Title: History Lessons
Author:

ataniell93
Rating: NC-17 for some explicit content.
Canon: post-HBP. No spoilers.
Length: 2,500 words.
Scenario: I promise to cook you the dinner of your life and then make you (the) dessert.
Disclaimer: I do not own, nor pretend to own any characters or locations within the HP Universe, they remain the sole property of J. K. Rowling, Warner Bros., Christopher Little Agency and associates. No money is made from this work, it is purely a work of fanfiction.
Notes: I hope this doesn�t suck. As usual I got caught up in my own silly stuff and left it to the last minute, and it�s very hard to write foodsmut when your mind is full of images of starving people and ruined history, so I got to thinking about food as a vehicle of history and the ends of wars, and this fic did not come easily, but at long last it came.

biichan likes it. I should mention that while I don�t contradict canon in it anywhere, it�s got some AU-ish backstory from our little shared AU �Bad Company�, and I had to get the family history from somewhere. Also I owe

littlewings04 a shoutout because she and

biichan gave me many helpful menu suggestions.

History Lessons

Alastor�s recipe is my own invention, but the skewers were inspired by Becky.

Harry doesn�t know what to think when he steps over the threshold. He honestly hadn�t believed that Draco could do it; Draco grew up with servants, after all. Harry�s the one who usually cooks when they decide to stay in.

But the air is thick and fragrant with smells, some familiar, some not: all delicious. Harry doesn�t know what to think. When, and how, did Draco Alexander Horus Gamaliel Malfoy learn how to cook?

The parlour�s been completely rearranged, the carpet covered with pillows and sheets, and the table that was in front of the couch has been moved to one side and is laden with dishes. It takes Harry a moment to take it all in. The candles flicker in their wall sconces, and Draco is lying on the pillows in a short silken tunic that�s held together with pins at his shoulders, smiling as if he were the main course.

�You made all this yourself.� Harry knows his eyes are wide with shock.

Draco simply pats the floor, and when Harry stretches out across from him, kicking shoes off, he grins. �Of course I did,� he says. �From family recipes.�

Harry takes a deep breath of the rich air. �Where are our plates and forks?�

Draco laughs. �We won�t need them.� He hands Harry a cool goblet that looks like silver and feels like glass. �This is blue lotus wine. Well, actually honey mead.�

Sure enough, when Harry looks down into the glass, there are pale blue water lilies floating in the clear golden liquid. Dumbledore used to drink honey mead, but he won�t think about that, not tonight. He takes a sip of the mead with trepidation, but it�s not so different from the sweet flavour he�s used to. There�s a faint bitter aftertaste, but it isn�t unpleasant, just slightly astringent; he pauses just to look at the other young man. �Blue lotus mead,� he repeats, letting his eyes travel over the sharp lines of Draco�s thin, delicate face. �I�ve never heard of it before.�

Draco smiles, a thin and oddly feline expression. �My great-grandmother�s recipe, actually. The Egyptians used to drink the blue lotus steeped in wine.� The corner of his mouth quirks up. �Nonnie used to dress up as Cleopatra, you know.�

Harry laughs. �Why do I not find that difficult to imagine?� He hadn�t expected to like Draco�s family, at all�and he still can�t forgive Lucius�but he�s found the world to be a greyer and more confusing place in recent years. Nonnie is Lucius� mother, or maybe his grandmother�Harry has never been sure, Arthur Weasley said she used to be a man�and married now to Blaise Zabini�s wild Italian grandfather, who is over a hundred years old but acts like he�s still seventeen.

�Because it�s exactly the sort of thing she would do.� Draco grins, and when the light catches his eyes, they are the exact same colour as the blue flowers in their drinks, and the blue silk of his tunic. Blue as his pure, blue blood in the veins that show through the fragile skin in the crook of his elbow. �When I was little she used to call me Caesarion. I bet you don�t even know who that is.� He doesn�t add that it was a sort of reproach to his father.

�You�d win that bet,� says Harry ruefully.

Draco smiles a little. There are a lot of things that Harry doesn�t know. �It�s history,� he says.

Harry nods. History is important�it�s one of the few things Draco and Hermione agree upon, the first thing that stopped them bickering long enough for him to draw breath. History is important, and purebloods have a lot of it.

He leans over to kiss Draco, brushing his lips across his pale cheek. �I didn�t believe you could do this, you know.�

�You don�t actually like to cook,� says Draco. �It�s just something you�ve always done.�

�Somebody�s got to,� says Harry, though he tries not to think about his childhood when he does it, about Petunia, who was never satisfied with what he did, or Dudley, who was simply never satisfied.

Draco nods. �Well, yes, and that�s why we have elves,� he says with a quirk of his mouth, �but it can be fun. I thought about you all day while I made all this.� He flicks his wand at the table and summons one of the trays. �T�o Dylan makes these. Or he did, before he got religious anyway.� There is a pale prawn, white and pink, curled around a walnut half in Draco�s fingers. Harry hasn�t ever seen anything like it before, but he opens his mouth and lets Draco feed it to him.

The walnut is crunchy and sweet, coated in something creamy, flavoured with honey; the prawn is sweet and savoury at once. Harry closes his eyes for a moment. �What did you think about me, that I�m nuts?�

Draco laughs. �They call it Lover�s Shrimp,� he says, �in English anyway. I can�t pronounce what it�s called in Chinese.�

�You�ve got Chinese ancestors?� Harry raises an eyebrow at that.

Draco shakes his head. �No,� he says softly, �but Hong Kong used to be an English colony, and Samuel Mulciber was the wizarding tai-pan from 1946 until he died. And he was my great-grandfather. He died before I was born, but T�o Dylan used to tell me stories about him.�

Harry licks the sweetness from Draco�s fingers and wonders where the stories are he never got to hear. He doesn�t know what happened to any of his grandparents. He suspects the Evanses perished in the first war against Voldemort, but Aunt Petunia never mentioned them.

Draco smiles at him, and lowers the tray between them. Harry feeds him one of the prawns, and when he tastes it he remembers what it was like to sit in T�o Dylan�s kitchen with his mother when the Manor was full of the guests he was never allowed to meet as a child. T�o Dylan always made this for his mother, because it was her favourite, and the taste of it brings back a certain uncertainty, the arguments his mother and her uncle had about whether or not his father was right about things.

�This is history, too,� Harry murmurs, and Draco just nods. They finish the shrimp and the honey mead, and Harry begins to feel languid. Not sleepy, not drunk, just�languid.

�Eat the flower,� says Draco, and Harry blinks.

�No, really.�

Harry glances at the drowned blue thing in his goblet and tears off a petal. It isn�t as bitter as he had expected, suffused with the honey-mead. The next petal he feeds to Draco, who laughs and feeds Harry one of his own petals.

After they�ve eaten the flowers, feeding each other, a comfortable silence seems to descend between them. Harry wonders what to do next, and then Draco�s handing him a wooden skewer filled with chunks of meat. �Who taught you to make these?�

�I think you know,� says Draco, grinning. �Who lives with T�o Dylan?�

Harry blinks. �Moody can cook?� He was never more surprised than when he learnt that Moody was related to Draco on both sides of his family. Except when Draco told him that getting turned into a ferret was really supposed to be fun, and that anyone who�d ever seen him with Moody before would have known that.

Draco laughs. �He says the skewers come in handy if you get attacked during dinner. I think T�o Dylan probably taught him to make it but I learnt it from him.�

Harry bites a chunk of meat off the end of the skewer. The taste�s delicious but unfamiliar; the meat�s been marinated in something, but he isn�t sure he could recognise it even without the added flavouring. He knpws it�s not pork, because Draco doesn�t eat pork, and he knows it�s not chicken because they eat chicken all the time, and it certainly isn�t beef, even though it�s about the same colour. �What is it?�

�Lamb,� says Draco, �with pomegranate and pennyroyal.�

�Pennyroyal?� Harry remembers this herb from Potions class and stares at him, and Draco shakes his head.

�You�re not pregnant, are you? Relax. There�s not enough pennyroyal in that to do anything except flavour the food. It�s a very strong mint, but not overpowering and cloying like spearmint jelly, which I hate.�

Harry bursts out laughing at Draco�s expression. �You�re such a bloody snob,� he says, but it�s fondness now�he doesn�t really want that to change, not any more, because Draco wouldn�t be Draco any more if he weren�t, and at least he�s over his bigotry. Mostly.

�Of course I am,� says Draco with a sly half-smile. �Do you like it?�

Oh yes, Harry likes it; the meat�s blood-rare and spicy and warm, and the little bits of pepper and mushroom are flavorful. �It�s got firewhiskey in it, hasn�t it?�

Draco laughs. �Of course it does,� he says. �When I was little he used to bring them to the table raw, and let me set them on fire. I�m just not sure fire and blue lotus mead are a good combination.�

Harry can�t really argue that point; he�s starting to feel just a little light-headed. �I envy you,� he whispers. �You had a childhood.�

Draco bites his lip. �Even if it all got torn apart?�

Harry nods. �You can bring what�s still left together,� he murmurs.

Draco sighs. �This, this was supposed to be fun.� He wonders now if this was cruel, reminding Harry of a history like nothing he has ever known.

�It is,� says Harry, even though there�s something fine and bittersweet and sharp about this moment. Because Draco wants to share this with him, even though he wasn�t ever meant to be part of it, could never be one of Draco�s forebears light and dark and pure.

�Really?� Draco�s smile is brilliant, an echo of Nonnie Zabini�s and Dylan Mulciber�s and Cissy Black�s. Harry looks back at him with Lily Evans� eyes.

Draco leans over to lap a trickle of blood up from the corner of Harry�s mouth. It isn�t pure, adulterated with pomegranate and firewhiskey, but it�s theirs. Perhaps they should have some more blue lotus mead. He pours the mead, takes the fresh flowers out of the bowl on the table.

Harry watches him and wonders if this wasn�t a sacrament, once. The war is over and nobody knows what�s been lost. He�s sure there were traditions in his mother�s family, once, and in the Potter family, too. He glances at the bowl of saffron coloured rice. �How are we going to eat that without forks and spoons?�

�With our hands,� Draco murmurs. �Maybe it isn�t civilised, quite, but then again there are the oyster shells.� He hands Harry his goblet, and they clink their glasses together.

�To us,� says Harry, because really that�s what�s left here, beyond light and dark, at the end of the war that became their world.

�To us,� says Draco, because he�s a Slytherin after all, and they drink the mead.

Draco sets the bowl of rice between them, and soaks it in a brilliant, fragrant red sauce from a tureen. Harry smells garlic, red peppers, butter, and lime, and then oysters. The oysters make him smile. After all, there are things people say about oysters.

Draco grins at him.

�Whose dish is this?� Harry asks, biting his lip.

�Catalina Vieira. She was Samuel Mulciber�s wife. And Melissa Mulciber�s mother. And Narcissa Black�s grandmother.� Draco sighs heavily.

Harry frowns because he can never remember all those names on the tapestry and he isn�t sure if Draco is talking about the crazy woman in the portrait; he suspects it wouldn�t be quite polite to ask. But if Nonnie can be Lucius� mother (or whatever she is) and Lucius can be Draco�s father, then it isn�t Catalina Vieira�s fault who her daughter was, anyway. �That�s not an English name.�

�No,� says Draco, �it�s Portuguese. She met her husband in Macao.� He smiles. �A lot of the witches and wizards in Portugal had to leave, you know, because of the Inquisition. Especially the Kabbalists, which is what the Vieiras were. If you know what I mean.� He bites his lip; he�s heard the story of how they lost everything so many times, an example of Muggle stupidity just like the library in Alexandria, a favourite tale of his father�s. They killed Hypatia with oyster shells, didn�t they?

Harry doesn�t. Kabbalah is one of those subjects they discuss in Arithmancy, which is rather more a Hermione-and-Draco sort of thing than a Harry one. It has something to do with religion.

Draco scoops up one of the oysters and some of the rice using a shell, and feeds it to Harry. Harry has never liked oysters before, they always taste too much like brine, but not these. These are spicy, even hot, and buttery and savoury. The rice is brilliant yellow and firm, nothing at all like the pasty stuff he�s used to eating.

He picks up an oyster with his fingers and holds it up over Draco�s mouth. Draco grins, and stretches out his long, pointed tongue, then sucks it down, licking the sauce up from his fingers. Harry shivers a little, feeling that tongue, quick as a serpent�s.

Draco lets Harry eat rice from his hand like a cat, and when Harry looks up at him with half an oyster sticking out of his mouth, leans over and bites the other half. Their teeth click, and they can�t stop laughing. �I love you,� Harry whispers, and Draco grins at him, even though they eventually do resort to using forks, so that more of the food gets into them and less on the sheet on the floor.

�You�ve got sauce all over your shirt,� says Draco. �I should charm it before it sets.�

Harry rolls his eyes. �I can buy another,� he says, laughing, and takes it off. He likes that better, so then he strips down to his boxers, and Draco likes that better. �What�s for dessert?�

Draco grins. �My mother�s chocolate mousse. And strawberries. So we can use our hands.�

Harry laughs, and sticks his fingers into the mousse, which is thick and cool, and brushes them across Draco�s lips. �We can do that anyway,� he says, and they kiss. He wasn�t sure if he�d ever forgive Narcissa, but after all she brought this into his world.

�So we can,� Draco whispers against his mouth. Honey mead and blue lotus and chocolate and cinnamon mingle in his breath, and Harry strips his tunic off, and Draco fumbles his boxers open. Chocolate circles around Draco�s nipples, which are red and sweet like the strawberry Harry uses to draw them, and Draco slathers chocolate onto his cock, over the foreskin he finds an eminently fascinating toy and into his mouth. Harry thinks he could get to like this, and then when Draco�s smooth fingers slip up inside him he doesn�t think at all, any more. The war is over now, and so much has been lost, but Harry�s been found.

{About the Eros Affair • Fics by Scenario • Fics by Author • Project Notes}



	Title: History Lessons Author: ataniell93 Rating: NC-17 for some explicit content. Canon: post-HBP. No spoilers. Length: 2,500 words. Scenario: I promise to cook you the dinner of your life and then make you (the) dessert. Disclaimer: I do not own, nor pretend to own any characters or locations within the HP Universe, they remain the sole property of J. K. Rowling, Warner Bros., Christopher Little Agency and associates. No money is made from this work, it is purely a work of fanfiction. Notes: I hope this doesn�t suck. As usual I got caught up in my own silly stuff and left it to the last minute, and it�s very hard to write foodsmut when your mind is full of images of starving people and ruined history, so I got to thinking about food as a vehicle of history and the ends of wars, and this fic did not come easily, but at long last it came. biichan likes it. I should mention that while I don�t contradict canon in it anywhere, it�s got some AU-ish backstory from our little shared AU �Bad Company�, and I had to get the family history from somewhere. Also I owe littlewings04 a shoutout because she and biichan gave me many helpful menu suggestions. History Lessons Alastor�s recipe is my own invention, but the skewers were inspired by Becky. Harry doesn�t know what to think when he steps over the threshold. He honestly hadn�t believed that Draco could do it; Draco grew up with servants, after all. Harry�s the one who usually cooks when they decide to stay in. But the air is thick and fragrant with smells, some familiar, some not: all delicious. Harry doesn�t know what to think. When, and how, did Draco Alexander Horus Gamaliel Malfoy learn how to cook? The parlour�s been completely rearranged, the carpet covered with pillows and sheets, and the table that was in front of the couch has been moved to one side and is laden with dishes. It takes Harry a moment to take it all in. The candles flicker in their wall sconces, and Draco is lying on the pillows in a short silken tunic that�s held together with pins at his shoulders, smiling as if he were the main course. �You made all this yourself.� Harry knows his eyes are wide with shock. Draco simply pats the floor, and when Harry stretches out across from him, kicking shoes off, he grins. �Of course I did,� he says. �From family recipes.� Harry takes a deep breath of the rich air. �Where are our plates and forks?� Draco laughs. �We won�t need them.� He hands Harry a cool goblet that looks like silver and feels like glass. �This is blue lotus wine. Well, actually honey mead.� Sure enough, when Harry looks down into the glass, there are pale blue water lilies floating in the clear golden liquid. Dumbledore used to drink honey mead, but he won�t think about that, not tonight. He takes a sip of the mead with trepidation, but it�s not so different from the sweet flavour he�s used to. There�s a faint bitter aftertaste, but it isn�t unpleasant, just slightly astringent; he pauses just to look at the other young man. �Blue lotus mead,� he repeats, letting his eyes travel over the sharp lines of Draco�s thin, delicate face. �I�ve never heard of it before.� Draco smiles, a thin and oddly feline expression. �My great-grandmother�s recipe, actually. The Egyptians used to drink the blue lotus steeped in wine.� The corner of his mouth quirks up. �Nonnie used to dress up as Cleopatra, you know.� Harry laughs. �Why do I not find that difficult to imagine?� He hadn�t expected to like Draco�s family, at all�and he still can�t forgive Lucius�but he�s found the world to be a greyer and more confusing place in recent years. Nonnie is Lucius� mother, or maybe his grandmother�Harry has never been sure, Arthur Weasley said she used to be a man�and married now to Blaise Zabini�s wild Italian grandfather, who is over a hundred years old but acts like he�s still seventeen. �Because it�s exactly the sort of thing she would do.� Draco grins, and when the light catches his eyes, they are the exact same colour as the blue flowers in their drinks, and the blue silk of his tunic. Blue as his pure, blue blood in the veins that show through the fragile skin in the crook of his elbow. �When I was little she used to call me Caesarion. I bet you don�t even know who that is.� He doesn�t add that it was a sort of reproach to his father. �You�d win that bet,� says Harry ruefully. Draco smiles a little. There are a lot of things that Harry doesn�t know. �It�s history,� he says. Harry nods. History is important�it�s one of the few things Draco and Hermione agree upon, the first thing that stopped them bickering long enough for him to draw breath. History is important, and purebloods have a lot of it. He leans over to kiss Draco, brushing his lips across his pale cheek. �I didn�t believe you could do this, you know.� �You don�t actually like to cook,� says Draco. �It�s just something you�ve always done.� �Somebody�s got to,� says Harry, though he tries not to think about his childhood when he does it, about Petunia, who was never satisfied with what he did, or Dudley, who was simply never satisfied. Draco nods. �Well, yes, and that�s why we have elves,� he says with a quirk of his mouth, �but it can be fun. I thought about you all day while I made all this.� He flicks his wand at the table and summons one of the trays. �T�o Dylan makes these. Or he did, before he got religious anyway.� There is a pale prawn, white and pink, curled around a walnut half in Draco�s fingers. Harry hasn�t ever seen anything like it before, but he opens his mouth and lets Draco feed it to him. The walnut is crunchy and sweet, coated in something creamy, flavoured with honey; the prawn is sweet and savoury at once. Harry closes his eyes for a moment. �What did you think about me, that I�m nuts?� Draco laughs. �They call it Lover�s Shrimp,� he says, �in English anyway. I can�t pronounce what it�s called in Chinese.� �You�ve got Chinese ancestors?� Harry raises an eyebrow at that. Draco shakes his head. �No,� he says softly, �but Hong Kong used to be an English colony, and Samuel Mulciber was the wizarding tai-pan from 1946 until he died. And he was my great-grandfather. He died before I was born, but T�o Dylan used to tell me stories about him.� Harry licks the sweetness from Draco�s fingers and wonders where the stories are he never got to hear. He doesn�t know what happened to any of his grandparents. He suspects the Evanses perished in the first war against Voldemort, but Aunt Petunia never mentioned them. Draco smiles at him, and lowers the tray between them. Harry feeds him one of the prawns, and when he tastes it he remembers what it was like to sit in T�o Dylan�s kitchen with his mother when the Manor was full of the guests he was never allowed to meet as a child. T�o Dylan always made this for his mother, because it was her favourite, and the taste of it brings back a certain uncertainty, the arguments his mother and her uncle had about whether or not his father was right about things. �This is history, too,� Harry murmurs, and Draco just nods. They finish the shrimp and the honey mead, and Harry begins to feel languid. Not sleepy, not drunk, just�languid. �Eat the flower,� says Draco, and Harry blinks. �No, really.� Harry glances at the drowned blue thing in his goblet and tears off a petal. It isn�t as bitter as he had expected, suffused with the honey-mead. The next petal he feeds to Draco, who laughs and feeds Harry one of his own petals. After they�ve eaten the flowers, feeding each other, a comfortable silence seems to descend between them. Harry wonders what to do next, and then Draco�s handing him a wooden skewer filled with chunks of meat. �Who taught you to make these?� �I think you know,� says Draco, grinning. �Who lives with T�o Dylan?� Harry blinks. �Moody can cook?� He was never more surprised than when he learnt that Moody was related to Draco on both sides of his family. Except when Draco told him that getting turned into a ferret was really supposed to be fun, and that anyone who�d ever seen him with Moody before would have known that. Draco laughs. �He says the skewers come in handy if you get attacked during dinner. I think T�o Dylan probably taught him to make it but I learnt it from him.� Harry bites a chunk of meat off the end of the skewer. The taste�s delicious but unfamiliar; the meat�s been marinated in something, but he isn�t sure he could recognise it even without the added flavouring. He knpws it�s not pork, because Draco doesn�t eat pork, and he knows it�s not chicken because they eat chicken all the time, and it certainly isn�t beef, even though it�s about the same colour. �What is it?� �Lamb,� says Draco, �with pomegranate and pennyroyal.� �Pennyroyal?� Harry remembers this herb from Potions class and stares at him, and Draco shakes his head. �You�re not pregnant, are you? Relax. There�s not enough pennyroyal in that to do anything except flavour the food. It�s a very strong mint, but not overpowering and cloying like spearmint jelly, which I hate.� Harry bursts out laughing at Draco�s expression. �You�re such a bloody snob,� he says, but it�s fondness now�he doesn�t really want that to change, not any more, because Draco wouldn�t be Draco any more if he weren�t, and at least he�s over his bigotry. Mostly. �Of course I am,� says Draco with a sly half-smile. �Do you like it?� Oh yes, Harry likes it; the meat�s blood-rare and spicy and warm, and the little bits of pepper and mushroom are flavorful. �It�s got firewhiskey in it, hasn�t it?� Draco laughs. �Of course it does,� he says. �When I was little he used to bring them to the table raw, and let me set them on fire. I�m just not sure fire and blue lotus mead are a good combination.� Harry can�t really argue that point; he�s starting to feel just a little light-headed. �I envy you,� he whispers. �You had a childhood.� Draco bites his lip. �Even if it all got torn apart?� Harry nods. �You can bring what�s still left together,� he murmurs. Draco sighs. �This, this was supposed to be fun.� He wonders now if this was cruel, reminding Harry of a history like nothing he has ever known. �It is,� says Harry, even though there�s something fine and bittersweet and sharp about this moment. Because Draco wants to share this with him, even though he wasn�t ever meant to be part of it, could never be one of Draco�s forebears light and dark and pure. �Really?� Draco�s smile is brilliant, an echo of Nonnie Zabini�s and Dylan Mulciber�s and Cissy Black�s. Harry looks back at him with Lily Evans� eyes. Draco leans over to lap a trickle of blood up from the corner of Harry�s mouth. It isn�t pure, adulterated with pomegranate and firewhiskey, but it�s theirs. Perhaps they should have some more blue lotus mead. He pours the mead, takes the fresh flowers out of the bowl on the table. Harry watches him and wonders if this wasn�t a sacrament, once. The war is over and nobody knows what�s been lost. He�s sure there were traditions in his mother�s family, once, and in the Potter family, too. He glances at the bowl of saffron coloured rice. �How are we going to eat that without forks and spoons?� �With our hands,� Draco murmurs. �Maybe it isn�t civilised, quite, but then again there are the oyster shells.� He hands Harry his goblet, and they clink their glasses together. �To us,� says Harry, because really that�s what�s left here, beyond light and dark, at the end of the war that became their world. �To us,� says Draco, because he�s a Slytherin after all, and they drink the mead. Draco sets the bowl of rice between them, and soaks it in a brilliant, fragrant red sauce from a tureen. Harry smells garlic, red peppers, butter, and lime, and then oysters. The oysters make him smile. After all, there are things people say about oysters. Draco grins at him. �Whose dish is this?� Harry asks, biting his lip. �Catalina Vieira. She was Samuel Mulciber�s wife. And Melissa Mulciber�s mother. And Narcissa Black�s grandmother.� Draco sighs heavily. Harry frowns because he can never remember all those names on the tapestry and he isn�t sure if Draco is talking about the crazy woman in the portrait; he suspects it wouldn�t be quite polite to ask. But if Nonnie can be Lucius� mother (or whatever she is) and Lucius can be Draco�s father, then it isn�t Catalina Vieira�s fault who her daughter was, anyway. �That�s not an English name.� �No,� says Draco, �it�s Portuguese. She met her husband in Macao.� He smiles. �A lot of the witches and wizards in Portugal had to leave, you know, because of the Inquisition. Especially the Kabbalists, which is what the Vieiras were. If you know what I mean.� He bites his lip; he�s heard the story of how they lost everything so many times, an example of Muggle stupidity just like the library in Alexandria, a favourite tale of his father�s. They killed Hypatia with oyster shells, didn�t they? Harry doesn�t. Kabbalah is one of those subjects they discuss in Arithmancy, which is rather more a Hermione-and-Draco sort of thing than a Harry one. It has something to do with religion. Draco scoops up one of the oysters and some of the rice using a shell, and feeds it to Harry. Harry has never liked oysters before, they always taste too much like brine, but not these. These are spicy, even hot, and buttery and savoury. The rice is brilliant yellow and firm, nothing at all like the pasty stuff he�s used to eating. He picks up an oyster with his fingers and holds it up over Draco�s mouth. Draco grins, and stretches out his long, pointed tongue, then sucks it down, licking the sauce up from his fingers. Harry shivers a little, feeling that tongue, quick as a serpent�s. Draco lets Harry eat rice from his hand like a cat, and when Harry looks up at him with half an oyster sticking out of his mouth, leans over and bites the other half. Their teeth click, and they can�t stop laughing. �I love you,� Harry whispers, and Draco grins at him, even though they eventually do resort to using forks, so that more of the food gets into them and less on the sheet on the floor. �You�ve got sauce all over your shirt,� says Draco. �I should charm it before it sets.� Harry rolls his eyes. �I can buy another,� he says, laughing, and takes it off. He likes that better, so then he strips down to his boxers, and Draco likes that better. �What�s for dessert?� Draco grins. �My mother�s chocolate mousse. And strawberries. So we can use our hands.� Harry laughs, and sticks his fingers into the mousse, which is thick and cool, and brushes them across Draco�s lips. �We can do that anyway,� he says, and they kiss. He wasn�t sure if he�d ever forgive Narcissa, but after all she brought this into his world. �So we can,� Draco whispers against his mouth. Honey mead and blue lotus and chocolate and cinnamon mingle in his breath, and Harry strips his tunic off, and Draco fumbles his boxers open. Chocolate circles around Draco�s nipples, which are red and sweet like the strawberry Harry uses to draw them, and Draco slathers chocolate onto his cock, over the foreskin he finds an eminently fascinating toy and into his mouth. Harry thinks he could get to like this, and then when Draco�s smooth fingers slip up inside him he doesn�t think at all, any more. The war is over now, and so much has been lost, but Harry�s been found. {About the Eros Affair • Fics by Scenario • Fics by Author • Project Notes}