Chapter 9: Potter

Silence reigned, as each man tried to come to terms with what had just been said. Where, five minutes past, Mallory had sat by his side, offering silent support as Blake aired feelings as he never had before, now his one-time friend glared at him as though he were filth, garbage. Or worse, as if he was nothing. Those two simple syllables, so meaningless individually, now seemed to lie between the two of them as a gaping chasm, unpassable, unavoidable.

Almost trembling from fear, of rejection even more than of discovery, Blake tried to show confusion, hesitently attempting to avoid the issues. "I... I don't understand," he stuttered, eyes wide. "I don't know what you're talking about, Mallory..."

With a vicious rage completely unlike the Mallory Blake had thought he knew, the other man shied away from his touch as if he were a leper, spitting out, "What do you mean you don't understand, Potter? Even you surely can't be that thick... though, then again, maybe you could." Accentuating every syllable, as if talking to an ignorant child, he voiced, "I. Know. Who. You. Are. And I don't know what you thought you were trying to pull by this show..."

"What do you mean, this show?" Blake interrupted, honestly confused. "I don't know who you are, but you have no idea what you're talking about!"

"Yes you do, Potter. 'Oh, look at me, the poor little Boy-Who-Lived. My life is sooo painful, I think I'm just going to run away and cry,'" he continued in a mocking voice. "Searching for false sympathy and attention, as if you didn't receive enough through your youth that was oh-so-tortured with fame and friends and fortune. But you aren't fooling me, Potter, not anymore."

Wincing at the title he had so desperately tried to escape, heartbroken by this betrayal of his trust and friendship, Blake found himself close to tears. But he refused to show his weaknesses in front of this stranger - for, truly, this man was nothing like the funny, intelligent, sympathetic Mallory he had come to know and like - he grew visibly cold, letting Mallory's barbs bounce off him.

Berating himself for ever being so foolish as to trust again, something he had once vowed never to do, he mentally revisited all of Mallory's little mistakes, the misplaced words, the little inconsisties he should, would have spotted a long time ago, if he had not been so foolishly sure of himself. And as the signs slowly came together, he raised his eyes to coldly meet those oh-so-familiar blue orbs, meeting his spite with cold hate. "Malfoy."

"Correct." Replied the other man, voice frigid, as Blake looked over the fine, almost elegant features and unusually pale blonde hair, slowly seeing the features of a pointy-faced boy he once knew, so many years ago.

"You killed Ginny," Blake replied, voice catching slightly on the last syllable. Ten painful, lonely years due to this... man.

Sneering in response, Mallo- Malfoy replied, "And you killed my father."

Both men knew that there was nothing more to be said. Both deaths had been necessary, Blake admitted to himself, though he would never mention it to the other man. While the elder Malfoy had been pure evil, his death saving hundreds of lives, the younger Malfoy's spying had been crucial to their success in the war, as had his connection to Snape, and Ginny's death had given Voldemort the overconfidence and Blake the hatred necessary to finish the war. But neither had forgiven the other. And some wounds, some rivalries, run too deep to ever heal.

Slowly getting to his feet, feeling the weight of his past, of the deaths, on his shoulders like never in these ten years, Blake turned his back away from Malfoy, not caring even if the other man should curse him. Hiding the sadness from his voice, though not from his eyes, he quietly said, "Leave."

Draco glared at him, for all that the other man could not see, and opened his mouth as if to refuse. But what was the point? It wasn't as if he wanted to stay here around Potter, living testament to his pathetic loneliness and need, something no Malfoy should ever show. And he had more important things to do than hang around with a bunch of pathetic muggles, he reminded himself, deliberately ignoring how much he had enjoyed those weeks. Then wordlessly, not even bothering to retrieve his few muggle belongings from his cousin, he apparated home.

He really needed a drink.

As Blake heard the distinctive 'pop', he knew that the only friend he had had in ten years was gone, and never coming back. And as he sat back on the rock and stared at the silver-blue waves, the colour of Malfoy's once-smiling eyes, he did not find the comfort he always had before. And, knees folded against his chest and head in his arms, he began to sob.

It was dark when Blake returned to his house, and he stumbled several times on the way. FOr all that he was staring at the path in front of his feet, he simply couldn't focus, couldn't concentrat. All he could think of was Mallory - no, Malfoy! - and his words, and the look in his eyes... but why did it hurt so much? He had only known Mallory for one short month, and neither of them had been completely honest with the other. They hadn't fought trolls together, or gone to exciting events, or even spent a great deal of time together, with all the time he had put into his cooking. How had the man come to mean so much to him?

He was almost tempted to call it a plot, say that it was something Malfoy would do... but he couldn't. Because he had known Mallory, truly known him, not just some facade the other man had put up to torture him. And even if it was a facade, Malfoy would never have revealed such personal things - things that were supported by what little he knew of Malfoy outside of their rivalry - but rather created a fake past, if he could have been bothered to do this to Potter in the first place.

No, for all their childhood rivalry, Malfoy had changed. Or, maybe, Mallory always existed in Malfoy somewhere, and Blake had simply never had the chance to meet him before. But now that he had, he realised that he didn't want to give him up. He didn't want to return to his life of gardening and cooking and walking his dog, that quiet and solitary life he had once longed for. It wasn't enough...

But he had no choice. He had befriended a man who hated him, and Mallory - Malfoy - whatever his name was, would never come back.

Never.

Draco, for his part, apparated straight into the foyer of his mother's manor, for all that it wasn't his home anymore. He supposed that he still subconsciously thought of the old building as home, the place he had grown up and made friends and been loved by his father, once, before he chose a different path. He was greeted by the house-elves, who seemed excited at his return, but he paid them no attention.

Striding purposefully to his father's study, stocked with the highest quality wines and spirits, he made as if to pour a glass of port, before shaking his head. "Not strong enough," he muttered to himself, instead pouring vodka with a shaking hand into the wine glass he had already unpacked.

Downing the vodka in two swallows, letting the warmth of the alcohol pervade through throat and stomach and blood, Mallory slowly released the icy calm he had been fighting to keep. Here, in his father's study, with his mother on holidays, there was no one to see him relinquish the pride and self-control that was so crucial to a Malfoy.

Malfoy's don't cry. But as he reflected on what he had almost had, what Potter's existence had taken from him, Draco felt tears coming to his eyes. As he downed a seond glass of vodka, then a third, he slurred, he angrily threw the expensive crystal at the far wall, slurring unintelligibly. Once again, Potter had destroyed him the way no other could, but he would never see the other man again.

Surely that would make everything alright?