Bits and pieces. They contradict, I know. When I go back through my mind, some things stand out but they don't all work together. Blaise stands out more as I got nearer to the end. Was he there before and I didn't see? Why don't I know?

. . . . . . . . . .

When Draco came out of the shower, towel in hair and bare feet on the wooden floor, Blaise was waiting for him. He tried to muster his irritation with the other man's arrogance, but he was too tired and too sated. His very bones wanted to fall into his bed and sleep until hunger woke him. "What do you want?" he asked. If he dealt with whatever gripe the man had brought, maybe he'd go away sooner.

"It's not healthy, you know," he said. "What you're doing."

Draco flung himself onto his mattress and closed his eyes. Were they really going to do this? "Tell me something I don't know," he said.

"It's a sickness. An addiction."

Draco laughed at that, and at this whole, pathetic conversation. Trust Blaise to try to ruin his buzz. It wasn't going to work. Tom had come back and he'd missed him. He'd truly missed him enough to give him the whole night. He'd still had the smell of the road on him, and his skin had tasted of salt and dirt and a week of not washing, and instead of going to his room and soaking away the trip he'd called for him.

Draco hadn't even known what he could endure.

He hadn't known a kiss could feel like punishment.

He wanted more.

"I know," he said to Blaise. "I just don't care."

. . . . . . . . . .

Draco sat in the bar, one hand on his drink, the other on the whistle at his neck. The leash. It had been burning on and off all day, but he didn't feel like running home and doing as he was bid. He took a long swallow of something probably brewed in a still out back. The trail of fire it left down his throat was far more welcome than than Tom's little summons. He wondered if the cheap alcohol would kill him. He wondered if he cared. "Bad day?" the barkeep asked. "We don't get many of you Hogwarts sorts coming into town anymore."

"Just wanted to get stinking drunk," Draco said.

"It's political, of course", Ginevra had said as she gossiped with Hermione. He hadn't even been paying attention.

"He's so old, though," Hermione had said, and Draco had wondered idly which pureblood Death Eater Ginevra was being saddled with. Maybe the one from the north, who'd arrived with whale meat they'd all had to pretend to enjoy. Maybe the one with the long hair and the heavy accent who had a daughter her age, though, he'd hastened to assure her, not one as beautiful as she was.

"The Dark Lord's not old," Ginevra had said.

The world had gone white. The girls had giggled and he'd felt her eyes on him and wondered what she knew. Did she know anything? He'd excused himself and walked the cold miles to this bar, and sat down and started to drink. Tom hadn't told him. He'd never mentioned it. Not once. Not a single, by the way, I'm getting married to Weasley girl.

The whistle flared again and the burning pain infuriated him. He went to rip the cord off his neck and stopped only when he heard the door of this dingy bar open.

"If you do that, I will make you regret it."

Draco paused, then tore the cord free and tossed the whistle to the ground.

Draco slouched back over the cheap whiskey and waited for Tom to leave. The door shut and he let out a huff that was sadder than he wanted to think about. Funny, how he'd thought for a brief moment he'd mattered to someone even as his most vulnerable. Even broken. The barkeep had disappeared and he regarded the bottom of his glass with regret. How was he going to get more now?

"Can you even walk back in this state?"

The cold words sliced into his skin and Draco turned, steadied himself as the world spun, and tried to focus on the cheekbones and dark eyes, but they kept blurring. "Why are you here?" he asked. The words came out with an embarrassing slur to them but, he thought, fuck it. Tom had seen him passed out from pain, his last conscious words a plea for more. The man could see him drunk.

"I was informed you'd taken off," he said.

"Informed by Ginny, I bet," Draco muttered. He turned back to the bar and drained what little was left in his glass. He remembered reading once that cheap booze could be deadly because the alcohol content was so high. Maybe if he kept going he'd get lucky and never have to look at perfect little Ginevra ever again.

"She was concerned." Draco felt a hand on his shoulder, and then the whistle flew up from the floor because, oh, wasn't magic so wonderful. So very wonderful. So wonderful it had destroyed him. He banged the empty glass on the wooden counter, hoping to get someone's attention, but the bar remained deathly quiet. "I would prefer you not make a public scene," Tom said.

Draco could see his mother, perfectly groomed, telling him not to make a scene. "Or what?" he asked now. "You'll marry a pretty little red lion?" He let out a bitter laugh. "Bit late for that threat to have any power."

"You're jealous." Tom began to laugh and Draco could feel rage bubble up from his gut but before he could tell him what he could do with his mockery Tom said, "You little fool," and then their mouths were together and Draco shivered because for the first time this was affection. How could he kiss like this now, engaged to someone else? The elegance of the cruelty made him wrench his head away.

The room wobbled and his stomach rebelled.

"I think I'm going to be sick," he said.

Tom picked up the glass and sniffed at it. "You'd deserve it," he said, "drinking this."

"You're marrying Ginevra," Draco said.

Tom tipped his head and regarded him. "I won't magic you into sobriety, Draconius, and you're going to have to walk back with me. Consider it your first payment on the debt you owe me for this transgression. If you do vomit, be very careful to not get any on my shoes. If you do, I will make it worse."

"You don't want me anymore," Draco said. He knew he sounded petulant but he felt petulant. Petulant and queasy. "You should have told me."

Tom fastened the whistle back around his neck. "Start walking," he said. "As you stagger home, we can discuss you moving into my suite and your opinion of women."

"Like women just fine," Draco said. He took a step toward the door and had to grab onto Tom to keep from falling over. "Not letting her cut me, though."

Tom's smile made something in him tighten and the release.

"But how do you feel about her watching?" Tom asked.

. . . . . . . . . .

Sometimes it seems like I always knew they were going to get married. I wrote out lists. He told me part of my job was dealing with his bride. Why, then, do I remember so clearly finding that truth out. That truth and its consequences. Had I always known and let myself forget, or have my memories fragmented so much they aren't in the right order any longer?

Everything is a lie anyway.

I don't know why I care.