LONE ISLAND

…

I frowned at the key clenched in my fist.

It was the key to my flat. Our flat. Astoria and I's, that is. She was across the room, socialising at the bar with a few of her work friends while I nursed a firewhiskey in my window seat at the Leaky Cauldron, Blaise and Theo sat across from me. It was a typical Friday night - we usually came here after we'd both finished work, our friends doing the same and the night stretching on into the smaller hours, the two of us stumbling home in the dark to drunkenly cook some food before falling into bed, exhausted. At least, that's how it had started out. Fun. Enjoyable.

I mean, it still was to a certain extent. At times it felt like one of the only things holding us together anymore.

Glancing up at her form, I bit the inside of my lip. She was leaning against the bar, chestnut hair spilling over her narrow shoulders and brushing against the arms of her work blouse, her own firewhiskey held lazily in her free hand as she gestured with it mid-conversation. I remember thinking she was the most beautiful person I'd ever laid eyes on when I first met her - truly met her as an adult outside of education - with her soft hair and soft skin and doe-like eyes. She still was beautiful, mind you. I don't think I'd ever not think she was. But over time, those eyes that had once known me so well, had bared all to me, became closed off, that breathtaking smile I used to bring to her face so often becoming rarer and rarer. We'd drifted apart without realising it, inch by inch, an emotional chasm forming between the two of us until it was too late to try and close the gap.

She sometimes felt like a stranger to me now. And I knew she felt the same about me too.

I downed the rest of my drink in one go and set the tumbler on the table, my two friends sending questioning looks towards me across the wooden expanse. I raised a brow at them. They knew about my troubles; they were my best friends after all. I'd probably talked them to death by now about the nature of Astoria and I's relationship.

And I still wasn't sure whether I should do it or not.

Whether I should end things with her.

The thought always instinctually made me recoil, the notion positively appalling. We'd been together for four years now - the majority of my time since leaving Hogwarts - and the idea that I should go through life without her was off-putting. I was used to having someone there all the time, to living with another soul and never physically being alone. But we both knew we were wasting our time with each other, had been for months, and were clinging onto the scraps of what we once had.

It was sad, but it had to be done.

I took a steadying breath. I think Theo and Blaise must have seen something in my expression because the former nodded at me in encouragement and the latter said, "You've got this, mate."

"Cheers," I replied, getting up from the table and grabbing my empty glass to take to the bar. I'd rehearsed in my head what I was going to say multiple times, always the right words in the wrong order, and I prayed I didn't get them mixed up now, when it counted.

To be honest, though, did it really matter?

The bar, as mentioned, was on the other side of the room, and I had to push past a fair few groups of people to get to it. It was peak time on a Friday night, as can be expected, chatter and bodies filling the space claustrophobically. I wanted to leave. To bury my head in the sand and brood over it for a few more days, another week. I had never been a Gryffindor and didn't envisage myself morphing into some brave hero anytime soon, and as such the idea of forced confrontation now, with everything to lose, was a far cry from my comfort zone.

Regardless, I moved past people and chairs and tables, climbing in places as though it were an obstacle course. I was almost at the bar when I felt someone snag at the elbow of my work blazer and, turning on my heel, saw the face of Lee Jordan at the other end of an outstretched arm, leaning over the table and holding a pint of butterbeer in his other hand.

"Well, if it isn't Malfoy, Hogwarts' second best seeker!" he exclaimed, his words slurring at the edges.

"Jordan," I said in return. "Still in the habit of insulting Slytherins, I see."

He shrugged. "Old habits die hard."

"Evidently."

"And where are you going on this fine evening?"

I lifted my empty glass in the air. "To the bar for a refill. And to break up with my girlfriend."

"Oof!" he said. "Sounds rough."

"You have no idea."

He sat back down in his chair with a small thump and surveyed me with glassy eyes. He seemed to be debating something internally before seeming to come to a decision, and pulled out the empty chair next to him and said, "Take a pew."

I eyed it for a moment before moving over to sit with him.

"So, the illustrious Malfoy is breaking up with his girlfriend," he commented as soon as I'd sat down. "Too good for her, are you?"

Scoffing, I leaned back and looked over to where Astoria was standing at the bar. "I wish it were that simple."

"I'm going to need you to elaborate if I'm to give you any advice."

"Who said I wanted your advice?"

"I did." He puffed his chest proudly and took a swig of beer, spilling most of it down the front of his shirt.

I scrunched my nose up at the action. "Alright then. Have it your way." I took a breath, wondering at how to phrase the whole scenario in my head before thinking to hell with it and jumping straight in; "There are points in your life where you know another person intricately and they you, whether that be platonic or romantic, right?"

He nodded.

"Well, the idea that knowing someone is binary - that you either know them or you don't - is simply absurd. In that specific moment, of course you know each other the best. But a second later, something may happen to change that. Astoria and I - we used to understand each other inside and out. There are times when I swear I felt her breathing as if she was me, where I felt like she could read my mind with a single glance. And then the moment just… passed. And the next. And the next. Until now we don't really know each other anymore, just exist around each other."

"You drifted."

"We drifted."

"Why?"

"Why?" I turned to him. "Does there have to be a particular reason? Sometimes these things just happen. Sometimes they're unavoidable. Sometimes life just gets in the way and there's nothing you can do about it. I've spent many late nights lying awake and thinking why? Why this? Thinking that if I simply understood the reason we were moving away from each other I could stop it. But sometimes in life there is no reason. As people, we are islands. And islands drift."

"Bloody hell, Malfoy, that was very philosophical," he said after a moment of silence, eyebrows drunkenly lifting to his hairline.

"You sound surprised."

"Can you blame me?"

His words brought a short laugh out of me. "No."

He chuckled a little too, the sound reverberating from his chest. "It seems like you've got this figured out then."

"What, no wisdom to impart on me as promised?"

"Nope, absolutely none."

"Well, this was a grand old waste of time them," I joked.

"Actually," he held up a hand, "I do have one thing to say."

"I'm all ears."

"If that's how it happened, then it wasn't meant to be. Sometimes there is no reason, and these things happen. And sometimes that's the universe's way of telling us that it's not right for us."

I raised a brow and asked, "Who's being philosophical now, eh?"

"Not me." Lee downed the rest of his pint, more beer rolling down his chin and onto his clothes. "Now go and break up with her before you chicken out. Or I insult you again. Whichever happens first."

"I'm wagering it'd be the latter."

"Me too."

I nodded at him and thanked him for the advice before picking up my empty glass once more and heading to the bar. Astoria was still talking with her work friends - work friends she always seemed to be talking to, most days seeming to say more to them than she did to me - and I pulled our flat key out of my pocket, examining it in my hand before sidling up to her to grab her attention.

"Draco," she said once she saw me, a slight note of disappointment lacing her tone (as it often did these days when we spoke). "Everything okay?"

"Of co-" I stopped abruptly. Who was I kidding here? "Actually," I said. "It's not. Can you spare a moment of your time, please?"

Astoria frowned, creases appearing between her perfectly arched eyebrows. "Sure."

I motioned for her to follow me and headed towards a quieter corner of the bar. I squeezed the key in my hand. I knew what I had to do. It was about time.

It didn't make it any easier, that being said.

Once we stopped moving, I looked into her eyes - beautiful, unknowable eyes - and started speaking, explaining as I did to Lee Jordan not five minutes ago. Her expression remained impassive the entire time, no emotion breaking the surface, until, when I'd stopped, she grimaced.

"I'm sorry," was the first thing she said. "Life has just been… just been busy."

"Too busy for me?" I asked. "For us?"

"Apparently so."

"I'm sorry too," I replied, even though I had nothing to be sorry for. But she had nothing to be sorry for either, so it felt unfair to let her be the only one to apologise.

The words hung in the air between us, the noises of the pub making our silence seem deafening. After a few awkward moments, she asked, "What now?"

I turned the key over in my fist, feeling the bite of the metal one last time, and then held it out to her.

She stared at it.

We both knew what it represented. It would make our split concrete, real. It would render everything irreversible. Once I handed her the key, the flat was hers. I was out, and we would once again be strangers to one another, four years of time together forgotten.

It would be as though we never loved each other at all.

Astoria shook her head slightly. I thought she was about to say no, about to shove the key back at me and demand that we try and make it work. That's what my heart wanted her to do, even if my head was saying that nothing would change, that what was broken between us could never be fixed and our efforts would be fruitless. But then she reached out a slender hand and grabbed the key from my palm, our skin brushing for the last time. She closed her fist around it and looked up at me.

"You'll need to pick up your belongings," she said matter-of-factly.

"If I knock in the morning, will you be able to let me in?"

She nodded. "Sure."

And then she turned back to her work friends, and I went back to sit with Theo and Blaise, nodding at Lee Jordan on my way past who sloppily saluted me in return, the absence of the key's weight from my pocket painfully noticeable.

And that was that. The deed had been done, the key handed over to her like a white flag.

And I was a lone island once more.

.

A/N: This was written for the QLFC, team Tutshill Tornados.

Prompts used:

(Beater 2) Your OTP's lives have caused them to drift apart

3. (word) irreversible

5. (object) key

13. (person) Lee Jordan

Word count: 2,042

Thanks!

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