Chapter 9: Completing the One-Eighty

Draco was pissed off.

Not simply annoyed or frustrated. He was not even just angry.

No, Draco was pissed off.

It had taken him all of a few minutes to descend into such a state. When he'd thrust aside the upwelling melancholy, the hopelessness that his desires would forever remain unfulfilled due to a brief and confusing interplay, he'd become vexed. That flickering anger that was such a characteristic of his personality, that he had taught himself over years to control, arose once more. And it manifested into something innately more.

What had happened? What exactly had driven Harry from a point of openness and surety, of eagerness even, into rejection?

Because it had been rejection. It had been. Draco couldn't perceive it as anything but. Harry had literally fled from him rather than accept the offer that was held aloft to him. As though he disdained it. It was not a very Harry like attitude at all, something in Draco reasoned, but was the reason anger had arisen and was responsible for his currently pissed off state of being.

And suddenly, in spite of the enjoyment he'd experienced all evening, in spite of the arousal and desire that still lingered within him regardless of his vexation, Draco knew he had to get out of the club. He could have waited for Harry to return. He could have confronted him, asked him, demanded from him, his reasons for rejection. Draco had offered himself up on a figurative platter and Harry had turned him aside. It affronted as much as it pained Draco.

No, affronted was a word too mild.

But Draco didn't. Suddenly he didn't want to remain there, to act upon his impulse to know. To understand what was going through Harry's head and why he apparently wasn't good enough for him. He wanted out.

It was exactly this reason – or at least this amongst other reasons – that Draco did not associate with others.

Rising to his feet and struggling to maintain a visage of composure, Draco swung his cloak around his shoulders and swept from the bird's nest of tables. Descending the stairs, he strode purposefully towards the door, weaving through gently milling bodies towards the exit. The bouncer, a different one this time, slightly taller and with a face like stone, nodded as he passed him.

The night air was chilling. A cloud of opaque fog blossomed before Draco's face with each breath, illuminated by the lights beaming from the noisy clubs along Griffin Street. With rapid steps he set off away from the Falcon's Nest as fast as possible. Away from Harry.

The darkness became thicker the further down Griffin Street he strode. Flickering candles in street lamps brightened a little of the walkway, but even so, with the dwindling of clubs visibility only decreased further. The ice beneath Draco's boots was slick, each step sliding just slightly. A light snowfall had just begun to patter from overhead.

It was a culmination of these factors, as well his simmering anger, that likely led him to slip. Draco prided himself on his own grace, the fact that he could remain respectably composed at all times. He knew there were some who even claimed him 'elegant'.

Elegance had not even a sidelong part to play in the act Draco found himself suddenly performing. As though a rug had been yanked abruptly from beneath his feet, he found his legs flying from beneath him. In a dramatic sprawl the likes of which would have left him mortified if his world had not abruptly been so completely subverted, he found himself tumbling arse over head and landed with a rather impressive smack on the ground.

It hurt. He jarred his elbow, his back, his arse, smacked his shoulder. The only thing that Draco felt didn't impact the solid ground was, blessedly, his head.

"Fuck."

Perfect. Just perfect. After an admittedly enjoyable night that ended in disaster, the fall was just the cherry onto of a shit pile sundae. Abso-fucking-lutely perfect. Draco couldn't even bring himself to clamber to his feet to disrupt the complete imperfection of the scene.

Of course he would fall. Of course the fucking ground would choose that night to become an ice skating rink. Of course he would –

"Are you alright, Mr Malfoy?"

The tentative voice broke into Draco's internal rant and abruptly stilled his thoughts. Pausing to affirm that the words were truly sounded and not just a figment of his imagination, he slowly levered himself into sitting. To the feeling of cold wetness gradually chilling his bare fingers, Draco glanced around himself.

For a moment it was too dark to see anything. Then, with a muttered "Lumos", Draco's single audience member revealed himself. He leant down towards Draco so that there was barely a foot between their faces.

It was the boy from the Falcon's Nest. The dark-haired one. What was his name? Colin? Clive? No, not quite, Draco faintly recalled. An instant later, however, he stopped wondering. Draco couldn't bring himself to care for the identity of the boy.

Turning from him, Draco finally rose to his feet. It took a physical effort to force himself not to completely disregard the boy, to take his leave and Apparate home as soon as possible. To closet himself away from the world who was so objectionable in a way that was almost too familiar to the habits of his mother to consider a possibility.

But then he caught a glimpse of the young man out of the corner of his eye and he paused. Because for a moment, he could have sworn he was Harry. Slowly, he turned his attention fully towards his onlooker.

He was dark-haired, curls a tousled mess that was perhaps not quite as masterfully unkempt as Harry's but wasn't far off. He was a little shorter than Harry, perhaps, so Draco had to tilt his head down slightly to meet his gaze. Maybe a little broader across the shoulders, but it wasn't enough to be noticeable, especially beneath his heavy overcoat. But more than that, outside of the club he'd outfitted himself with a pair of rectangular spectacles. It was that more than anything that triggered the resemblance.

I shouldn't. I really shouldn't. But maybe…

Almost compulsively, Draco took a step towards the boy, cocking his head. "What's your name?'

Dark eyes blinked up at him with wary curiosity. "Kevyn, sir."

"Don't call me sir. It sounds absolutely ridiculous."

"Sorry, si… Um. What would you like me to call you?" Kevyn bowed his head abashedly.

"Whatever else you'd like," Draco replied after a moment's thought. He really couldn't care less otherwise.

Kevyn peered up at him almost shyly, a small smile playing on his lips. He did seem absurdly young. "Alright… Mr Malfoy."

Draco studied to young man for a moment. Young he was, yes, but surely he was at least seventeen. After seeing Francis at the Falcon's Nest, that the young blonde had to be at least of age, after what Harry said –

No. No, Draco didn't want to finish that thought. Resolutely turning his attention from anything even vaguely reminiscent of Harry, he focused completely upon Kevyn. The boy was an open-faced image of attentiveness. "What are you doing for the rest of the night, Kevyn?"

Kevyn blinked blankly for a moment, then his face spread into an expression of suggestive bashfulness. Not so young after all. "I didn't have anything in particular planned."

Dammit. It was too perfect. "Wonderful. Splendid, even." Draco forced a suggestive smirk of his own onto his face. "How would you like to spend it with me."

Kevyn's smile broadened. Shifting languidly from one foot to the other, he tilted his head. "I think I'd like that very much, Mr Malfoy."

Draco tried to ignore the niggling thought, the cautioning, the questioning, that assaulted him like a tidal wave. He ignored the fact that he rarely if ever took anyone home to his own house. It was simply something he didn't do.

But tonight… he simply wanted. Something. Anything. Without another word, he gripped Kevyn's arm and Apparated.

Passion is a remarkable thing. The subtle cues that incite action can at times be so easily overlooked and yet in other instances noticed immediately with absolute certainty.

From the moment Draco dragged Kevyn through his door, he was upon him. Kevyn was only too eager to reciprocate. There was a sense of urgency that gnawed at Draco, a desperate need for distraction, and he let it consume him. And despite the fact that half his mind was still remained back at the Falcon's Nest, mourning the loss of a relationship that had never and would never be, his body acted. And, with each foreign touch, reacted.

Kevyn was a more than active participant, though Draco ignored any suggestions he verbally made. He ignored everything except the movement of his own hands, the tugging of clothes to reveal bare skin, to discard first coats, then shoes, robes and underclothes to the ground as they stumbled down the hallway in a haphazard mess. It was almost like he couldn't hear the giggles of the boy with him, the breathy words and half-spoken queries. They didn't matter. All that mattered was that he acted, that the lingering heat that clung to him in spite of his humiliation was satisfied.

When they fell into the bedroom, it was Draco who pushed Kevyn to the bed. The young man landed with a gasp, propping himself up on his elbows an instant later. Pausing only to magically illuminate their setting, Draco stepped up to the bed and observed his latest bed partner.

Kevyn certainly was pleasing to look at. His young body was slender, tapered to the waist from broad shoulders above long, muscular legs. Pale skin glowed almost luminescent in the yellowish light Draco had cast. His upturned face, freed from his glasses somewhere along their frantic race from the front door, turned lust-blown eyes upon Draco. The fall of his fringe across his eyes made him look almost – almost – like Harry. As Draco watched, he licked his lips greedily. "Mr Malfoy, I…"

That was enough for Draco. Throwing away the rising guilt, the flicker of reprimand that he should not be doing this, that if he couldn't have Harry then he didn't really want anyone, he fell upon the boy.

If Harry didn't want him, then he'd take what he could get. It would be useless to hold out for an impossibility. Besides, it wasn't like he'd not done so before.

Working his way onto the bed in a crawl that brought him suspended over Kevyn's body, he finally dropped his lips to kiss him. The first he had offered; Kevyn had been more than willing to offer his own little pecks, nipping at his jaw and chin, straining for attention. He was just as eager to reciprocate when Draco finally acted himself, setting his lips, his hands, upon the boy. Yet though Kevyn seemed as eager to touch and explore Draco's body as Draco touched his own, it was a one-way street.

Draco had always been the directive one in the bedroom. It was simply how he liked it. Exactly how he liked it. To him, there was something relieving about allowing his more assertive nature to rise forth and act entirely as it desired. That assertion was at times far too smothered by public restrictions. He would never be one to completely dominate; he'd heard too many stories from Pansy to ever feel so inclined. But he liked it how he liked it, and made sure his bed partners knew that. Knew, and complied by largely following his directions.

Locking his lips to Kevyn's for a moment, he gradually worked his way down the young man's body, touching and exploring, fingers trailing over rising goosebumps. Kevyn, already gasping beneath him like a touch-starved adolescent, babbled in a language that seemed almost foreign. One that Draco hardly heard except to acknowledge that the general attitude towards his attentions was a positive one. Kevyn was just as enthusiastic in his attempts to reciprocate his touches as he was to speak, his hands reaching for Draco and touching tentatively. Draco, for the most part, ignored him.

He didn't want to be touched so much as to be the toucher.

In spite of the cloud hanging over his thoughts, Draco gradually lost himself to the feeling of skin on skin, the heat of sensitive nerves stimulated by touch. Pressing himself onto Kevyn's urging body, the sensitivity in his groin flared in a juddering heat. It was merely a touch, the feel of his growing arousal pushed flush against the hardness of the young man beneath him, but it was enough to send a wave of pleasure coursing through him. With the undulating of hips beneath him, the desperate urging that was barely heard, Draco could lose himself to sensation. He let himself fall completely to the young man who had deemed him acceptable as a lover.

And it worked. For the most part. It distracted him from all but the clinging dregs of longing, of regret, of anger and frustration. And perhaps his attempt at distraction would have even succeeded in its entirety had he not been attacked.

It was a swift, sudden blow. Unexpected and entirely removed from the situation at hand. So unexpected that it took Draco a moment beneath the assault to realise what was going on.

Jack attacked with a vengeance. It seemed almost with the desire to kill. There was no restraint in the way the merlin's talons scraped at the back of Draco's head, his neck and shoulders, no reprieved from the drowning flapping of wings to the back of his head.

If anything could have drawn him so suddenly from his lust-bound state, it would have been Jack.

The attack seemed to come from everywhere at once. There seemed not one but a dozen birds, all batting spasmodically around Draco's head and filling his ears with shrieks. Throwing himself from Kevyn, Draco made a dive for his discarded wand embedded in the pocket of his robes shed in the doorway. Arm upraised to stave off the continued attacks, he dropped to the floor, fumbling, and in a hasty, wordless casting of magic flung a shield charm before him.

The bird crashed into the invisible wall, sending a pulse of white-violet lights throbbing through the air. From the bed, half-propped up in startled audience, Kevyn let out a muted shout of surprise. Draco didn't spare him a glance. He couldn't, for Jack, far from being cast to the ground in defeat, had thrown himself into the air once more and crashed into the shield again. He fell back, only to leap into flight and crash again. And again. And again.

Draco was rendered immobile. He stared at the bird, the rabid bird, with rising horror. In a person, he could have perhaps attributed such an attack to anger. To affront and even justified assault. But in the merlin it was pure mania. He fathomed that there was even a sort of possessed gleam in Jack's dark, piercing eyes.

There was something… insane about the bird. And Draco felt useless. Despite knowing he had to do something, if only to put the creature out of it's crazed misery, he couldn't move.

As it would happen, he didn't have to. Jack's violent, full-body blows to the shield charm lasted only a minute more before, when he fell to the floor, he didn't immediately leap into flight once more. Crumpled in a disorderly heap of feathers and half-folded limbs, Jack slumped to little more than a panting mess. His wings were half spread in an almost painfully unnatural posture and Draco could see the rapid breaths inflating his chest in rapid pants. It was eerily similar to the attack that had occurred not two weeks before.

There was something seriously wrong. Something wrong with Jack. Unnaturally wrong.

Before Draco could consider it further, however, before he could even take a feeble step towards his assailant, the bird threw himself into a flurry of action once more. Draco flinched reactively and on the bed Kevyn loosed another startled cry. But Jack only launched himself into the air, flapped in a series of jerks, and threw himself through the bedroom window. The window that Draco had left open to let him inside, knowing full well that he wouldn't be home early that night. Hoping he would be home much later.

He hadn't wanted Jack to be waiting.

Silence flooded the room. The very walls seemed to hold their breath in the aftermath of Jack's disappearance into the night. Half crouched in readiness of fight or flight, Draco felt almost unable to move. It was as though his body was immobilised by shock

It was only when a chilling blast of wind whipped through the window that he felt urged into motion. Straightening, the flushing heat of arousal overlaid and lost to the now dwindling rush of adrenaline, he made his way to the windowsill. After a pause to glance out into the black and white pervasiveness of night – he didn't know if he expected or even wanted to see Jack out there – he drew the window closed. It snapped with a sound of finality.

"What was that?"

Turning to the sound of the voice behind him, Draco regarded the young man sitting upright in his bed. He'd almost forgotten he was there at all. The sight of Kevyn, head cocked curiously and body still poised ready, despite the interruption, should have incited Draco to do nothing more than fall back to where he had left off. He wanted to. He truly did.

But he simply couldn't. His budding arousal had disappeared without trace in the space of a few minutes, shed as he'd been unable to even when departing from the club. He couldn't find it in him to seek it once more. He simply didn't… want to. And the longer he stared at Kevyn, the less inclined he felt.

The boy was attractive, yes. But he wasn't Harry, no matter how much he might look like him. Or didn't look like him, Draco realised, as he stared with new eyes. The hair was not quite as messy, a little shorter than Harry wore his. The shape of his body was decidedly different to Harry's. Perhaps not so much to a passing observer, but Draco wasn't just any observer. He knew the planes of Harry's body by sight almost as well as he did his own, knew how a robe hugged his shoulders, how jeans clung to his legs, the slimming line of waistband around hips that was so enticing. Kevyn just didn't… have that. By no fault of his own he was simply lacking.

But mostly, most profoundly, were his eyes. They weren't Harry's eyes, and Draco couldn't pretend they were, not even in the forgiving darkness.

"Mr Malfoy?"

At Kevyn's prompting, Draco realised he'd not answered the question that was offered him. Drawing his mind back to the words, he shook himself slightly from his rapidly descending mood. "It was a bird. I'd thought that much was obvious."

Kevyn smiled sheepishly. Merlin, he truly was so young. Draco hadn't realised just how young he was until that moment. "Yeah, I gathered that. Do you often get invaded by crazy birds?"

"Jack isn't crazy," Draco muttered, half-glancing towards the window. He didn't know why he defended the bird that had attacked him, leaving stinging welts across his back and tearing at his hair. Welts that remained stinging yet unheeded. Even in his own mind, he could think of no other reasoning behind the merlin's actions. He himself had though Jack bordering on insanity if not already embracing it. But hearing it stated by someone else was different. Wrong.

Turning from Kevyn and taking slow steps towards his wardrobe, Draco set about casting healing charms upon himself. He was finding it increasingly difficult to be in the same room as Kevyn; he would have undoubtedly felt it difficult to be with anyone. As the healing set in, he tugged at the doors of his wardrobe.

"Um, Mr Malfoy? Are you…?"

He almost felt sorry for the boy. Almost, and likely would have felt perhaps a twinge of that frustrating guilt he'd been acquiring of late. Except that he simply wasn't in the mood. It had been a horrendous night – no, a horrendous past half an hour. The rest of the night had been fantastic, and it was that as much as the worst moment that made him feel so low. "Perhaps you should leave."

There was a pause before Kevyn replied. "Oh… Oh, alright. I guess I'll just…" The boy sounded confused, a little hurt, and yet Draco still couldn't summon up the care. He knew it was cruel, but then Draco had never considered himself to be a kind person. "I'll just go, then."

Staring into the dark recesses of his wardrobe, through hanging robes and folded garments, Draco listened to the squeak of his bed as Kevyn clambered off. He didn't turn to the soft footfalls as they made their hesitant way towards the door, nor when the boy paused in the doorway, drawing breath for a moment as though to speak yet remaining mute. He didn't make a single motion until the distant scuffle of movement and the quiet click of the front door echoed through his little house.

And when he did it was to sigh heavily. To sag slightly where he was standing and to close his eyes. His night had not gone according to plan at all.

It was shaping up to be a long and wearisome weekend.

Draco must have been developing some powers of precognition. At least that was what he liked to think, despite being the sceptic that he was. For the weekend following his night out with Harry and the second attack from Jack was indeed one of the longest he had ever experienced. Time had never seemed to flow so slowly.

Monday morning dawned bright in complete disregard for Draco's sour mood. He rose with the earliest hint of sun and, in a fit of vexation, took himself out for a run for the first time in too long. He never exercised around others – it would have been simply humiliating to have an audience to watch him straining himself – but made an effort to take himself for regular treks through the woodlands surrounding Smittson's View.

On Monday morning, though, he ran. And even after nearly an hour, following which he was forced to Apparate panting and sweating back to the town or else risk being late for work, he was still left unsatisfied. A frustrating contemplation in the shower left him with the infuriating conclusion that there would be little that could shift his mood.

The following week did little to improve his state of mind. As was typical, every conversation with a colleague, every passing comment and nod of the head, each restrained, formal smile that was entirely forced and more false than genuine, pushed him just a little further. It didn't help that, by Wednesday, the Kent Brewery Case was finally wrapped up, leaving Draco with little distraction from his moodily brewing thoughts.

Yorkley was driving him up the walls with his incessant chatter. Lurring's curt responses to his flawless reports, entirely devoid of any approval or even recognition, vexed him as they truly shouldn't have. The usual and endless repetition of review questions regarding department maintenance and general inquiries in the monthly staff meeting on Tuesday set his teeth on edge. And that was nothing to the painfully annoying scratching of quill on parchment that the scribe maintained throughout that meeting. Not even the Saturday night out with his friends, the second Saturday after what he'd come to mentally refer to as the That Night, could alleviate his dark mood. He left barely an hour after arriving, which was only a little better – or perhaps it was worse – than his complete absence the week before.

But worst of all was Harry.

Draco didn't see all that much of him. The Dartmoor Coven Case, as it had been officially labelled, had become only increasingly severe over the week. Another dozen Field Aurors and investigators each were pulled for assistance, and barely any involved were glimpsed from their office except to be seen darting down corridors and into adjoining rooms. But on the few instances that Draco did see Harry, he only felt his moodiness become more pronounced.

Harry didn't look at him. Most of the time such avoidance could be attributed to busyness, but the hurt part of Draco's mind avoided such a reasonable conclusion. To Draco, it felt like he was deliberately avoiding him. The sentiment wasn't relieved in the slightest, and was perhaps exacerbated by, the few times that Harry did appear to notice him.

Dark looks? No, that wasn't quite right. Anger? No, it wasn't even that; Harry's momentary glances didn't even begin to resemble the seething heat, the intensity of those that they had exchanged when rivals at Hogwarts. And that was what was so frustrating. Apparently, Draco couldn't even make Harry angry anymore.

No, everything in those brief glances bottled down to one emotion. Harry, for whatever reason, felt betrayed.

Draco could see it in his eyes. In that brief glance, the flinch, the tightening of jaw and momentary crinkling of brow before Harry's face smoothed and he ignored Draco entirely. Completely unlike his usual attitude, Harry seemed to be avoiding Draco. And that was the most concerning thing of all.

Draco wasn't used to Harry avoiding him, to being ignored. There had never been such a distancing between them before, not even when they were engaged in their silent warfare of supposed hatred.

It was horrible. Draco almost couldn't concentrate on his work at all, his mind fixating on the hopelessness of his situation. He felt cheated; he had just discovered that the possibility of initiating a relationship with Harry was indeed a possibility, and yet there had never been less of a chance of such occurring. His situation wasn't helped in the slightest by the fact that Lurring had assigned him possibly the driest and least stimulating case in the department at the time that had somehow escaped the derogatory label of Scouring. The man truly did seem to dislike him.

To top it all off, somehow almost as distressing as Harry's avoidance was the absence of Jack.

Never, not in Draco's wildest dreams, had he considered he would find himself missing the presence of an animal. Of a crazed bird, no less. The phantom, lingering echoes of his talons on Draco's skin still stung sympathetically, and in his logical mind he knew he should be grateful for the merlin's absence. That if Jack appeared on his windowsill one night that he'd have to lock him out, turn him away and deny entry of Rabid Bird into his home. Jack was obviously more than a few screws loose. It would be unsafe to associate with him further.

That didn't relieve the feeling of melancholy that settled upon him at Jack's absence, however. In some detached part of him, some part that felt mortified when he recognised the feeling, Draco realised he missed Jack. He even missed the irritatingly persistent chirruping that seemed to be the bird's mode of chatter. It was only on Saturday morning when he slouched bleary-eyed into his dining room that Draco realised he'd unconsciously left a portion of his previous night's dinner waiting in the middle of the table. It seemed to embody his state of mind.

Jack loved meatballs.

The greatest problem of all was that there was nothing to draw him from his slump. There was no drive. In the past, Draco had always turned towards his friends, who had studiously ignored his sour mood and treated him exactly as they usually would. But Draco couldn't find it in him to appreciate such an approach now, and after barely an hour in the company his friends, following another week of listless boredom and excessive brooding, he resolved to skip the following week.

That, and there was no Harry. Because Harry had, over the past four years, for whatever reason, always maintained his persistent attempts at befriending Draco and disregarding the shrouding walls he wrapped himself in. Now, the only thing Draco received from him was that damnable expression of betrayal. The worst of it was that he didn't even know why Harry felt so betrayed. Was it because he'd been kissed? Had Harry not wanted him to take the initiative and put himself forwards? But then, he'd responded just as eagerly, just as enthusiastically, as Draco had, hadn't he? He had, Draco was sure. So then why? Why had he fled a moment afterwards? Why was he treating Draco as though he was riddled with the plague.

What exactly was it that Harry had so objected to?

Draco didn't know. He could have asked, could have confronted Harry, but he didn't. Couldn't. It felt as though he would be somehow admitting he was in the wrong, that he had erred in some fashion and that he was apologising for something he didn't even understand. Draco couldn't confront Harry because… because it simply wasn't in him to be able to do so. To initiate an argument? For sure. To utter underhanded, teasing and often snide comments? Easily done.

To bare his soul in pathetic desperation as he all but pleaded to be noticed again? No, Draco could not do that. So he was left to brood. And, as had always been his go-to in such situations, he turned to the one person he was able to be entirely himself with.

Draco spent a lot of his weekends embedded in the centre of the labyrinth surrounding his mother's home in the Reserve. He was starting to understand why she liked it so much. There was a certain tranquillity, a detachedness and calmness, an isolation that was afforded by the tall hedging, the prevalent and constant semi-darkness that overshadowed the house. And even better, though he was left to his thoughts, he felt as though the barrier provided was a plug to his trickling, demandingly negative thoughts. It gave him a brief reprieve.

Narcissa didn't confront Draco. Such was not her way; the Malfoys had never been particularly open in their affection, nor verbally supportive. Yet supportive she was in her own way. Rather than speaking, she welcomed him into her home, ordered the house elves to cook him Japanese, and allowed him to simply Be. The only time she said something was after dinner their first night.

Seated around the small, circular table, Narcissa peered blatantly at Draco. Oddly enough, it was not an intrusive stare; his mother had a manner to her observations that removed the discomfort of being actively studied. Companionably sipping their way through a teapot, comfortable silence persisted until Narcissa casually broke it.

"You've had your heart broken, my son."

Draco slowly raised his eyes to meet his mother's. There was not sympathy, nor even pity, in that gaze, which was so like Narcissa that Draco felt comforted rather than uneasy by the intrusive statement. It was merely an observation of fact, pure and simple. "I don't know what you mean, Mother."

Narcissa stared at him for a long moment before blinking slowly and taking another sip of her tea. "Oh, I think you do. Don't hide from reality, Draco. It will only make recovery longer in coming."

And that was it. Narcissa spoke no more on the subject, and seemed, if nothing else, to entirely forget their exchange. And Draco was left with the gradually settling reality that yes, he was a little heartbroken. Or more than a little.

It hit him hard, that revelation. Draco hadn't ever fully acknowledged he'd had a heart to break, let alone that he could experience feeling deep enough for one to be broken. That such would pertain to another person? That it was his feelings for Harry that were making him so… discomforted?

It was not a favourable experience, yet understanding did help some. At least it eased some of the confusion surrounding his muddled thoughts. He could lay the blame a little, as illogical as such an approach may seem. And now he felt more angry than anything else. Angry with himself, and angry with Harry. If he'd been rejected, the least Harry could do would be to outright tell him he was so. Couldn't he afford him that? Was that too selfish to ask? Didn't Harry always preach that they were 'friends'? Draco didn't really understand chivalry or Gryffindor loyalty and mindless persistence, but he'd thought he'd been favoured by Harry enough that he wouldn't simply drop Draco in an instant of uncertainty.

Draco sat with grudges for a long time. It was a character flaw, or a benefit of his character, depending on whether one asked Theodore or Millicent for their opinion. It was, in fact, his very ability to hold a grudge that had manifested in the infamous rivalry between himself and Harry in their youth. Draco had once been quite proud in the knowledge that it was his grudge that had triggered their volatile relationship. Harry had been an active participant, true, but Draco had started it.

The understanding that his 'grudge' had likely been fuelled by much different thoughts indeed was… it was confronting. Draco wasn't particularly fond of the idea that his supposed feelings could act so out of his control. He could accept that he'd been infatuated, but becoming invested enough to be heartbroken upon realising those feelings weren't returned?

Unforgiveable.

Which was probably the main reason that he avoided Harry. He simply didn't want to face that reality. After leaving his mother's house on the weekend, he did his utmost to simply plough through his daily work routine on a static, unchangeable plane. He would get over it with time. He would pull himself together, disregard the temporary yet admittedly intoxicating relationship he'd shared with Harry, and move on. Things would change eventually of their own accord. Draco just had to give them time. He had to wait for a catalyst.

Unfortunately for Draco, when that catalyst arose it was far more explosive than he'd expected. Far worse than he'd expected.

New Year's had come and gone with ceremony yet not on Draco's part. The week following was rife with the procedural routine of initiating said New Year, and was nothing if not boring. Boring, that is, except for the token squads embedded in operations. Though protocol dictated that no one besides those actively involved in any one operation would be made aware of the specifics, there was a general air of tension, or excitement, or determination that always pervaded the offices of the DMLE at varying degrees. That ambiance seeped its stretching tendrils about the surrounding employees, both those involved and excluded. The feelings were generalised.

Monday morning saw such an instance arise. From the moment Draco stepped from the elevator onto his department's floor he was assaulted by the tension in the air. That tension was only made more profound by the bustling bodies that criss-crossed the hallways, dipping into doorways with arms laden by papers or barking orders through closed doors. There were far more people present than Draco had ever witnessed at eight o'clock in the morning, and he would know. He was always one of the first to check in.

They looked harried. Faces were tight with stress, dark smudges smeared beneath eyes and brows crinkled into heavy lines. Each movement was made in haste, striding rather than walking, some of the gopher interns even running. And though Draco couldn't make out anything besides the odd word of two throw across the department, there was a constant buzz of verbal noise overlaying every surface and pervading every room.

Edging warily towards his own office, Draco snapped his eyes between details. A clutch of papers in the tight grip of an Auror, the familiar face of another before he disappeared behind a closed door. It was far from his own door that he'd reached one very resounding conclusion: the employees, the Aurors and the investigators, all those gripped by motion and jittery nervousness, were assigned to the same case. And he recognised them for their common theme.

Something had happened at the Devon. There'd been an incident with the Dartmoor Coven.

And Draco would have no idea of how to find out exactly what that was. But he needed to know.

He hadn't realised he'd paused outside the investigators common area until Yorkley spoke up at his side. "Crazy, isn't it?"

It must have been the first time in Draco's life that he felt even close to being grateful for the other man's presence. Turning towards the younger man – he'd finally rid his cheeks of his attempt at a beard – he affixed him with an unwavering stare. "What happened?"

Yorkley shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, but Draco retained his stare unshakeably. He shrugged. "You know I'm not actually allowed to know anything. I'm not on the operation." For once he didn't sound all too upset about the fact, which struck Draco as even more worrisome. The other man had been itching to set his teeth into any and every morsel of intelligence he could glean.

He was very definitely not eager in that moment. If anything he seemed filled with dread. Draco frowned at him, which only seemed to unsettle him further. "You might not be on the squad, but you know something."

Shifting from foot to foot, Yorkley very deliberately leaned against the wall. The motion would have been casual had he not been visibly thrumming with tension. "I… might."

"Do I need to peel it from your tongue?"

Yorkley grimaced. "Please don't."

"Well?"

There was another pause, another awkward shift of his feet, and then it all came gushing out. "I don't know all the facts," Yorkley uttered in a hushed tone, his eyes flickering sideways as though to scout for any potential eavesdroppers. "But this is what I've heard. Apparently Dartmoor was riddled with Dark witches and wizards over the weekend. The squad on call – the Elites, too – they had to pull almost double their number to contain them. Still haven't, from what I've heard. I mean, it's still ongoing. Since Saturday, this is." He swallowed audibly, his face paling to a sickly pallor.

Draco frowned. There was something… "What aren't you telling me?"

Yorkley flashed him a guilty sidelong glance. "How did you…?"

"Tell me."

A petulant grumble was followed by another pause before Yorkley spoke once more. When he did, his voice was so hushed it was nearly a whisper. "I heard it got really bad. That it is, really bad."

"How bad is bad?" Draco hissed through clenched teeth. He could feel his own tension rising, climbing with every second of wait. A situation at Devon meant… it meant that… the squad there, there were the Elites, which meant -

"There was an accident. It was pretty bad, I heard," Yorkley finally continued. His face had, impossibly, paled even further. "I mean, really bad. There was something of an all out battle or the likes, and there were injuries. Apparently, someone even thought there may have been a fatality –"

Draco didn't hear anything further. Whether that was because Yorkley stopped speaking, because his ears stopped listening or because distance cast the words into obscurity he didn't know. For as soon as he realised what was happening, what Yorkley was suggesting, he was away. Draco had not run in public in years, and yet in that moment he couldn't stop himself.

He ran as though hellhounds were on his heels. The only thought that passed through his mind was the recurring mantra of Harry, Harry, please be alright, please be okay, I haven't even told you how angry I am at you yet…

Until that moment, Draco didn't think he'd accepted he'd truly been in love with Harry. But it was suddenly so simple. So unfathomable that he couldn't feel anything but. His heart thudded a violent drumming in his chest, his pulse throbbing in his ears and gasping breath the only thing he could hear.

The moment he bolted through the atrium he slid into the nearest fireplace. The crackle of flames was a distant echo, barely heard. And the second he tumbled from the Floo, he Apparated with a crack.

Draco didn't even have to consider the coordinates for Dartmoor. All he had to do was think of Harry.