The Butterfly Effect

Time Skip : Five years after the war.

Draco tilted his head back, letting the warm Parisian rays of sun play across his face. He hated the aftermath of the vicious sunburn that always threatened but not enough to keep away from the sun. The two of them were locked in a viscous battle and Draco did not intend on being the one to bow out.

“Lounging like an overgrown housecat again ?” came a familiar drawling voice behind him, thick with sarcasm. The voice had him biting back a smile as it always did. 

Preening Draco, stretched the tips of his fingers and toes in a mock imitation of a cat. There was nothing he liked more than being dramatic. He held the pose for a count of five seconds before he dropped it and tossed an eye roll to the man behind him.

“I’m working, you menace.”

Theo gave his half empty glass of red wine and pack of cigarettes a derisive look. Draco’s notes were scattered alongside them held down with a azure crystal to stop the wind from carrying them away. There wasn’t so much a Biro or quill anywhere in sight to give evidence to said work.

“Excellent work ethic,” perching himself on the arm of Draco’s chair, he reached out and snagged the half drunk glass. “It’s irritatingly like you to write two books and get lazy on the third. What about all your loyal readers hanging on the edges of their chairs waiting for a stunning conclusion ?”

“They’ll have to wait just a bit longer. A year really isn't so much in retrospect. I've heard of a Muggle author that is about ten years behind his deadline and the readers are still waiting," Draco pulled his eyes away from Theo and his perfectly dishevelled hair to the busy street below them.

Paris was an excellent place to live in this time of the year, a bustle of people, sun drenched days and a cacophony of laughter and voices. It was decidedly philistine of him to enjoy the chaos tourists brought but he could not help himself. Paris was so unlike London, where the skies were more often than not grey and people hurried along bundled in coats never stopping for anything. He'd grown quite used to the noisy people of France and wondered if he’d ever feel settled back in London. 

“Menace,” Theo echoed his words, pressing a soft kiss to his hair as he shifted to return the now empty glass on the table. “It was nice seeing Granger and Weasley wasn’t it ?”

Draco huffed. Seventeen minutes. That was how long it took for Theo to hound him into a conversation. The Floo had barely swallowed his friends and now here he was forcing Draco into a discussion about the past and Merlin forbid, feelings.

“I should think not, as the days go by Weasleby is becoming increasingly fit from all those boxes and crates he’s lifting at the shop. It’s particularly vexing. Can you imagine, Ronald Weasley being more fit than me ?" The thought of Ronald Weasley and his muscled arms had Draco reaching for his box of cigarettes. His teenage self would've probably dropped dead in shock if he knew that Weasley would be stunningly attractive in the future. 

Theo laughed, "Rest assured I only have eyes for you." 

Draco huffed again and drew closer to the lighter Theo held out for his cigarette. He took a deep inhale and spoke around a mouthful of smoke, "I should think not. And then there's Hermione. She's becoming eerily similar to Parkinson, the more time they spend together. She called me darling today and hounded me about my clothing. Hermione! When has she ever cared about things as trivial as fashion ? I arbore it.”

After the war, Hermione had obviously returned to Hogwarts to finish her studies. She'd been one of the few students from their year who had been able to work up the courage to do so. Weasley had opted to stay with his brother to help out with the joke shop after the death of Fred and Potter had fucked off to Salazar knew where. Draco hadn’t been there to hear or see any of it, of course, because he'd already been well established in his little Muggle apartment in the smack dab of France with Theo but he’d gotten various letters from Hermione here and there whenever she’d been able to write.

She’d told him how lonely it was, being at the castle all alone plauged by some many memories and thoughts of death. Draco had written immediately and suggested she seek Pansy out, the only Slytherin from their year that chosen to go back. Pansy Parkinson had never been one to back out of challenges even if the tide was against her. And so at his suggestion, a very ill advised friendship with his she-devil of a best friend and the smartest witch of his age had blossomed. They’d even gone into working at the Ministry together after their finals.

A nightmare pairing on all accounts. It only seemed to become more potent as the years went by. With their shared greatness, they could've taken over the world but chose to use that power to hound Draco instead. Either one or both of them had taken to pestering him on a weekly basis now; Floo calls, letters and once or twice or perhaps a dozens times dropping in with an unannounced Portkey. It was always the same questions, when would he be home, his mother missed him, Sirius was asking after him, they missed him. It was five years! Come home. He could not stay away forever.

He very well could and would. After that fateful end to his Sixth Year, Draco had pondered on what to do. His mind had left him half stark raving insane, playing out two realities at the same time. The Golden Trio had left on a wild goose chase, Grimmauld Place’s secrecy had been compromised, forcing his mother and a then still cursed Sirius to take refuge at his Aunt Andromeda’s home.

Draco had been left with the options of following his mother into hiding again or trying to find the Golden Trio and being undoubtedly unsuccessful, going back to Hogwarts or just, saying fuck it and letting it all go. It had been surprisingly easy to chose the last option. He’d broken back into the Malfoy Manor the very night he’d come to a decision, stolen a half conscious Theodore Nott from the grips of the Dark Lord and just ran. 

They’d been on the run for a long time and once they’d come shockingly close to death when they’d been captured by a rouge team of Snatchers who’d promptly taken both of their wands and all of their money. Draco and Theo had spent close to a fortnight in their company, starved and tortured into obedience and submission. They’d only managed to escape because the Snatchers had caught hint of a prize bigger than two Death Eater children and had forgotten to properly bound them at the base camp before they went out hunting.

Draco still often wondered what or rather who had sent them into such a tizzy. Their unknown salvation. For whomever it had been that person had saved their lives without even realising that they had. Draco hoped that whoever it had been was alive and happy as they were and every night he thanked that person, for giving him and Theo a chance. 

After their dalliance with the Snatchers, the pair had wondered what to do for a while. Going to stay with either Andromeda or the Weasleys would simply endanger them more and Draco had never said it out loud but both boys had wondered if they would be welcomed or turned in to the Ministry. They were marked Death Eaters, however willing or not.

So they’d decided that London was no place to be running about in the middle of a war with no plan or protection and they’d left. Taken a train to France and left behind everything they knew. A cowardly way but he did not know of any other solution except for that of neutrality. If Harry had taken him along, Draco supposed he would’ve fought, would’ve died there on the frontlines but Harry had not. He had let Draco into his world, had given Draco the grace to change and then he’d left him to flounder like a hapless fish at the very end. He had decided that Draco Malfoy was simply not worth the trouble of it all.

So Draco had made his choice and he’d left. A choice that had almost tore him in half, walking away from his friends, from his family, from Harry, but he had a reaponsibility to Theo as well. He had managed to get into contact with his mother through Muggle conventions and she’d sent back a hefty pile of money to keep them well cared for. One war later, they were still here. They could’ve went back, Kingsley had written once years ago to say that both of them had been acquitted and were of no fault. A case had been fought and won for both of them with the Saviour himself fighting at its head. Harry Potter had not lost his need for heroics it seemed. There would be no consequences if they returned, but in an unspoken agreement, both boys had wanted to stay.

So they had stayed and friendship had blossomed into something more and though Draco knew a place in his heart would always be reserved, he’d given the rest of it freely enough to his friend. Sweet, bright and utter menace of human Theodore Nott, who had admitted to holding a candle for Draco since Sixth Year. It was nice to be wanted, nice to fall into something that was secure in a way Draco had never ever been sure of. A year had turned to two to three and now here they were, practically an old married couple at the ripe age of twenty three.

“Are you even listening to me ?!”

Draco paused in his musings to study an exasperated looking Theo. He always looked so gorgeous when he was vexed and the blonde reached out to poke a finger at his boyfriend's chin. It was a motion he knew Theo would get even more vexed by. 

“What are you saying my dearest of dears ?”

“I will eat all of that good bread you're in love with and leave none for you if you call me that again, Draco," he threatened with a waggle of the fingers.

"Alright," laughing Draco passed the other half of his cigarette to him. He'd grown so used to Theo always sharing half of whatever he had, that he did it almost automatically now. An aftermath of his bad eating habits from Sixth Year that Draco enabled. "Go on, let me hear your pearls of wisdom."

"I said even one with as vile a heart as yours, couldn’t possibly consider missing the wedding of two of his closest friends.”

“I very well can,” Draco huffed again, but his eyes strayed to the lilac invitation that he’d stuffed underneath his notes.

Ronald Bilius Weasley Weds Hermione Jean Granger.

Bloody well, finally. He was ecstatic for them, but he also very much did not want to go. London held far too many memories, none of them welcome.

“Are you afraid of seeing Harry ? That’s about the only loose end you’ve left back in England,” Theo asked it in that blunt way of his. “Surely you must know, that the two of you will have to have it out. Whether it’s now or ten years down the line, you can’t avoid it forever Draco.”

“If he’s even there,” Draco returned with a derisive snort.

“I doubt he’ll miss his best friends wedding.”

Of course, Harry would be there for them. Of course, Draco had been the only one dropped like the tail end of a Blast-Ended Skrewt and never looked back on.

He had never told Theo but he knew that his boyfriend knew regardless. It had been before they’d ever gotten together but he’d gone back to England for a brief stint. After the war. He’d gone and he’d thought that without the presence of imminent danger, perhaps Harry would be willing to try again. Perhaps that flicker of something could reignite again. But when he’d met up with his friends, Harry had been absent.

Ginevra had told him around a sip of beer, that Harry had left a day after the war and was travelling. The war had already been over for more than five months and he still wasn't back. A holiday was one thing, five whole months was something entirely different. 

Draco hadn't wanted to but he had asked because his curiosity was burning. He'd asked, 'Where was he now then ?' 

'He was with Charlie in Romania at the moment,' she’d said, 'had been there for nearly four months.'

And then Draco had realised that this was the famously gay Weasley. He's been in Romania nearly four months with the very gay, very single Charlie Weasley, he thought as he'd downed the last of his Firewhiskey. His heart baying out in agony as he struggled to not let this get to him. 

As if sensing the tension, the others had cut in with their own stories of Harry’s exploits with the dragons. He’d sent all of them postcards or letters relaying these adventures. All of them but Draco. Draco had felt like the biggest idiot in the world. He’d returned to Paris a week later and he had buried Harry Potter in both mind and heart.

He did not want that grave being dug up again. There was too much rage there, too much pain to handle. 

“What about you ? Won't you mind if I speak to him ?”

“Whether I do or not, is of little consideration. You must do what you do for yourself and no one else.”

Draco cracked a smile and pressed a warm kiss to Theo’s cheek, “Look at you, wise guy. I’ll think about it.”

But as his gaze strayed back to the innocent invitation sitting there, Draco knew his mind was made up. He had spent far too long living in this quasi state of keeping his loved ones at a distance. He was raging mad at Harry Potter and he was mad at himself. He deserved to go back home whenever he damn well pleased without the fear of running into that idiot. He was done with trying to be a mediator. It was not fair that he be the only one to give up on his life just for the sake of saving everyone some awkwardness. Potter came and went from London as he pleased and Draco was determined to do the same. 

So he would go to the wedding and celebrate the massive loved up tits both Ron and Hermione were. He would celebrate their love, because it was a love worth celebrating. True and honest and brave.

He would go to see his mother and Aunt Andromeda. He’d even pay a visit to the Burrow and get into one of the raucous Quidditch matches he used to play with the Weasleys when they’d been kids. He'd wear one of the jumpers Molly never failed to send every Christmas and he’d talk Muggles with Arthur. He'd introduce Theo to all of them and make sure that he felt welcome. 

He would also go to see the weird blended family he’d picked up in the war which consisted of his massive idiot of a cousin Sirius Black, who when he was not locked in eternal slumber, was massively irritating and really quite gay and his shabbily dressed but wickedly clever husband Remus Lupin. They stayed in a huge house converted art saloon with Tonks, her girlfriend and their kid Teddy Lupin, who was the by-product of a drunken night between Lupin and Tonks during the war when they'd both feared Sirius might die and the little blue haired child was never ever short of love given to him by a total of four parents.

He would go by to see his stupid Slytherin friends and see for himself exactly how well Luna Lovegood was faring with Pansy Parkinson as her lover. He would even go to hear the banal stories Neville Longbottom would undoubtedly share about his professorship at Hogwarts.

He would absolutely not go for Potter. There was nothing to hash out, nothing more that could be said. He had chosen his path and Draco had chosen his.

He would go to England and he would have a marvellously great time because he deserved it. Then he would come home to France, write the ending of his third fantasy book that had been waiting for nearly a year and he would be fine.

He would be more than fine. He would be happy.