Chapter Text
13:18:09
Friday, 3rd July 2009
On a fateful summer night thirteen years ago, sixteen-year-old Draco Malfoy bowed before darkness and ended his life. He had done it without a second thought, no disregard, for it was nothing more than his duty. Sanctimonia Vincet Semper, he had been taught as a boy, as there was no blood purer than family.
No amount of madness, strife, loathing, or difference could change that. Perhaps when he thought he might suffocate from his undying devotion, a wishful thought to run would seep through. But as all the philosophers had decreed in dawn’s past, age was the true professor for perspective, and the fear died with Father, who in the end, had many regrets. When Mother inevitably followed, so deep in the madness her mind, the old ways became but a whisper to the rest of the world, which left Draco… never more free.
And yet.
His tie was too tight, like a noose on the precipice, his breath barely there.
And yet.
Still there enough for him to graze the shard at his heart.
And yet.
He couldn’t stop looking.
At the next shelf over, where she stacked and shuffled, opening and closing her catalogue of books. No one would question her dedication to the situation at hand. Not with her heels long removed, a pin fastening her long skirt above the knees, as her hands and mind worked to collect anything of use. All while he was useless pretending to follow… like he was sixteen again.
“Did you find anything?” she asked, tone cold, professional, clinical, as she nodded to the journal he held.
“I don’t think this is working,” he didn’t mean to blurt out, from reluctance fear of admitting he hadn’t read a single word.
Hands on hips, she turned to him. “I’m open to your suggestions, which in my opinion, should have been the case from the beginning, considering you know him best, no?”
Draco breathed in. “If we consider the historical—”
“A track record you’ve all enabled Theo to accumulate,” she intoned, arms crossed.
Draco breathed out. “I think instead of working independently, we should… join hands, as they say.”
She shook her head. “Unrealistic; look at the size of this room,” she said, waving around them. “Unless you’re proposing we spend all night rifling through Theo’s mind.”
“No, I’m saying from past experience that it would seem Theo’s magic responds to collaboration—”
“Oh, so you want to discuss collaboration—”
“I’m saying the last time this happened—”
“The last time this happened, you weren’t such an arse. If you want to talk collaboration, then why the fuck are my parents still on Gamma?”
Her nostrils flared, cheeks bursting with red that had nothing to do with her make-up. It was every tall tale sign to back off, but Draco could see nothing except for the strayaways begging to burst free from her bun. The curled mass atop her head was constrained, too tight, a nuisance, and if they were to get out of here by tonight, then why wouldn’t she give her the home to her mind—his fingers curled around the journal’s worn bind—more consideration?
“Excuse me,” she said, returning to her books. “There was a better way to phrase that. It’s been a long day and I—” She took a breath, tucking a loose strand behind her ear. “My intention was to tell you that I accept your decision.”
Draco blinked. “Decision?”
She nodded. “Naturally, your circumstances have changed, which is fine, but”—she cleared her throat—“I would have appreciated a notice.”
Draco felt slow when he clarified, “A notice?”
“Well,” she glanced over to him. “We may not work together directly, but even so, it shouldn’t be unreasonable to expect a ZabShot representative to inform me if we’re moving in different directions.”
At Draco’s silence, she continued, “I suppose it wouldn’t appear so, given that our partnership has always been long distance, but I’m affected, you see. Not that I’m blaming anyone, obviously, but I would have preferred more time to consider other distributors—”
“There were blockers,” Draco said, opening the journal.
“It’s alright,” she said, already back to shuffling through her shelf. “I only wanted to ensure you knew that we’re on the same page.”
“Are we?” he asked, flipping through blurred notes.
Her hand paused over a book. “Well, even if I expected to have an initial report on Delta by now, there’s no point in blaming anyone for the delay, especially with…”
Draco stopped flipping. “It’s the vials,” he confessed. “Blaise and I weren’t comfortable sending out a stock with outdated packaging. We were working to get a report out to you, but—”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Her eyes met his and Draco… couldn’t stand her smile. It was small, light, a beam amongst shadows, burning the pocket where he kept her their work. The post scripts, the scrawls, the scribbles, every o that may have been an a, each dotted l that was perhaps an i, her wretched g that looked exactly like why she didn’t want him ZabShot anymore because a decade was too long to have only made it to Gamma when she at least—deserved Delta.
Like the ache in his chest, Draco felt the crack before he saw it. A sensitivity born from the years he used to live in fear, which as it would turn out, had never gone away. It drifted like a ghost inside him, tethered to his bones, and now resurrected, it tumbled with the shelf over her smile before everyfailurething came crashing down at an unfathomable speed.
And yet.