handle all the casualties, though unfortunately it was in use - as a makeshift morgue. He'd seen Hagrid and Grawp loading the dead into a thestral-drawn cart. Draco wasn't sure he wanted to know just yet who they had lost, who had been lost on either side.

"M-Malfoy?" A hesitant voice came from somewhere around his knee.

"Longbottom." Draco didn't look at the Gryffindor on the pallet by him, his eyes combing the Great Hall, seeking and not finding messy black hair and scorched red and gold battle robes. Stupid robes, a glowing target twenty feet wide could not have been more noticeable, but that had been his idiot Gryffindor's idea.

"Pansy's dead."

Draco's breath caught. Despite how she'd hung on him all through their school days, despite public knowledge and their parents' wishes, there had been nothing between them but friendship. They'd played their parts, did their duty, upheld their expected public image. They were Slytherins, after all. He'd known Pansy since he was a baby. He'd thrown cake at her at his first birthday party. There was a picture of them standing together before they had left the Malfoy estate to go to Platform 9 3/4, both of them smirking and eyes dancing with excitement, just barely eleven in that picture with an innocence Draco could no longer comprehend. She'd been his friend and she had worn a mask during this battle and a brand on her arm.

"Crabbe?"

"Don't know. Didn't see him."

"Potter?"

"McGonagall's office. Scrimgeour and Skeeter and a few others."

"Longbottom?"

"Yeah, Malfoy?" The Gryffindor's voice getting threadier with exhaustion.

Draco spared Longbottom a glance. His injuries had been seen to, the monitoring spell above him was visible and seemed steady. The glassy look was pain and sleeping potion, Draco decided. "Was it quick?"

"Yes. Avada Kedavra, I-she had cast the Cruciatus on Millie."

"Pansy never did anything by halves." Draco nodded.

Longbottom blinked and went owl-eyed. "Suppose not," he managed.

"Millie?"

"Don't know. Hasn't woken up yet but don't think-it wasn't as long as..."

"She's strong," Draco offered. It sounded lame and worthless to his own ears, but it was the proper thing to say, and it was the truth. "Thank you, that it was quick. I'll come back and see Millie soon. Tomorrow..."

"Harry needs you," Longbottom slurred with a yawn, and was asleep. Lucky bastard, a drugged sleep sounded good just now.

~*~*~*~

Draco ignored Scrimgeour's glare as McGonagall welcomed him into her office.

"Where's your father?" the one Weasley who had not been present at the battle sneered.

"I believe you'll find him among the dead Death Eaters," Draco said haughtily. "You should go check, isn't that what vultures like you do?"

McGonagall raised an eyebrow at him in warning.

"We need to know how Voldemort was defeated."

"No, you don't. He's gone. You didn't manage it, now you want to vilify the one who saved all our arses."

"Headmistress McGonagall, your choice of assistants and confidants is a continuing worry. In the past four years since you've taken over as Headmistress--"

"You aren't threatening Headmistress McGonagall are you?" Harry asked, his voice flat and frozen.

"An illegal militia--"

"A group of concerned citizens willing to do whatever it took to protect their children and Hogwarts when the Ministry denied Aurors be placed on patrol about the school," McGonagall spoke up with an elegant calm.

"There was no reason to-"

"Weasley," Scrimgeour cut him off. "Harboring Death Eaters--"

"Albus Dumbledore's pensieve and his portrait, which was spelled only a day before his death, are both heavy evidence. Severus was cleared-twice. Draco was not only cleared, he was an underage child of sixteen, forced to take the Mark or both he and his mother would have been killed. Narcissa's will and the pensieve she sent to her sister Andromeda Tonks proved that. The Wizengamot has cleared both their names. Both men were out on that field defending this school. Severus sustained severe injuries; Draco was injured as well, as you can clearly see. He has spent the last seven hours since the battle's end transporting wounded to safety. What did you do today, Minister? Hide in a secured room?" McGonagall glared.

"You and Potter are both getting to be as bad as Dumbledore, Headmistress."

"I take that as a compliment," McGonagall said primly. "Now, if you are quite through I have students to see to. Perhaps you should interview your Aurors as well."

"And how they got here since they were expressly told not to--" Weasley bit out.

Skeeter pounced. "You were going to give Hogwarts to You Know Who?"

"Why do you think we had volunteers here, after the Ministry once again sought to abandon the children of this school?"

Scrimgeour suddenly had a meeting he needed to go to; Draco couldn't keep the sneer contained. Worthless, only marginally better than Fudge. Scrimgeour was inept and idiotic but he at least tried to do what he believed was the proper thing, unlike Fudge whom his father had played like a violin for years. That idiot had only cared about his image, and so easily controlled.

Scrimgeour left taking with him his group of toadies, including the true idiot of the Weasleys. Skeeter and her new photographer-the little rodent of a Gryffindor who loved setting flashbulbs off at everyone that had been in the Weasalette's year, or perhaps the year behind that-Creepy? Something like that.

Draco didn't listen to McGonagall's prattle as she wrung her hands. He was struck by how old she was. Her steel-gray hair had faded to bone white, thin and worn. Far more than she should be, far more than she had been that morning. The drain of holding the wards of Hogwarts no doubt.

"Professor, I'm taking Harry to bed," Draco said abruptly. Unable to bear the expressionless Harry any longer. The remnants of the magic still around him, but Harry seemed absent, his soul dead. His green eyes as bright as ever, the violent green of the Killing Curse, and as dead as any victim of the curse.

McGonagall nodded. "You've earned your rest, both of you."

"Will we get it?" Harry asked bitterly.

McGonagall smiled sadly. "I certainly hope so. And Draco, I am sorry about Lucius, whatever else I might have thought of the man..."

Draco nodded and gave Harry a shove toward the door.

~*~*~

"Who's dead?"

Draco was startled. The only sound through four hallways had been their own shoes; just a corridor from their rooms, Harry spoke. "I don't know. Lucius. Pansy. Longbottom killed her. He and Millie are both hurt, but alive. Severus or his Weasley killed Lucius. They were both in bad shape, but Weasalette's said they'd both live when I stumbled into her later. A Patil limped off the field. Don't know who was with her, though. The lisping idiot from Beauxbatons, maybe. Tonks is banged up. Lost some blood; other than making her loonier than usual, she'll be fine."

"Remus will live. Madam Pomfrey didn't save his leg, though."

Draco snorted. "Like that will bother my cousin. She'll stubborn your werewolf through." He didn't ask who Harry might have seen dead. He knew he didn't have to, Harry would tell him soon enough, whether he wanted to know or not.

"Lee Jordan and Marcus Flint didn't make it," Harry offered. "I saw Oliver Wood and Zabini both. Not sure what shape they were in, unconscious in the Great Hall."

"Weasley and Granger?"

"Alive. Twins and Bill too. Fleur's dead."

Draco wondered what the Curse Breaker's wife had been doing at the battle anyway. She might have broken a nail. That was a bit unfair, he supposed; despite her brainless prattle and vanity, she had been the Beauxbatons champion and was a formidable witch. She simply rarely chose to do much more than cosmetic charms. Had chosen.

Silence the rest of the short distance to their room. Draco didn't find anything the least bit odd about Harry suddenly throwing up locking spells, wards, and silencing spells around their quarters. Paranoia was a reflex. Voldemort might be cooling cinders now, but he was far from the only threat. The Aurors had been in no shape to go after any Death Eater that might have escaped. They'd barely had enough standing to contain the Death Eaters too injured to run and hadn't bothered with the majority of Death Eater bodies other than put up animal repelling spells so they could be left till morning.

"Hermione has Vince."

"What?"

"She and Ginny. He's in the dungeon, Snape's rooms I think. Bad shape. Hermione and Ron are with him."

Draco blinked. "And?"

"He lost his arm. He was hit by a Decimation Curse. Hermione amputated it to save him. Crude job of it, but he's alive. Left arm, all the better."

Draco nodded. "McGonagall, all of us..."

"Hermione had a plan."

Draco shrugged. He was glad Vince was safely alive, not in Ministry custody. Vince was a lug, good at rearranging facial features and intimidation from his sheer size, but he wasn't vicious. He'd had no more choice than so many others. No more than Draco had.

"You're rank, and I doubt I'm any better."

Harry nodded.

"MASTER HARRY!!!!" a wail sounded.

"You warded for House Elves as well?" Draco raised an eyebrow.

Harry waved his hand; not his wand, his hand. Draco shivered at the amount of Earth Energy his lover had taken in, blended with his own considerable natural magic to defeat Voldemort.

"Master Harry!"

"Sorry Dobby, can we have some food and would you start the bath while we shower?"

"Yes, Master Harry." Dobby bobbed, tennis-ball glowing green eyes impossibly huge. "Master Harry and Master Draco's clothes?"

"Burn them," Draco said harshly. The image of Harry's scorched and bloody robes on display in the hallways of the Ministry far too easily came to mind. Draco never wanted to see the battle robes again.

"Burn them," Harry agreed.

"But Winky is being able to--"

"Burn them," Draco ordered in a tone that could only be construed as a threat.

Draco was slightly surprised by Harry's orders to Dobby. A quick shower and bed would have been more expected from Harry, but Draco's attention was far more focused on the deadened look in his eyes to give that much thought. Showering was quick, cursory, no more than rinsing the worst off before a nice long soak in the tub.

"Did you have those looked at?" Harry asked, touching first the inch-wide burn across Draco's side, then the gash on his leg from a cutting curse that had been crudely sealed with a searing hex in the middle of the battle.

"No." Draco shrugged.

Harry pressed his hand against Draco's thigh. Draco couldn't stop the gasp of pain as something white hot, raw, and powerful rippled over and through the wound. Harry's hand moved and a second burst of frighteningly powerful magic healed the wound on Draco's side.

"Scars are there." Harry frowned.

"That's fine." Draco managed an even tone, terrified Harry would try that again to remove the scars. "Less questions asked over a scar."

"Are you scared of me?" Harry asked seriously.

"Not bloody likely, Potter," Draco shot back.

"Liar."

"I am not scared of you," Draco insisted fiercely. "I'm scared of what the world's done to you. Of what they'll do if they realize how powerful you are. Thank Merlin your idiotic Gryffindor arse isn't down there in the Great Hall healing them. The Ministry would have you in a Magic-Draining Cell for the rest of your life."

"It might be permanent," Harry said flatly.

Draco didn't misunderstand what Harry meant. The spells, rituals really, Granger had performed with McGonagall's reluctant and slightly tearful approval. Spells that tied Harry's magic to the system of naturally-occurring magical nodes in and around Hogwarts and the Forbidden Forest. Spells that had changed and dramatically increased Harry's magic.

"Granger wouldn't have, McGonagall wouldn't have...we knew this. It'll be okay, even if it doesn't completely fade," Draco offered hesitantly. They'd both known the risks. Draco had gone over Granger's research himself. Time had been against them and that had been the most viable option to defeat Voldemort. Granger and McGonagall would have kept looking if there was any other choice.

A small spark of skepticism in those dead eyes as they regarded Draco. "Since when are you the optimist here? I thought that was for fools and Gryffindors."

"There's a difference?" Draco responded automatically and managed not to flinch as the shower turned off, without so much as a word or wave of Harry's hand.

"Slytherin git," Harry said, his voice almost, almost, sounding normal, still dull and a bit hollow but not lifeless, as he stepped out of the shower stall and over to the tub.

Draco followed and settled next to Harry in the large tub, which was easily over half the size of the tub in the prefect's bath.

Dobby had overstepped his bounds. There was a touch of relaxing potion mixed in the spicy-scented bubbles. Dobby might be an obnoxious, annoying creature with no sense of his proper place, but his loyalty to Harry was unwavering, and, as much as Draco hated to admit it, the wretch had done a good thing in adding the potion.

"'And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives,'" Harry murmured to himself.

Before Draco could ask, Dobby was there with an endless stream of chatter. Winky was setting up Master Harry and Master Draco's meals and turning back their bed. Master Harry and Master Draco must wash their hair now. Master Harry and Master Draco must get out of the tub. Master Harry and Master Draco must eat. Yes, Dobby had burnt Master Harry and Master Draco's battle robes. And Master Harry's Weezy said to burn others-Missy Fleur's and Missy Tonks' and Missy Ginny's and Missy Hermione's and the other Weezys and Professor Snape and Professor Lupin's. And NevilleLongbottomSir's and Missy Millicent's. All the battle robes were hid away now. And when their owners woke up, they'd be asked if they wanted it burned. No Ministry vulture was getting robes.

They let themselves be pushed and prodded by the obnoxious elf. Soon they were at the small table set up in their bed chamber, clad in nightshirts and dressing gowns.

Harry finally convinced the hovering house elf to leave, that the dinner could be cleaned up in the morning, or he'd banish it to the kitchens for Dobby to take care of there, that they didn't need anything else and would be fine on their own. Not a moment too soon, either, for Draco was ready to banish the obnoxious little creature to the north pole.

The food on his plate was no doubt excellent, that little wretch Dobby never allowed anything less for Master Harry. Draco didn't notice what it was, let alone how it tasted. He only managed to swallow a few bites and drink down the hot chocolate that had a healthy dose of crème de menthe added to it.

"You're all but falling asleep in your plate," Draco said brusquely. Not exactly true, but Harry was looking dazed and shocky. Draco was feeling a bit that way himself as the last of the adrenaline drained away. "Bed."

"Mmm." Harry nodded absently.

Worriedly, Draco led his lover to bed, took off his glasses, and set them on the nightstand. His dressing gown was dropped to the floor and forgotten, the nightshirt followed suit, and he helped Harry into a pair of his ridiculous plaid flannel pajama bottoms. Harry might be fussy about leaving too much work for that bloody elf, but Draco had no such qualms. Draco went to his own side of the bed to get in, discarding both robe and the blasted night shirt, slipping on pajama bottoms as well. He didn't stay on his side of the bed but scooted clear to the middle and pulled the smaller wizard into his arms.

Harry twisted about until he was half draped over the blonde. "That was the prophecy...And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives. The heart of it."

Draco looked up at intense green eyes. "It's over."

"Is it?"

"Yes," Draco insisted.

"Is it too much of a bastard thing for me to say that I'm glad I didn't lose Ron and Hermione and Remus, or Tonks or any of the Weasleys or Neville?"

"No." Draco swallowed, the image of a tall silver-blonde haired form face down in the snow cut through his mind. "I've still got Severus, and Vince thanks to Granger and Weasalette's, it seems. Millie and Tonks since she won't leave me be with the cousins issue."

"Lucius--" Harry said in a worried tone.

"I lost my father when Wormtail brought Voldemort back," Draco said emotionlessly, a fact he hadn't quite reconciled completely in his heart, but a fact all the same; the corpse on the battlefield was an inevitable ending, not a surprise, and the pain was shoved away deep, buried, too much to cope with after the carnage of the day.

Harry opened his mouth, but whatever he was going to say was lost as Draco rolled them in a tangle of blankets. "You are NOT going to angst and drive yourself half-insane with the bloody Gryffindor Martyr Complex of yours over everyone who wasn't saved and wear sackcloth and ashes for the rest of your life because we got lucky and didn't lose that many close to us. Lupin's crippled, Merlin knows how well Severus and his Weasley will recover, but they'll all at least have their wits and their lives, which is more than some. You survived and you are not going to spend the rest of your life apologizing for it. Even the bloody prophecy says you get to live." Draco brought his mouth down hard on Harry's to silence any protest from the smaller man.

Harry's response was almost instantaneous, meeting Draco in a clash of bruising force, a hand snaked into Draco's hair clutching, pulling. The first punishing kiss melded into a second and a third, every physical and emotional nerve raw, exposed and needing something to soothe.

Hands moved over skin, more grasping in desperation than caressing. Grief, fear, relief, the need for reaffirmation that the other was truly there...that they both were alive. The mental wreckage left by the day, the toll of the last years and the realization that it was finally over exploded into a desire at once consuming and consoling despite its roughness.

A growl from Harry banished both the covers they were tangled in to the floor and got rid of the pajama bottoms as Draco tore his mouth from Harry's and moved to the spot where neck met shoulder that drove the Gryffindor mad.

Fingers dug into Draco's shoulder and back with bruising force, a leg wrapped around his own, toes dug into the blonde's calf with as much intensity as fingers.

"Oil," Harry gasped out, his hand abruptly leaving Draco's hair, taking a few strands with it.

The vial of oil rattled its way out of the nightstand and bulleted into Harry's hand. Draco took it from him and pulled back to settle on his knees. "Mine," was all he could manage as he looked down at his lover splayed out before him, flushed skin, reddened marks that would be bruises by morning, swollen lips and wild eyes.

"Hurry the hell up," Harry ordered, rough-voiced, green eyes no longer the cold and dead green of the Avada Kedavra, but darkened and burning with need. Finally Harry looked alive again.

A single oil slicked finger teased at Harry's entrance.

"Slytherin bastard," Harry snapped as he tried to impale himself on that finger. Draco let him a moment later, and the second thrust of his finger found the spot that had Harry shouting, "Merlin!"

A second finger soon joined the first, only careful enough not to hurt badly though a little less than gentle. Draco was too raw to manage gentle and Harry might shatter with gentle tonight.

"NOW!" Harry ordered, and Draco obliged. In the next moment, he entered his lover in one slow thrust. Neither was going to last long, and they both knew it. It didn't matter if tonight was over almost as quickly as it had begun. For the first time there was a future without death and war hanging over their heads. For the first time, another night, another week was all but guaranteed to be theirs. They'd lived too long in the shadow of the Dark Lord to take that as solid fact, not yet, perhaps not ever, but they couldn't deny the most immediate and dangerous threats were gone and they could learn how to live instead of survive together.

Draco came first, with a final rough thrust and Harry's name on his lips; Harry came only a heartbeat later.

Draco collapsed onto Harry for a moment before he reluctantly slid out of his lover, which brought a soft moan to Harry's lips. Draco rolled to his back, dragging Harry along with the movement and pulled the Gryffindor half on him.

Harry moved just enough to reach Draco's lips for a soft chaste kiss. "I love you."

Draco smirked.

Harry nipped the blonde's swollen bottom lip.

"Ow!"

"Git."

"You know I love you," Draco said with a disdain that was merely habit and did not reach his eyes which conveyed exactly how much his once greatest rival had come to mean to him.

Harry smirked. "Slytherin to the end."

"Someone has to keep their wits and watch over you, Gryffindor," Draco smiled. "Covers, it's cold."

Harry held his hand out wordlessly in the general direction the covers had landed.

Draco snorted when the tangled mess of blankets landed unceremoniously on their heads. "Brilliant, Harry."

"Shut it," Harry shot back with a smile in his voice.

The covers were straightened and they settled down, Harry once again half-sprawled across Draco's chest, arms wrapped around one another. "It's really over," Harry murmured against Draco's throat.

"Yes," Draco agreed with a bit of wonder in his own voice.

"We'll get used to normal, won't we?"

"We'll never be normal, but we'll get used to peace," Draco decided with a yawn a while later. "Now go to sleep," he mumbled.

"Git," Harry smiled against Draco's skin and did just that.