A Pain that I'm Used To

by divinne

Sequel to 'Forever...' LUNA/DRACO/BLAISE: is it Love,Desire,Obsession or Madness? It's only after you've lost EVERYTHING that you're free to do ANYTHING! Draco's Journey Dark Side: Taboos-Gore-NonConSex-Dark Magic-Alchemy-Vengeance&Payback! Book7Spoilers

38. Chapter 38

A/N:

!!!!WARNING!!!!

!!MORAL & SEXUAL (SO CALLED) TABOOS AND DEVIATIONS AHEAD!!

DON'T LIKE, DON'T READ...OR READ AND MAYBE YOU'D END UP LIKING IT :smirks:

This extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemely looooooooooooooooooooooong Chapter... actually 2 Chapters in 1 (and the only thing I managed to pair together so far) is dedicated to my best friend, muse and confident, Roxana…RIP

I miss you so much babe and I'd always love you…not in the way you wanted me to…but in the only way I knew how. You've always put up with me in both good and bad times and no matter how much it hurt me and how hard I tried…I simply couldn't find a way to give you everything you deserved... I'm sorry…for being the way I am...

It's because of her that I've decided to write this sequel in first place. This is a fictionalized version of my life. Some people write in diaries, I chose to write this.

Despite I've got no regrets I'm not proud of most of the things I've done in the past. It's funny how many people ended up praising and idolizing me for my actions…I never understood that…maybe it's because they just see what they want to see and not what lies beneath a charming smirk…

I also dedicate this duet of chapters to all those lost, heartbroken and sexually confused souls… with respect.

*(So) Divinne*

CHAPTER XXXVIII & CHAPTER XXXIX

"It's never enough to say I'm sorry, it's never enough to say I care
But I'm caught between what you wanted from me and knowing that if I give that to you
I might just disappear, nobody wins when everyone's losing
It's like one step forward and two steps back, no matter what I do you're always mad
And I, I can't change your mind, I know it's like trying to turn away one way street
I can't give you what you want and it's killing me
And I, I'm starting to see… maybe we're not meant to be
It's never enough to say I love you, no, it's never enough to say I try
It's hard to believe that's there's no way out for you and me
And it seems to be the story of our lives
There's still time to turn this around, you could building this up instead of tearing it down
But I keep thinking maybe it's too late."

(THEORY OF A DEADMAN – "Not Meant To Be")

Draco awoke with the bitter taste of bile clenching from his stomach, a gagging retch came crawling through his throat. He looked around the room he was in with a confused look: he didn't recognize a single thing in it.

He stared up at the ceiling for a long moment – while gathering enough strength to get up - but when he tried to lift his hands he denoted they were restrained by cloth-padded manacles around his wrists, similar cloth-padded manacles surrounded securely - yet not hurtful - tight his ankles. He could barely lift his limbs three or four inches from the soft, cushioned surface he was laying over…it was a mattress, he was laying over a bed…a hospital bed.

Ducking his head he looked down and repaired on the fact that he was dressed only with a plain light-blue cotton pajamas pants. The bandages that wrapped his stomach, waist, torso, forearms and upper arms - there was also a band around his forehead that covered his patched right eye – emanated a disgustingly powerful antiseptic scent that accented the sick feeling on the pit of his stomach.

While shrugging his nose at the hurtful smell that was filling his nostrils, Draco tested the strength of those manacles, but he started to feel groggy. Seemed that whatever spell, charm or potion they'd supplied his body with was pulling him back into sleep. Forcing his left pearl-gray eye to open wide, he shook his head twice.

Draco noticed that his wand, the Elder Wand, rested over a clean and folded change of clothing – white underwear and socks, black pants and matching color long sleeves t-shirt and a dark-green shirt along with his wand - scarce inches from him on a small armchair next to the bed.

He extended his right hand towards the wand and tried to accio it, but nothing happened. He tried several more times with the same result...the wand didn't move an inch from on top of the pile of fresh clothes. Without giving up just yet, Draco then tried to cast some minor wandless spells - the type a toddler would pull through without problem - but he'd got the same frustrating effect: not a single charm worked.

"It wasn't a nightmare…she did it…my magic essence is gone. Luna had turned me into a Squib." Squeezing his eye shut, a tear run down his cheek. "Oh Merlin, how could you let me survive like this?!"

The room was getting darker and colder. He tried to keep his eye open but he couldn't, he closed it shut and the whole room plunged into darkness again.

Draco's eyelids fluttered open by force of will when he felt a presence looming close to him, terror seized him with no mercy.

"Whossserrr?" He asked fearfully while dragging the words in his stunned haze.

"There's no reason to be scared. You're safe here." Someone soothed standing right in front of the bed.

Draco's left pearl-gray eye looked really hard at that person for a long time until the blurry and distorted image that projected his groggy partial sight slowly came into focus and he could finally recognize who was in front of him.

"Bbblaisss…" Came a weak hiss from the blonde's mouth.

Blaise couldn't help himself and smiled stupidly when he heard Draco calling out his name. "Yes, it's me."

Blaise had always been slightly taller than Draco. His six point two feet never passed unnoticed but with the course of the months his physical structure started to suffer changes due to the stressed and chaotic rhythm around him. Now that he was weighting less than a hundred and twenty five pounds – about fifteen pounds more than the skinny six feet tall blond but practically a shadow of the sculpted and muscled god-like stud he once was - Blaise's image was standing out even more…but for the wrong reasons, arousing worries and concern from everyone around him.

The jet black haired Slytherin was dressed in an impeccable two pieces dark-blue suit. He had the first two buttons of his white shirt unbuttoned and the knot of his black tie was loosened. Contrary to the perfection of his expensive looking clothes, his smooth ebony skin looked dry and his handsome yet bony facial features denoted accented tiredness. His pitch-black eyes were puffy and swollen, probably from crying or for rubbing them too hard.

Draco breathed heavily and forced the words out in lungfuls of air. "You… look… like… crap."

"Hey, that's my line." The other chuckled sadly.

The blond smirked drowsily and made an unheard snort-like sound. By then Blaise could barely hold back the tears and started sobbing silently.

"Water." Draco murmured closing his eye, his right eye remained patched. "Cool it."

Blaise nodded and headed immediately to the small table by the side of the bed. He lifted the water jar, filled the glass and with a flick of his wand he turned the water into small ice chips. He then took sit on the edge of the bed and with a spoon he dropped carefully some chips between Draco's half-opened lips.

"Howdya finmmme?" Draco inquired while crunching the ice chips inside his mouth.

Blaise's gaze was locked on Draco's face with a you've-got-to-be-kidding-me look.

"I've arrived at the hospital shortly after you. Don't you remember?" Blaise inquired with a soft, broken voice.

"No." The blond rolled his left eye tiredly and closed it shut.

"How could you've forgotten…" Blaise throat closed shut. He almost dropped the ice chips over his lap. He rested the glass on the edge of the table because his pulse became erratic all of a sudden.

Blaise felt his whole world went still and silent as he started to drown in a bottomless pit of affliction and impotence. Summoning as much self-control as he could gather Blaise bit his tongue and made himself keep quiet…for a scarce heartbeat. Then a rage like he'd never felt in his life shot through him like a firestorm. He shot up from the bed, turned his back on Draco and nailed both fists onto the wall, leaving two large craters.

"Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! I'm so bloody stupid! I knew it! I fucking knew it!" He lamented himself with an anger that warred with his distress.

When Draco spoke again he did it in between taking deep breaths. "Can't feel…my body…either." His voice was still raspy, but lost its dry edge.

Blaise drew in an exaggerated breath - clearly controlling it - and then allowed it to flow out slowly.

"Good, that's good." Blaise said absentmindly and sucked up a sound sob, turning round, composing himself with inhuman strength.

He then cracked his sore knuckles - shaking the dust off his hands - there were no signs of the cuts on his hands for they healed almost instantly. "It's been done as much as possible to ease the pain."

Draco exhaled heavily through his nose. "So that's why I've lost hours and my body feels numbed." He concluded bitterly to himself, he seemed a little more focus and alert with the passing of the minutes. "Untie me." He ordered.

Looking down, Blaise crossed his arms over his lean chest and took sit on the corner of the bed. "I'm afraid I can't do that. The reason you've been restrained was because the cuts were bone-deep. No matter how incredible fast healer you are: move an inch and you'd risk they open again."

"That doesn't justify the fact that I've been drugged to the bone and tied to a bed." Draco was soon boiling with both rage and frustration. "HELP! I'VE BEEN HELD IN HERE AGAINST MY WILL!" He cried emptying his tired lungs.

The blond was almost out of breath, Blaise watched at him in confusion. "Right now you're in the securest and most private wing of St Mungo's hospital…"

But Draco cut Blaise's explanation with an exasperated voice. "WHAT?! I'm in the mental wing?!"

Continuing speaking with a monotone voice, Blaise explained. "This room has not only been protected with a series of spells but also with silent charms to grant you relax and privacy. Unless your petition demands medicine, food, drink or a change of bandages, no-one outside these walls would hear you. You can deactivate the silent spells if you want."

Draco's heart missed two consecutive beats, his left eye started to cloud with tears. "But I can't use my magic anymore. How am I going to get out from here now?"

Blaise watched how his brother's face slowly contorted into a terrified distorted mask. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I don't want to be in here another minute. Untie me, untie me, untie me, UNTIE ME!!" By then Draco's heart started racing faster until it broke into a panic attack. "GET ME OFF THESE CHAINS!!"

The blond Slytherin started pulling from the manacles, rubbing his flesh hard against the padded cloth and with such rough friction his fragile skin started bruising.

"I'M NOT A SLAVE!" Draco's ragged, hysterical scream was chocked with suffocating sobs that left him almost breathless.

The immaculate white bandages that surrounded the blonde's body started to get soaked with crimson stains.

"Draco, please, calm down!" Getting up from the bed, Blaise lifted his wand towards his brother. "Shit! You're bleeding!"

Once the ice-cold refreshing sensation and the mint flavored scent of the combined healing and calming spells and charms that Blaise cast on Draco made effect, the blond stopped rocking back and forth on the mattress.

"I've won my freedhhommm …" Draco's voice was drowsy with the huskiness of sedation, his eyelids fluttered shut for a brief moment.

Feeling a weight sinking next to him on the bed, Draco opened his eyelids again and looked up with a droopy eye at Blaise.

"I'm floaty…no more…" The blond pleaded, drooling all over himself.

Blaise produced a handkerchief from his pocket and carefully started wiping clean Draco's mouth. "Will you behave then?! Can't you see that you can end up hurting yourself?!" He sounded more worried than angry.

His pitch-black eyes studied carefully the visible bruises – from the scarce inches of exposed flesh that were not wrapped by bandages - of Dracos' body healing incredible slowly . "I can't stand to see you prostrated in this bed either but your body is still very fragile. It needs time to recover its strength in order to heal properly, okay?"

"Where is Luna? I want to see her, take me to her." The blond ordered, shaking his head to the sides so that Blaise stopped mopping his face dry with the handkerchief.

Blaise felt his face burning and started seeing red; one of his hands clenched and unclenched the border of the mattress. "For fuck sakes! You still want to see that nutcase after what she'd done to you?!"

"I need to be with her and with my son. You have to let me see them." Draco said, this time trying another angle.

The jet black haired Slytherin refused categorically, shaking his head furiously. "No, I won't and she's not going anywhere until the baby is born. I've ordered her room to be closely guarded so that no-one can get out or get in without my permission. She's sound asleep; in the same stable condition she was when you brought her to the hospital. Her vitals and the baby's are sound and steady. So far the contractions are imperceptible and they come as fast as they go. The medi-wizards estimate she'd take a couple of hours to be fully dilated. If she doesn't wake up by then…they'll induce the birth." Leaning over he fixed Draco's pillow and suggested with a soft tone in his voice. "Why don't you use that time to rest?"

The blond hummed angrily greeting teeth and breathed heavily. Blaise was taken aback. He withdrew his hand immediately from Draco's cheek and stared at the blond in silence before asking annoyingly. "That bitch wanted to kill you and you are mad at me?!"

A quick flash of something resembling regret lighted up Draco's pearl-gray left eye. Then he dropped his gaze and turned his head to a side, refusing to look at Blaise. "I'm not."

Blaise's forehead furrowed and his eyes narrowed. "I know you're way too stoned to gather your thoughts properly but don't you dare lie to me so plainly!"

"I'm trying not to be mad at you, but my patience is very limited and you've always tend to surpass my point of tolerance in record-time!" Draco replied angrily, his time he didn't blink and fixed his sore eye on the ceiling.

Blaise's lips tightened, his hands curled into fists over his knees. "Whatever is that you're hiding from me you'd better spit it out. Now."

Draco's chest made a faint grunted sound. "That sounds incredibly hard to believe coming from you. You know every little thing before I do. So if you're asking me that it's because you just want to confirm something."

"No-one knows me better like you do brother, but I happen know you just as well." Blaise chuckled darkly and leaned closer, they were almost nose-to-nose. "Speak up, what is it that you're afraid I'll find out?"

A searing pain in Draco's stomach brought the destructive memories back. His throat burned with the ghost of sickness and swallowed painfully. "Stop pressuring me."

"That's not my intention. I just want to hear it from you. Draco, I need to know that you still confide in me." Blaise's voice denoted his building tension.

Leveling his pearl-gray left eye with Blaise's pitch-black gems, Draco shot back with a pissed-off frown. "Whenever you start acting like this is because you want to hear me saying that I'd never stop believing and trusting in you because you're my equal."

Blaise's smile held genuine warmth; he squeezed Draco's hand in his and then grabbed it gently but with a firm grip. "Now tell me what's really going on, I'm all ears."

The blond felt a growl crawling up his throat that made his next words come incredible low and threatening. "What happened between me and Luna it's none of your business because is a private matter. A pending private matter, that's why I have to see her."

Blaise cupped Draco's chin in one hand - locking his pitch-black eyes on the blonde's left pearl-gray eye - and asked seriously. "Draco, what is it that you feel for her?"

After swallowing the sudden lump that had formed in his throat he replied evasively. "She's the mother of my heir."

"Answer the question." Blaise urged, both Slytherins were eye-to-eye.

Feeling a nasty headache coming down at him, Draco pursed his lips into a thin line and refused to answer.

"Are you still in love with Luna?" The jet black haired Slytherin finally managed to ask, his voice was slowly coming undone.

"No, I'm not." The blond replied with an immutable face but once he heard himself, he couldn't believe what he'd just said.

Despite Draco felt no regret or doubt when he spoke those words out it sounded as if someone else had replied for him.

Blaise inspected Draco's pupil and how it remained constant, it didn't swell at all and that was because what the blond said was the truth and that made Blaise's heartbeat tripped, stumbled, and picked up its rhythm in double time.

"How can I suddenly not care about her in the least?" Draco asked with a voice that sounded completely desensitized taking into account what he was questioning.

"You deserve so much more, more than what you've settled for." Blaise prompted, a dark smile curling his lips.

"Blaise, what is happening to me?" He inquired with the scarce amount of air left on his tired lungs.

Without taking his eyes off his brother's face, Blaise replied with boiling anger. "It almost took you your own life to finally realize that you and Luna are not meant to be! Why did you have to reach this ultimate limit to finally open your eyes? LAST NIGHT I'VE NEARLY LOST YOU!" He finished with a raw scream, unable to hold back the tears a second longer.

"I've always learnt the hard way." Draco looked angry with himself. "How could I love her still after what she'd done to me? She'd stolen my magic essence and the only reason she couldn't finish me off was because she started having contractions."

After a soft knock on the door a tall witch – mid-forties, with beautiful oriental features and candid smile – stepped inside the room. Her long pitch-black hair was held up in a bun by two crossed metal hairpins and that image made Draco start to think fast.

"Nice hairpins you've got there, long and pointed…and sharp." He smirked to himself, plotting.

Without lifting himself from his spot on the bed, Blaise wiped away the tears and welcomed the witch with a tight nod before turning to face Draco. "This is doctor Tsukino. She'd run a series of physical and psychic tests on you."

The blonde's face twisted grotesquely, his emotions threatened to close his throat.

"Tests?" Draco repeated, staring fixedly at the wax sealed envelopes the woman had just handled over to Blaise.

By the time he spoke again Blaise's voice held a harsh, vengeful tone. "Yes, they're needed as evidence to back-up the case I've filed against that nutcase so that she can be charged and punished accordingly."

Draco's chest rose and fell with rapid breaths. "No! If those results come to light everyone would know that Luna took away all my magic power!"

Blaise got up from the bed, giving space for the witch to check on the bandages that were wrapped around the blonde's torso, and walked towards the window. Welcoming the fact that his brother was giving the back at him Draco deliberately made a fast move – lifting his knee – and knocked the cap of unguent's flask she was opening. By the time the doctor picked it up from the floor – after providing a close up of those hairpins of hers when she ducked down – the talented long fingers of the blond Slytherin performed as expected and Draco hid the pin he'd managed to retrieve behind his back, resting over it.

Getting impatient but also incredible nervous with the feeling of going to be so closely inspected by that woman, Draco yelped. "DON'T TOUCH ME!" Startled, the poor woman took a couple of steps back.

The blond then cleared his voice with a raspy cough. "Brother, you and I need to talk. Now."

Blaise turned round to face Draco, his brows knitted with accented confusion.

"I can't tell Blaise that I can no longer read inside his mind." Squeezing his eye shut – preventing Blaise from reading through his deceit this time - Draco complained. "My head hurts."

Blaise nodded immediately and got sit again on the bed, right next to the blond.

"How insensitive of me, you must be mentally exhausted." Blaise replied in what sounded more like an apology for that previous unconscious reaction of him.

Blaise's words made Draco wonder if his brother was letting himself guide without questioning to wherever the blond was leading him.

Blaise then pulled out his wand and called out. "Muffliato!"

"Like I've said before, this is a private matter and it'd stay that way." The blond Slytherin said without taking his eye off the envelopes Blaise kept holding on his hand. "Burn those and make that doctor forget the results." He ordered, his voice held a nervous faulting tone.

"I won't allow that bitch hurt you ever again. It's time for you to stop covering for her." The other said, already placing a thumb over a wax seal of one of the envelopes, eager to read the results.

Draco started to tremble in spite himself. "It's all over now, leave it."

"How can you possibly ask me that? Haven't you noticed the condition you're in? That nutcase is going down!" Blaise refused and broke one of those seals.

Getting hyperventilated, Draco snapped out completely. "WHY CAN'T YOU JUST LEAVE IT ALL BEHIND FOR GOOD?!" He cried with a panicked yelp, clenching his left eye closed against a sting of tears.

"God knows there's nothing I wouldn't do for you, but you can't expect me to pretend this didn't happen. I refuse..." Blaise started but a funny feeling made him duck his head down.

Pulling hard from the manacles, the blond had managed to brush briefly his brother's knee with the back of his hand.

"Would I have to beg?" Draco asked without looking at his brother in the eye, desperately hoping Blaise would say no.

Blaise cupped Draco's hand in his, comforting the blonde's cold skin with his warmth and smiled sadly. "No, of course not. What makes you say that?"

Lifting his sore eye, Draco said with a thread of voice. "That's what desperate people do: they beg."

Using his other hand, Blaise leaned forward and trailed softly his fingertips down one of Draco's moisten cheeks. "But a Malfoy doesn't beg so don't say things like that again, okay?" The mildness of his voice disguised his rising concern.

The blond nodded and pushed the nervous knot down his throat. "Blaise, I'm tired of fighting. I don't know what else to do to make you understand..."

But Blaise hushed him, tracing a finger over Draco's mouth, brushing those pale lips with his fingertip. "I don't want us to fight either."

A familiar painful feeling twisted in Draco's gut when Blaise started touching him again but this time the blond didn't move as Blaise continued to caress his face with his fingertips.

"Brother, enough." The words left Draco's lips in a shaky undertone.

Blaise leaned closer and said with an infinitely sad voice. "Don't push me away."

"I can't stand…" Draco then clamped hard his teeth, looking beyond scared, and began to tremble in spite himself when Blaise's eager fingers started rubbing behind the back of his neck, massaging softly his skin.

"I can't stand being touched by anyone." The blond finally finished the sentence trying to be cautious enough so that Blaise wouldn't take it personally.

"But I'm not anyone so relax." Blaise soothed with a forced calm tone that underlined a building tension.

"I've been drugged and tied to a bed. I can't imagine being more forced to be relaxed than I am right now." The blond replied harshly.

Feeling Blaise's hand trailing the sides of his neck – acting like a vampire searching for the best angle to dig his fangs on that ivory skin - Draco squeezed his eyes shut in fear and pulled unconsciously from the manacles trying to set himself free from the bonds.

Blaise's shoulders hunched, angst was strangling his throat when he spoke. "You're acting as if you were afraid of me."

Draco smirked somewhat artificially. "And you're acting as if you were guilty of something." He shot back, staring blankly past his brother.

Emotion clogged Blaise's throat again as his fingertips traveled softly the bandages that wrapped Draco's chest before pressing softly his open palm over the blonde's right bare shoulder where was once marked the Lifespan Seal.

"Draco, I want you to know that you can count on me. No matter how much we've both changed, you and I would always be soul-mates." A burdened expression crossed Blaise's face.

A knot in his throat prevented Draco from speaking too but then he started to suspect that Blaise already knew that he'd got no magic essence left in him. "Of course he knows. It takes a single touch to realize if someone has or not magic within. That's the reason why I don't want anyone to touch me ever again. Blaise knows I'm a Squib now but he would never bring up the subject unless I do. He'd be willing to maintain the farce and spare me from the shame until the day it becomes impossible to hold such façade. But I can't tell him the truth because if I do I'd give him control over me… more than the one he'd procured himself already. We're both playing the fool here."

Draco's voice came weak and shaky. "No-one but me is to blame for what happened. I got what I deserved, okay?"

"BOLLOCKS!" Blaise spitted with an anger tightening his nerves. "What you deserve is to be with someone capable to appreciate and cherish you for a change!"

Draco started trembling unconsciously again; he squeezed his eye shut for a moment as he tried to steady his breathing. "I've pushed things way too far and now Luna does not only hate me but wants me dead and I can't take it anymore. She resents me for having saved her life, because of that she got pregnant and the Ghoul powers got the best of her. I've turned her whole life upside down! And I know it's been difficult for you to adjust and live with your new abilities after coming back from the other side of the veil. I'm perfectly aware that knowledge and power could easily turn into a burden rather than a gift. I should never have dared to play god. No-one can come back, if they do then they're not who they once were. None of us three are the same…not anymore! I know that because when I came back after Pettigrew killed me, I felt remotely like myself. This is not life, this is a living Hell!"

Drying the blonde's wet cheeks with the back of his hand, Blaise soothed with an angsty, sad voice. "You're talking as if you were alone, and you're not: you've got me. Part of being strong is being able to admit you need help sometimes. I've told you we'd always split hardships fifty-fifty. Let me carry half the burden."

"Now that my son made it to the ninth month he won't depend on me because his magic powers won't become unstable if I'm not around. And the curse of the Red Threads of Destiny would no longer take effect nor trim his pursue of finding true happiness because the moment we've promised to each other both were different persons: he only had a small portion of humanity in him and I was…I'm not that man anymore." Draco corrected himself but then a strangled, sound sob that he couldn't hold back any longer made Blaise's heart shattered even more. "Everybody knows that many followers of the Dark Lord swore revenge and want my head over a plate. If something happened to me, I'm counting on you to watch over Scorpius. You're his uncle and he is the future of our Clan."

"Of course, that's what families do: they watch over each other. You and my nephew are my life." After pressing a soft kiss over the bandage that covered Draco's forehead, Blaise soothed. "Draco, you've been through enough. You should rest so that you can recover promptly, okay? Do it for your son."

Draco fixed his watery left pearl gray eye on his brother's pitch-black gems. "Brother, if for some reason I don't make it by the time my heir is of age to understand, tell Scorpius that he's the best thing I've ever done in my life. Don't let him resent me, okay?" He finished with an angsty hiss.

Cupping both hands on Draco's cheeks, Blaise leaned forward and hissed angrily an inch apart the blonde's mouth. "What's with that paranoia?! Have you forgotten that you're the most powerful wizard in the history of the Wizardy World?!"

"You can't change someone without destroying who he was before. What Luna did changed me forever: I'm no longer a wizard." The blond Slytherin said to himself and swallowed hard. "I might be paranoid but that doesn't rule out the fact that there would always be someone out there to get me."

Blaise narrowed his eyes, seeing Draco through his thick eyelashes and sneered coldly. "No-one would stand the chance to harm you ever again, this I swear to you."

"Blaise, what happened during the hours I've lost?" Draco inquired shortly before a stinging burn coursed through his right wrist. The urges to scratch his skin made his course of thinking drift in that direction.

"Last night I've made a promise to myself. I've promised I'd never failed again when it comes to guard and protect your life." Blaise replied strangely calm.

Unconsciously - without repairing on what his right hand was doing - Blaise started rubbing softly his long fingers behind the manacle that surrounded Draco's wrist.

"You'd better scratch it harder or untie me right now so I can do it myself." Draco said as the sensation circling his wrist started to get disgustingly itchy.

Snapping out of his trance after hearing Draco's voice, Blaise bit his lip when he realized Draco had said something and he wasn't listening.

"What are you waiting for? I can't stand it anymore, the itch is killing me! Come on!" Draco urged, getting impatient.

Blaise's eyes opened wide and his cheeks went purple red in a micro-second.

"I want to…I really do but…you're still recovering. It could help though…I mean…it's a positive stimulus…I can't wait either…so if that's okay with you..." Blaise stammered in between words, his heart slamming high and tight in his chest and his manhood went from throbbing to aching.

But Draco cut Blaise's fantasy abruptly. "Scratch my wrist harder!"

"Your…wrist…Ohhhkay…" Once reality settled inside Blaise's mind, he swallowed hard before complying.

"Dammit, I feel like a flea-bitten dog!" The blond complained annoyingly.

Blaise coughed nervously. "This means that you're no longer afraid of me, are you?"

"Why on earth would I be afraid of you?!" Draco shot back angrily without paying attention to Blaise's blushing, his enraged left eye continued to be fixed on his wrist.

Despite Blaise was somewhat lost with Draco's erratic mood swings the sadness that had soured him scarce moments ago disappeared in a rush of optimism.

Fighting against the increasing of his body's temperature that threatened to cloud his five senses, Blaise inquired. "Does it feel better now?"

Draco closed shut his eye and exhaled blissfully while Blaise's fingertips provided a carefully controlled friction around his wrist.

"Good enough to wag my tail." Draco shot back with a mocking smirk.

Those words made Blaise sweat even more; he had to bit his lip from preventing a nasty joke escape his lips.

"Mr. Blaise Malfoy!" Two different voices called in unison.

"SHIT!" Caught completely off guard, Blaise jumped guiltily - sucking a shocking gasp - and tried to compose himself, releasing Draco's wrist in the process. He first look over his shoulder before turning to face the Aurors that remained standing on opposite sides of the doorframe.

"Mr. Malfoy, I'm here to take your deposition regarding the events that took place last night and lead to the attempted murder of your brother committed by your sister-in-law." One hurried to speak first.

"Sir, you'd need to sign this writ of execution regarding your petition for custody." The other wizard prompted.

Draco looked beyond alarmed. "Blaise, what's the meaning of all this?!"

After kneeling besides the bed and pressing a kiss on the back of Draco's hand – in a public display of humbleness that bordered submissiveness – Blaise locked his pitch-black eyes on his brother's face:

"Whenever I set my sight on a goal, I carry it through to the end. My goal is to become the one who can protect and support you in every way possible. Yesterday, when I've met my mother for dinner, I've claimed the share of my father's will, the one that rightfully belonged to me once I reached the majority of age. I just couldn't continue to be comforted by what you've offered me and be satisfied with that without giving something in return. Despite your being emancipated, you're still a minor. After what happened last night, it's obvious that you can no longer differ what's convenient for you anymore. I've turned eighteen last week, I'm an adult now. I've requested a petition to be your legal guardian…yours and Scorpius' too."

Draco looked at Blaise blankly without being able to pronounce a word – as he unconsciously concentrated hard and tried to focus - but nothing happened for he perceived a blind silence coming from his brother's mind. Such extreme effort awoken the pain-killing effects of the medicinal potions - or maybe the ones of the healing charms - making him feel a little too drowsy all of a sudden.

"Stop unnerving me and get up. Don't you ever forget who you are." The blond spoke with a voice that came weak in spite of his rising anger.

Blaise did as requested but not before replying under his breath so that only Draco could hear. "The same goes to you, brother. My actions have just mirrored your attitude: by looking down on yourself you're humiliating me."

Draco narrowed his eye and smirked uncomfortably.

Blaise then placed the envelopes of the tests inside one of the inner pockets from his jacket and spoke with a tense voice. "I'd be back as soon as I'm through with these people and we'd read the results together, okay?"

"Brother, could you… at least… untie me?" The blond managed to drag the words out of his mouth; he was starting to get really dizzy.

Blaise straightened the fabric of jacket's suit and rearranged the loose knot of his tie. "Not just yet. You should rest and relax. Allow the healing treatment to take fully effect on you and don't worry about anything. I'm taking the matter into my own hands."

By then the painkillers kicked inside Draco so hard that he felt as if he was drowning in the soft cushioned mattress of the bed.

As he stepped outside Draco's room, Blaise faced the doctor with dark serious look. "I know I don't have to say this but I trust this is just between the two of us. My brother doesn't want the results of the tests to become public."

"Sir, those are confidential files. No-one except from you and your brother are entitled to read them. After finishing examining the samples taken from his physical frame and magical aura, the information was protected so that not even the medical staff in charge of the examinations knew their results. If there's anything else I can do for you or your brother, don't hesitate to ask." The witch paused, her eyes then filled with tears of gratitude. "My little girl is alive because of you. She's one of the Ravenclaw student's you've help escape the night Hogwarts' Headmaster and the teaching staff was held hostage by the Death Eaters. Thank you for saving what's most precious to me." She finished, hugging back the tears.

There was a long silence between them, Blaise then smiled to himself and let the witch carry on with her duties. He'd read the truth in her eyes. That woman presented to threat whatsoever, on the contrary, she might even turn up to be a most useful ally.

Turning his attention to one of the aurors, Blaise grabbed the bunch of parchments and started reading them fast - yet thoroughly and cautiously – before signing. "It's settled then, I've became their legal guardian."

After the departure of the first auror, the jet black haired Slytherin addressed the other wizard with a casual smirk. "Let's get this over with, shall we? I don't want to leave my brother in the condition he's in alone for that long."

The auror signaled a door in front of them and waited for Blaise to step inside first. Blaise hanged his jacket on the back of the chair's rest, unbuttoned and rolled the sleeves of his white shirt and took sit across the table.

Pushing up his spectacles - which had slid down the bridge of his sharp pointed nose – the auror then finished setting the quill, ink and parchment in front of him.

"Mr. Malfoy, what happened last night?" He asked Blaise with a toneless voice.

lllllllllllllllllllllllllll Beginning of Blaise's Flashback llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

More than eating Blaise was playing with the food on his place. He looked up and stared fixedly at the row of candles that hanged from the crystal beaded chandelier. The crystal cut prisms of the gilt bronze waterfall shaped lighting fixture reflected the rainbow colors on the plain white painted ceiling: that relaxing view eased somehow his distressed mind.

Looking at her son from the other end of the table, Clarissa asked quite sternly. "Have you forgotten to eat? You've lost a lot of weight in a very short time."

"The fact that I'm here tonight doesn't mean that I've forgot what you've put me through all these years. You'd better drop the act and give me what I came from." Blaise confronted her bluntly.

"With the passing of the months you're starting to match Draco's unhealthy slimness." She said, pushing the subject.

"For fuck sakes, the things I've got to put up with in order to get what's mine! If that's how it's gonna be then I'll play along one last time …" Blaise said to himself while balancing the fork between two fingers and replied resentfully without looking directly at his mother. "That fat cow eats for the four of us. Watching her stuff herself compulsively with food makes me lose my appetite."

"How far is Luna now?" The woman inquired after nibbling a small piece of chicken.

"About nine full moons." He said as he cut – more likely murdered – the grilled chicken breast that laid defenseless on his plate.

"You look tired." Clarissa marked with a worried tone in her soft voice. "Trouble sleeping too?"

Blaise lost grip of the knife and it fell onto the floor with a loud clank sound. "The last couple of months Draco and I have been perfecting our magic abilities and training our physical skills non-stop. Besides we've been studying like crazy in order to pass the exams at Hogwarts so that we can graduate a year earlier than the rest."

She left the fork and knife on a side of the plate and carefully brushed her delicate button rose lips over the napkin. "You've done remarkable at school, always top marks and you barely had to work hard to get them: you're a child prodigy. I never understood why you've sabotaged yourself in order to look less bright than Draco. Did you fear he would reject you for being smarter than him?"

Tracing boringly the open work of the silver napkin ring with his index finger, Blaise shot back. "I've learnt more from him than he'd ever do from me."

She shook her head slightly. "That doesn't mean he's better than you: that only highlights your deep interest in him. And I dare say you've benefited from the extra time you'd spend with Draco pretending to be studying."

"I was studying…him." The Slytherin finished with an accomplished smirk.

"Any excuse is a good one to be alone with Draco and keep amassing mementos together just the two of you, am I right?" Clarissa asked with a sad smile, not really wanted to receive an answer this time.

Blaise limited to snort vaguely.

She then curled behind her ear a long strand of her ink-black hair and looked up at her son. "Anyway…why the rush?"

After emptying in one large sip the whole content of wine from his goblet, the Slytherin explained. "Being a parent demands sacrifice and responsibility. We both wanted to finish our studies by the time Scorpius is born."

"Draco is the father. You're talking as if you were…" Clarissa started but was soon interrupted by the sound of glass breaking.

"I'm Scorpius' uncle." Blaise replied bluntly, brushing annoyingly with one hand the remaining glass splinters from the goblet that fell onto his lap. Luckily the fabric of his suit and shirt were magically stainless.

Clarissa chuckled bitterly at her son's distress. "You and Draco might not sleep in the same bed but you live under the same roof, spent most of the day together sharing countless mutual interests, confiding secrets and even finishing each other sentences: you two behave practically like an old married couple. You even have his last name and own a third of his fortune for heaven's sake!"

Apparating scarce inches from where Blaise was sited, she held his right hand in hers. "It's obvious that Draco cares about you in a way he'd never done for anyone else before. He even gave you this gold ring, the very same one that once belonged to him nonetheless." She concluded, reading carefully the monogrammed initials on the jewel.

Pulling his hand from those venomous claws, Blaise cleared his voice. "Draco gave it to me last week as birthday's present."

"My oh my! Let me hear all about that memorable anecdote." Clarissa demanded to know, resting her hips against the edge of the table.

Blaise's face changed and the room went away before his eyes as the memory caught up to him:

After banging the door of Draco's study open, Blaise stormed inside the room and ringed his long fingers around Luna's wrist, spinning violently her body to face him.

Lifting his enraged pitch-black eyes from her swollen belly he warned right into her face. "I swear I'll make you swallow your broken teeth one of these days, you little cunt!"

"Don't make promises you can't keep." Luna spoke defiantly and - releasing forcefully from Blaise's grip – she then turned to look at her husband with a mixture of sadness and regret. "Draco, I didn't…"

"I know." Draco cut her abruptly and levered himself slowly to his feet and stood in front of them swaying, narrowing his gaze to clear somehow his foggy vision.

To Blaise Draco's face looked paler and his skinny body weaker than ever, his mismatched eyes were bruised from lack of sleep.

"I thought you'd like to come along with us and celebrate together as family." Draco paused to lay a hand over the palm-shaped warmth on his cheek and smirked bitterly. "Guess I was wrong…again."

Tears welled in Luna's eyes. She started to say something, stopped, then barely hissed. "If I refuse to go to that dinner is because I know when I'm not welcomed."

"Luna, it won't be the same if you're not there. You're going to make me miss you." The moment their eyes meet, Luna caught a glimpse of a hurt so deep in those mismatched gems that it literally tore her apart but she composed herself with inhuman will-power.

"I'm going to bed. Have fun tonight Draco." She dismissed herself without daring to look Draco a second time and closed the door shut behind her.

Blaise followed her with his eyes shooting a hateful frown at her. "I've heard you and her shoutings from the other side of the house. What were you two arguing about?" His voice broke the tense silence of the room.

"You couldn't possible have heard us, I've cast a silence charm. So you'd better come up with a better excuse to back up your intromission." The scolding tone in Draco's voice sounded weary.

"I was bored. I've just finished reading the book you gave me yesterday, a very good one by the way, so I wanted to discuss it together and I also wanted you to recommend me another one because I'm afraid you know better than I the kind of reading I like." Blaise replied, offering the most truthful excuse possible.

It was remotely a lie but it wasn't the complete truth either. After all, what was he supposed to say, that he wanted to hang out with Draco 24/7?

"You were bored…" Draco blinked several times, trying to pull himself together. "And you've got no better idea than to step in the middle of yet another conversation between me and my wife. Tell me something Blaise, what is so amusing about my non-existent private life?" He demanded to know before lifting the drink he'd left forgotten over his desk with a shaky pulse and finished the glass of whisky in one large sip.

Blaise refused to reply to that question, his eyes were fixed of the empty bottle that lied next to Draco's drained glass. "You're going to quit that nasty habit of yours the moment Scorpius is born, right?"

Copying his brother's refusal to answer a direct question, Draco kept himself silent. He then ran both hands through his long silk blond fringe - repairing on the fact that he needed to get a hair-cut soon - and sighed soundly, more than combing he was pulling angrily from it.

"I won't tolerate that tone of yours when addressing Luna." The blond said, finally getting out the tension from his chest.

"If you can't make that bitch respect you, you've left me no choice." Blaise grabbed Draco by his bony shoulders and pushed him against the door of the blonde's study. "For fuck sakes, look what she reduced you to!"

Finding himself cornered Draco asked. "What do you want?!" His mismatched eyes stared at Blaise without blinking, visibly furious.

"I want to take care of you. I can make you feel good...really good…" Grinding his hardness against Draco's thighs – rubbing as sensually and shamelessly as a feline in heat – he made his intention known.

"Blaise, what does it take for you to stop talking nonsense?" Draco accused with a deep and harsh yet tightly controlled voice before brushing Blaise's hands off him.

"You don't want me to talk? Fine!" Blaise dropped suddenly to his knees before Draco, surprising him.

"What the Hell you think you're doing?!" Draco asked exasperatedly.

"Finding a way to keep my mouth busy..." The other replied, moving upwards his hands, lingering dangerously close to where Draco's manhood was beneath the soft fabric of his dark pants.

The blond cursed roughly and grabbed Blaise by the armpits, trying to pull him up.

Immobile like a statue in his kneeling position, Blaise chuckled at Draco's failed attempts. "What's wrong with having yet another dirty little secret between us?"

Pulling from the thick chain of Blaise's sterling locket Draco strangled his brother up to his feet.

"Seems that you've forgotten who you are..." Draco then curled the long chain tighter around his knuckles, squeezing even more the grip of Blaise's neck and shouted right into his face. "A MALFOY DOESN'T KNEEL BEFORE ANYONE!"

Suddenly, Blaise darted his head forward and pressed a stolen kiss to Draco's lips. "Get all your rage out and use it to fuck me. Open and break me however you want and don't stop until you're done teaching me how to behave and who's in control. Fuck me raw, make it hurt and burn and bleed. Come inside, fill me and brand me as yours." He pleaded with a desperate needy moan; his eyes were dilated with the darkness of a lust so profound that it was scary.

Blaise's disturbingly out-of-the-blue submissiveness took the blond completely aback with a mixture of panic, hurt, terror and sadness so powerful that the gesture seemed to get plastered permanently on his face. The fact that Blaise considered degrading himself to such shameless level made Draco's insides burn with guilt: he was dealing with a man so desperate to please him that limits were non-existing. His fingers released the grip on the sterling chain around Blaise's neck and took a step back.

"I need a drink." He squeaked with a frightened thread of voice and turned his back on Blaise.

But Blaise grabbed Draco from behind and turned him to face him. "You don't need alcohol but to get laid."

Wrapping himself in Draco's numbed arms, Blaise pressed his back against his brother. "I'm tight, hot and more than willing… your room or mine?" He asked flirtatiously, rubbing himself against Draco's crotch.

Draco pulled Blaise away fiercely, balling his hands into tight fists. "Blaise, enough!"

Laughing without humor, Blaise asked. "When was the last time that frigid nutcase let you touch her…seven months ago…eight months ago? You can't even remember the last time you two have sex, can you?! The moment you've brought Luna back to this Chateau that little bitch confronted you and told you that if you'd loved her you wouldn't touch her ever again. You're hoping one day she'll come willingly to you, but she won't! Your wait is in vain and you know it, don't you? No matter how much you change for her, she won't come to you because she doesn't love you, she never did!"

Draco lowered his head, blinking back the tears that didn't want to stop.

Blaise cupped Draco's chin with one hand – lifting the blonde's head up - and pulled him closer until both were nose-to-nose. "Aren't you tired of getting up every fucking morning in an empty bed with a painful hard-on and jerk yourself off under a cold shower?"

After wiping the tears away from Draco's moistened cheeks with both his thumbs, Blaise knitted his hands behind the blonde's neck. "I want you. I want us to become lovers. I want to be able to touch you, lick you, kiss you and jerk you off whenever I want. I want to fuck you but also get fucked by you as many times in the course of each day, in every room of this disgustingly huge house and in every possible way our bodies can take it. I want to wake up in the morning and find you cuddled next to me on the bed. I want to have breakfast in bed with your back pressed against my chest and wrap you with the warmth of my body as I breathe in the exquisite scent of your skin. I want to read the morning's paper and find out the news of the world without having to get up from the bed while you pass the pages and I hug you closer to me or give you a back massage. I want to take long, warm showers with you where I can make a complete wreck of you, then clean you up, then get wrecked by you and get us moped up again. Starting each day like this, we'd most probably get to live forever because that kind of happiness is the closest thing as immortality there is."

Pausing to take a deep lungful of air Blaise trailed his index finger over Draco's mouth – hushing the blonde's reply - and asked with a devilish soft voice. "Do you believe that being with me would make you less of a man, is that your biggest fear? If that's the case then let's take advantage of your past sexual experience and let me assume the passive role in this relationship. After all…your pleasure is my pleasure. Both of us would be giving and receiving in equal shares, this is not a competition we're both lucky winners here. So now that we've settled the rules and assigned the roles let's fuck…shall we?"

Draco gave Blaise a razor sharp look, his cheeks went immediately red with fury. "I've already told you that this is not a question because we're both men, that had never been the issue here! I love you, yes, and I wouldn't doubt for a second to give my life for you but I simply don't feel the urges to fuck you nor have the fantasy of getting fucked by you!"

Blaise squeezed his eyes shut - feeling like his guts had just been ripped right out of him - and once he opened them he found that Draco's eyes were surprisingly sad.

"Blaise, you're my equal and I respect you. It's about time you start respecting me as well because I won't tolerate this crap any longer. I can't stand anymore your constant harassments, if you didn't notice I happen to be a person not a thing to play with! And don't you ever offer yourself to me again as if you were a piece of meat, have some self-respect will you?! If I have sex or not with my wife is my problem and if I refuse to cheat on her is because I do believe in monogamy, commitment and exclusiveness! If those values haven't been put on trial so far is because I haven't met anyone, female or male, who can make my blood burn like Luna does! How many times do I have to say this for you to finally understand me?!" Draco finished losing his temper again, trying in vain to calm his racing heart.

Exasperated, Blaise threw a fist into the wall. "You're so used to feel miserable and pathetic that you keep running away from what's unknown to you: your own happiness! You're a coward! Your biggest fear is that if you fuck me you might end up liking it so much that'd make your body unable to stand being without me and you'd lose all control of yourself! Until you let me get under your skin how can you tell for sure that you don't want me? How would you know if you've never tried it before?!"

Draco rubbed his eyes tiredly and smirked coldly. "Look who's talking, you're the one completely clueless about his sexuality: you're eighteen and still a virgin. You don't know what you want. Why don't you shag those girlfriends of your mother's? They open their legs faster than their vipery mouths. Give them a try once and for all, if you're still not convinced that's what you want then go ahead and nail their sons. I bet those hypocrites, who are as easy as their progenitors, are eager to lift their arses for you. Just go and experience everything you want with every single one of them. What's stopping you? You're single, unattached and most important…you're a Malfoy!"

Tears started to form in the corner of Blaise's pitch-black eyes. "I also believe in monogamy, commitment and exclusivity…that's exactly why I've held myself for you all these years! I don't give a shit about my sexuality: I SIMPLY WANT YOU! So if that makes a homosexual of me, that's who I am for wanting you! But I'd have also craved you as much as I do now if you've been born a woman. That would have made a heterosexual of me and…" He then covered his face with his shaking hands, his voice came tear-clotted. "I would have kidnapped you ages ago, taking you away from Lucius' menace, and married you in a beat BECAUSE I'M IN LOVE WITH YOU! As your life partner I would have fulfilled without failing every single one of my duties towards you, giving you not only the world but also everything I am…and would have enjoyed all the rights I'm being denied now!"

The jet black haired Slytherin then lowered his blood-shot eyes to the floor and, aching for some physical comfort, he pitifully hugged himself. "I feel so untouched."

Draco started to go to his brother for a comforting hug but dismissed completely the idea, it'd only make things worse for Blaise to hold back and this time he'd been the culprit for pushing the situation to a dangerous edge.

"You only live and die once, you know? I just didn't see it until now...no matter what I say or do…you just can't see me…you can't hear me…and that's because I don't exist." Blaise then turned his back on Draco and started walking slowly, dragging his feet on the floor.

Feeling a growl coming up his throat, Draco broke the silence. "That's not true. Brother, wait!"

Sobbing silently, Blaise turned to look at the blond, his pitch-black eyes were watering. "I'd rather lock myself up at St. Mungos' mental wing and throw away the key than receive your pity. That's probably the one thing I don't want from you and the only one I'd get in the end. I'm perfectly aware that I shouldn't feel the desire to fuck you and I shouldn't wish I could get fucked by you either. I know I'm sick, okay?"

"No, you're not." Draco replied bluntly before adding. "Your mother fed you with that discriminating crap for years. Don't start repeating her. Don't let her intolerance win you over."

Blaise wiped a tear from his cheek and sucked up air. "But she's right when she says that my father would be ashamed of me if he'd see me now!"

Draco's voice continued talking, this time with a very calm matter-of-fact tone. "I bet your father would have agreed with me when I say that you're just like the rest of us all: everyone is born naturally bisexual. I mean, despite the obvious differences between the female and male anatomy they're both equally prepared to engage a full sexual activity with the same gender without jeopardizing, altering or damaging the functionality of any vital organ or putting health at risk in the process. Just think about this: if something is physically possible to achieve effortlessly and it brings the body gratification, pleasure and satisfaction in the making why would it be considered unnatural, wrong, twisted or sick…like your mother accuses? How can it be unnatural if mother-nature designed our bodies to achieve such goals successfully? Wrong would be to deny what our flesh is commanding us to do. Sex makes us happier and healthier, not sicker. Now regarding the twisted part, I don't consider that a negative aspect either but a positive one: it's amazing how flexible the human body is! We own our bodies and no-one but us determine what we can or can't do with them. People are constantly making choices along their lives, they take some things…they discard others…they take them all. Some choose to get intimate with the opposite sex…others with their same gender…others with both!" He concluded with an amused smirk as if rejoicing himself with the topic.

"For fuck sakes Draco! Listen to what you're saying!" Blaise shot back with a serious pissed-off look.

"Wait a second, did I miss something?! I thought that I was the narrow-minded homophobic git here!!" Draco spitted the words sarcastically and ironically because he couldn't understand Blaise's attitude.

"Can't you see that you're not helping?! STOP GIVING ME HOPE!" Blaise whimpered.

For an instant Draco remained still as a statue, he then blinked twice coming back to his senses along with the rising of a dangerous warm anger. "I can't believe this! You're implying that I've misleaded you, messed with your head and played you for not looking down on you, mock, trash, soil or laugh at you just for being you?! WELL, EXCUSE ME FOR TREATING YOU LIKE A PERSON!"

Regret tainted Blaise's voice when he spoke again. "That's not what I meant. What I'm saying is that you're constantly providing rational motives and logical reasons to back up my irrational actions and instead of beating the shit out of me for my indecent behavior you're always acting so overprotective that I don't know what to think anymore. But then I hit reality when I see you pushing me away with such determination that I feel as if you don't want me around at all. It makes me want to get away as far from here as I could… thinking you'd be better off without me." He finished with a painful hiss, those last words were almost unheard.

"Go wherever you want to go and do whatever you have to do in order to find yourself but you'd do it by walking out the front door with your head high, fully provided with everything you need in order to start your journey and not by running away through the window only with your clothes on your back. No matter what happens or how long it takes, you'd always count with a place to come back to because this is your home, this is where you belong. You've got a family that loves you just the way you are and needs you as well because you're an essential part of it." Draco's slow smirk lifted the weight off Blaise's chest. "Don't be a stranger and remember to write, okay?"

"I'm not going anywhere without you: you're stuck with me…for eternity." Blaise sentenced firmly.

Draco squeezed his eyes shut for a brief moment as Blaise's answer aroused contradicted emotions inside him. "Everything I've done in order to procure your freedom had ended up enslaving you."

When Draco spoke again he did it with a ragged tone in his broken voice. "I've given you my blood, the same one that not only ended up poisoning you but also erased your past in the process, because I thought that was the only way I had to protect you. I've brought you back from the dead, as a complete different man though, because I couldn't stand the idea that you were gone. I've given you a place in my family and in my home, which end up practically destroying your relationship with your mother, because I wanted to share with you everything I've got. Yes, I've been disgustingly selfish…but I just wanted what's best for you!"

Waving both hands in the air, Blaise emptied his lungs exasperatedly. "What's best for me, really?! You are what's best for me, so what are you going to do about it?! When are you going to stop running away from me in order to hold me, kiss me…AND FUCK ME?!"

Draco's pearl-gray eye twitched angrily. "Do I have to remind you again who you are?!"

Blaise let go a puff of air as he spoke with a low, harsh voice. "I knew it! I fucking knew it! You're a hypocrite! You're so full of shit! I might be willing to bend over and take it like a woman if that what it takes to be with you but at least I'm man enough to admit my feelings and my needs!"

"This is not about our sexual preferences but about our true nature! Use and abuse and fuck whoever you want!" Draco then paused for a much needed intake of air and then emptied his lungs out with a raw scream. "BUT NEVER, EVER ALLOWED YOURSELF TO BE USED OR ABUSED OR FUCKED BY ANYONE BECAUSE YOU ARE A MALFOY! YOU'RE ABOVE THE REST!"

Both Slytherins looked into each other's eyes for a whole minute without blinking. Draco's heart skipped two beats when Blaise's gaze turned from shocking to plotting.

"So that's the real reason why you refuse to fuck me, it's not because I'm a man but because I'm a Malfoy?!" Snaking one arm around Draco's slim waist, Blaise slammed the blond against him. "And what if I want to fuck you?!"

Draco swallowed awkwardly as a spurt of panic folded his stomach in on itself.

"I can't do that either, can I? You're also a Malfoy!" Blaise pressed his lips together to keep back a groan of frustration and rested his forehead against one of Draco's sharp shoulder-blades.

Refusing to break the embrace, Blaise snaked his other arm around the blonde's waist. "I want you to hug me. Can we do that at least?"

Draco wrapped both arms over Blaise's shoulders, welcoming the embrace, and padded softly his brother's back in a reassuring manner.

"I wish we could stay like this, in each other's arms, forever." Blaise whispered into Draco's hear before asking with a shaky voice. "Do you hate me for always finding excuses to get this close to you?"

Blaise tried to pull himself back together with a visible effort, but in reality the one thing that Blaise was pulling was Draco's body tighter, so tight that Draco could feel Blaise's ribs pressing against his own.

Draco narrowed his sore mismatched eyes, shooting a dead-serious look. "It was never easy for me to put up with your constant outbursts of both good and bad temper. Ever since we were kids, whenever we started discussing a matter and you didn't agree with something I said, you simply threw yourself over me, tackled me to the ground and forced me to retract my words…which I never did and that only encouraged you to squash me even more onto the floor."

"A shame you're not ticklish." Blaise lamented himself silently.

Continuing with his exposition –more like passing a long-due bill - Draco found himself remembering. "And whenever something was worthy to be celebrated, like the times our House scored more points than Gryffindor or Potter and his friends got caught in one of the dark magic jinxes I've settled every morning at the entrance of the Great Hall with the purpose to humiliate them in front of everybody, you either locked your arms around my chest until you made me puke what I've just eat for breakfast, stamped your palm on my back making me spit whatever I was drinking, ringed your arms around my neck until I barely got air left to breathe or hurled me up, throwing me on your back upside down and start spinning until I get nauseous. With the passing of the years you haven't changed a bit: you're still a brute." He concluded, eyeing judgingly at the arms that seized him like a tourniquet around his waist before breaking free of the embrace with a flick of his wand.

Blaise lifted both hands up in the air – in a sign of surrender - and kept his thoughts to himself again. "That's because you awake the beast in me but I can be gentle too."

"Talking about Hogwarts..." Draco took a step back, turned round towards the mini bar and filled two glasses with whisky. "Let's make a toast to the greatest Headmaster of them all."

"To Severus Snape!" Draco cheered before emptying thirstily the glass.

"To Severus Snape!" Blaise repeated with equal animosity but barely moistened his lips with it and rested the glass over the fireplace behind him.

Draco looked a little disorientated for a moment as his system adjusted itself to yet another load of alcohol. Aware of the weariness in Draco's body, Blaise leaded the blond against the edge of the desk, hurled him up - for Draco to take sit over the furniture - and leaned forward until they were nose-to-nose.

"You haven't answered my question. Do you hate me for doing things like…this?" Blaise then grabbed Draco's hand in his and lifted it to his face, trailing it downside his cheek.

"You can make me mad to the point of weighting the idea of ripping your head off, but you can't make me hate you. Na…ah… You can make me love you to the point that I'd give my life for you, but you can't make me want you. Na...ah…" The blond said with a faulty tone, as if singing a song.

"I'd never stop wanting you." Blaise said before his throat squeezed shut and brushed his lips inside Draco's palm.

Taking Blaise's face in his hands, Draco soothed with a drugged smirk. "Blaise… mate… brother… it's understandable: you confide in me. We know each other since we were tiny…little brats." He paused to stifle yet another hiccup.

He then grabbed Blaise firmly by his shoulders and started explaining. "We've literally been through Hell and back. We've done everything together except shagging. So it would make sense for you to feel this way about me because, after all, intimacy is a question of trust."

"And lust." The other added to himself lasciviously and positioned himself standing right in between Draco's long legs, his hips brushing the blonde's thighs.

Draco's voice sounded tired, there was a subtle numbness in his tone too. "But while you're focusing all your attention and investing all your time in me you're preventing others from getting to know you the way I do. Don't shut yourself into what you know and what you feel safe and comfortable with. You've got to venture…and seek…and find…and learn…and explore what's out there!" He encouraged, partially interrupted with hiccups.

"Draco, for one reason or another, people had always made me feel as if there was something wrong with me. You're the only one who never treated me like a freak." The way Blaise looked at him, with such sorrow in his foggy eyes, nearly ripped the blond apart. "With the early death of my father and subsequently brief marriages of my mother, I practically grew up around women so it was easy for me to handle them without the slightest problem, but when they started to come up to me my self-confidence was put on trial: I didn't want to do anything with them but I couldn't explain exactly why. A couple of years after I met you, when we started at Hogwarts and we practically see each other from the moment we wake up until we went to sleep, I got haunted with crazy ideas at night and found myself dreaming that you were a girl instead of a boy. When I finally hit reality and admitted that I was not into girls another realization came almost simultaneously: I was not into boys either. The idea of doing something to or with a guy made my stomach sink and revolt my guts with disgust just like when thinking about scoring with a chick. But whenever you came around, it was a complete different story and the list of things I wanted to do with and to you was practically endless. By the end of second year I started getting pissed with equal fury whenever I felt someone staring at me or at you longer than they should or when they come up to us with some excuse to make conversation and step in the middle. The paranoia was such that by fourth year I ended up picking up fights after every Quidditch match because, even if a chaser is supposed to be closely followed by the other team's players and every move a seeker makes is measured and evaluated almost clinically, I felt as if they were harassing us! By the end of fifth year I've kept amassing inside my head every possible way to murder Pansy without getting caught because I couldn't stand her stalking you daily. I've also got to refrain myself from killing those horny girls who got no better idea but to stain, set on fire or shrunk my cloaks and sweaters because they wanted to see me shirtless by the end of the day so they could take photos and rank every inch of my body afterwards! When I found out that you've fallen for Luna, well… you get the idea."

Blaise closed his watery eyes painfully and then opened them again, his words came out low and tear-clotted. "During the time I was away in Greece, living with my mother and her new hubby, I've subconsciously started comparing every single person I come across with you. That made me miss you more, and love you more and want you more…if possible. My mother, she wanted me to see reason so she practically locked me up in the house and invited my ex-fiancée to spend the days with us. Lilith, Hyperion's daughter, was very skillful with her psychic magic. She accessed inside my head with the purpose to fix me up…to straight me up. She even tried to erase my memories of you, but she couldn't. In spite of all the things she tested and experimented on me, she kept failing…and failing… and failing…and that only made her angrier, bitter and resentful!" There was anger in Blaise's voice now and Draco didn't blame him.

"One night, coming back from a black-out after Lilith tortured me mentally for over ten hours non-stop, I gathered enough strength and sharpness to plot my escape and my instincts ended up leading me to you. I know I had no right to throw that weight over your shoulders…but I had no place to go." He finished practically coming undone, trembling all over and lifted his gaze to meet Draco's.

Draco wrapped protectively one arm around his brother's shoulders and pull Blaise to him; with his free hand he padded softly Blaise's head as if he were a child. "I'm glad you trusted your instincts. Back then you didn't know that your place was here and neither did I. But when I think about that morning, when you arrived at the Chateau shortly after Luna ran away, all I can remember is that it felt right: you needed a home to call your own and I needed a family to belong to."

Blaise nuzzled in the warmth of blonde's neck, his body shaking against Draco with breathless sobs. "You're the only one who stimulates the core of my psyche, the only one who magnifies the essence of my magic and the only one who makes my body rack with a fire so painful that it's soul shaking!"

Draco pulled away slowly and cradled his long fingers around Blaise's skull, forcing him to look into his mismatched eyes. "You know exactly who you are and what you want. I felt like that once, shortly after meeting Luna…AND LOOK WHERE ALL THAT LEADED ME!" He shouted, wanting to startle Blaise and bring him back to his senses at once.

His brother's pitch-black eyes widened with an unpleasant feeling.

"Now more than ever when I look at you I see me and that makes me feel…everything but proud with myself." Draco's hands fell numbed on either sides of his body.

The jet black Slytherin felt his heart squeeze and twist painfully inside his ribcage.

Draco turned to look at the mini bar and then back to Blaise. "Do you think I like to make a fool of myself daily, allowing Luna to discharge her frustrations over me because that's the only way I've found to please her or embarrassing myself in front of you, seeing you mope and clean after the mess I made of myself when I'm totally wasted?!" He spitted with an edge of anger. "But I have to drown the voice that's inside my head! Dammit! She's pregnant with my heir!"

"It'd be a privilege to take care of the problem discreetly and effectively when the time comes." Blaise offered with a dark sheepishly grin.

There was so much confusion in Draco's features. "I didn't say..."

"Exactly, so it shouldn't be in your conscience." Blaise cut him bluntly.

Draco pulled out from under his sweater the Swastika charm and held it in his palm for Blaise to see. "I can't afford to lose more than I've already had."

Eight of the nine gemstones of the Swastika charm were all shattered, as if burned with acid, only one remained intact.

"I'm running out of time to change things and make them right." The blond Slytherin then ducked his head down, refusing to meet Blaise's gaze and hissed. "Luna keeps drifting away from me and I'm heading straight towards the point of no return."

Blaise cupped Draco's chin with one hand, leveling his pitch-black eyes with Draco's mismatched sore gaze. "You never really know people until you tell them you aren't the person they always thought you were. That's when you find out who you can count on and who you can't."

"She doesn't love me so how worse can it gets, right?!" Draco started laughing hysterically, disguising his nervousness. He was completely heart-broken.

Blaise leaned closer, a blazing surety and determination sparkled in his pitch-black eyes. "You can count on me. I'll help you along the way with everything you need. I can be useful."

Blinking hard, as if coming slowly from a trance, Draco frowned. "What? Useful? That's not the proper way to describe a Malfoy but a servant." After a brief pause, the blond drilled his index finger on Blaise's forehead and added with a scolding tone. "You're not my servant but my equal!"

Regretting immediately what he'd just done, Draco pressed his open palm to Blaise's forehead, caressing it softly for a brief moment before letting his hand fall numbly to the side of his body.

Blaise's fought the weight of his eyelids and let go a husky whisper. "Hey, don't stop on my account..."

Cursing under his breath, Draco started blaming himself because his overprotectiveness would always end up hurting rather than helping Blaise.

"I'm thirsty." The blond Slytherin hopped from over the desk and threw himself over the large couch placed beside his desk. "Brother, would you mind fixing us a drink? I'll have whatever you have. Just make sure you fill the whole glass this time and no ice, don't cheat."

"Why don't I just get you the whole bottle?" Blaise offered smiling without humor.

"Even when wasted we Malfoys do things with class." Draco arched one playful eyebrow after having accio a filled glass.

But the second the blond brushed his lips over the edge of the glass, his drink vanished from his grip: Blaise had cast a vanishing charm, igniting Draco's bad temper. "Now I remember why I prefer to drink alone."

"I know the perfect way to achieve a good, sound sleep without suffering a nasty hangover the morning after." Blaise took sit on the couch's arm and smiled candidly at Draco opening wide his arms. "Come to papa!"

"I'm not a child! Stop! Treating! Me! Like! One!" The blond spitted every word annoyingly sending consecutive fists onto the couch's cushion.

"Who's the brute now?" Blaise joked after taking sit right besides his brother and sighed soundly. "I'm just stating a fact. Whenever you're really beaten all I have to do is hold you in my arms and you immediately fall asleep… and drool all over my shirts." He added with a funny frown.

Scratching nervously his forehead, Draco had no option but to joke about it. "I've bled all over you once or twice, puked over your shoes on more than one occasion, so what's a little drool to crown it all, right?"

"I don't mind the drooling because it's a good sign: it means that you're resting soundly, catching up a well deserved sleep." The other forced a smile, hiding his worrying.

"I don't know how you do it." The blond muttered under his breath.

"You mean lull you to sleep? Well, men can be paternal without having children." Blaise confessed with an immutable face.

Draco caged Blaise's head with both hands and fixed his hazy mismatched eyes on his brother's pitch-black gems. "I won't step over your choices but speaking in behalf of our Clan, I wish there would be a way for you to reconsider the idea of having children. You know as well as I do that your offspring would empower and strengthen like never before the perpetuity of our kind!"

Blaise's features hardened for a second before twisting immediately into a mischievous grin. "You're the alchemist. If my genes are as valuable as you say then find a way to get me pregnant and I'll give you as many kids as you want."

Shaking his head tiredly, Draco released the hold of Blaise's head and closed shut his eyes. "Very funny...ha…ha..."

"Who's joking?" Blaise replied bluntly.

Draco's gaze snapped back to Blaise's face, surprise widening his mismatched sore eyes.

"I must admit that's not the way I've pictured having you inside me but I'm willing to do it if you want me to." Blaise shrugged and bit his lip. "You'll take care of me when I'm too bloated to move around by myself, right?"

Draco's throat got tight like he was going into anaphylactic shock. It was confirmed: for Blaise there were no limits whatsoever.

Sadness and a swirl of hurtful emotions tainted Blaise's words. "I see. I'm not good enough for that either, am I?"

"Blame it on mother-nature for selecting women to carry out that task." Draco muttered as the awkwardness of the subject blurred into deep resentment. "I'd switch places with Luna if I could."

Now it was time for Blaise to open wide his mouth in shock, igniting Draco's dark amusement.

"Women might have ovaries…" A wicked smirk curled Draco's lips when he stretched lazily his body forward - grabbed his crotch with one hand - before making himself comfortable on the couch again. "But we both know which gender has real balls."

Blaise's eyes kept replaying that scene over and over inside his mind, his heart pounded so hard he could hear it.

Draco then turned the angle of the conversation. "Blaise, do you think you'd be able to lull Scorpius to sleep too? That would come in handy in a near future, you know?"

Coming back to his senses with a self-inflicted mental slap, Blaise narrowed his gaze and inquired venomously. "You're already predicting that Luna would fail as mother as much as she failed as wife?"

Truth was…Draco had his doubts. Doubts that made him feel furious with himself for weighting the possibility that nothing would ever change and Luna would end up fearing Scorpius again, even after having him inside her those whole nine months.

Dismissing those thoughts from continuing filling his head Draco explained with a proud smirk. "I'm asking you to be part of Scorpius' life from the very beginning. You're his uncle. You're as responsible as me and Luna when it comes to Scorpius' upbringing. I want my son to be nurtured with all the things you're capable of granting and teaching him as well."

Blaise nodded and teased with a grin. "Finally someone would take advantage of me!"

"Even after Scorpius made it this far there's still a chance he …" But Draco's throat constricted painfully.

Blaise's heart started to beat uneasily after hearing the broken edge of Draco's voice. "Challenging situations bring families closer."

Draco smirked sourly at how disturbingly perceptive Blaise was. "I can't wait to hold my son in my arms and grant him the kind of love my mother gave me. I want to be as good parent as she was with me. I owe her so much…"

"The fact that she's dead won't redeem her from the mistakes she'd made: if it wasn't for your mother you'd never met me." Blaise spitted ironically – desperately wanting to get a reaction from Draco - and smiled artificially narrowing his swollen eyes, disguising their redness.

It hurt Draco to see Blaise trying to hide behind a fake smile when the sadness in his eyes was too big to disguise.

"I was the one who chose to go and talk to you, not her." Draco replied with a matter-of-fact tone and closed his tired eyelids shut.

Staring at the painting of Narcissa hanging from the wall facing Draco's desk, Blaise pressed his lips tight, his eyes began to sting. "You knew I was Draco's soul-mate, and like most soul-mates, he and I were unlikely to cross our paths. So that's why you've chosen that exact day to bring Draco into my life? Right after I swore to myself that I wouldn't follow my mother's orders ever again, I'd never marry Hyperion's daughter, and was about to retrieve the flask of poison I've stashed under that willow tree to put an end to my life?"

"Days are passing incredible slow lately." Draco's complain broke Blaise's train of thought.

"I know the feeling of being eagerly waiting for something for so long." Blaise's voice came out completely strangled, almost unheard.

"Did you say something?" Draco hummed because he didn't catch Blaise's words.

To his horror, Blaise realized he'd been crying silently and got a lump stuck in his gut.

"Brother?" Draco was about to open his eyes when the other brushed two fingers over his eyelids.

"Keep your eyes closed and don't open them, not until you hear me walking out of this room. I swear I won't bring up the subject. We'd never have to talk about this. This won't change anything between us because this has never taken place. This is an illusion, a dream, okay?" Blaise started pleading inches away from Draco's lips, his voice slowly coming undone.

"A dream you say?" Draco repeated numbly and – without opening his eyes - he rested his back against the couch, sinking in the cosy cushioned surface. "Ahh…I wish I could dream again."

Unable to keep himself passive a second longer, Blaise's long fingers started tracing ramdom patterns over Draco's belt.

"I can help you release all the tension you've got inside so you can procure a sound sleep tonight. You don't have to do anything at all. I'll take care of it for you." Blaise offered with a whisper of voice pulling down slowly the zip of Draco's pants.

The blonde's body tensed immediately when he anticipated that Blaise was planning to go down on him. Contrary to his brother's wishes he opened his eyes and struck a stinging slap across Blaise's face.

The force of the unexpected blow sent the other staggering back a couple of steps who – unable to regain balance - fell onto the floor.

"GOOD MORNING SUNSHINE!! ARE YOU AWAKE NOW?!" Draco spitted with a hysterical laughter, pulling up the zipper and pushed himself from the couch, walking a few unsure steps forward.

Without lifting himself from the floor Blaise recoiled his body into a knot, hiding his face in between his knees. It took a blink of an eye for Draco's laughter to be silenced by a sour and bitter regret.

Draco then extended a hand and ordered. "Brother, get up."

But Blaise refused and wrapped both arms over his head. "I can't… look at you…right now...I just can't…" He chocked between whimpers.

Clamping his teeth hard, Draco walked towards the mini bar, filled a glass with whisky and drank it all in one large sip before throwing the glass onto the fireplace.

"We've both let ourselves be carried away for a moment. Neither of us was thinking clearly and I overreacted." Draco heard himself speaking in both their defense.

"Don't! I know I fucked things up again, okay?!" By then Blaise was sobbing louder.

"We're humans. It's not our fault but a fact that we're prone to make mistakes." The blond tossed out, waving carelessly one hand in the air.

Blaise looked up, his eyes turned heavy and Draco held his breath a bit longer than he wanted to. "Don't you dare make up excuses for me."

Draco forced his face into a calculating sneer. "Look Blaise, I know you didn't …"

"BUT I DID! I DID WANT TO JERK YOU OFF!" Blaise cried out loud, trying to ignore the itch that was still aching in his groin.

"I KNOW YOU DIDN'T DO IT ON PURPOSE OR WITH THE INTENTION TO HURT ME!" Draco screamed on top of Blaise's cry, finishing the sentence.

Blaise was about to say something but brought his teeth together with a light snap and fixed his gaze to the floor.

The blond Slytherin then cracked his knuckles and compressed his right hand into a solid fist and - without much further do - he hit himself full in the face. The self-inflicted blow sent him a few steps back, landing on his butt right beside Blaise.

Blaise lifted his blood-shot eyes and turned to look at Draco completely perplexed. "What the fuck?! Why would you do that for, you self-abusive git?!"

"To make me feel somewhat better with myself..." Draco confessed and tilted his head up - cracking the bone back to place - and pressed two fingers against his nose to stop the bleeding.

Half-way about to rub the cuff of his shirt over his nose, Blaise saw a handkerchief being thrown at him.

"Stop chocking on your phlegm, will you? It's gross!" Draco scolded with a disgusting frown.

Feeling in between his fingers the soft texture of the cotton cloth, the jet black haired Slytherin bit his lip while tracing with his fingers the "DM" embroidered silk threaded monogram. But he didn't use it on himself but to wipe up clean Draco's nose instead.

"I'd end up babysitting two children instead of one if you continue to act so recklessly." Blaise then folded the handkerchief, kissed it and pocketed it on his pants.

Draco was still frowning after looking at the sequence from the corner of the eye. "You should have thrown that away. It's useless now."

"It's your blood." After padding his pant's pocket he corrected himself. "My blood…and no way in Hell I'd allow to get it washed."

The blond looked confused for a moment.

"The handkerchief I mean." Blaise explained with a wicked smile.

At that remark Draco couldn't help himself and made a snort-like sound.

As if haunted by a sudden mood swing Blaise grabbed a fistful of Draco's sweater in his tight fist and pulled him closer.

"You want something from me, something only I can give you. You've said it yourself. So what's the problem if I'm okay with you taking whatever is it that you seek in me?! When will you stop hiding behind those stupid wedding bows and your strict family values? They're keeping your most basic instincts on a tight leash! You're living in denial!" Blaise's tone was deliberately full of defiance, his breath brushing Draco's lips.

A throbbing vein started to get traced on Draco's forehead. "You better sharp your listening skills mate and stop putting words on my mouth! If I'm faithful to Luna it's not only because of my wedding bows but because I'm in love with her and it's impossible to fall in love with two or more people at the same time. If you do then you don't love them in the least! And I'm not in denial either, if I'm straight is because the one I want to be with happens to be a woman… simple as that! Am I clear enough this time?!"

Blaise got up and grabbed his head between both hands, combing angrily his short jet black blocks before knitting his hands on the back of his neck. "Crystal clear. You love Luna but there's a part of you that hates her even more, on the other hand you wished you could hate me so that your feelings for me won't hurt you the way they do. You might desire her body but what you seek in me goes beyond physical pleasure. The irony in all this is that you'd like to have everything but in reality you're not getting any from neither of us because you're scared. You're afraid of dominating Luna, the moment you do that she'd leave you for good because that bitch despises you and you're terrified of allowing me to submit to you because the moment that happens the dark side of your magic might…"

"It'd end up destroying us both in the process!" Draco screamed on top of Blaise's voice, picking himself slowly from the floor.

"You're a bipolar uptight control-freak." The other snorted bitterly.

"I've been called worse..." Draco sneered coldly, rubbing his thumb and index finger over his closed eyelids.

"Nothing of this would have happened if I hadn't offered my friendship to Blaise. Potter was right when he refused to be my friend. All this time I've blamed that Gryffindor git for looking down on me but he's the one who saw right through me. I'm nothing but a bad seed that smothers everything around me." The blond reflected sadly as he forced himself not to cry, thinking he'd hidden perfectly those thoughts to himself.

Pocketing both hands on his pants, Blaise shrugged his shoulders while reading Draco's stream of conscience and confessed out loud. "Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me. Even if I could, I wouldn't dare to change a single thing. I wouldn't have missed any of that for the world."

"You're an obstinated insufferable martyr, you know that?" Draco replied with a shaky undertone fixing his eyes to the floor.

"I've been called worse..." Blaise shot back with a dark grin.

The moment Draco looked up Blaise cocked his head to the side and arched one accomplice eyebrow at him and the oppressive burden inside Draco's chest vanished entirely.

The blond Slytherin made another snort-like sound, giving his brother a mysterious half smirk. "How do you do that?"

Furrowing his brows, Blaise faked confusion. "Do what?" He asked, already grinning from ear to ear.

Rolling dramatically his eyes, Draco shook his head. "Forget it."

"Why can't you just see that what you've been looking for all this time has been right there in front of your eyes?" Blaise said to himself, consciously aware that Draco was listening.

They stared at each other for a long beat and this time Blaise wondered what exactly was going on in Draco's head because the blonde's facial features were completely unreadable.

"You said today you'd take me out to celebrate my birthday. It the offer still on?" Blaise inquired, breaking the sudden tension in the air.

"Yes, of course. I've made reservations at that snobbish Italian restaurant you like so much..." Draco started absentmindly but then he stopped himself for an intake of much needed air. "Look, I haven't bought you a birthday present yet because this year isn't like the rest. You're eighteen now and I wanted to give you a gift that would be meaningful with your becoming of age."

The blond Slytherin then ducked his head down and stared at the ring that fit his little finger. "I'm very fond of this ring. It bears a strong sentimental value. My grandfather gave it to me shortly after I was born. He died when I was two years old so I never get to know the man that much but my mother loved him dearly. She'd lost her own father when she was an infant and she told me that he'd been always a kind, loving father figure to her…so opposite to his son Lucius. That was enough for me to cherish his memory too. I've used it as pendant until it finally fit my finger. You've told me on several occasions that you'd like to try it on. I'd like to give this ring to you..."

In one quick motion Blaise lifted Draco's hand with both of his own and started sucking the blonde's little finger to the root. Curling his warm tongue around Draco's finger, he started pushing – painfully slowly - the ring up to the tip of the finger. Blaise used his mouth and his tongue to jerk off Draco's finger the way he wanted to do with the blonde's manhood. Once the ring finally came off, Blaise's mouth made a subtle "pop" sound.

A look of worry –and even fear - stamped Draco's features as he stood petrified like a statue.

After inspecting the jewel closely in his hand, Blaise extended his open palm towards Draco. "Would you put it on my finger?"

Reading the blonde's confusion the other explained, smiling sadly. "I want you to want to give it to me, but if you don't then it'd be pointless for me to wear it. Here, you can have it back."

But Draco refused. "This is the Masonry Insignia of the Malfoy's Clan… our Secret Coat of Arms: The Black Sun, the symbol of spiritual illumination and infinite wisdom. These rings are given only to the first born male of every new generation by the oldest member of the Clan. Since we're the last living male members of our Clan I'd do the honors and give this ring to you. You're my elder brother, the first born male of our generation. You're the one who's entitled to use this ring: you're the righteous owner."

Grabbing the small jewel between his fingers, Draco held it high over his head, murmured some words that sounded like an ancient chant or blessing, made a ceremonial bow in front of Blaise and placed the ring on the little finger of his brother's right hand.

While witnessing how exquisitely graceful Draco's motions were and how serious and determined the blond looked when performing them Blaise felt his heart pounding heavily on his chest. His cheeks were burning and he couldn't quite feel his face, there was a great chance he was smiling utterly stupid …and probably even drooling.

"I do. I mean, thank you." Blaise teased and kissed the ring devotedly, grinning from ear to ear.

Without giving Draco time to react Blaise wrapped an arm around the blonde's slim waist and hurled him up, carrying him bridal-style.

"Put me down, you brute!" Draco spitted angrily boiling with rage, sending fists into the air.

"We'll make it faster to the restaurant this way." Blaise replied before emptying his lungs euphorically with a happy birthday grin plastered all over his face. "TONIGHT'S BOYS NIGHT OUT!"

Back at himself, Blaise waved his little finger and replied to his mother. "Draco wanted to erase the inscriptions and monogram my name instead but I refused. I prefer to keep it just the way it is, with his name encircling my finger, as sign of belonging." He finished with a hopelessly dreamy look.

"Talking about finishing your studies…" Clarissa started, coughing uncomfortably, changing abruptly the subject but paused and pulled Blaise's chair far from the table, taking sit on his son's lap. "Your diploma arrived a couple of weeks ago, congratulations: you've passed with honors."

"It arrived here?" Pressing his back on the chair's rest, the Slytherin looked momentarily confused. "Guess they've must misspelled my surname again: I'm a Malfoy."

Apparating the parchment on the table, next to Blaise's plate, her chin quivered a little. "You've made it clear that you're no longer a Zabini." Signaling with her wand the gold letters written on the diploma, she hissed. "Here it clearly reads: Blaise Malfoy."

Blaise grabbed his mother by her slim waist and lifted her up from his lap. "That's not only my name, it's who I am."

Clarissa looked over at her son, her dark green eyes filled then with tears. "But I'm still your mother! Nothing would ever take that right away from me!"

"I don't believe you've ever understood the meaning of that word." Stretching his long legs, the Slytherin crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head to a side. "But I'd always be my father's son and that's why I've agreed to come to this dinner: to talk about my inheritance."

"Of course…" She hugged her tears with the back of her hand. "I wouldn't dare to contradict your father's last wish."

Clarissa produced a sealed letter and a small key – that belonged to one of Gringotts Bank Vaults - from out of a cabinet's drawer on the end of the dining-room and handled them over to Blaise. "This makes you wealthier than Draco. What are you planning on doing now that you've finished school and own a disgustingly huge amount of money?"

Pocketing the letter and key inside his jacket, Blaise confessed. "I'd spoil the one I love."

"What about Draco's future?" Clarissa asked, the tone in her voice denoted that she was indeed curious. "What would he do now that he'd graduated as well… besides being a parent." She finished, snorting somewhat bitterly.

Blaise narrowed his pitch-black eyes, seeing his mother from his half-shut eyelids. "He'd been offered the post of Minister of Magic, but he refused."

She then started pacing around Blaise, cupping with one hand her chin in a pensive manner. "Why would he turn down such position? He'd got all the qualities to lead. It'd grant him power, recognition, respect..."

Clearing his throat loudly, the Slytherin sneered knowingly. "I do believe he'd change his mind though."

He then closed briefly his eyes, Scorpius' words resounded past his ears:

"The death of Voldemort and defeat of the majority of his followers only raised the anger of those who survived and swore vengeance. With the Elder Wand my father's magic has no match. He's the only one who can grant the balance and restore the order everybody is so desperate to find in this world."

"It's just a question of time I guess. If he happens to accept the post then I'd find my place in the Ministry as well to be close to him: I'd become an Auror." Blaise finished, glancing sideways at his mother.

Clarissa then started talking but Blaise registered no intelligible words, just a whisper… like a breeze.

"Odd vibe..." He said to himself and spun violently his head to a side, rushing towards the end of the hall.

"Blaise, son… what's the matter?!" His mother's agitated voice came from behind him, trying to caught up with his lighting-fast speed.

Standing in front of the Zabini Mason library's fireplace – already burning with vivid green flames - Blaise turned to face his mother one last time. "Draco is in danger!" And with that he disappeared from Clarissa's restless eyes.

The second he stepped outside the fireplace of the Chateau, Blaise's foot almost tripped over a piece of what was formerly a window's vitraux. Fragments of broken glass, torn burned books and wood splinters carpeted the Chateau's library floor.

An explosion was heard from the adjoining room – Draco's Study – and a massive fireball came from the door that connected both rooms turning everything into chaos. The foundations of the library's floor weakened and collapsed onto the lower level of the house and then part of the walls followed like a domino effect.

Blaise ran as fast as he could – almost diving into the air - through the vision obscuring smoke of the flames that soon caught on fire the whole place.

"Draco?! Where are you?!" He coughed and kept calling out until the coughs became painful and raspy.

Draco's strangled yelp came from somewhere close yet far from Blaise's reach for the heavy gray smoke clouds that polluted the air made almost impossible to see through them.

Blaise launched himself fearlessly – and blindly – towards the spot he heard Draco but halted on his tracks once he got sight of the blonde's silhouette laying down with his back against the floor.

Luna - who was top of him – swinged a fist at Draco's face but missed when the blond Slytherin made a lighting-fast move and slide himself from under her, jumping to his feet. But she caught up with him and threw him against the wall.

"I know you're stressed, princess. Now that the baby's due any time things are getting worse because it builds up more anxiety inside you and you feel like you're losing it, but I don't think this would take the pressure off." Reaching out, Draco took one of her tight fists gently and brought it to his bruised face. "Completely honesty is not always kind…but I was hoping some other sort of physical roughness. If you want to get rid of the tension why don't we finish this in our bedroom?" He smirked flirtatiously yet painfully for his swollen lip started to bleed.

Shouting her lungs out, Luna spitted right at Draco. "I've already told you not to push me to have sex! I not only despise my body but I'm not moved by you anymore! I don't want you!"

The Slytherin's face went whiter, his heart passed from a violent beating rhythm to a flat line as he missed three consecutive beats. Once his broken heart reconstructed by itself it was a fraction of what once had, too many shattered parts refused to be reassembled again.

Trailing briefly the back of his hand over her moistened cheeks, Draco leaned closer, speaking inches away from her mouth. "I've kept my word. I've refrained myself these last seven months ever since we came back from Hogwarts because that's what you've asked me to and I didn't want to force you to do anything you didn't feel comfortable with. You're beautiful and now that you're pregnant you're even more desirable to me. I want you and that exquisitely sexy belly of yours turns me on. Your body might have experienced many changes but my feelings for you remain the same: I'm in love with you."

Tears blinded her eyes; she shook her head twice and started rearranging the oversized pullover she was wearing over her nightdress. "You should have let me stay at my father's until the baby was born." Drying the tears with the back of her hand, she continued with a shaky voice. "Being around you…makes things even worse…I can't think clearly…"

"You're enduring a most difficult pregnancy and I know everything you've sacrificed for our baby to make it to this day. You're putting up with it because you love Scorpius as much as I do and I thank you for that, princess." Pausing to draw a sound breath, he cupped her chin and lifted her head to meet his mismatched eyes. "I've done everything you've asked but you're impossible to please. It's scary how much you remind me of Lucius when you act like this. He raised me on a steady diet of critiques and evaluations and always blamed me for not trying hard enough, for not doing anything right, for not acting as expected. Luna, what is exactly that I'm failing at?" He managed to ask before his voice faded out completely.

Luna pushed away from him and ducked her head, tears running in a hot trail down the sides of her angelic face. "Not everything revolves around you, Draco!"

"Yet everything's my fault, isn't it?!" Anger knotted his throat and the muscles of his face, his voice came painfully dry. "Your bad days, the ones I'm required to sympathize and compensate for every single one of my past faults, including having impregnated you with my seed is outnumbering your good days!"

Luna's voice was thick with disgust. "Since the moment you've cast that charm on me whenever I go to bed I just can't have a sound sleep anymore. I can't dream and I woke up at night because I feel restless and that leave me exhausted the next day! I wanted to finish my studies earlier too, but I can't concentrate or manage to read a book without feeling my head is about to explode. I can't relax either when I paint! I don't find that hobby enjoyable anymore! I feel so angry and so pissed with myself! I'm no longer capable of following a normal routine. Everything is so confused inside my head and my magic… I can no longer control it either!"

Draco's voice was coming undone with infuriated, ragged pants. "All I did was to perform a permanent mirroring charm to spare you from having nightmares in the middle of the night in which you woke up screaming with raw panic. Since that night, seven months ago, I'm the one who's been having those nightmares instead of you! And don't you dare blame me for not being able to have a sound sleep, you can at least rest somehow, I can't sleep at all! The times I get some rest are when I pass out after spending countless sleepless nights!"

"You mean when you pass out after getting loaded with alcohol!" She accused and started throwing onto the floor the bottles of the mini bar behind her. "You're going to drown in your own puke one of these days!"

"I bet you're hoping that day to come soon, aren't you?!" Getting exasperated, Draco stabbed a finger in the air, pointing it right into Luna's face. "You wanted privacy, I gave you privacy, but you've went too far. You spent all day in bed locked up in your bedroom and hardly leave those four walls! You even made the house elves brought food to your room to avoid sharing meals with me! You're completely avoiding me, making me feel like I don't exist!"

Narrowing her amethyst blue eyes with fury, she replied. "Love means respecting someone else's rights and boundaries! I want you to stop controlling my life, that's what I want! I want you to leave me be, you're suffocating me! I can't stand being around anyone! Constantly talking does not exactly build a communication but the problem is that you're a man who loves the sound of his own voice, am I right?!"

Screaming on top of her ear-piercing shouts, Draco shot back as irately as her. "No! You're wrong! I'm sick and tired of hearing myself talking alone, waiting for you to say something in return…for a change! But lately talking to you is monologuing because you don't have the decency to show not a single hint of interest!" The explosive intensity of his voice started to drop, he felt the tears burning on his eyes but he squeezed them away. "All I wanted was for you to open up to me more, to show me that you care about me! All I ever wanted was to share things with together and trust in each other! That's the foundation of a relationship! That's what intimacy is!"

The Slytherin wrestled her into a pressure point hold, but Luna didn't budge and pulled herself back.

She then started talking as if she was a runaway train, unable to stop. "I'm really pissed that you said that to me! You're accusing me of not trusting you?! You've kept more secrets from me than I've ever kept from you! Everytime I want to discuss one of our many issues you refuse to give me a direct answer or change abruptly the subject! You've refused to tell me about how exactly you've lost your memory, a selective memory loss I dare say, because you remember everything about everyone else except me! I bet you remember perfectly well the things you've shared with Alecto and when you've kissed Daphne and Fleur but you can't remember anything we've shared together! I'm not talking about remembering trivial things like what's my favorite flower or food or book or song. You've completely forgot the day you've met me, our fist kiss, the night we've got married…you couldn't even remember when my birthday was! You've got to ask my father about it behind my back because you didn't want me to know! But you remember correctly when Blaise's birthday is along with all the things he likes and dislikes. You even recall the exact number of quaffles he scored at every single Quidditch game he played as chaser! I'm the one who feels like I'm living with a complete stranger! You've underestimated me all this time, Draco! STOP TREATING ME AS IF I WERE STUPID!"

Shocked anger widened Draco's mismatched eyes. "Never did such thing! Luna, I've suffered all kinds of pain to show you that there's nothing I wouldn't do for you! I've made all kind of sacrifices too! I've lost more than my memories! I've lost myself in the process and this is what's left of me now! I know it's not much, but that's exactly what I've been reduced to because of you! Everything I've done, I DID IT FOR YOU!"

Curling her hands in tight balls, she spitted out. "If I'm the culprit and I've turn your life in a complete mess…if you can't even remember who I am or what you feel about me…then why would you want me to stay around?! Why won't you let me go?!"

Draco grabbed Luna's head carefully between his shacking hands; his voice came completely undone. "Because I'm in love with you! I can't live without you!"

Luna pulled away angrily and took a couple of steps back. "No. You refuse to let me go because you are afraid of losing power and of having people look down on you if your wife happens to leave you."

"I don't care what people might say, I just don't want you to leave. Forget the mistakes of the past we've got a future ahead of us, we can build new memories together." Draco's voice bubbled with a heart-breaking sadness. Swallowing hard he finished the sentence with a painful hiss. "We're going to be parents."

"I do love our son but I won't live a complete lie to keep appearances. Even if we're living under the same roof we're living in two complete different worlds. There is no us! Starting by the fact that here is no real communication between us! Do you firmly believe this is what Scorpius deserves?" But Luna's angst trimmed her throat, preventing her from saying another word.

Leveling his blood-shot eyes up to her amethyst blue gems, Draco replied strangely unperturbed. "Our son has the right to be raised by his father and his mother, that's what he deserves and that's exactly what he's going to get." His tone was a silky threat.

The crystal vases and porcelain figurines from the cabinets then started to shatter, the paintings fell from the walls and a deafening sound erupted from under the floor.

Draco's eyes widen in panic. "Luna, STOP! Those belonged to my mother! They were her favorite possessions!"

Narrowing her amethyst blue eyes, she smirked coldly. "I see, you do remember that too…but you can't remember when was the first time I've confessed that I loved you, can you?!"

Draco's features hardened with controlled anger. "I guess I'd never be able to please you."

Grabbing her gently yet firmly by the shoulders, Draco forced her down onto a couch.

"You're hurting me!" She said with an agonized cry and tilted her head to the side.

His hands slid up to cup her face, tilting it so she had no recourse but to look at him.

"I'm being extremely careful not to." Draco confessed, tracing outline of her mouth with the edge of his thumb.

As fear and some other powerful feelings came to haunt her, Luna stamped one foot on his stomach and lunged Draco onto the air.

"Don't you dare to touch me! I don't know who you are anymore…you're not my husband!" She cried out, sobbing.

Draco's back smashed against the wall before hitting the floor and a crystal display cabinet fell on top of him.

"You mad cow! What the fuck do you think you're doing?!" Blaise spitted out irately after casting a stunning spell that sent Luna laying flat over the couch.

Clasping an arm across the place on his ribs where Luna had kicked him, Draco struggled to pick himself up from the floor - as he pulled out a piece of shattered glass that pierced through one of his thighs and a piece of broken wood that went right through one side of his shoulder – and immediately after that he threw himself over Blaise when a killing curse passed by mere inches from where the jet black haired Slytherin was standing.

"But I've just stunned her! How could she recover so fast?!" Blaise spun his head towards Luna's direction, rage and confusion in his pitch-black eyes. "For fuck sakes! That treacherous bitch had just tried to kill me!?"

Despite the thick and polluted air was trimming considerably his vision field - Draco couldn't differ what was past his nose - that didn't stop him from feeling where his brother's hands were lingering.

"Blaise!" The blond scolded with a whip-lash shout.

"What?!" The other mimicked the blonde's pissed-off look, but unlike Draco's reddish anger Blaise was blushing for other reasons.

At the sound of Draco's annoyed humming, Blaise accused. "Hey! Who threw himself over who? You might be feather-weight but the impact almost made me spit my lungs out! And why do you have your hands knitted tightly behind my neck?!"

"To support and secure where the spine connects to the base of the skull in case you made a risky movement during the fall and to prevent your head from hitting the floor!" Draco spitted with a lecturing tone.

"That's completely unnecessary! I know perfectly well to ease a fall, you trained me yourself!" Blaise reminded the blond harshly.

"Look, don't make me regret pulling you out of the way from that curse!" Draco roared, getting exasperated.

"I know you love to be on top of things and assume control of everything but don't get all exited here or too comfy either! I just wanted to make sure you were still in one piece, okay!?" Blaise excused himself, also shouting, removing reluctantly his hands from the blonde's butt.

"Draco, are you trembling?" Amusement warmed Blaise's voice.

After a constricted intake of air Draco confessed. "For a second there I thought I wasn't going to make it on time."

"Awww, my hero!" Blaise celebrated happily crushing Draco with a bear hug – pressing the blonde's body hermetically against him - and rolled on the floor, sheltering both behind a desk.

The second Draco could squeeze himself free from the choke-hold embrace he clamped a palm over one of Blaise's shoulders. "Dammit, you brute!"

After taking sit on the floor, Blaise started brushing the fabric of his suit that – thanks to its magical properties - showed not a single scratch or stain despite the massive destruction around him and asked. "Draco, what the fuck is going on with that nutcase? She's out of control! Weren't we supposed to be spared of women's emotional monthly rants once they're knocked up or was that just an excuse these bitches invented to back themselves up when pissing men off for no reason?!"

Draco swallowed painfully. "It's not her fault. I did this to her, she's reacting to the Ghoul's powers in her blood…that's what making her do this." He then peeked outside briefly and when he turned to look at Blaise his mood changed completely, he was smirking proudly. "The training I've gave her finally reap fruit, now she's perfectly capable to defend herself. She's wonderful, isn't she?"

"Mate, listen to yourself, have you completely lost your mind?!" Once the air started to clear and Blaise's eyes rested on his brother's face he literally panicked. "HOLY FUCKING SHIT!"

Draco's violated throat featured both dark-bluish bruises and cuts. His pale lips and cheeks were swollen and bleeding. His white shirt was torn in shreds, revealing not only deep slashing cuts but also serious burnings on his chest and upper arms.

Grabbing Draco by the collar of this shirt, Blaise pulled him closer. "From what I've witnessed so far you're getting beaten the shit out and she doesn't have a single scratch on her! Why are you're letting that bitch do this to you? Has she hit you that hard that you'd barely have your brain functional?!"

After rolling his eyes dramatically, Draco let go a snort-like sound. "No-one understands Luna's sense of humor like I do."

"Bollocks!" They were almost nose-to-nose. Sniffing him hard, Blaise shot back with a hateful frown. "Fuck, you're completely wasted!"

Draco stared at him in silence for a long moment until the sight of his mismatched eyes came into focus and smirked somewhat stupidly. "Nah…ah..."

"Sober up! NOW!" Blaise clamped his teeth hard and looked at Draco, his pitch-black eyes were filled with anguished fury.

Draco then looked around, plotting with a crazy face, and got up.

"Stay here, don't interfere." He ordered to Blaise and - with wand in hand - the blond Slytherin stormed from behind the desk.

"Like Hell I'm leaving you alone!" Without wasting another second, Blaise came out from his hiding place but another explosion – that sent fire balls, glass and wood splinters into the air – pulled him sideways right though a window.

The adrenaline literally burned through Blaise's veins, his eyes fluttered open and in one quick motion he was back in his feet. As the polluted air cleared, Blaise's eyes opened wide as saucers. Draco's body was again laying with his back onto the floor, but this time Luna was standing next to him holding a forty inches long iron poker – the type used to keep alive the burning coals from a fireplace - one poker had already sunk on the floor, stabbing all the way through Draco's right forearm, nailing it onto the floor. Draco had no strength to hold his wand, and once it fell from his loosen grip, it rolled on the floor.

"HEY YOU, DYSFUNCTIONAL PMS!" Blaise roared making his presence known.

Without knowing what had hit her, Luna dropped the grip of the poker and was soon restrained with countless rounds of thick ropes from head to toe by what seemed to be a most effective restraining spell Blaise could procure but then – as if it wasn't enough – the jet black haired Slytherin performed a row of consecutive stunning spells that forced her to fall limp onto the floor.

"That was just a warming-up, you frigid cunt, now get yourself ready to be arse-fucked! Draco should have done that a long time ago, that'd probably have cooled off your constant bitching!" He sentenced with a vengeful tone standing scarce feet from where she was laying on the floor.

Getting desperate Draco screamed, spitting blood as he did so. "NO! DON'T HURT HER!"

But that didn't stop Blaise from casting a hex on her that slowly drained the air of her lungs and prevented her from inhaling again properly.

Even if the dark magic hex was one of the most powerful ones it only incapacitated – practically dominated - the victim, immersing the prey into a state of temporal submission due to the light-headiness daze caused by the shortage of oxygen. Luna's eyes fluttered open, she looked like she was about to pass out.

Pulling hard from her fringe, Blaise lifted her head inches from the floor and fixed his enraged pitch-black eyes on her amethyst blue gems. "Wake up, you bitch! I want you to be conscious for what's coming next. I've warned you once: make Draco suffer… I'd become your worst nightmare ever!"

She mumbled something under the rope that has covering her mouth.

Blaise then started tracing his wand up and down her cheeks until he rested the tip of it over her forehead. "You're already a lost case. I don't think it'd matter much if I cook your brain a little more."

"Brother, think about Scorpius." A weak pleading came from Draco's direction.

"ACT LIKE A MAN FOR A CHANGE, WILL YOU?!" Blaise snapped out completely. "Are you going to let this nutcase get away with what she'd done?! For fuck sakes, she tried to kill us both! This bitch is going to pay …the hard way! I'm going to fry every single brain cell left in her and make her squeal like a pig in the process! But I swear upon my father's memory that it won't affect the baby in the least, so don't sweat!"

Draco lifted his left arm – his stabbed right arm had been immobilized with the poker - picked up his wand and waved it dizzily towards Blaise.

"Expelliarmus!" After casting the disarming spell, Draco's arm went limp on the floor.

Visibly pissed but also resented, Blaise was about to complain but the moment he turned to look at Draco, he felt a stinging hot puncture on the back of his head. When he faced Luna a second time, Blaise saw that she'd used the iron poker to hit him from behind. Blood started pouring from the open wound on the back of his skull, Blaise couldn't move. His vision was coming-and-going as he tried to regain control of his senses.

Fixing her amethyst blue eyes on her husband, Luna got up slowly, the ropes of the binding spell were torn in shreds on the floor.

Staring at Luna without blinking, Draco encouraged with a creepy, torn voice. "I dare you to do it, sweetheart. I need to know how far you are willing to go. Go ahead. Give me the best you've got."

Despite Draco's voice sounded defiant, there was another heavy emotion bubbling on the surface, it wasn't fear or anger…it was resignation and he was weary, the kind of weariness one reaches when emotions dry you up to nothing and you're faced with the harsh reality. He knew what was coming.

Luna closed her eyes; she felt the tears leaking from beneath her closed eyelids. "Draco, I can't live like this anymore: I'm leaving you."

After hearing Luna's words Draco started laughing so hard he could barely breathe. He looked completely unbalanced.

"Were you under the impression that marriage was supposed to make your life less complicated?! NO!" The Slytherin paused and looked over at Luna, panting. His mismatched eyes were slightly unfocused. "It's torture and pain and sacrifice! It's like walking on fake ground, upside down, chocking…that's how marriage life feels like and our case isn't the exception!"

Draco's words hammered inside Luna's heart arousing a defensive anger and other more powerful feeling…rage.

"It's over, OVER!" She yelped, hauling the poker in the air.

"No, this is just the beginning." Draco's facial features hardened, pain and sorrow showed in the glittering depths of his mismatched eyes. "You've just awoken your dark side, sweetheart. It was a matter of time. Sooner or later it happens to us all because it's not in our blood but in our nature. Let me explain what true darkness is: it's our human side. It's the side that makes decisions out of emotions, that's the enemy of us all. Passion and desire are what bring to light the darker elements of man's nature for they're inherent in everyone, like a germ. That's why love hurts inside our hearts and desire burns our bodies that much. Emotions are diseases meant to destroy our sanity. So the more intense the emotion, the darker your heart would grow and the less control over yourself you'll get. That's why I know that you love me in spite of what your eyes reflect. YOU LOVE ME AS MUCH AS I LOVE YOU!"

Draco's expression revealed a torment that twisted the muscles of her stomach into a painful ball of knotted fear. Luna's features paled as consternation mingled with disbelief, then magnified into a sense of dread.

Desperation fractured her voice. "Stop confusing me!"

"Luna, you and me, we are the same. You are no longer in control of our actions when it comes to me, neither am I. The monster in you is fed by me and it won't stop until you destroy it. If you want to leave me then all you've got to do is kill me because I refuse to let you move on without me. If you don't stop me now I'll chase after you and you know I'll find you, I'd always find you!" Draco then snapped completely, emptying his lungs out with a heartbreaking cry. "WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! KILL ME! END IT NOW!"

Everything around Blaise then started to fade – he was slowly losing conscience – but before blacking out he saw a strange bluish-turquoise incorporeal halo of light coming from out Draco's right eye slowly ascending towards the ceiling before a blinding light and a blasting sound resounded past those walls setting in flames and destroying everything around and he got sunk into an endless pitch-black darkness.

lllllllllllllllllllll End of Blaise's Flashback lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

"By the time I woke up, both of them were gone and the place was a slaughter house: Draco's blood was spread all over the floor. I've search everywhere for my brother until I've ended up here, at St. Mungo's. I should have known that my restlessness wasn't because I had to endure that dinner with my mother. I should have paid more attention to the signs." Blaise's voice was tense but denoted exhaustion.

The Auror finished writing on the parchment and lifted his gaze, pushing up again his spectacles with one finger, before asking. "Mr. Malfoy, what made you come to the conclusion that your brother's life was in danger?"

"For as long as I can remember I've experienced a series of extrasensory perceptions that made me feel as if I were in two complete different places at the same time. Once I grew up I've found out that the imprints of those unexplained manifestations were because I was somehow synchronized with Draco. The channeling becomes more intense and clear inside me when threat is looming close to my brother." His words came between big breaths, like trying to talk immersed in a deep, strong emotion.

The Auror leaned against the chair's rest, taking all in and finally nodded slightly his head. "That explains everything then: you and your brother are soul-mates. I must admit it's an extremely unique sensory perception granted by the Lifespan Seals on you two. I've only read about one similar case, recorded in the Top-Classified Ministry files, dated five hundred years ago!"

A somber expression clouded the Slytherin's chuckle. His mouth then closed until his lips were a tight, pale line. "Even if we were to exchange them again, like when we did before Draco used the Time Turner to save Scorpius, our Lifespan Seals won't last because we're no longer soul-mates. I came back as a different man from the other side of the veil and Draco's near-death experience changed him as well. But that'd only built up inside me the need to have Draco's flesh and mine marked: a visible stigma that would tell the world we're meant for each other... "

Blaise's course of thinking came to a sudden stop when a stinging puncture coursed through his right wrist. Unconsciously, he started rubbing it nervously it behind the table.

"My brother and I…we are not soul-mates." Blaise confessed as the thought pressed a heavy weight on his chest.

"That's even more fascinating, you've developed an extraordinary ability Mr. Malfoy." Caressing softly his carefully cut bear, the old man then looked seriously at Blaise. "A wizard of your sort is what the Ministry's looking for."

"I appreciate the offering but I'm not sure yet if I'd like to become an Auror." The young Slytherin tossed out boringly.

A smile broke the elder's suddenly solemn mood. "I'm talking about your filling the vacant of Minister of Magic."

Taken completely off-guard Blaise sucked up a sound breath and almost chocked himself.

"Really?" He asked immediately after he refilled his lungs with air and copied the auror's mood, but unlike the old man, Blaise's voice held no amusement whatsoever. "I'm sorry, but I declined. If there's a wizard who's qualified for such post is my brother, not me."

The Auror's good mood dropped from his face. "But he refused and you're his equal: I sincerely hope you'd accept."

"No." Blaise shook his head; he didn't even have to think twice about it. Then an amused smirk started to curl his lips. "But I'd encourage Draco to take the post."

The other laughed shortly. "If you manage to convince your brother to change his mind then it would be incredible good news, Mr. Malfoy."

"Don't undestestimate me, old man." Blaise turned his face to a side, wondering how to address the auror without letting his sudden dark mood to come to surface. "I will. After all, it's my brother's destiny." He replied with a casual smirk.

Welcoming the young Slytherin's determination, the Auror ducked his head to the transcripted testimony and got back to business. "Are you willing to submit the contents of your memory to the authorities?"

The young Slytherin rubbed his forehead tiredly before nodding. "I'm willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that woman doesn't come near my brother ever again. She's the death of him."

Handling over a small crystal vial, the elder wizard soothed. "Rest assured that we'll do our job efficiently."

Inspecting the vial carefully, Blaise confessed out loud. "If my brother hadn't stopped me, I would have ended up damaging her brain beyond repair."

Making a face, the Auror prompted his next words. "Mr. Malfoy, I'm here to collect facts not verbal threats that anyone facing a traumatic experience would have thrown at the criminal who not only wanted to murder a family member but also attempted against one's life."

"I appreciate your understanding." Blaise then pointed with his wand at the side of his temple and extracted slowly the silverish white-blue thread of memory the auror needed: from the moment he stepped outside the fireplace of the Chateau's library until he passed out.

Pocketing the vial inside his robes, the other replied courteously. "And I appreciate your time."

Without removing his eyes from the man, Blaise asked darkly serious. "Would that be evidence enough to file a petition for divorce?"

"Yes, and also for requesting a restraining order, but I'd have to be your brother the one willing to do so." He then handled the parchment with the recorded testimony for Blaise to sign.

Blaise pushed errant thoughts back into the recesses of his mind and with fast gracious flicks of his wand he stamped his signature on the document and retrieved it to the auror.

"I understand but my brother has been traumatized and abused by this woman ever since they got married. She has been completely intolerant of her husband's needs and feelings. She constantly looked down and criticized him to the point of turning him into an absolute mess. My brother's judgment had eroded to the point where he finds difficult to make decisions when it comes to her. He'd most probably start blaming or even punish himself for her actions. All this time she'd been aware of her actions, so that rules out the fact that she's mentally unstable. I dare say Luna developed some narcissistic personality disorder, she perfectly knew when and where to lose her temper. That night I wasn't supposed to return home until very late in the evening. She took advantage of it knowing that Draco would never dare to stand up against her or defend himself, fearing by doing so he might end up hurting her or the baby, and I was nowhere near to stop her either." The Slytherin paused as another realization struck inside his mind. "I'm his legal guardian. Doesn't that confer me the right to act in his best interest and assume responsibility for my brother?"

Blaise already knew the answer, but playing naïve while making others comfortable and at ease around him – gaining their confidence in the meantime - was something the Slytherin mastered to perfection.

"Yes, of course. You're entitled to act in his behalf." The elder wizard then rolled carefully the signed statement, tied a black and yellow ribbon around it and sealed the ends with his magic wax seal ring, the one that carried the Ministry's logo. "But your brother's signature would still be required."

Blaise narrowed his eyes as his thoughts went deeper, denoting a dangerously busy mind. He then smirked confidently. "Would you please owl me the forms to start with both the divorce and restraining processes? I don't want Luna Lovegood soil my family's reputation and good name once she's sentenced to Azkaban for what she'd done to my brother."

The Auror accented with his head. "I'll see to it."

"Thank you." Blaise then flashed a most studied kind smile. "You'd better have them ready by the next hour."

Momentarily taken aback by the Slytherin's display of gratitude, the Auror coughed nervously.

"No need to thank me, Mr. Malfoy, it's my job. It's a distinct honor and privilege to be at your service. As soon as I return to the Ministry, I'll owl you the documentation you've requested." He replied humbly.

"Music to my ears." Blaise smirked to himself, picked up his jacket and stormed off the small office.

lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

A/N:

Did Draco really lose his magic powers?

What does Luna feel about Draco and what motivated her to do what she did to him?

Which are Blaise's next moves?

All those answers – and much, much more - in the next chapter…

Show that you care by reviewing, thanks!