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(a/n: What? Late ass updates again? Oh noes!!

Uh…yeah. Presently I'm having housing difficulties of a Mom-throwing-me-out nature and haven't had the time or the means to update in a timely manner. But as my hospitable maternal grandma is feeding, housing, and providing me with an internet connection, you, dear readers, shan't be forced to go without for too long. I'm reliable like that.)

Chapter 10: Abandonment

"Draco! Where are you?" I couldn't stop myself shouting it despite the fact that there obviously wasn't any point. Leave it to me to fall in love with such a complete—

The thought stopped me dead and the foot that had been hovering midstep over the ground in front of me fell absently back down again. I didn't move forward.

I did love him, didn't I? I did, and I'd never even said it.

And now I might not ever get to.

"Idiot…" Tears coursed embarrassingly down my face in what felt like an ocean of melodramatic saltwater. "Idiot."

"Harry! We've been looking everywhere!" I sighed as two people I had no desire to deal with turned the corner to stare at me with irritatingly sincere concern.

"Lavender said she saw you down here bawling your eyes out…where's Malfoy?" Ron's eyes narrowed menacingly. "What did he do?"

"Nothing," I snapped, wiping at my eyes and trying to walk around them. Ron planted himself in front of me. "Get out of my way, Ron."

"Harry, what the hell is going on?"

"You're getting out of my way and I'm leaving."

"Can you just answer me?"

"Can you just leave me alone?" It was sounding a lot like a temper tantrum but I didn't care. At this point, I had enough problems.

"Of course not. We're your friends, aren't we?"

"Shut up and go away," I growled, but Ron gave me a stubborn glare and Hermione looked equally determined.

I looked at them. They looked at me.

"Draco's gone," I grumbled miserably. "Has been for hours.

"Gone?" Hermione inquired in a rare moment of confusion.

"He's chucked you, hasn't he? I'm going to punch his stupid face in, I swea—"

"He hasn't chucked me! He's just…he's just doing something very dangerous and stupid even though I told him not to and it'll be a bloody miracle if he even comes back at all and I—I'm—"

"Oh god," Ron breathed with a sort of fascinated disgust. "You actually love that idiot, don't you?"

"Yeah," I sniffed miserably.

"So," he sighed in horribly forced resignation, "what are you still standing around here for?"

OoOoOo

"Father? Where…" I stopped, deciding I'd rather not find him if at all possible. "Mother?" I tried in a quieter tone. "Mother, it's Draco…"

The manor was the darkest I'd ever seen it; I'd be astounded if there was a light on in the whole house. Light flared from the tip of my wand and I instantly wished it hadn't.

There was a dark stain of ominous crimson on the carpet. And I was standing in it.

I jumped back about a foot and knocked over something that sounded expensive, but then nearly everything around here was. "M-Mother?"

Still no answer. And apparently I'd developed a stutter.

"Draco? Draco, is that you?" The whisper was low and harsh and genderless. It could have been anyone. Mother or Father or—

"Harry, I'm going to kill you!"

"Draco! I've been so—"

"Go home, Harry."

"But—"

"How stupid are you? I told you not to come here!"

"No," he answered mildly. "You lied to me and tried to trick me into staying at school, but you never told me not to come here."

"Has it at any point occurred to you that I might've had a very good reason for that?"

"Because you love me?" Harry asked the floor quietly.

Angry as I was, I had to laugh. "Nox," I whispered to my wand, and smiled in the darkness. "Idiot. Did you come all the way here just for that?"

I could practically hear him blushing. "Not just that. I had to make sure you were…well…"

I put my shaking hands over his, pulling him close.

"You little moron. Of course I—"

"Crucio."

There's no describing what I felt after that except the hope that I'd never have to feel it again. Only one thing made it through the sharp rush of pain fogging my comprehension.

"Really, Draco," said my father in a tone of deep boredom. "The lengths you will go to to disgrace this family…"

OoOoOo

"Narcissa, where on earth do you suppose you're going?" Lucius Malfoy intoned coolly, standing impassive over the twitching body of his only child.

Draco's mother hurled herself across the room, ignoring her own injuries and shoving Harry aside. "Stop it! Lucius, stop, you're going to—"

"Narcissa, take your hands off that filthy traitorous little faggot or I shall become very angry with you."

"Lucius, he's our son—"

"This—" he began caustically, punctuating the words with a vicious kick to Draco's ribs, "—is no son of mine."

"Leave him alone," Harry growled.

"Oh?" A wand instantly made its presence known at Harry's throat. "Something to say, Potter?"

"Harry, don't," Draco said in the hoarse whisper that was all he could manage. "Don't…"

"I said—I said leave him alone!"

"Hmm." He smiled unkindly and turned his wand on Draco instead. "A shame the Dark Lord has such strict rules about your murder. Fortunately he's placed no such restrictions on—"

"You will not," said Narcissa Malfoy fiercely, a pale and shaking hand holding her wand to her husband's heart, "touch my son."

(a further a/n: aw…little tiny chapter…

Yeah. That whole not-really-having-a-house thing gets in my way more than you'd think, so this is pretty much barely even a chapter. I miss Marvin…-sniff-…)