REGRET

BornofStarlight

2.Sept.06

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just...not mine.

Note: Uh...yeah. I was listening to Panic! At the Disco as I wrote this...the song was "There's a Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven't". Heh. Gotta love Panic... Uh. There are just two scenes, though I've contemplated adding one in the middle...

It had been four years.

Four very long years.

Watching from a distance, Draco found himself doing something he hadn't done in a very long time: regretting.

He regretted breaking it off. He regretted putting that broken look into his eyes as he told him they were through.

And there he was again, after four full years. And, oh, how kind those years had been to him. There was a maturity in his eyes that hadn't been there before, a new confidence in the way he carried himself. At the tender age of twenty-two, Harry Potter had truly come into his own.

And Draco regretted.

That could have been his, he could have watched this man step out of the shadow cast by the boy. He could have eased painful transitions from innocent to adult.

But Harry had walked that path on his own, just like all other roads in his life. Draco had not been there.

He watched as Harry flirted carelessly with the young barmaid, and regretted that it was no longer him the eyelashes fluttered at, almost demure, but taunting all the same, begging someone to attempt to tame him.

The barmaid flushed at something, nearly dropping the empty beer pitcher she held in her hands. She said something back, and Harry's smile grew wider.

Draco's jealousy grew as well.

He traced his eyes up the thin form that had once belonged to him, had been completely in his sway. A casual long-sleeved tee clung in just the right places, and Draco found himself licking his lips, desire forcing him to pay attention with more then just his eyes.

Baggy pants effectively covered what rightfully belonged to him, but in his mind's eye he knew the every contour of what that rough cloth covered.

The barmaid blushed again, and Draco decided then and there to put a stop to it.

As he drew closer, the girl caught sight of him, her eyes following his deliberate trek across the crowded club.

Harry did not so much as turn.

Draco barred his teeth. He would reclaim his property. And that little slut behind the bar would have none of what was his.

Ever.

He was just four feet away when Harry turned.

"Hallo, Draco."

Later, still wrapped together, still sticky and damp with sweat, Draco whispered an apology, thinking his lover asleep.

Harry, however, lifted his face quickly to capture the other man's lips. "You did what you needed to. I understand that now, even if I didn't then. You gave me the necessary numbness to finally destroy him. The "power the Dark Lord know not" was not love. It never was. It was the ability to mourn the loss of love."

Turning in closer to his pale lover's chest, Harry smiled. "You know the saying? It is better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all? Tom never did love anyone…When you left, I lost everything…"

Draco's arms tightened around his shoulders, and Harry's smile grew wider. "You knew that though. What I don't know is why you stayed away so long…"

Draco didn't know either.

"Draco…? When you think back over the last four years…what do you feel?"

Silvery eyes closed briefly, tasting again his lover's lips against his own.

"What do you feel, Draco," was whispered against his ear.

He leaned in to whisper back, "only regret."

THE END

Yeah...about that scene in the middle? One guess what it would involve. smirk Anyone for some lemonade? Of course, I wouldn't be able to post it here. pouts Review please! If you leave your e-mail address, I can always send Scene Two on later (it's roughly written, just not typed and in place...) and you can put it between scenes One and Three where it belongs. That was NOT a blatant innuendo. At least, not intentionally... Now. I'm off to YouTube to watch Gackt's live "Vanilla". Gods...Yaoi, live on stage... dies