Sixteen years and four months. That’s how long Draco has known his best friend Theodore Nott. To Draco Theodore Nott was more than a best friend. He’s safe space, a warm hug, a bright light in a dark room. A brother. To him Theodore Nott is tortured but kind, easily lovable. He’s someone people are drawn to, want to protect. He’s the only one that can genuinely get him to laugh, he is caring and smart.
They had spent a lifetime of terror together where he slowly learnt all of this. He still remembers the long hours spent in the manor with Theo at age six not quite understanding that dark feeling around them but also violently fearing it.
Draco remembers the evening when they were seven when they promised to keep the other safe from that darkness, it was thundering and a stormy night. He remembers the first time he stayed over Theo’s house at age nine and hearing Theo, so young, whimper and cry at night as if begging for a moment of peace if only in his sleep. At the time Draco didn’t know why even in his sleep Theo seemed so unsettled, so fearful.
Granted they were both still so young so he just simply didn’t understand; couldn’t read the signs yet. Then at age ten he remembers the first time he witnessed Theo being dragged into a room by his father, he remembers Theo’s pleading, remembers Theo did not come out of that room and all Nott Sr. said at the time was that he was building Theo’s character.
He remembers begging his mother to let him go, that he had to go get Theo, that he had to help him. That Theo must be so afraid and he had a promise to keep. He remembers the next day breaking his father’s rules for the first and only time, sneaking out of the manor to Theo’s house.
He remembers finding Theo in his room just staring at the wall no real visible signs of hurt but his soul could feel Theo’s pain. He remembers Theo seeing him and being so afraid begging him to go back, that Draco would get in trouble too. He remembers staying despite that. Holding Theo, telling him he was sorry for not keeping their promise and Theo saying that he had.
He remembers his father storming into Nott Manor more furious than he’d ever seen him, remembers seeing his father almost be relieved Nott Sr wasn’t home at the time Draco didn’t understand that relief but now he knew his father was afraid to have found Draco in one of those rooms alongside Theo.
He remembers his father hitting him, really hitting him for the first time shouting “Do you want to end up like Theodore? Do you want that? Don’t ever disobey me again.” And hitting him again. He remembers that being his first memory of resentment. Resenting his father for turning a blind eye to what was happening.
At twelve Draco had marched into Nott manor after school had started and Theo had not shown up. Nott Sr was probably off with the death eaters at the time and Draco didn’t even know. He stormed past the elves saying he mustn’t, that he wasn’t allowed. At twelve years old Draco committed his first and only act of property damage; he broke the door down of the room keeping Theo inside. He felt the shocks of a counter curse course up his arms, the heat searing into his bones, he did not care.
Also at age twelve Draco learnt what real cruelty was for the first time. In that room he found his best friend just sat in the corner staring into the distance. He had this blank look on his face, like this was routine. The room he was locked in was a library, normal at a glance but every few seconds the corridors would change and intertwine and close inwards. The books would whisper: filthy. Vermin. You better learn this time.
The books in unison after a long pause would whisper “A man is in a room with no windows, no doors, no doorway. There is only a table and a saw. The walls and ceiling are too thick to saw through. How does he escape?” It rang around the room like cursed choir, a mocking crowd.
The elves had mentioned as he carried Theo out that “Mr Theo must not be figuring out the riddle this time we mustn’t be giving him help or food.” That was the start of his distaste for elves. Cowards. Cruel. Like his father. Like Nott Sr.
Often the riddles were made more difficult by the design of the room, made to throw Theo off. To keep him locked in for days until he cracked it or passed out from hunger and dehydration. The times he’d pass out his father would then beat him for failing: “No son of mine will be stupid and useless. Do not let it happen again.” He would say and therefore at age twelve Draco also learnt how to control his anger.
Had he not controlled he may have lost his only solace. What is a young boy to do with unfiltered anger, resentment and fear when up against an adult? How does he protect the things he cares about? The only thing Draco could do was behave. Behave so his father would still allow him some freedom. Behave so he could fool Nott Sr. into seeing Draco as a good influence. Behave to stay beside Theo. Draco had given Theo a part of himself to keep safe, and Theo had done the same. So they behaved.
At age thirteen and onwards him and Theo would spend their holidays away from Hogwarts at Draco’s summer house. Theo hated going home and Draco now knew why. Alongside that he made sure every year Theo and him would share a dorm room at school. But during the summers they would dream. They would talk over what they would do if they were anyone else.
Theo loved to draw, he loved learning about charms and healing techniques. He would excitedly ramble about having an art gallery and a special unit in St Mungo’s to treat mystery curses. He would talk and talk until something would flash in his eyes and he’d lose all life in them. Probably his father’s voice in his head and he’d say “Like that’s even possible, but we can at least wonder right.”
They spent the best part of three years after that in horrors many wouldn’t believe were real. Draco would spend his time under his father’s thumb, his rules and expectations. Being primed and prepped for something he knew would take the last bits that were left of his clean soul; sully it and taint it a murky black like that of his father’s.
Theo in turn spent his time in a similar misery around his father. His far more psychologically damaging; rooms full of riddles where he’d be trapped for days. Ignored and cast aside until Nott Sr. was ready to play another cruel ‘character building’ punishment on him. Still they would return to that summer house, sometimes just them others with their friends and for a moment they would pretend. Pretend they could still be anything beyond what they were then.
That they could escape it. A boy seeks his father for approval, for safety and protection, for inspiration and encouragement, he looks up to him. He looks to be kept safe from monsters and evil. Where does a boy go when his father turns out to be the monster he runs from?
At sixteen Draco remembers finding out the answer to that question. Around this time Theo started using sex and alcohol for the first time to cope. His medicine he would say. Gone were the days where they behaved to keep their fathers at bay, Theo would be as reckless with himself as much as he could. Only provoking his father to unleash crueler punishments. Draco would watch and at night in the dark of their dorm beg him to stop. To come to him instead for solace. A cry in the dark, often going unheard.
In the midst of his father’s plans for him in sixth year he remembers feeling resentment for the second time in his life. Resentment towards himself, as he was torn between his own torture and desperate want for help and watching his best friend wither away. Some time before his breakdown he remembers coming into their room and finding Theo passed out on the floor.
For the first time in years they looked more alike than before. Sickly pale, dark under eyes and lifeless; a mirror of each other as always. He remembers rushing to him, as quickly as his weakened body would allow, remembers using all his strength to drag him to the bathroom and under the streaming cold water from the shower head.
Theo had awoken with a laugh. It wasn’t like his usual laugh, the kind that was always able to make Draco smile if not crack up in a fit of laughter with him. This one was dark, it was lonely and stank of alcohol. “You look like shit.” Theo’s voice was hoarse then, lacking its usual tone of wit. “I might as well be a mirror then because you look just as bad.” Draco had responded.
That night they had sat in that stream of water, Draco’s body aching from his forced decisions and Theo’s body worn out from his coping mechanisms. In the silence of the room they once again spoke of what they would do if they were anyone else. This time Theo spoke with little emotion in his voice.
“I’d draw again. Maybe learn a new healing charm. Maybe quit drinking? I would tell him I liked him.” Theo had whispered and Draco had felt the already deep emptiness in him lodge itself deeper within. The person he’d given his youth to, shared his soul with was a shell of his previous self.
“I’d read more. Try quidditch again. I’d like to learn an instrument maybe the piano? I’d tell her I’m sorry.” Draco spoke into the silence at the time, both knowing what the other meant without need for clarification. They’d sat in the stream of water for hours, both numb to the cold.
At seventeen Draco found his friend yet again coping. This time gone was the alcohol, his dependency this time was on a person. A particularly self-righteous, downright good person. They’d chosen a side and their fathers had vowed to fix them. He witnessed Theo pick himself apart and put himself back together again whilst trying desperately to help the war efforts.
Most of Theo’s time during the war was spent in the hospital wings or emergency aid tents; he had always been kind, then and now. Always been suited to healing. A person so severely wounded and tortured knows how to lessen pain better than anyone else. The other time was spent with Harry Potter as a friend and aide.
Draco watched as his friend yearned. Begged to be noticed and wanted with a silent scream over and over again. Watched his new recklessness ruin him in a different way. By the end of the war everyone was a different person. Of course they’d be, war changes you, it changes fundamental things in you. Makes you simultaneously wither away and builds strength.
Not long before their eighteenth year of life Draco remembers that faithful night at the Manor. He and Theo had gone to retrieve something the Order so desperately needed and was inconveniently kept inside Theo’s own personal hell. He remembers the shudder that ran over Theo when they stepped into the Nott Manor. Remembers the genuine horror in Theo’s eyes at finding his father there.
Three months before Draco’s eighteenth birthday he had become an accomplice to a crime two separate times. The vivid memories of flashes of curses thrown between father and son as he watched and helped Theo fight off his father, the chilling cool that filled the room when one of Theo’s curses finally hit his father.
The anger searing in his bloodstream as he heard Nott Sr. struggle to say “To be bested by such filth, a vermin of a son at that is truly embarrassing. Remember all I taught you Theodore, I will always be in your head.” Parting words that made Draco wish he’d ripped his tongue right out of his mouth the second he hit the floor.
Draco remembers Theo panicking, not from guilt because moments before the panic Draco had seen Theo’s shoulders ease like a physical weight had been lifted off of him. His panic was for the consequences of the act he had just committed.
He remembers Theo stumbling back and grabbing his sleeve for balance. Like Draco was his only place of stability; that’s how it’d always been. He remembers him grabbing what they were after and then heading towards the door alongside him. As if nothing had happened, putting it all behind him as quickly as the incident had occurred.
He still vividly sees the horror, the fear in Theo’s eyes when they were confronted by Harry James Potter at the door. He’d come to check they hadn’t run into trouble and in that moment Draco had entered into autopilot mode.
He had ushered Theo to return to Granger with the object quickly, time was against them. As Theo nodded and apparated away obviously expecting the other two to follow suit, he had held Harry back. He recounted everything, made it seem like his crime. For the first time ever in his life he watched Harry’s face visibly harden when he saw Nott Sr.’s body. “It was Theo wasn’t it? It wasn’t you.”
Harry’s voice at the time was somewhat mellow and relaxed, a stark contrast to his usual panic in the face of ‘unnecessary death’. Like he knew everything the monster at their feet had done, like he thought he deserved this fate and that he was glad it had been Theo who done it. “We’ll deal with it. We’ll tell no one.” Harry Potter had spoken into the cold room. It was the first and only time he had seen the chosen one do such a thing. He had thought at the time that Theo’s yearning may not have been so one-sided.
And three months before his eighteenth birthday Draco Malfoy alongside his known worst enemy had learnt the ins and outs of burying a body. In the name of a shared purpose, a want (need) to protect the same person.
About two months and a half after his eighteenth birthday Draco and the rest of those who survived the war stood amongst the rubble of what was now the ruins of a once great school. Harry Potter had defeated Voldemort and he remembers feeling this resounding what now feeling from his peers scattered around the room.
What is a whole year of kids who’d never known anything but war, but misery and wreckage to do? Just return to everyday life like the happenings of war didn’t devastate them? Are they meant to pretend what did happen was simply a sick case of what happens in war stays in war? No, Draco couldn’t do that.
His first glance at the time had been directed at a certain fawned-eyed girl, hair wild as ever just as beautiful as the first time he ever dared to allow his eyes to look at her. She’d been looking at him too smiling, that dizzying smile that almost always made Draco question if he really wasn’t what the muggles would call a religious man, as if to say I know. We’ll be okay. And that had washed a slight wave of calm over Draco.
His second glance had been to none other than Theo, his crutch. He stood amidst the dust that had settled and the vestiges of debris just off to the side Draco remembers the half smile Theo had shot at him before letting his gaze fall back on the man of the hour.
Draco had never thought of Theo as a greedy person, never once considered him as someone who’d linger. If anything Theodore Nott was notoriously known as a deserter. He’d leave before things had a chance to develop, protection or so he told Draco. It minimised the likelihood of being hurt. Hurt was something Theo had experienced enough of and as a consequence developed brilliant tactics to always avoid its path.
Yet there as they all wondered what would become of them, as the hum of relief buzzed around the crowd, as the clouds parted in the sky the notoriously detached Theodore Nott lingered. He lingered for a glance from Potter. Flinched as he watched Ginny Weasley run up to him encasing him in a hug. Stepped back when Granger and Weasley followed behind.
Draco never cared to properly fix his delicate relationship with Potter not even in the midst of his newly cemented love for a certain know-it-all member of the golden trio. He had thought though given all that had happened in the last year or so between his best friend and the famous chosen one he’d considered giving it a shot.
Draco remembers that bitter taste of anger in the pit of his stomach as he watched the sadness on his best friend’s face so quickly masked by wit when they were approached to join the celebrations. He’d reserved himself to just watching and if and when Theo was ready he’d come to him for help, for advice or even for just silent solace.
That is how they spent the months following the end of the war. Dealing with the fallout and Draco watching as his best friend slowly deteriorated again before him. This time Nott Sr. played no role in his torture instead it was the secrets and when’s that bounced between him and Harry.
He’d watch and swallow back that bitter taste of anger at the need to protect his only real family, the one he chose. As he watched Theo pick himself apart only to put himself back together again, a silent beg of I can be what you want. I can be what you need. But all a silent beg can do is fall on deaf ears and Theo didn’t have the strength in him left to scream.
Now two weeks before Draco’s nineteenth birthday they are yet again sat in his summer house. The familiar humidity slowly settling in more and more by the day. The wisteria flowers that surrounded the house in full bloom and the humming of insects and nature was a relaxing welcome from the last nine months of post-war chaos they’d been dealing with.
They were sat in the conservatory of the Malfoy summer house, warm but not suffocating given that it was late afternoon and the sun had began its course to set. Two cups of tea at the table between them, though they both would have preferred something stronger but Theo was trying to cut back and Draco as always was helping. They sat in silence for a moment allowing the tranquility to give them much needed relief.
The scars of the war still so deeply imbedded in them; in everyone. Draco’s scars of losing a father who was always more of a distant mentor cultivating him for someone else’s use than anything warm and loving. And Theo’s bittersweet freedom from his father, now dead and his continuous dismantling and rebuilding of himself for the sake of another had left them more exhausted than they’d had a chance to realise they were.
They seem to come back to that same question as they always did throughout their many years together. What they would do if they were anyone else. This time the question came with the possibility that they could be someone new, they could do what they always talked about wanting. Theo could draw or study healing charms. Draco could learn piano or find new ways to apologise to Granger, show her he loves her.
For the first time in their lives their most asked question wasn’t followed by that same as if that would happen feeling. Between sips of tea Draco threw said question out between “Well if you were anyone else what would you do right now?” Draco asked chuckling as if this time they didn’t need to limit their responses to what ifs and instead could make them reality.
Theo looked melancholic as his response fell from his lips far different from all the ones from before. “I’d leave.” He said. Draco for the most part didn’t over analyse this new response from Theo, he had a tendency to disappear for a week or so when he needed a moment but he always came back. “I’d leave to somewhere that isn’t here, I don’t know if or when I’d come back but I’ll leave.” Theo continued.
It was a subtle change, non detailed oriented and analytical people would’ve missed it but Draco didn’t. He caught the change of I would to I will. The pit of his stomach sank, he could feel that tingle at the back of his throat; the one you get when you’re holding back tears. “…Will?” Draco said slowly as he finally turned to look at Theo.
For the first time in Draco thought all their lives Theo looked stern, like he’d made a big decision and was set to follow it through be it the right or wrong one. Draco could feel it coming, he could’ve said it before Theo began to move to remove whatever he was keeping in his pocket. Of course he could see this coming there was no one he knew better than Theodore Nott, not even himself.
“Draco…” in the same breath as he spoke Theo slid over a piece of paper. Draco’s eyes fell on what Theo had placed on the table between them. Paris, France. FR7800. A flight ticket. One way. That tingle at the back of his throat slowly started to feel like a sharp scratch. He held it back.
“I’m going.” Theo spoke with such an insecure tone it almost didn’t sound like him. And it starkly contrasted the stern demeanour he had moments ago. As if he was afraid Draco would hate him for it. As if he could lose all he’d lost so far in life but not Draco. That thought in itself was baseless, if there was one thing about Theo’s life that was a constant it was and always had been Draco and Draco was determined to keep it that way. After a breath that to Theo felt like an eternity Draco finally responded. “I know.” He said with what Theo could only describe as a fond smile.
Theo had heard a lot about Draco from the perspective of others. That he was manipulative and cruel; mean for sport. That he cared about nothing but himself and his reputation. That he was evil. Throughout their lives Theo had hardly ever seen a smile on Draco’s face not one he could assign as real and genuine but this one was. He knew it was, he could tell. It was so genuine it was overwhelming, like Draco was saying I know you, I know you need this. It’s okay.
And despite his usual I don’t care attitude Theo needed that reassurance but still, maybe he was deluding himself. Maybe Draco’s smile was the kind you give to someone before you tell them how disappointed you are, how you no longer want them around. And fuck if Draco said that to Theo he’d break completely, he’d never be Theo again. His brain started working on overdrive explain. Fix it. Don’t make him hate you.
“I just-“ barely cracked out of his mouth before Draco was saying “I know.” again with that same smile, as if to say I can see the gears in your brain turning, it’s enough. It’s okay you can stop. But Draco was still Draco, he was still mischievous and occasionally mean. Still a snob over some things, though he had improved with the help of Hermione Granger. He was still Draco Malfoy so his next sentence came at no surprise to Theo.
“Why tell me? What if I just go there and bring you back?” He said with a shrug, like it was only lace with a mild threat but Theo knew better. There’s no one alive or dead that got Draco Malfoy like he did. He knows how Draco hides his worry and care behind loaded questions, knows how no matter what Draco will bet on all of Theo’s decisions even if he doesn’t agree with them. “You won’t. I know that. I know you’ll wait.” Theo spoke with a smile paralleling Draco’s early one; fond.
The unspoken part of you’ll wait for me to come back was something neither of them needed to put into words, it was an indisputable fact. Something they’d always done. Draco would always wait for Theo to come back after one of his father’s new punishments. Always wait up until five in the morning on the nights Theo had let alcohol consume him and he’d come back out of his mind. Always wait to comfort him after Theo had left Harry’s side knowing other things took precedence over him but refusing to fight over it. This was no different.
With a sigh Draco’s tea cup was placed back on its saucer as he began to speak again. “Who else knows?” He says before picking the cup back up for a final sip. “You. only you.” Theo’s face was filled with a bittersweet look as Draco glanced over him. “I take it it’s to stay that way.” Draco's tone isn’t inquisitive likely because he already knew the answer. “Yeah, well I mean Granger knows too…” Theo starts, scratching the back of his neck. “Not where but that I’m going. I didn’t know if I’d need to enlist her help to convince you.” He quips.
Witty as usual Draco thought to himself. That same sharp tingle was still at the back of his throat but alongside that this feeling of relief that Theo was still his usual witty self, though it was much more toned down with how emotionally exhausted he knew Theo was. When Draco spoke next he made sure to look Theo directly in the eyes, he wanted no part of what he said to leave any doubt in his best friend. “Theodore Nott there is no one I know better, no one I trust more, no one I value more than you. If you say it and you want it then that’s how it’ll be.”
Draco’s voice was firm. Theo didn’t know if he could say anything without breaking down, not right now, not with how emotionally wrung out he was so he opted for a silent nod. “Just come back. I don’t care…” Draco started before cutting himself off, crying wasn’t really their thing and Draco would be damned if they started making it a thing now. “I don’t care how long away it is, just come back. I need you to come back.” Despite fighting it back Draco’s voice still cracked, allowing a modicum of what he was feeling to momentarily shine through.
“You really think you’d get rid of me that easily. It’s always been Theo and Draco that’s not changing, of course I’ll come back.” Theo’s voice was soft, if he’d tried to say it any other way the flood gates might just open and there’d be no flight to catch, he’d simply break down in the Malfoy summer house instead. “I hope not.” Draco’s voice echoed his. They sat in that silence for a moment, both with this fond yet sad look on their faces.
Theo broke the silence, not content without knowing his point had gotten across to Draco. “I need you too y’know. I just…” his voice cracked but he forced the words out. “I need this too. I can’t be here right now not after…” Theo’s was now firmly placed on top of the plane ticket as if it held some solace, like it was giving him a way to breathe. “I know. Go. I’ll wait.” Draco starts glancing from Theo’s hand up to look at him again. “I’m not going anywhere, none of us are, you’ll always have a home to come back here to just…”
For two emotionally stunted individuals Theo thought to himself that this was the most genuine emotion they’d shown each other ever. Not even when it had gotten to the worst of the worst in their miserable lives did they act like this but the reality of Theo leaving had catapulted their need to affirm their friendship more than he thought it would. “I know.” Theo said cutting into Draco’s sentence saving him from something he knew Draco would hate to show. “When do you leave?” Draco questions as he straightens himself out; pushing back whatever sadness he was feeling in order to support his best friend yet again.
Sighing Theo takes to leaning back in his chair content to take in one final moment of serenity the Malfoy summer house provides. “Tomorrow. 6:40 pm.” He says as his eyes fall shut for a moment. The wisteria flowers were such a nostalgic scent he couldn’t help but smile to himself as memories of escaped summers to this hideaway popped into his head. “Want me to drop you off?” Draco's shuffling towards the kitchen presumably to make another tea for them both prompted Theo’s eyes open.
“Nah, if you’re there I’m not sure I’ll actually get on the plane.” Theo says with a dramatic sigh as he pushes himself out his chair to follow Draco. Draco laughs at that. A warm laugh, bittersweet but warm, a similar laugh that they always seemed to share at this house. “Maybe I will come then.” He quips back and Theo laughs with him. “You’re such a dick.” He says as he walks to meet Draco at the counter to watch the kettle boil.
They spent what was probably hours talking after that. About everything and nothing, past present and future. Tomorrow at 6:40 pm Theodore Nott would be leaving on a plane to Paris, France for who knew how long, without telling a soul beside Draco. Draco didn’t feel a sense of superiority being the only one to know though, it was a given, Theo was an extension of himself so there was never a reality where he wouldn’t have known. This time their time at the Malfoy summer house ended with a new question, what will you do when you come back?