On Thursday afternoons and Saturday mornings, the earl and his son took walks together through the sprawling, well-manicured gardens that stretched out behind Avebury Manor. On the first Saturday following Draco's presentation as omega, he was still room-bound, weak from sedation and unfit for anything more difficult than eating, and the earl elected to cancel their morning constitution.

Come the following Thursday, however, Draco had been up and about for several days. It was a blustery day, as I recall, and the perfect rows of flowers and shrubs were strewn with drifting, skittering leaves.

As the earl's new valet, I was expected to follow (at a distance, of course) in case he had need of anything. After nearly a week of tending him – helping him dress and undress, accompanying him into town, overseeing his schedule – my cool dislike for him settled into an icy revulsion. All the little habits I had once so admired in him now rang of insincerity and hollowness, and served only to drive the wedge deeper.

But there was, I'd discovered, one ray of sunlight in the grayness – the earl spent a lot of time with his son, and by extension, so did I.

"Mr. Pettigrew has left, I hear," Draco remarked towards the end of their walk, the silver of his hair flashing golden in the afternoon sun.

The earl made a vague, noncommittal noise. His hands were clasped behind his back and he was staring up towards the clear autumn sky.

"I hope you didn't dismiss him outright, Father."

He cast his son a sidelong look – the same sort of look one would give an unpleasant child demanding sweets. It made Draco frown.

"He's been your valet for nearly six years. He deserved your loyalty."

"He deserved nothing but his payment, which he received," the earl said. "They are our servants, Draco, not our friends."

"That's very cold of you to say, Father."

"Your omega sentimentality is clouding your mind," he said dismissively, and Draco visibly quashed a look of offense.

"My mind has not changed so much in the week since I presented."

"We will have guests at dinner tonight," the earl continued as though he hadn't heard him.

"What? Who?"

"The Viscountess Hereford, Her Ladyship Marigold Parkinson, and her newly-presented daughter, Pansy."

I swallowed, because I knew what that meant – and by his violent, horrified reaction, so did Draco.

"Father – for God's sake, it's barely been a week! Surely you can wait a month or so before throwing me at whatever unwed alpha wanders nearby—!"

"Don't be so dramatic, Draco," he interjected, as they came to a stop outside the large French doors at which their promenade started. "House Parkinson comes from good stock and Pansy is set to inherit her mother's title. If it is to be the end of our house, I'd like for its estate to be inherited by a worthy family."

Draco looked wounded, but Lucius seemed almost bored. He nodded to me, and I held open the door for them, but my hands felt clammy on the cool brass of the doorknob. When they moved inside, I took their coats.

"I apologize for so disappointing you, Father," Draco said, his voice soft, "but I hope you realize that I had no agency in my presentation."

A moment of tense silence passed. Lucius regarded his son with a frown as he adjusted the front of his waistcoat.

"One does wonder," he said coldly, and the turned on a heel and strode away.

Draco shattered at the impact of his father's callous words. He sank back against the wall and covered his face with both hands. The sight of it shredded me. I wanted to offer him some comfort – any at all – but what could idle words avail unless I could show him the raw empathy and love that so consumed me?

"You must not let him affect you, My Lord," I said. "Your sex does not determine your worth."

With a small, strangled noise, he looked up at me. His gray eyes were glossy with tears and I nearly came undone.

"My Lord, please, don't—"

I reached out to wipe a wayward tear from his cheek, and the moment my skin met his, he arched against my hand like an animal starved for affection. I was sure my heart could be seen beating through my waistcoat, but even still I dared not remove my hand.

He stared at me as if pleading for help, and I was desperate to help him, to do anything at all to quell his pain. At that moment, he could have told me to burn down Avebury Manor and the whole of Wiltshire and I would have gone looking for a book of matches without question.

He lifted his chin, arcing his neck and oh, God.

Was it an intentional movement? Was he deliberately presenting his throat to me, a sign of submission and desire? Had it been an unconscious reaction? Something else? Neither?

"You're always so kind," Draco whispered, and I unravelled. I had to leave. I had to leave now, before the desire, the sheer, desperate want of this angel overtook my senses.

I withdrew and backed away, trembling. Without the heat of him under my hand, I felt strangely bereft. "I… I shouldn't have – I'm sorry—"

"No, please, it's—"

I hurried away, my heart slamming and my head spinning. The rest of the afternoon passed in a dreadful blur.

I remember being there when the Viscountess and her daughter arrived, and I remember thinking that Her Ladyship's daughter looked rather like a pug. I also remember her eyeing Draco as if he were a cut of steak, and willing my hands to unclench at my sides.

I was not present for dinner, of course – servants are not allowed in the dining room during meals unless they were serving the food – but I heard a grand account of it from Penelope afterwards, who told me all about how Lady Pansy was so complimentary to Draco and clearly infatuated. I wondered if she wasn't seeing what she wanted to see rather than what actually happened – after observing how she'd eyed him upon her arrival at Avebury, I doubted her comments were quite so romantic as Penelope insisted.

That evening, with images of Draco's pleading eyes and exposed throat still swimming in my mind's eye, I was on my way upstairs with the earl's fresh nightclothes in a whicker basket when I heard muted words from the adjoining hallway.

"… the rumors of your beauty have fallen woefully short, if anything," said the first voice, who I recognized as Lady Pansy's. It was a lascivious tone with a saccharine edge, and all at once I felt my skin prickle with a primal rage.

"That must be terribly disorienting," Draco's voice answered, sounding curt.

I rounded the corner and saw them standing several feet away. Lady Pansy was lounging against the wall in such a way that Draco was effectively trapped between her and an end-table.

She smirked. "You do have some wit, don't you? There's no need to be so cold, My Lord – or do you need some warming up?"

The lewdness of her comment revolted me, enraged me, and the handles of the whicker basket cracked under my ever-tightening grip.

"I assure you, My Lady, that I can find my own warmth if I need to."

"I have no doubt." She leered closer to him, and, lips curling away from his teeth in disgust, Draco pushed himself flat into the wall to avoid the proximity. "My mother tells me that the coldest omegas will often have the warmest heats. Do you think she's right?"

"I – how dare you—!"

Little braids of whicker cracked and broke in my hand. My vision was flooding with red.

"So flustered now, but I'm sure all your words would evaporate the moment I got a knot into you, wouldn't they?" Her voice had dropped to a sultry whisper and she pressed ever closer. "And pretty as you are, I'm sure you'd be even lovelier swollen with child…"

Draco let loose a startled shout, and her hand – her hand was on his stomach.

There was one thing – and only one thing – keeping me from launching myself forward and physically attacking her, and it was the knowledge that it would likely frighten Draco. Instead, I stepped out of the shadows of the adjoining hallway, my vision dark with fury.

"I would advise you to take your hands off Lord Draco at once," I said, and they both wrenched around. This late at night, I'm sure neither of them had anticipated an interruption.

Pansy saw me and straightened, set her shoulders. It was an entirely primal reaction: an alpha's challenge to another alpha. We both became each other's biggest threat, and our bodies were thrumming with blood and adrenaline, ready to attack.

"You speak out of turn, servant," Pansy spat, though she backed away from Draco.

"And you act out of turn," I parried. "How dare you put your hands on him? He is not your property."

She bared her teeth at me. "And what right do you have of it one way or another?"

My body was tense and hot and ready for a fight, and if Draco had not intervened when he did I likely would have gone straight for her jugular:

"If you think my father will show you any mercy when he learns of your filthy, wandering hands, you will be disappointed – moreso if he learns that you began picking a fight with his valet as he came to rescue me from you."

The silence that fell was deafening. Pansy's eyes did not leave mine for an instant, nor mine hers, and slowly – so, so slowly – I saw the changes in her face. Anger, resentment, scorn.

She shoved past me without another word, and I was half tempted to follow her down the hallway and beat her bloody—

—but there was a sound, a soft sound, no louder than a whisper: a loosed, shaky breath. I turned and saw that Draco had leaned back against the wall again, trembling.

In a heartbeat, all my rage was forgotten.

"My Lord—" I looked around, briefly, for the nearest room where we would not be disturbed, "—this way."

Leaving the whicker basket on the floor, I guided him through to a nearby siting room. It was not used in the evenings, and the only source of light was the clear, silvery moonlight through the window. I checked to make sure the hallway was empty a final time before I closed the door and turned around again.

Draco was standing by the window, next to the birdcage, and the little canary, silvered with moonlight, sang mournfully, its tiny body stilled.

I swallowed. I could detect the subtle trembling in his shoulders, the fear and the anger that had been welling up, emotions so profound they threatened to rip him open where he stood.

"My Lord…"

"I hate this."

His voice was near-silent. My throat tightened.

"I hate this, Harry," he whispered. "I have doomed myself and my house over something I cannot control. Doomed to be subservient, doomed to a marriage with someone like her. I feel like my world is falling apart and I can do nothing."

Birdsong had never sounded so tragic. The subtle quavering in his frame turned into full-body shaking. He braced both hands against the window.

"I am so lost, Harry, and my world seems so very dark—"

He covered his mouth with one hand to suppress a sob that tore out of his throat anyway. And even though he was a noble and I was a servant, even though we could not have been more disparate, even though one day he would likely have ties to the King of England, I closed the gap between us and gathered him into my arms.

Draco, for his part, fell into me as though our difference in station meant nothing. He buried his face in my shoulder and gripped me tightly, holding onto my for dear life, and I carded my fingers through his moonlight-whitened hair.

"You are not lost," I told him, speaking softly into the heat of his neck. "You are here with me. If you are ever lost, I will find you. And I would burn myself up in an instant if it meant I could light your dark world."

His grip on me tightened and he lifted his eyes to mine. They seemed to glow. He was the most beautiful and tragic creature in Creation at that moment and I—

—God, I was in love with him. I loved him. I loved him with such intensity and unshakable clarity that it became a law of nature. The earth pulled us down, the sun rose and set, and I was in love with Draco Malfoy.

I kissed him, and anything that existed beyond our skin went away.

For that moment, perfection was given life. He returned my kiss, matching me for all my desperation and heartache and wanting, and together we dangled by the thread of eternity in that instant of flawless bliss.

And then he withdrew, and at the same time, we both realized what we had done.

He stumbled away, covering his mouth with his hand, and I swayed in my spot. I was numb from shock. What had I been thinking?

I tried to speak. I could not find my voice.

"I…" he said. "I have to…"

With a whisper of fabric and the click of a door, he was gone. I stared after him, into the golden light of the hallway.

The canary was silent.