@-'-,-'—

This is an incredibly short chapter. Sorry. *evil grin* Ha, no I'm not. I just like seeing you squirm.

"Two Velvet Drawstring Bags"

"Who is Lowell?" Harry asked politely, pushing his queen-side castle into a square formerly occupied by Draco's black granite bishop. A look of mild surprise flashed in the blond's pale face but dissipated immediately, and he stretched back against the limestone window frame.

They were sitting on the fat limestone windowsill of a seventh-floor corridor, deserted for all practical purposes, each straddling the sill with the chessboard between them. The windows had been flung open, and a warm spring breeze fluttered their hair and tugged at their clothes; but their school robes had been discarded and lay on the floor of the corridor inside and they were quite content with the late morning sunlight painting shadows on their faces and walls.

Without regard to his pieces, Draco asked, "Lowell? Why do you ask about him?"

Harry shrugged, his emerald gaze drifting deliberately onto the grounds below them, onto the sloping lawns and geometric gardens and shadowed forest beyond. There was a bit of a silence between them, until Harry replied, "You mentioned, once, that Lowell had never asked for the glass chessmen. But you never said who Lowell was, or how you knew him." Draco said nothing. "Was he a family friend?" Harry asked. "You knew him through your father?"

There was not a trace of thought in his voice as Draco said, "My father had some influence on my meeting Lowell. But he was no family friend." He grinned, shaking his hair from his eyes, and added, "Lowell, that is, not my father."

"Of course," said Harry.

They were enveloped in silence for a long moment more, while the glass and granite men crossed the board in a ballet of wit and skill. And suddenly, Draco's knight cornered Harry's sparkling king, and the game was ended. But instead of setting up the pieces for another bout, Draco folded the board and carefully replaced the pieces into two velvet drawstring bags, one silver and one black, and tucked it all underneath his robes on the floor.

"You played chess with him?"

"Hm?" said Draco, looking at him with a cocked eyebrow. "Played chess with who? Lowell?" Harry nodded, and Draco sighed. "What is this to you, Harry? What does it matter who Lowell was?"

"It doesn't," Harry said stubbornly. "I'm just curious. Obviously he was important, or you wouldn't have even mentioned him to begin with, let alone as though you regret something having to do with him. So who was he?"

"He was a friend," Draco glared across the sill at Harry, "who I used to play chess with. And then I found out that he lied to me in a very major way."

"How did he lie to you?"

The blond sighed brusquely, running a hand through his hair, and restlessly leaned against the stone frame of the window, his forearm keeping the sun from his eyes and casting a shadow across his face.

"You ask too many questions, Harry."

"You don't have to answer them if you don't want to," he said, and he used his hands as a pillow behind his head as he fell back against the frame of the window, his elbows sticking out on either side.

"Yes," sighed Draco, looking sidelong at Harry. "Yes, I do. I owe it to you. I owe it to myself, or to Lowell, maybe." He looked at Harry, and his eyes were wide and utterly miserable as he said, "Lowell disappeared, Harry. He became invisible to me some time ago."