Part Three: 2004
"In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory or a by-pass."
— T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, East Coker
—
January
tick tock tick tock
"You're sure you don't want me to come with you?" Hermione asked, perched on the foot of his bed, legs tucked beneath her, hair wild and bedraggled.
Draco secured the button on one of his cuffs, fighting the urge to run a hand through his own hair, or perhaps hers. "Trust me, it certainly isn't a matter of want."
He sighed, sitting next to her as she reached out, taking his other arm and fastening his cuff for him. "I haven't seen my parents in nearly two weeks. We—have to talk. About so much. And I think your presence would only irritate an already raw wound"—he glanced at her—"don't you?"
She considered it, fingers idly entwining with his as she did. Her grip tightened, pressure increasing with the force of her thoughts.
"If you think any harder you're going to break my fingers." Carefully, he pulled his hand from her grip, massaging his knuckles.
She clasped her hands together.
"I feel sick to my stomach," she finally said.
"It's been two weeks. They clearly haven't said anything to the Ministry—at least nothing the Ministry has taken seriously. It's already well known how much they don't want you working in the manor—I can guarantee no one will take my parents seriously should they file a complaint against you."
He'd lost track of how many times he'd told her as much, tried to convince and reassure and melt the tense knots in her neck where she hoarded her anxieties.
She untucked her legs and swung them over the edge of the bed, mouth tight and twisting towards a frown.
"They"—she pulled at a curl, stretching it taut as she struggled to vocalize whatever thought had stalled in her throat—"should be taken seriously. If they have a complaint. Their concerns should be heard fairly."
Draco liberated the tortured curl from her fingers, allowing it to spring back into place. With a quiet laugh, he swept her hair away and dropped a kiss to her exposed shoulder.
"You don't want them to interfere with your work, but you want them to be allowed to? Because it's fair?" He chuckled against her skin. "You beautiful witch."
"You'll ask them?"
"Yes. I'll find a way to make sure they don't take their anger out on you and your career."
Somehow, he'd find a way to work that point in. He dreaded navigating the long overdue conversation with his parents regarding the breadth and depth of his omission that he'd been in a relationship with Hermione for as long as he had. He'd not spoken to them since Christmas, apart from the owl required to coordinate and confirm that he would take breakfast with them that morning.
A small, guilty, part of him missed the routine, especially since Hermione wouldn't be moving in until later in the month. He'd found his days off to a strange, lonely start without his family. Even if he didn't so much enjoy the conversation or the company, the routine had an engrained place in his day-to-day. Outside of his time spent at Hogwarts and living abroad, he took almost every breakfast and dinner with his parents; not doing so had been a strange, surreal sort of shift he didn't know if he should celebrate or mourn.
Draco did not enjoy eating alone. He preferred to start his day with family, with a routine that launched his day forward.
Hermione relaxed against him.
"Thank you," she said. "You should get going. And I need to get ready for work. I'll see you for dinner, yes?"
Draco smiled as she rose, launching into her own morning routine. He kissed her goodbye and marvelled at the oddity of it all: the two of them preparing to go to the same place, separately, and for vastly different reasons.
—
Narcissa greeted him in the dining room as if nothing were amiss, as if he hadn't been absent from their family meals for the past two weeks, and as if his last appearance hadn't entirely disrupted the peaceful facade they'd all been hiding behind. Lucius barely greeted him at all, sitting calmly at the head of the table with a copy of the Prophet open in front of him. A disinterested—normal—welcome.
Draco sat in his usual seat across from his mother, accepting the cup of tea she poured for him. The muscles around his mouth ached, strained from forced neutrality as he maintained a steady show of being unaffected by the disconcerting normalcy around him.
His mother said something about having recently tried a new tea blend. His father said something about Ministry overreach with exotic herb imports. Normal, safe, unexciting conversation topics criss-crossed the table, conversations that had nothing to do with Hermione, or Draco's omissions, or the fact that he hadn't joined them for a meal in a fortnight.
Draco nodded a thanks to Topsy as she served him a plate of eggs, tomatoes, toast, and an assortment of melon balls topped with fresh cream. She returned a moment later with a collection of flavored butters, jams, and aiolis. On the other side of the table, Tilly served a tray of smoked salmon and toast points, followed by a second tray filled to bursting with a variety of sausages. Between Topsy and Tilly, the table filled quickly with a veritable feast's worth of food.
Somewhat stunned, Draco ripped his gaze from the spread in front of him and looked up at his mother. She merely offered him a serene smile and speared a melon ball from her plate.
"The weather has been lovely so far this year, an appropriate chill for the season. Wouldn't you say, darling?" she asked Draco as he contemplated whether or not he had the appetite for anything on the table.
Almost involuntarily, his eyes flickered to his father before he answered.
"It's been nice," Draco said. "Crisp."
"Indeed. We haven't even had to renew the manor's warming charms this season. I do enjoy a mild winter. Don't you, Lucius?"
"Mild, yes." His voice travelled through the paper in front of him, muffled by the barrier of black and white ink.
Narcissa smiled.
Draco broke the yolk on his poached egg, watching as it ran into his toast.
"Did you have the opportunity to see Theo and Blaise over the holidays, Draco?"
He forced a bite of breakfast into his mouth, trying to avoid his mother's question for as long as possible. And for a moment, he forgot he'd been asked anything at all, savoring the rich, buttery quality of a runny yolk as it coated his tongue. Gods, he'd missed elf cooking.
He swallowed, resisting the urge to immediately take another bite and prolong his conversation avoidance. His mother's eyes followed him: from his fork to his mouth to his plate to his hands to his unease. He cleared his throat, hand beneath the table, fisting his cloth serviette.
"Yes. We did. We spent New Year's with them, actually."
We. A plural pronoun. A declaration. A sideways acknowledgement. An inescapable truth.
Narcissa escaped it with a smile and a glance towards Lucius.
"We should have those boys over for dinner sometime soon. Don't you think, Lucius? It's been so long since we've seen them."
Lucius folded his paper, setting it aside. Draco had never known such a simple act could feel so damning, so weighted.
"Indeed, it has been. Perhaps dinner this weekend."
Narcissa nodded as Draco stared, trying to make sense of this strange, surface-level conversation.
On the surface of a frozen pool, if they talked softly enough—skated delicately enough around the things they did not wish to acknowledge—they could avoid the cracks, avoid a dip into frozen waters and deeper conversation.
Draco swiped his toast through the runny yolk on his plate, revealing the blue willow pattern beneath. Not knowing what else to do, he took a bite, caught on a string pulled tight between his parents, balancing the fine line they'd drawn for him.
"That would be lovely," his mother said. "Perhaps you can see if your friends have availability this weekend, Draco."
He stared at her, savoring a bite of cream-topped cantaloupe: ridiculously out of season melons served fresh in the beginning of January. His mouth pulled tight after he swallowed, confusion held in pursed lips. His brow twitched from the force required to prevent it drawing together.
Lucius spoke before Draco could decide if this surreal and extravagant meal was a dream, a nightmare, or an accidental peek into a window through time.
"I hear Mr. Zabini has developed quite the skillset for financial investments."
"He has." Draco clutched his serviette tighter beneath the table, at a loss as to whether or not he was meant to be offended by that statement. It was the closest they'd come to acknowledging the account Lucius had taken from him two weeks before.
Narcissa gave Lucius a sharp, singular look, as if to say he'd tread too close to the thing Draco now realized they were all pretending didn't exist: his relationship with Hermione and the fallout from announcing it to them.
Draco hated the relief he felt in not having to have that conversation. It felt like an offering in a way: the quiet between battles in a larger war. Time to regroup, tend to one's wounds, and consider the lengths to which one was willing to go in order to win.
He could accept a temporary cessation of aggressions in exchange for the first semi-pleasant family meal he'd had in months.
Just shy of nine, when his mother set her serviette atop the table to signal the end to their meal, she asked a question that shattered the illusion.
She rose from her chair, forcing eye contact. Her brows furrowed: a question in her face more than her words.
"We'll look forward to seeing you for dinner, darling. We have missed you."
Draco's heart sank, a quick clench and pulse of guilt shooting from behind his ribs. He stilled, only partly risen from his own seat, utterly immobilized by the question in his mother's voice and the slightly wide, wondering eyes she sent him.
He recovered, standing to his full height. He could feel Lucius watching him from the head of the table, a quietness creeping across the tablecloth, steeped with judgement. Narcissa's expression tightened as her questioning eyes narrowed, lips pulling thin across her teeth. She didn't allow such an unflattering expression to last.
"Unless"—a smile melted the tension lines in her face—"you already have other plans?"
She'd given him an offering, forced through a pleasant smile. It felt both like an opportunity to retreat and his last chance to make a stand. Draco tried. He did.
"I do, with—"
"Then breakfast tomorrow," she said, cutting him off. Her smile grew, flashing perfect teeth that had never seen a dentist in all their days. It keenly reminded Draco of another meal, another family: another life, altogether, it seemed.
Lucius finally stood, stern gaze dissecting Draco before he nodded a perfunctory farewell, excusing himself—and therefore the rest of them—from the dining room. Draco wondered, if not for the table between them, if Narcissa might have tried to hug him then, or offer him a brief kiss on the cheek in farewell, or squeeze his arm, his hand, some kind of contact in goodbye. But the table separated them, weighed down by several course's worth of food, barely touched. Her smile quirked instead, a silent acknowledgement that didn't come anywhere close to meeting her eyes.
Left alone, surrounded by a feast and confusion and more guilt than he'd started with, Draco called for Topsy.
His chest felt hot, churning with disappointment. He'd been lulled into complacency with a delicious meal and something that tasted almost like forgiveness, like acceptance. But he'd failed Hermione spectacularly. He'd spent the last hour accepting a charade that ignored her importance in his life. Further, he failed to inquire about whether or not his parents still intended on trying to have her removed from the manor's decommissioning.
With the crack of Topsy's arrival, Draco vowed to do better the next morning. This had been a fluke, a complete surprise at odds with everything he expected from his parents. He hadn't been prepared. He hadn't pivoted fast enough. But that didn't mean he couldn't, or wouldn't.
Conversations with his parents—important conversations, especially—took time, they took finesse. If anything, their demeanor this morning had only proven that he couldn't brute force Hermione into their lives. Gryffindor tactics wouldn't work on these Slytherins; this would require skill. And time. He had plenty of time. And a willingness to invest.
—
"I don't understand where all this stuff came from. The books especially."
Draco fell back onto the velvet sofa in his—their—living room, surrounded by more boxes than he could count, recently re-enlarged after several trips through the Floo from Hermione's tiny former flat and into his—again, theirs. He loved remembering that, a quick cognitive correction to remind him that this space no longer belonged exclusively to him. While sharing his things had never been a particularly favorite pastime for Draco, somehow sharing with Hermione felt like a gift, like she'd given something to him instead of taking up the spaces that formerly belonged exclusively to him.
"The books should not surprise you," she said on the edge of a laugh, taking a large step over a box separating her from the sofa. With a small hop, she landed next to him, wedging herself into his side. "Can you imagine doing that without magic?"
He couldn't. They'd mostly just shrunk and unshrunk the plethora of boxes Hermione had packed and prepared, bringing them through the Floo, and finding a place to unshrink them before sorting through it all, combining her things with his.
"I just don't know where you kept them all. You had a very small flat and"—he gestured to the obstacle course of boxes littering the living room—"I'm starting to suspect you've cast more than one illegal extension charm in your day. There's no way these all fit."
She leaned against him, hands idly trailing up and down his pant leg, a light massage on his thigh.
"I might have been using most of my meager closet space to stack some of my lesser used titles."
Draco swallowed against a groan in the back of his throat as her hand continued its entirely innocent touch. Casual, absent-minded, but still shooting desire up and down his spine.
He placed his hand atop hers to stop the drag of her knuckles. He glanced sideways, giving her a look—the look—that said she better have intentions of following through with her touch if she wanted to keep going. She blinked three times as she registered his expression and the implication behind it.
The first blink was sheepish.
The second, coy.
The third, mischievous.
She released a breath and sat up, away from him, to his immense disappointment. Rapidly, his disappointment cycled through surprise and satisfaction when she twisted, raising onto her knees, and lifting one leg over him, straddling his lap.
It was his turn: hands on the tops of her thighs, creeping higher, around her arse, pulling her flush against him.
"I was thinking," she said as she looped her arms around his neck, frustratingly out of reach for a kiss.
He grinned. "Well that's unexpected and entirely out of character. Go on."
"How do I win this sofa if we're sharing it now? I would hate to miss out on winning this bet that I'm highly invested in over a technicality of shared ownership."
She smiled, pulling the edge of her lower lip between her teeth. Draco played with the waistband of her denims, fingertips hopping from skin to fabric and back again.
"Would you prefer we make it magically binding? A spell to transfer ownership and possession should you fulfill the terms of our agreement?" He shifted, one arm wrapped around her waist to hold her steady as he tilted them, pulling his wand from his pocket. "I've done several with Theo and Blaise over the years."
She laughed, shrugged, nodded. Draco mumbled the simple wager spell.
A golden cord slithered from the tip of his wand, coiling around Hermione's wrist, then Draco's. It glowed brief but bright, before releasing them and disappearing into the sofa's fabric.
Hermione tilted her head, watching him.
"So that's it? When I reach Eliot, the sofa is mine? Magically? Permanently?"
Draco laughed, discarding his wand beside them.
"I think you underestimate how highly invested I am in winning." His fingers hopped from fabric to skin again, slipping beneath her jumper, counting vertebrae in her back as he meandered up and down her spine.
She shivered. "I had another thought, too."
"Oh?"
"Lines. We—got lucky that your parents haven't implied anything untoward about my performance to the Ministry. And you said you need clearer lines too, so—"
She smirked, ducked closer, pressed her palms to his chest. Muggle denims were both a blessing and a curse: her arse always looked so lovely in them, but now, straddled across his not-so-inconspicuous erection, he wished desperately for fewer, flimsier, layers between them.
"This. Here. This is us, together." She placed a kiss at his jawline. It struck Draco, with a sort of distinct absurdity, that he was in the process of being seduced. Specifically, seduced as a means to make him more amenable to whatever it was she wanted from him. It was downright Slytherin of her, and he didn't mind in the slightest. Instead, he pulled her hips closer and explored her clavicle with his tongue. "But there, that's my work. And it's not your home anymore. I think you should stop supervising me. We need clearer lines between personal and professional."
She pulled back, enough to look him in the eyes, to gauge his response.
The tiny furrow between her brows said she expected him to disagree. In reality, he'd been considering the same thing himself.
"I agree," he said. "I'll tell my parents that Topsy or Tilly can do it, and that will be that."
He silenced the protest he saw forming on her mouth with a roll of his hips as he skated one hand up her ribs, towards the side of her breast. He could play at the same game she did; he'd taught it to her, after all. What might have been a complaint about having the elves do his bidding turned into a stuttering breath he swallowed with a kiss.
She allowed him to kiss her in a lazy, unhurried sort of way. Warm, wet lips, languid tongues, slow asphyxiation by shared air, a closed system of recycled breathing. The way a couple might kiss when neither had anywhere else to be, because they were already home. She pulled away with a reluctant noise just as his left hand made contact with the clasp of her bra.
"Are you sure you can do that? Truly—I don't mean to be cruel, but it doesn't seem like much of, well, substance, is happening at those meals you've been taking with them."
He froze, watching as the regret filtered through her expression. He indulged in a long blink, seeking safety behind darkened eyelids as he sorted anger from guilt. She wasn't necessarily wrong, but she'd said it terribly. She'd said it exactly how she expected him to with his parents: straightforward, to the point, like going toe to toe with Lucius Malfoy on her very first day in the manor. But she'd only experienced the satisfaction of that moment; Draco had been forced to endure the aftermath.
"Yes. I can," he said through a tight jaw. "They've actually been quite amenable to most topics so long as you aren't explicitly named."
He felt horrible the moment he said it. He'd told her about the surreal avoidance exercises that dining with his parents had become, but laying it out in such a straightforward way—not unlike how she wanted him to tackle it—he saw the disappointment flexing at the corner of her eyes. So close, he wanted nothing more than to kiss that tension away.
"I imagine it might be difficult to avoid my name if I'm the topic of conversation."
He pulled his hand from where it still rested against the bare skin of her waist, tucking a wild bunch of curls away from her face.
"It's not as straightforward as you—or I—would like, but I will tell them. You work there. I have family meals there. We live here. Together."
She held his gaze for several heartbeats too many, just enough that he'd started to rethink his words, ruthlessly assessing them for the flaw, for his error. He began preparing an alternative, something to convince her that he meant it, that she could trust him, that he would do anything to preserve this precious thing quite literally in his lap.
But then she leaned in, face hovering so close he could feel heat from her skin radiating oh-so-gently onto his, spiraling similar warmth inside him.
"We should probably start organizing my books," she said, voice barely above a whisper as a grin pulled her mouth wide, beautiful and teasing as she let her forehead rest against his.
Draco allowed himself a dramatic groan.
"You're certain? It may take us all night, especially with that extensive collection of biographies you have."
Her laugh coasted through him, winding itself around every bone in his back, encircling his esophagus, settling in his stomach. It became him: a lovely, joyous sensation. He'd not known a woman's laugh could do that, transform him as effectively as polyjuice into someone lighter, someone more hopeful. Or perhaps it wasn't any woman's laugh, just this woman's. His.
"It's especially extensive in the 'E' sections, but you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"
Diversion via seduction came back into play, but the Quaffle had entered his half of the pitch. He surged forward, mouth meeting the juncture between her throat and jaw, hands driving her hips against his. He felt the surprised rush of air escape her throat as he sucked on a spot that vibrated with her whimper.
"This flat is very large," he said between nips and sucks and brushes of tongue against her skin, cataloguing the expanse she'd left wide open as she tilted her head back, opening herself up. "We'll find a home for them."
Her fingers threaded through his hair, short nails dragging along his scalp as they sent small a series of pinpricks cascading down his spine, tangled up with the sound of her laughter, and the desire from her touch.
He kissed her jaw, down her throat, to her clavicle where he reluctantly pulled his hands from her waist to shove her jumper up and over her head, deposited somewhere amongst the many boxes surrounding them.
Revealing a whole new swath of skin, Draco wandered; he explored; he made a leisurely activity of kissing a slow trail along the ridge of her collarbone. When he reached her shoulder, he dropped a kiss to it before following it with a gentle drag of his teeth, smiling as her laughter filled every last empty crevice in his—their—home.
She sighed as her laughter quieted, finger dancing down his chest—when had she undone his buttons?
He smirked to disguise the catch in his breathing when her hands dipped to his belt line. "On the topic of lines and boundaries. Would it be crossing any to write myself into that planner of yours?"
The sound his belt made as she pulled it through the metal buckle felt obscenely loud, clanging throughout the room as she considered his question. His heartbeat jumped from his chest to his neck, pounding behind his throat, ascending towards his ears, drowning everything else out as she burned him with her touch.
"And where would you write yourself in?" she asked, matching his smirk with a cheeky grin of her own. His belt buckle clattered: the sound of leather being pulled through wool belt loops.
"Most places. Everywhere, every day. A little sex here"—he swallowed the groan that nearly spilled out when she unbuttoned his trousers—"a little cuddling there. Perhaps some wooing. A few dates"—she scooted her hips back so she could unzip his trousers, palming his erection as she did so. His voice wavered—"you know, typical things that boyfriends can do when they aren't beholden to a single, measly day of the week."
His head fell back against the sofa; that had been one of the most difficult sentences he'd ever had to speak in his life. She took no pity on him, pulling his cock free of his pants and giving it one slow, measured pump as she smiled a wide, innocent smile at him. He'd forgotten who was meant to be in charge of this seduction. If it was meant to be him, he'd lost control of it entirely.
"You sound like you might be a bit bitter about that one day of the week thing."
"Bitter? Me? That's absurd." He rallied, lifting his head and pressing his lips to hers before she could waylay him any further. If not for those fucking denims, he would have pulled her back on top of him, thrusting against her out of desperation for more contact. But that was another thing he'd learned very quickly about her denims: they could rub a man raw. "However," he added against her lips, leaving her almost no space to rebut or regain her control. "Fuck only having you on Saturdays."
"You can have me now," she breathed. In the space of a single blink, Draco realized that this, indeed, had become his new reality—any day he wanted with her, he could have—she pulled her wand from her pocket and vanished the rest of their clothes.
The denims made her arse look fantastic. But he much preferred her without them.
—
"Right there, right on that sofa. I'm telling you, Potter; you don't want to sit there."
Theo was drunk. Draco could see it from the moment he arrived at his and Hermione's housewarming get together. Not exactly a full party, more of a small gathering of their friends—their first attempt at blending said friends—and Theo had arrived drunk and a bit belligerent and utterly insistent that Potter shouldn't sit on their green velvet sofa because of that one time he'd walked in on Draco and Hermione on it.
Between Draco's general anxiety at having to spend any time around Harry Potter (would they try to kill each other? Would they accidentally become good friends? Both possibilities sounded miserable), his unsuccessful attempt to insult the Weaslette (evidently she thought it was funny when he said her hair gave him headaches), the fact that Hermione's ex-boyfriend was in attendance (ex-destiny as most people seemed to see it), and Theo showing up drunk (with Blaise not far behind), their small housewarming gathering had careened off course from the very start.
Draco's only real consolation came from the unexpectedly fine bottle of wine the Weaslette brought as a gift, which he promptly opened, lubricating his own stress with alcohol. He caught Hermione's eye across the living room, where she'd settled into an armchair across from Lavender Brown. She wore a tense smile on her face as she nodded along with whatever conversation she'd been sucked into. He turned, searching for more wine, only to find the Weaslette holding a filled glass out to him.
"It looks like she needs it," Ginny offered with a bit of a smirk and—in a strange moment of solidarity—it occurred to Draco that they'd both had the same idea at the same time. "That's Hermione's please-help-she's-talking-to-me-about-tea-leaves-again face."
Draco made a thoughtful noise, committing the expression to memory. He took the wine glass and lifted it in thanks. "I suppose you have your uses. I see why Hermione keeps you around."
"I'm certainly the least offensive of my siblings."
"I'll drink to that." And he did, taking a sip of his own wine as he crossed the living room, offering the new glass to Hermione. "If I could borrow Hermione? We've had a charcuterie emergency in the kitchen that only her expertise can solve."
Lavender looked up at him, blinked, looked back down at the tea in her hands, and then to Hermione. "I didn't know you had an interest in charcuterie arrangements, Hermione. We'll have to discuss your thoughts on the controversy surrounding kosher and curing salts and their impact on crystal ball readings sometime. It's very interesting, something about nitrites? The article I read incorporated more muggle science than I really understand, but I thought of you."
It took most of Draco's willpower not to laugh at the bewildered expression that took Hermione's face hostage as she simultaneously rose from her seat, took his offering of wine, and tried her best to smile a demure sort of apology about her departure.
He pressed his mouth to her temple, attempting a mollifying kiss as he steered her towards the kitchen.
"I'm dropping you off with the Weaslette; you looked like you needed an extraction."
"I'm happy that Ron is happy." It sounded like something of a chant, or an attempt to convince herself.
"Are you, now?"
"You don't need to be jealous."
"Oh, I'm not. And do you know why?"
She rolled her eyes. As if she knew. To be fair, she probably did.
"Regale me," she said, tipping back her glass and downing a large gulp of wine that really ought to be sipped. He savored what he was about to say, letting the smug satisfaction twist its way around every syllable. Stopping them just inside the kitchen, he leaned in close to her ear, voice quiet, as he felt her palm automatically press against the center of his chest.
"Because I know how many times I've made you come right there, right against that wall he's leaning against."
She rolled her eyes again.
"We've only had sex against that wall once."
Ginny nearly choked on a grape, having evidently closed the distance between them. She grinned, "Scandalous, please elaborate."
Draco's amusement drained with all the blood from his face. Hermione only laughed as he found he didn't quite have the courage to face the Weaslette.
"The last party you dragged me to, we needed a signal. This only solidifies it. I'm about to go wrangle Theo. If I tap my glass three times, it is your sworn duty as the love of my life to save me from being the outstanding friend to that idiot that I am."
His heart leapt, brain catching up with the words that spilled from his mouth.
Love of my life.
Perhaps she didn't catch it. Perhaps the Weaslette didn't, either.
Who was he kidding? They were the two smartest people in the room besides him. Of course they caught it. He took a deep breath, steeling himself as if nothing had just happened. He kissed Hermione's cheek.
"Wish me luck," he whispered, retreating before either of them could begin to unpack his verbal slip.
Draco crossed the living room in several purposeful strides, hooked Theo under the elbow—interrupting a mortifying retelling of the day he'd walked in on Draco and Hermione having sex—and hauled him out onto the balcony.
"You're very drunk."
"It's a Friday," Theo said with a shrug, leaning against the railing. Draco hadn't even noticed that Theo somehow still had a tumbler in his hand. He took a sip of his liquor.
"Must you tell everyone at our housewarming party about the incident with the sofa?"
Theo scoffed, holding his hand palm-up and balancing his glass on it. Draco watched with a sort of morbid fascination as Theo's hand shook beneath it, sloshing the liquid enough to make him nervous.
"First of all, you've lived here over a year. It's hardly a housewarming. Second of all, I'm only informing people who try and sit on it. They have a right to know, don't you think?"
"No, I don't think. Cleansing charms do wonders for upholstery"—Theo snorted—"and it's Hermione's housewarming because she just moved in, so perhaps try not to ruin it by antagonizing Potter."
That earned Draco an outright laugh.
"Never in my life would I have imagined hearing you tell someone not to antagonize Harry Potter. Is being in love really that fantastic?"
Draco almost reeled, almost staggered back at the force of bitterness that sucked all the oxygen from the balcony.
"Are you—okay, Theo?"
Theo closed his fingers around his drink, ending whatever balancing act he'd been using to hone his focus. When he looked up at Draco, his eyes didn't fully focus. He looked caught in the foreground. Or the background.
"I think I accidentally insulted Potter."
"And I'm sure you're very proud of that." With a hesitant step, Draco reached out and took the tumbler from Theo's hand. "You seem a little—I don't know, ghostly? Strung out?" Desperate. Sad. Drunk.
Theo laughed through his nose, sharp puffs of air punctuating a noise that sounded far from amused. His eyes wandered wildly: from Draco, to the door back into the flat, to the balcony, to the London skyline in the distance.
"Do you ever think about the time turner?"
Draco would wonder later if his answer shouldn't have been so immediate.
"Yes."
"Do you ever wonder what we changed?"
Not if. Not if they'd changed. What.
"Sometimes," Draco admitted. "It's odd. There are moments where it pops up, in the back of my mind, a reminder—almost, that it happened. But no, I wouldn't say I think about it often"
Theo looked away, drumming his fingers on the railing.
"You would," he said. "If something terrible happened, something you wished you could change. You'd wonder, then."
Draco tilted his head, trying to see from a different angle: searching for his friend beneath the perennial source of clever quips and unbridled enthusiasm. Theo clearly had something—something—going on.
"Theo, is there something you want to—"
"I don't think I've said hello to Granger, yet," Theo said suddenly, interrupting Draco's attempt to be a fraction of the friend Theo probably deserved. "Been here almost an hour, haven't even seen her."
He pushed off the railing and brushed by Draco in one single, baffling motion. Before Draco could blink the confusion from his eyes, Theo had gone, back into his flat and far away from their conversation.