A/n: Welcome everyone to my second fanfiction on Harry Potter. My name is Aoiika. As everyone does, I'm sure, I love feedback, both the good and the bad. I want to improve and make sure you have a good time reading.

I hope you will enjoy this one :)

Chapter 1.

Waking Up

"Oh bloody hell!"

Those were the first words that came from the lips of the young man. Barely had he opened his eyes, that he knew what was wrong. For he lay sprawled diagonally on his bed, facing the wrong way. His head was pounding, and there was a bitter taste in his mouth.

The worst thing was, he had no upper garments on. No jacket, no sweater, no shirt. That was a big problem.

The man's skin was flushed, his pale flesh now a rosy colour. It didn't match his almost pearly-white hair, or his light grey eyes that seemed to reflect a sky of snow-clouds. He stretched his long legs, then propped himself up with a grunt on his equally long arms, and looked around the room. His eyes searched for a brief moment, and not finding, the man let out a sigh/grunt and dropped back onto the mattress.

A few hours later, Draco Malfoy had managed to get somewhat cleaned up and dressed. He walked out of the apartment towards the Shepherds Bush park. By the time he'd reached Uxbridge road, he felt like his knees were dangling underneath him. The noise from the traffic was louder than usual, and his neck was so stiff that every step reverberated all over his skull. He could not take another step and so he entered the first place he encountered.

The Defectors Weld free house it said as he glanced up before he went in. The smell of food reached him as soon as the door closed behind him, but it made his stomach twist. He turned away from the busy tables, it was lunch hour, and made his way to the upstairs. There he found a slightly more quiet corner, and he ordered a beer.

Three beers later, he felt a little better, and he tried to think for the first time. He started by trying to piece together what he had done the day before. He'd gone to work first… damn it, work! He'd forgotten to call to say he wouldn't get to work that day. He wasn't even sure what time it was.

But all Malfoy did was shrug and call for some orange juice. He'd had enough beer. As he waited for the waiter to come back he thought about the words 'damn it'. He never used to say that. It was something he'd inherited from Emily.

Emily was his fiancée, and she had gone back to the United States to visit her parents, and tell them in person of their upcoming wedding. Draco couldn't take time off work and had had to stay behind.

That was what he'd said. In fact, if he'd really wanted to, he could've taken time off. The truth was he wasn't in the mood to lose two weeks' salary to travel across the Atlantic and be stuck with a bunch of empty-heads who thought only of building pools for their dogs, or getting tattoo's on their dogs, or getting a tv for their dogs with the bloody dogs channel on for fuck's sake!

'Fuck's sake' was not something he'd taken over from Emily. She didn't like it when he used it. She always frowned and pouted when he did, and it made him smile. So he made sure to never stop saying it.

Anyway, he wanted nothing to do with her family. He didn't put it quite so bluntly when he talked to her, but the truth was he couldn't stand them. He'd gone once. He didn't like them, and they didn't like him. They didn't like that he did not like their noisy, spoiled rat-like rags they called dogs, and the dogs didn't like him. No one liked him except Emily. Why? Because he had brains instead of marmalade for fuck's sake.

Draco's orange juice arrived, and he decided to pay his bill while the waiter was there. Then he chugged down the orange juice at once and walked out of the place.

Now he walked into the underground station of Shepherds Bush and rode the tube until Lancaster Gate. He wanted to walk in Hyde Park. Emily liked Hyde Park. She always said it wasn't as big as Central Park, she could still see the buildings of London all around her. But she liked it anyway. "It's so British." She said. Draco had no idea what she meant by that.

Hyde Park was a nice enough place though. It was not early enough, and not late enough for it to be infested with joggers, though you could see quite a few any time of day. And it was not infested with tourists. Not too much, at least. You could never avoid tourists entirely anywhere in London.

Draco hated tourists. Well, not really hate. He wasn't xenophobic. He just thought they were excited about such stupid things. They took pictures of street lines and signs, of people and cars and taxi's and phone booths. The world was filled to the brim with postcards that already had all those things. But no, they had to come here themselves to take their own pictures, so that they could show their friends afterwards so they could come and take their own pictures too. It was an endless loop of ridiculousness.

And still, Draco had fallen in love with one of those airheads, complete with a camera and map and everything. A beautiful girl, dressed in tasteful, trendy clothes, and with that flat American accent he disliked as much as the tourists.

Yes. He'd liked Emily the moment she'd asked him for directions. He blamed her smile. It had been a grey and grimy day, and her smile had lit up all of London, as if he was now a tourist, seeing it all for the first time. He had wanted to take his own pictures too. Just for a moment though.

But Emily's smile had stuck, one thing led to another, and now they had an apartment together and they would be married in a year. Draco had already started making a mental list with all kinds of excuses he would need in the future, excuses to not go visit his future in-law's. Urgh.

Draco sat down on the grass. It wasn't very hot, but it was dry. That was good enough. He watched the ripples in the water on the lake. Formations of birds were flying overhead, heading south for the colder months.

All this thinking about Emily brought him back to his problem. While she was away, she had instructed him to go retrieve something from her safety box. Something important. Apparently, it was some kind of family heirloom, a diamond necklace that her ancestors had had with them when they emigrated from Poland to the United States. He didn't know why she wanted it now, why he had to keep it with him until she came back. But he had done as she'd asked.

The day before, he had gone by the bank after work and had retrieved the necklace. It was wrapped up in thick velvet and he hadn't wanted to look at it. It had seemed rude somehow to him to do so. It was their family heirloom.

On the way back though, he had met an old friend. A special friend. It was a friend he'd had since boarding school, and he'd experimented with him. Whatever it was, alcohol, sex or drugs, they'd done it. With no girls around, they'd given each other pleasure in many ways. Draco had been closer to him than with anyone in his life. Not even Emily knew him as well as Tom did.

But once they each went their separate ways to university, they grew apart. It was partly because of the distance between them, and partly because Tom was going much farther into drugs than Draco liked to see. The last he'd heard, Tom had left university and disappeared to live with some friends. They were probably all on drugs, trying to support their habits one way or another.

And so when Draco had run into him, with the necklace in his jacket pocket, he didn't want to miss the chance to talk to him, seeing as he had no address or other way to contact him. Tom had seemed happy enough to be invited for a drink.

That's where it stopped. The next thing he knew, he was lying in his and Emily's bed, alone, half-naked, feeling like the sky had crumbled on top of him.

Draco ran his fingers through his hair, as if he could somehow pull out some additional memories that way. He hated black-outs. That was why he'd never liked to go too far with alcohol or drugs. At school, Tom had mostly pushed him to do more than he would've done by himself. But at some point, Tom went even further, and Draco would not follow. He'd lost Tom to the bloody stuff.

Draco didn't even remember if he'd made the decision, but he was quite certain he had done some drug or other. He felt different than if he'd just got really drunk.

The worst of the worst was: he had no idea where Tom was, or if he was even all right. He didn't remember even a bit of the conversation they might've had. He had no idea what he'd done, or what they'd done together. He had no clue where his clothes were, and where the velvet-wrapped necklace was which had been in his bloody jacket.

He had lost Emily's heirloom, and he had no idea how to even begin looking for it, with no memory whatsoever of the evening.

The good news was, he had a solid week before she came back. That time would be enough, surely…

Draco watched a sudden swarm of very tall and pale tourists pass by him, near the patch of grass where he was sitting. It was a large group. The sight discouraged him, as if he'd gotten the instruction to look for the necklace in that endless crowd.

It was time for Draco to get back on the move. Once outside the park, he stopped for some coffee. He still wasn't hungry, though the afternoon was slowly coming to an end already. He ended up at the Knightsbridge Underground Station, on the Piccadilly line. He rode it toward the centre of the city, to walk along Millbank, past Lambeth Bridge. That's where He'd met Emily, and that's where she still liked to go, simply to walk along the river.

Emily was in love with London that way. And somewhat later, she'd fallen in love with Draco. He wondered from time to time, whether she only liked him because he lived there. But then he thought he didn't mind. If she was happy, that was all that mattered.

And for her to be happy, that meant finding that diamond necklace back. Draco put his elbows up on the wall by the river and dropped his face in his palms. The darkness gave him the opportunity to explore some thoughts that flitted at the edge of his consciousness. He had a vivid memory of orange. The colour orange. And with that colour went a kind of putrid smell. It tickled his nose when he recalled that smell. But he knew not what to make of it.

And Tom? What had happened to Tom? He had survived all these years, both when they were together and when they were apart. He could take care of himself. But for how much longer, Draco wondered. There always came an end to doing drugs, especially if you did it the way he did.

Draco took out his phone and went through the address book. Maybe he'd managed to get a number in the middle of that disaster of an evening. He scrolled through the entire list, but there was not a single new entry. No Tom or anything that resembled it.

The tall blond had a sudden urge to throw his phone in the river. But that would make him look like a movie. He refused to do such a cliché thing. It would only make for an extra attraction for those damn tourists. So he turned his back to the Thames and slid his phone back into his pocket.

As he did so, he noticed someone sitting on the bench behind him. He was disconcerted. Had that person been sitting there all the time? Had he been looking at him?

"You seem a little lost." The man on the bench said.

Draco allowed himself to look at the young man properly. Not a very tall figure, but quite slender; very dark hair, one of the darkest shades he'd ever seen. He couldn't see the eyes. There was not enough light, and the dark hair was casting deep shadows over the man's face. Overall, Draco guessed him to be around the same age as himself, late twenties.

The man didn't seem to be hostile, but he didn't seem exactly friendly either. "I'm not lost." He answered. He didn't want to be taken for a bloody tourist.

"I only said you seem lost. And that's true." The man contradicted.

It would've been slightly annoying. Such a response. But Draco was not in the mood for annoyance. He felt utterly drained. He went to sit on the bench by the man.

They ignored each other.

All beginnings are difficult, so please leave a little review?