Avebury Manor, I have since learned, is a vortex that consumes every part of you. It is its own pocket of reality, completely separate from the rest of the world. I had scarcely been there three days before I realized that I already considered Avebury Manor my new home – not because it was particularly hospitable (though it certainly was), but because its own bustle and activity and urgencies had allowed me so easily to forget that anything else existed outside of it.

I spent my first week shadowing one Mr. Peter Pettigrew, personal valet to the Earl. He was a short man, portly, with large rat-like front teeth and yellowish skin – not handsome by any means, but he must have done something right to rise so high in station.

He was in any case an assiduous enough teacher. He showed me around the massive estate, helping me to memorize its occasionally labyrinthine layout, introduced me to the other members of staff – uniformly beta, I discovered – and gave me overviews of what my duties as hall boy would include.

"Mind you," Mr. Pettigrew said one afternoon as we walked together through a large corridor connecting the servants' quarters with the main foyer, "your duties are likely to change very soon."

"They are?"

"You are an alpha," Mr. Pettigrew said, not without some measure of disdain. "An alpha in service is never low-ranking for very long."

I felt quite abruptly awash with guilt. I'd never really considered how easily my natural advantage could translate into a disadvantage for others. I flinched.

"Likely, you'll be promoted straight to valet of Young Lord Malfoy, once he presents."

Some unnamed emotion twisted painfully in the pit of my stomach. "He is presumed alpha?" I asked, rather without meaning to.

"Of course," Mr. Pettigrew said. "There hasn't been a non-alpha firstborn of House Malfoy for centuries."

Perhaps, my mind supplied, that was for the better. Since taking up at Avebury Manor, my affections for him had not waned in the slightest – indeed, every time we caught sight of one another in the halls or out in the garden, time seemed to dilate, and my vision warped and tunneled until I saw only him.

To say I yearned for him would be an entirely disingenuous understatement – it would be fairer to say that I lacked for him, as I would lack for air if I were strangled. Every instinct I had told me that this beautiful, disparate creature was an essential part of me, and each moment I spent without my arms wrapped around him was the most exquisite agony I had ever known.

There were times when I wondered if he felt the same – moments when our gazes met and held from across the hallway or through open doors and I would entertain the idea that perhaps he was just as desperate for my touch as I was for his, that he felt the same inexorable, magnetic pull.

I never let myself think about it for too long. What did it matter, after all? He was the firstborn of an earl, presumed alpha, set to inherit an immense estate – and I was no one.

"They are a cadet branch of House Slytherin, you know. I am sure their strong alpha genetics come from their royal roots."

The words pulled me up through the levels of my own mind. My eyes refocused.

We had come to a stop in the foyer, a grand marble room with a massive, curling staircase leading to an upper landing, dominated by a single chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling.

"They are?" I asked, surprised, though trying my best to hide it.

Mr. Pettigrew nodded, his face showing traces of second-hand pride. "It was founded by the second-born alpha of Alastor Slytherin."

"They're descended from one of the dukes of the Four Royal Houses?" There was no hiding my surprise, not anymore – House Slytherin was illustrious parentage, indeed.

"Just so," Mr. Pettigrew said, smiling toothily. "That's why they've been coming into the limelight so much as of late. What, with only one of the houses remaining and our Omega Queen growing old without issue, inheritance has been a topic of great consternation. They say that His Grace Duke Thomas Marvolo of House Slytherin will be the next monarch."

And that would make Draco, by extension, a member of the cadet branch of the ruling family. Even though I never really had any hope of making him mine, it still hurt to learn just how far separated we would be.

I was about to respond when there came suddenly a loud chime that echoed through the foyer – someone had rung the doorbell. Synchronously, we turned toward it.

"Are we meant to answer it?" I asked.

"Under most circumstances, no," Mr. Pettigrew said. "That is normally a duty reserved for the butler, Mr. Snape. But since he's working in his pantry and asked to remain undisturbed, the duty falls to the highest-ranking valet, which is me. It's good that you're here for this – you may need to learn the procedure one day."

Mr. Pettigrew adjusted his waistcoat and started off across the foyer towards the massive iron door. I followed a few paces behind and stopped off to the side as he pulled them open.

I had not been adequately prepared to stare into the faces of two ghosts of my recent past.

Vernon Dursley, my uncle, looked at Mr. Pettigrew for only a moment before his beady eyes landed on me.

"There he is!"

"I – what—?" Mr. Pettigrew began, but my uncle shoved open the door, knocking poor Mr. Pettigrew aside and grabbing me by my arm. With a cry, I wrenched myself away from him.

"We've been looking for you!" my uncle said, trying again to grab me. "Let's go home."

"Have you lost your mind?" I snapped, but soon my aunt, Petunia, was flanking my other side, her horselike face eager, eyes dewey with faked tears.

"We've missed you!" she said. "Come home. Let's go home now!"

"I certainly will not – get your hands off of me!"

"How dare you!" Mr. Pettigrew managed, upon regaining his sensibilities following such an open display of abhorrent rudeness. "I demand you leave at once!"

"Not without our Harry!"

In addition to horribly jarring, utterly blindsiding, and somewhat nauseating, it became confusing – I had spent most of my life being treated like scum by these people, forced to sleep in their cupboard, tolerated only because I was an extra pair of hands to help with housework. When I left all those weeks ago, they had seemed relieved to have me gone – I could not imagine what had possessed them to hunt me down, let alone make them eager to have me back.

"I am – I am not your Harry – get out! Both of you get out!"

"I'll go fetch Mr. Snape," Mr. Pettigrew said, and while I was not eager to have the butler introduced to my dreadful aunt and uncle, I knew that if anyone could force them out, it would be the stern-faced, steady-handed Severus Snape. Mr. Pettigrew fled the room, and my aunt and uncle closed in on me even further.

"Come back with us," my aunt said, and her hands were gripping the sleeve of my newly-issued oxford shirt, rumpling the starched fabric. "Come on, now, Harry, let's forget all about it and go home."

"Listen to your aunt," my uncle supplemented, and he grabbed me by both shoulders, trying to forcibly steer me toward the door. I jerked away from both their hands and whirled.

"Do not touch me!" I snarled. There was an angry heat rising in my chest. I was so furious that my hands shook. "What in God's name are you doing here?"

"We want you to come home," my uncle said.

"Nonsense! You were beside yourselves with glee when I left! It's not as if you had even the faintest shred of fondness for me—!"

The wide, almost manic smile altered ever so slightly and became something like a grimace. I could see my uncle's thick, meaty hands clench at his sides.

"Listen here, boy," he growled, his voice low and dangerous and finally familiar to my unpleasant memories of him, "someone very important is looking for you."

"What? What do you mean?"

"He has offered us quite a bit of money—"

A derisive snort left me before I could reign it in. Of course it was about money. Why else?

"—and we are not leaving without you!"

"What is the meaning of this?"

The voice came form behind. I spun on my heel in time to see my angel gliding down the curving staircase. My heart was crushed under the weight of the mere idea that he would be forced to see these wretched people I called family.

My aunt and uncle, for their part, seemed to recognize his dress and accent as belonging to nobility, and withdrew from surprise, if nothing else.

"My Lord," I said. "I'm so sorry, I…"

But how could I hope to finish that sentence? What combination of words would make this embarrassment forgivable?

"Harry, who are these people?" he asked upon reaching the bottom of the staircase.

"Begging your pardon, My Lord," my uncle said, words thick and clumsy with lack of experience – he had never spoken to anyone of a station as high as Draco's, I was sure. "But this boy is our ward, and we need to take him home."

Draco's brow knit and he looked to me, as if for confirmation. I felt white-hot with shame, and I lowered my eyes.

"I… it's true that I am their ward, My Lord, but I have no desire to go back with them."

"That's not your choice—" my uncle said sharply, suddenly, but was cut off.

"Excuse me," Draco said with a hard, commanding edge to his voice that took me entirely by surprise, "but you do not have any authority over my servants."

"He—" my aunt stammered, "—he is our ward!"

"He is also an alpha," Draco continued, and short though he was, the tone of his voice made them both shrink to ten inches tall. "He has presented, which makes him legally independent."

My uncle blustered and stuttered and turned a satisfying shade of purple. "My Lord—!"

"And how dare you barge in on this noble house without warning or invitation? And to assault a valued member of its staff, no less! You are obviously not welcome here and I would thank you to leave immediately – Mr. Snape! Just in time."

I spun on a heel. Mr. Snape was striding out of the adjoining corridor, looking even more foul-tempered than usual.

"Mr. Snape, if you would please remove these people from this house, and if they are so audacious as to return, summon the police to have them escorted off the property."

My aunt and uncle might have been slapped, for their horrified reactions. Mr. Snape inserted himself between me and the door, looming down over them.

"At once and with great pleasure, My Lord," Mr. Snape said.

"And Harry – this way."

There was a weight in my stomach that grew heavy at his words. My legs moved, though not of my own volition, to where Draco had indicated – the nearby sitting room, awash with golden afternoon sun and fragrant with the scent of tea.

There was a bright yellow canary in the corner of the room, chirping and twittering in its gilded cage. I stood in the center of the room and watched it in silence.

The sitting room door closed with a click, and it felt like a gunshot.

We were silent for several unbearable moments. I couldn't bear to meet his eyes, lest I see his disappointment – or even worse, God forbid, his pity. Instead I stared at the canary.

"Who were they?" Draco asked behind me.

I swallowed dryly. "Ghosts of my recent past," I answered. "My aunt and uncle."

"You ran away?"

"Like a bat out of hell, the moment I presented. They were not…"

He had a right to know, of course, but I couldn't bring myself to say it. Grisly things like that shouldn't be uttered to angels.

"I see."

There passed another beat of silence. The little golden canary chirped and beat its wings against the bars of its cage.

"I'm so sorry, My Lord – I should – my things, I'll get my things—"

"There's no need for that."

I looked back at him in surprise. He was leaning against the sitting room door, caught in a stripe of sunlight, and God, the realization that we were alone hit me like a blow to the stomach. His skin glowed golden in the light and the lines of his throat rolled as he swallowed.

"You've done nothing wrong, Harry," he said, though there was some strain in his voice. "You obviously didn't want them here, and they were removed with no harm done."

I opened my mouth to speak, but found I did not know what to say. Behind me, the canary cried and battered its cage. Draco moved forward, slowly.

"I am just…" he faltered a moment and stopped a foot away from me, his hands clasped behind his back. "I am sorry that you ever had to deal with such vileness."

I would have loved to tell him that all vileness left the world the moment he spoke to me, that his radiance burned away with all the ugliness in Creation – I would have loved to gather him into my arms, to thank him for his compassion and understanding, to kiss him until our lips bruised, to peel away those starched clothes and lick the golden sunlight off his skin—

—but I did not. Instead, I swallowed, I breathed, I listened to the canary beat its wings against the bars of its cage, and I said, "Thank you, My Lord."

And then I left.