Drabbles

The manor was quiet without its typical residents.

When Theo’d walked up the gravel path, he’d sensed the emptiness even before a traumatized House-elf had greeted him at the front door and pointed him wordlessly toward the cloak cupboard. He hadn’t heard from Draco for a year but when the summons had come, he hadn’t hesitated.

It seemed foolish to knock on a cupboard door so he eased it open without bothering. As far as cloak cupboards went, it was roomy but even so, the sight of Draco sitting against a wall, hugging a well-made navy blue cloak to his chest was a bit ridiculous. Draco squinted up at the light, face mottled with tears.

Intruding felt clumsy but Theo’d already opened the door. “Hi, Draco.”

“Theo.” Draco’s voice was wrecked. “What are you doing here?”

“An elf sent for me.” Theo shoved his hands in his pockets. “I suppose I’m the best they could think of.”

He regretted the words instantly for their stark reminder of why Draco was alone in his home, his parents both holed up in Azkaban. Draco’s lower lip quivered until he stabilized it with his teeth, nodding and looking away.

It hurt to see him like this. Theo felt it like it was his own grief.

“What can I get you?”

“I want my mother,” Draco croaked. “I know that’s such a fucked up thing to say to you, but…” He subsided into a sob, the sound of it raw and wretched, hands tightening on the cloak in his hands. Narcissa’s, Theo realized with a pang.

“I know you do.” Theo chewed his lip, watching Draco sink into himself, pulling his knees up and hugging them close. “But…I’m here.”

The top of Draco’s hair flopped on his nod, the rest of it lost in the cloak. Theo pushed off the doorway and slunk over, sinking down beside him and leaning his head back against the wall. The ceiling was dingy, just like everything else around them. Ransacked and hollowed out.

He sighed and looked down at Draco, hunched over and trying to moderate his breathing, the sound of it wet and shaky. Theo wasn’t good with physical contact. He wasn’t used to it – not in an affectionate, parental sense, anyway – but he knew Draco was. Narcissa was as doting a mother as he’d ever known in their circles.

It terrified him to do it but sitting there, watching Draco lose himself and doing nothing about it, terrified him more. He reached out and slung his arm over Draco’s shoulders, giving his far shoulder an awkward, unsure squeeze. 

“I’m here, Draco,” he said softly. “I know that’s not enough but…it’s all I’ve got.”

Draco leaned into the touch, starving for it in a way Theo was painfully familiar. It made Theo brave, so he slid his arm further and hugged Draco to his side. Draco came willingly, burying his face in Theo’s neck and choking out another sob.

Theo was certain that if Draco wasn’t currently on the edge of a breakdown, he’d notice the way Theo’s pulse was pounding against him, the beat of it a persistent throb which only intensified as Theo’s awareness of Draco coalesced from sensation into detail. Draco’s hair, soft and ticklish, against his cheek. Draco’s hand, fine-fingered and strong, gripping Theo’s shirt. Draco’s breath, warm and real, against his skin. 

Theo didn’t risk moving, scarcely daring to breathe in case it altered a single thing about this moment. So when Draco spoke, he almost startled.

“Do you remember that night?” he asked, voice scratchy and soft.

Theo’s heart shot to his throat. He’d never forget it, not for as long as he lived, but he’d half thought that Draco had. 

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat when the word snagged. “Yeah, I do.”

Draco was quiet for a moment and pulled back, staying within the curl of Theo’s arm but straightening enough so that they were face to face. His eyes were red-rimmed and it pulled the greys and blues of his irises into sharp relief. Ocean eyes, Theo thought absently. Stormy and white-capped, deep and restless. The best kind of ocean.

“I do, too.” Draco was looking at him with an intensity that made Theo’s heart race, and then those eyes dropped to his mouth and Theo wanted to die. “I think about it all the time.”

Theo swallowed and licked his lips reflexively, Draco’s attention on them making him hyper-aware of the scant space between them. They hadn’t been this close since that fateful night, back in Sixth year when things had devolved more rapidly than anyone had anticipated and Draco had been called to duty.

Draco had been scared that night. He’d wanted a distraction, a sense of escape, and Theo, hopelessly in love, had been all too happy to give it. They’d snuck out and cavorted around the grounds until the early hours, casting Bombardas at rocks and creeping through the Forest and then standing shoulder-to-shoulder at the shore of the Great Lake, not doing anything beyond breathing. Draco’d turned to look over his shoulder at Theo then, his face the most relaxed it’d been in weeks, and then he’d leaned forward and kissed Theo. 

It had been shocking. 

Life-affirming. 

Heart-breaking. 

Because once their lips parted, Draco had looked up to the moon, their only witness, and sighed. And that had been it. It had taken Theo months to come up for air after that fleeting moment between them, every scrap of attention he felt from Draco something huge and then tentative and then ultimately nothing.

But now, held in Theo’s unsure embrace with tears drying on his cheeks, Draco was bringing it up. And Theo was dying all over again.

“Why?” he whispered.

Draco licked his own lips and then flicked his eyes back up to meet Theo’s. “I didn’t want to tangle you up in my fate,” he said quietly. “You were out of it but…I wasn’t sure if I was going to survive. I had to do it once. In case I didn’t get another chance.” His eyes searched Theo’s. “Do I have another chance, Theo?”

Theo pressed his forehead against Draco’s, words unreliable as his breath burned in his lungs, caught on an inhale. He let it out in a gust when Draco’s thumb stroked against his cheek, the touch cautious in a way that made Theo want to cry. So he lifted his chin and pressed his lips to Draco’s, a firm and unmistakable answer. Draco’s hand curled back around his neck, holding him close, kissing him back with an intensity that had Theo gasping into his mouth. 

They parted a moment later, lips barely brushing as they breathed together. 

“You survived, Draco.” Theo kissed him again, softly, because he could.

“And you’re enough, Theo,” Draco murmured. “You’ve always been enough.”