Draco

"You immoral heathen. Of course you, out of all people, would think you could get away with lying to me, the literal architect of all things fraudulent."

Theo had been giving him a verbose retelling of his night for the past half-hour, essentially rendering him glassy-eyed and effete.

His listless responses had done little to quash Theo's staunch determination, so for the past twenty minutes, Draco had been just as much of a staunch supporter for complete and utter silence. He quite literally hadn't said a word to acknowledge anything coming from Theo's mouth, and yet, here they were, twenty minutes later.

After a few more excruciating seconds, Draco suspected the ramble was coming to an imposing ending, as Theo was carrying out the concluding motions for each one of his usual ramblings. They came often enough that Draco could decipher when the end was near.

Theo sagged on the Chesterfield sofa in Draco's dorm room. The poor man had begun to collapse, passing into a state of physical and emotional exhaustion, one that was likely a direct consequence of pacing back and forth the entire duration of his drivel.

Draco sighed, rubbing his eyes in an attempt to unglaze them, and grabbed the nearest pillow, tucking it under Theo's head. The pillow had been a handy, and recent addition to Draco's dorm to accommodate Theo's habit of collapsing into sleep.

He had never been one for design elements, so the purchase had been more out of practicality rather than the sprucing up of his dorm. He'd initially transfigured a few of his spare books into decent-looking pillows, but Theo had insisted that he only get the best.

Draco's head still hurt from the book Theo hurled at him when he declared the "fluff factor" of one of the pillows Draco had offered him was not substantial enough.

After checking to make sure Theo wouldn't suddenly roll off the Chesterfield, as had happened several times before, he took a seat across from Blaise in the kitchenette and helped himself to a swig of the wine Blaise had been paying close attention to for the majority of the night.

The kitchenette had been yet another recent addition to his dorm after Blaise had complained about the lack of storage for alcohol.

Of all the ways Draco could have imagined his future, none of them involved drinking an opulent bottle of wine as a free man. Really, he hadn't any hope for his future at all, positive that he wouldn't make it past his twenties.

It was a remarkable thing: the unexpected. By the very nature of its meaning, one could never decipher how it would ensue.

He had not expected for his name to be cleared. He truly hadn't considered the possibility of a future, and he certainly had not wished for one had it meant serving under the Dark Lord's incumbency.

Something blurry moved beside his head.

Blaise managed to persuade Draco to unwind the vise from his thoughts with a medley of ambiguous gestures, pulling him from the depths of his former self's erroneous prophecies.

When Draco didn't move to acknowledge the motions, still off-kilter from the rambling he'd endured on Theo's part, Blaise drummed his fingers against the top of the counter in an irritated cadence.

Draco only gave a sigh and fiddled with the rings on his fingers. He pulled at his cuticles in an attempt to quell the sting of morose infringements on his wits, desperately searching for a buoy to keep himself afloat in the flood of his mind.

He found the bricks and mortar and started to construct the familiar walls.

He counted each pump of his heart. It was so unyielding against the taught skin of his throat, it felt as though a hand had found its way around the organ, squeezing it to the rhythm of a rapid pitter-patter. An infinite thump against the cage of his bones, strictly for as long as he lived.

The only thing that could slow it down was the placement of that final brick, however lackadaisical it was.

Bellatrix would have sent an army of crucios his way had she been there to test the cogency of his mind.

It didn't help when Blaise produced another of his mixes, topping off Draco's glass which was hitherto empty, save for the residual foam from its previous inhabitant. They had been switching between drinks with Theo before he had launched into his famously upbraiding drunk speeches.

"I'm waiting." Blaise's words were direct and uncomplicated. He knew what he wanted, and how to get it; it was only a matter of execution.

But Draco didn't budge. Not even a bit. The occlumency, as fickle as it was, still held some ground in the fields of Draco's mind.

The clock ticked.

It was difficult to tell time in such a state, but he was able to rightfully assume that only a few minutes had passed before the pounding headache was not worth the small defense occlumency offered.

The bricks fell, crashing.

In lieu of nothingness came a stampede of prodigious notions.

Draco bit his tongue to forbear the cultivation of treasonous words that sat on the brink, though they could hardly compare to the immense jumbles of agony, marooned on an island of grey and white matter reserved for thoughts kept intimately veiled.

"You've stopped occluding," Blaise posited. But Draco couldn't comprehend the noise.

He was drunk on the memory of her more than the inebriation of the several cocktails he'd consumed.

How he'd shown her fucking weakness. How he'd uttered to her the words he'd vowed to never let escape. But also how he'd let his hands linger low on her spine, where skin connected with skin. How he'd watched her twirl in his arms and felt his blade seep into the fabric of her fucking green dress.

He'd thought it was black from afar, but he was obscenely wrong. Not quite Slytherin green, but close enough that it made his heart stutter.

All of it, he could not tell if it belonged to the island or the imminently restrained. The line between the two had blurred in the absence of his fortifications.

He'd tried to look annoyed, or disgusted when she'd walked down those steps. He thought any expression other than the awe he verily felt would have sufficed.

Harking back to the way his walls had slammed down, shaking his inner-workings like a tremor, he'd probably succeeded in producing the look of repugnance he'd wanted to.

But that was not enough. No. Blaise, the fucking halfwit, decided he'd taunt Draco all night.

He'd danced with her while Draco watched her pretty little dress flow around her, caught in the crosswinds of their movement. He'd laughed with her while Draco grimaced at the smile she wore on her lips, and how he'd hungered for that smile to be his. He'd touched her while Draco tensed, restraining himself from pulling Blaise off of her by the neck.

It was a plight. An unfortunate set of circumstances that led him to step in when Blaise had left her spinning, premeditating his move. The impudently sly smirks Blaise had been sending him were evidence enough of his scheme.

"Right, well. I'll just be here, sipping my drink like the drunk I suppose I am. Might as well wallow in that discrepancy of my character as that looks to be the evening's general tone," Blaise said, disrupting another one of Draco's ponderings.

Draco gave him that you're an insufferable imbecile look and huffed when all he received was a curious look in turn.

"It was her ," Draco finally answered. He sounded so clinical, demanding objectiveness from himself. But as soon as he started, he couldn't make himself stop.

"She smelled like vanilla and something deep, like the metal of her dagger— I'm sure you are aware of the one she keeps sheathed around her thigh." A laugh hidden by a sigh escaped him. "And you know what else she smells like? Fucking moonstone powder."

Blaise's face was uncharitable, a muted expression of perception only detectable from the years Draco had grown to catalogue every one of his tells. "Your favorite potion ingredient," he muttered intuitively.

Draco nodded, divorced from revolutionary ardor thanks to the absolute horror his current circumstances raised.

He'd never quite experienced such a feeling of utter hopelessness in face of something so faceless as attraction. Only just remotely when he'd tholed his fate during the war. But then, the only thing he'd cared about was his mother surviving.

There was so much more to live for now. He felt he'd actually begun to make up for—however slight of an augmentation— his transgressions through the program he'd assembled.

Perhaps everyone believed it a ruse, and forsooth, it primitively was, but he enjoyed having some sort of impact—regardless of its grandeur.

Draco dared not allow for his novel cognizance to derail his determination—lest, perchance, he should fall into an endless pit of overindulgence—yet a small glow of hope was born in his chest at the thought of her being his ultimate purpose.

He wondered if she could feel it— the way his pulse sputtered and skipped, starting and halting fully at her cordial nature and her profusely debilitating contrast to such affability, completely dependent on her in every manner.

He was at her behest, and he fucking abhorred her for it.

Draco felt reasonably confident that confessing to Blaise any silly, repulsive, and inappropriate feelings he may have felt towards the woman would not culminate well. Though he expected Blaise could infer more than was desirable based solely on the lack of facial command Draco had sustained.

Still, Draco ignored all logic, and in lieu of keeping quiet, committed a foolish act. He verbalized.

"You purposely, willfully touched her just to blow one of my fuses you prick," he said, tone rushed.

As he struggled to push past an aggravation that felt disturbingly like reluctant appreciation, Draco clenched his teeth and felt the muscles along his neck tensing.

"How did you know something I was so intrinsically blind to myself?" He abandoned the cool tone he'd formerly kept; he felt no desire to mingle with the various guises of composure.

"I suppose being constantly on the qui vive comes with its benefits," Blaise answered, a vision of equanimity. "But" —a hesitation, a dithering glance at Draco, then the drink in his hand— "I've known you for years Draco."

It wasn't much, but it was enough. It was a confirmation that he'd been too expressive.

She'd invaded the room with her presence—perhaps that was the reason for his outward reaction towards her. He'd always thought her attractive, though he'd never admitted that to himself until after the war. But still, even after such difficult admittance, an attraction was all it was.

His skin went cold. An attraction towards her is just that. Not was. No—his mind shuttered—he hadn't meant to think of her in a way that suggested his feelings had evolved. Because they hadn't, he was still repelled by her, disgusted by the thought of her.

It's the drinks talking. Yes, that's it. Of course it wasn't the drinks. His occlumency had burned it up, leaving his pit of excuses dried up and barren.

Dread and horror made a home in the cavern beneath his heart. A designated area in which all his other terror had festered. It seemed the two had a rendezvous, a wicked last attempt at culminating in his heart.

His hand rubbed across his face. Blaise stood. Draco followed him to the small assemblage of muggle weapons. Machine guns, grenades, rifles, the likes.

They were not permitted use of offensive spells, a term insisted upon by the Ministry, so they figured offensive weapons would tip-toe close enough around their conditional statements that should they get caught, there would be no concrete basis for prosecution.

They worked in silence, though Draco's mind was nothing less than fervent with thoughts of daggers pressed against skin, holsters strapped against thighs, piercing eyes juxtaposed behind a mask that reeked of pleasantries and delicacies.

He knew he had to leave the second a smile began to creep up on him. She'd made some daft remark about muggles and owls and he couldn't help put play into the preconceived notion she had of him in hopes of a laugh.

How stupid could he be? Asking her if muggles actually consumed owls for breakfast when he already knew the answer. She probably thought he was absurdly ignorant.

Muggle studies had always fascinated him. When his father would demand he read the greatest wizarding literatures, Draco would sneak to his mother's gardens and read classic muggle texts instead.

At first, it was purely selfish. He'd always found it infuriating that Hermione Granger and Lyra Wolf had succeeded him in muggle studies. He'd wanted to best them at their own specialty. Traveling to America this summer helped him understand the intricacies of muggle society, and how useful many of their trinkets could be. Thus, the muggle firearms.

"How long do we have?" Draco asked. Blaise, loading a barrel with the latest shipment of ammunition, shrugged and looked up at Draco for the briefest moment before glancing at Theo, still passed out on the couch.

"It's hard to tell. We've suspected that an attack would take place sooner rather than later, but with the recent animosity we've encountered between the contraband producers and receivers, the timeline has been pushed back significantly," he ran a calloused hand through his hair.

"I suspect that won't be sufficient."

"No," Blaise answered. "It will not."

Draco sighed. "With the indefinite moratorium, I doubted we'd get the shipment in time, so it is nothing less than expected. Ensure that mother receives the news."

Blaise nods. "Of course," he says before draining the last drops of his novel blend from the glass. "Narcissa will not be pleased, but I will sort it out with her."

Blaise cast a levitation charm on the slack body of Theo, and began for the door. Just as he reached the exit, he turned and met Draco's eyes.

"Can it really be true? Perhaps Narcissa received bad intel. We know her connections in Azkaban are not the most reliable. Don't you think the Ministry would have alerted the public by now?"

One look at Draco, and Blaise knew his answer. There would be no escaping what was to come.