Disclaimer; Please do not sue! I have no money, that is why I go to work all the time…. Every character is owned by J.K "she-who-is-richer-than-the-queen" Rowling . . .

            And I am jealous of that fact….

Pushing open the heavy double oak doors, he walked into the front foyer of what could only be described as a manor. The simplistic and seemingly minimalist parquetry on the floor belied the opulence and obvious cost of all the surroundings. A white marble staircase led up to the second floor, splitting in two halfway up. On both sides of him in the foyer, there were two doors. The one on the right led to the sitting room, which overlooked the meticulously manicured lawns and shrubbery of the garden. The one on the left led to the study.

            Walking over to the dark wooden door of the study, he knocked three times, before stepping back to wait for admittance, like he had been taught to do since he was a young boy. After a few minutes, when he had received no answer, he knocked again. Once again, he received no answer. Grasping the door by its ornate dragon shaped handle, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

            The French doors that lined the outer wall of the study had all been blown open, the glass from the shattered windowpanes littering the shallow steps that led out to the garden, as if the glass had been blown out from an explosion from inside. The pale straw colored curtains had all been torn, and now fluttered forlornly in the spring breeze. The books that had previously been painstakingly ordered and neatly contained in the bookshelves lining the walls were now strewn around the room, as if they had been hurled about, pages flapping in the breeze, while others had been torn apart, the torn leafs of the pages blowing about the room, reforming in piles on the pristine cream colored carpet.

            He walked over to the desk, which, surprisingly, was as neat as it always was - the mahogany box that contained important letters and parchment was still sitting untouched on the corner of the desk, a bottle of ink and a selection of various quills lying next to it. The lamp, curiously, was on, even though it was midday, so he reached over in order to turn it off. Walking around to the side of the desk, he noticed out of the corner of his eye a splash of platinum blonde hair, spread over the ground. Walking all the way around the table, he looked down. 

            The middle aged man was laid sprawled on the ground, wand still in his hand. He was quite obviously dead, his open, vacant eyes staring at the space underneath the table, his other hand stretched out towards something underneath. Taking a few more steps towards the body, he could see that there was another hand, a few inches away from the man's. Lying underneath the table, leaning against the inside cabinet of the desk, was a woman, a few years younger than the man, also with pale blonde hair, also deceased, but with a look of horror in her face.

            Leaning down, he closed the man's eyes, before lying him on his back, and straightening him out, folding his hands on his chest. He did the same for the woman, laying the blonde couple side by side. 

            The odd thing about it all, that many would mention later, was that they had died without shedding a single drop of blood; even in a case such as this, it was rare to have sustained such minimal damage.

            Having done what he could for the dead couple, he did the only thing that he knew. Getting up, he ran; ran through the study, out the dark wooden doors, through the marble foyer, past the double front doors that he had left open, out into the courtyard and down the driveway, not paying attention to the weeping willow trees that lined the driveway, and out through the wrought iron gates, his expensive dark green robes whispering behind him, his white blonde hair coming out of its usually immaculate styling. Only once he was outside the gates of the estate did he allow himself to break down and cry, silent tears streaming down his cheeks, before straightening up and mentally berating himself.

           

            Malfoys Do Not Cry.

 

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            Draco started awake. He was tired, sore, and could hardly focus on anything that was in front of him, but he also felt warm and safe which, in itself, was quite peculiar, as he had no idea of where exactly he was, and in just whose bed he had spent the night. He was however, still dressed, and that seemed to amount to something.

            Settling back into the pillows, he closed his eyes and thought about the dream that he had just had, the same dream that he had been having as far back as he could remember. Though nothing seemed to stick out in his mind from the dream, Draco was always filled with a sense of loss whenever he had it, and would have tears running down his cheeks when he woke up.

            Opening his eyes, he turned his head to look at the room that he was in. It looked like it may have been a studio apartment, it was open, and he could basically see quite a bit of the rest of the apartment from where he was in bed. The apartment was neat, not fastidiously so, but neat enough. Books filled the bookshelves that lined the walls, and there were books lying on the side of an old faded leather couch that was situated in front of a small television set. The apartment felt lived in, a sense that Draco immediately warmed to, though he had yet to see the apartments owner. The sound of a key turning in a lock suddenly made him turn over and pretend to be asleep.

"Harry? Are you here?" he heard a female voice ask. Harry… that must be the name of the person who lives here. Draco thought, turning his head slightly and opening his eyes to see who had entered the apartment. A young woman with bushy brown hair stood in the doorway, a tall lean man with red hair leaning against her back, peering around the door. "Hey, is that him in the bed?" the young man asked, taking a few steps forward. Suddenly, he heard another door open. "Herm. Ron. What are you two doing here? I thought that you two would be too hung over to check on me for sure…."

"Oh! Harry! No, we woke up this morning totally hung over, but Herm here knows that sobering charm, so, yeah!" The tall man said, giving Harry a large grin. "So, we came over to check on you, cause when we got home last night, Hermione here tried to give you a call to see if you had gotten home alright, but you didn't pick up. So we thought we'd come and check on you today." Finished, he put an arm around the woman's shoulders. "But then again, I see that you had a 'good' night last night as well?" he wiggles his eyebrows, giving a pointed glance at the bed.

"No! No! It's not what you think it is! I brought him home last night because I found him in an alleyway, and he was beng beaten up buy these two guys, and they were obviously drunk, and you didn't expect me to leave him lying in a back alley somewhere did you? So I brought him home and I was going to phone you today Hermione, to see if you could do something for him…."

Deciding that the time was right, Draco decided to make a move, and pretended that he had just woken up. Turning so his back was towards the friends, he sat up, regretting the move slightly as he felt the dull, painful protest of his ribs. Running his hand through his hair, he heard footsteps coming towards him, and someone sitting on the bed behind him. "Are you feeling better now?" a voice asked, and he instantly recognized it as the raven haired man who owned the apartment.

"Yes, thank you." He turned around to face the boy that had addressed him. Once again, the very first thing that he noticed about the man beside him was the fact that he had the greenest eyes that he had ever seen. They weren't the faded green that many seemed to have, but a deep, intense emerald color. Though rare, these eyes seemed intensely familiar.

Hearing a startled gasp, he looked to the two that were still standing near the doorway. Taking a few steps closer, the woman squinted at him. "Malfoy…?" she asked, in an incredulous voice. "Draco Malfoy?" How does she know my name? he thought to himself. He did not remember ever having seen her, yet she was looking at him as though she had known of him for a better part of her life. "I thought you were dead." They were distracted however, by the red-heads sudden growl.

"You'll wish you were dead once I get my hands on you, ferret!!!!"

A.N ; I am just so sorry that this took so long! I was just at work, and going out, and working, and sleeping, and before I knew it, like, 3 weeks had gone by…. O.o

But a GIANT "Thank-you" to everyone who reviewed! And hopefully, I will try to update a lot sooner next time! ^^