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“If you would, I would like you to please lead Ms. Parkinson, and the rest of Slytherin house from the hall. The dungeons will do just fine.”
All eyes are directed to Minerva McGonagell, a frantic whisper of discontent washing over the crowd of Slytherins that surround Draco. He knows what’s coming, the wizard that is Saint Potter calling death and despair to the castle like a fiery beacon. The children cannot stay here, none of them, not from any house.
Chaos erupts as some students cheer, others, pale faced and afraid, push towards the edges of the Great Hall, trying to escape their Professor’s demands. The unfairness of it all is just another barb in what’s been a hellish year. Everyone had been subjected to torment, to torture, but now she sees fit to act? To lock up baby snakes like they somehow have a horse in this race…a role to play in this war.
Draco’s eyes search, frantically scanning face to face. There’s only one gaze he seeks, eyes so dark they could be the tiny mugs of espresso he favors so. Blaise Zabini. The second their eyes meet, they are both moving, swimming through the current of moving students like the waves at high tide. It’s madness, and clarity, how simply he knows that the person that he needs more than anyone else in this moment is his oldest friend.
The quiet steady cleverness that was Blaise.
In seconds they are before each other and Draco wastes no time, mincing no words. His fingers cup the back of Blaise’s neck fiercely, drawing him in, pressing their foreheads together. He can feel Blaise’s long fingers in his hair, and ignores the mocking voice in his head that croons...
How many times have you dreamed of his hands, holding you, gripping you.
The voice is one of the many cruel pieces that exist inside of Draco Lucius Malfoy, but there are others. He’s made sure there were fragments that were worth something. He’s frantic, whispering a contingency plan he’d hoped he’d never need.
“You need to get the littles out, Blaise. In my trunk, bottom right. You will find a box of illegal portkeys tried and tested. The castle’s wards are weakened to allow the Dark Lord access to Snape and the Carrows at all times. Take as many as you can out. I don’t care what house, get them out.”
“You need to come with me.” Blaise’s eyes are wild, the nape of his neck slick with sweat. “Amore mio, you need to come with me. I am not leaving without you.”
Draco shudders, Blaise’s willingness to name the intangible push and pull between them, here at the end…It feels like a tragedy, a death sentence cloaked in pretty words.
“Find Theo, Pans. You know what will happen if their parents find them first.”
He chokes on the lie, barely able to get it out. “I have my own portkey in my pocket right now. It will bring me to you, but I have to find my mum first. I can’t…I can’t leave her to this lot. This won’t be a mere squabble Blaise, this will be a blood bath in the end. My mark is already burning. He knows Potter is here.”
Draco will not go to him, they both know it. He is branded, his escape is impossible. A lifetime of servitude burned into his skin while he told himself over and over again, that he could protect his mother better this way.
Their breaths mingle between them, so many things unspoken. It would be so easy to claim him with a kiss, to face his fate with a taste of something good on his lips, something to make this hellish life worth living. A passing student’s shoulder clips Draco’s elbow, wrenching them apart, spoiling a chance at a lover’s goodbye.
It is better this way, Draco thinks bitterly. He was not the hero in this story.
“Go,” his voice rises to carry over the flood of terrified students. “I will find you, go.”
It’s the last words they speak, before Blaise curses, turning on his heel and pushing his own lithe frame away from the Great Hall.
Blaise Zabini was many things, idealistic was not one of them, nor was he a fool. In fact, most people thought him rather austere, if not downright unpleasant. He wasn’t, not really. He preferred to think of himself as pensive, quiet, kind in a closed lip sort of way.
And as he turns one last time, watching the flash of silver hair disappear in the crowd, he mourns one of the few that truly knows him. They had been so close, a whisper away from what might have been so much more, if only he had found the courage to ask, to make it so.
There had been moments in their seven years together, a shared interest in musical composition, a joint love of competitive chess and… if they were both honest, which they rarely were – an absolute need for impeccably tailored clothing, loathe though he bit to admit it. How long had Blaise known he was in love with his best friend?
Four years.
And now, as he digs through Draco’s trunk, his momentum is stalled at the framed photo that sits just on top, as though it were well-loved, always in reach. His own face smirks up at him, an anomaly for photographs, but Pansy had caught him by surprise–Draco’s arm draped casually over his shoulders.
He remembers it well, the night of fire whiskey that had turned into a long, muscled thigh, pressed right next to his on the common room sofa. It was as close as they’d ever come to defining the feelings between them–simply not pulling away, letting the warmth of their legs be a bridge between them.
Emotion clogs his lungs as he sees what lies next to it, nearly as delicate as the day he’d pinned it to Draco’s dress robes. The arrangement Pansy had urged him to wear to the yule ball had been foul, completely over the top as all things tended to be with their Pans. Blaise had pulled Draco aside just before they descended the steps, vanished the purple monstrosity and replaced it with a single red rose.
Simple. Classic. A symbol for passione.
Amore Mio. He had named him his love in his mother’s tongue effortlessly and with no regret. If this was the end, then he could give them both that gift. Carefully, he tucks the picture into his breast pocket and grabs the box of what look to be marbles.
Clever bastard. He should have known he’d be prepared for anything.
Ten by ten he pulled out frightened children, dropping them at a villa in the countryside, somewhere warm, somewhere safe. Pansy had gone already, taking charge of getting everyone settled, Theo staying back with him to shepherd all that were willing.
“I think that is the last of them,” Theo nods his head at the small group of six fourth years huddled together in the common room corner. The castle rumbles with the sound of far away casting, destruction reigning down upon them just as Draco had said it would. There’s distant shouts, loud enough to be heard, even in the depths of the castle. The last marble rattles in the box, the sound loud in Blaise’s ears as his heart beats for one person.
The box clatters to the floor, slipping from Theo’s grip as his hands cover his ears. A voice scratches across Blaise’s mind, leaving him reeling, the after effects of so much portkey travel leaving him fighting back the contents of his stomach.
“You have fought valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery. Yet you have sustained heavy losses.” Blaise loses the battle, retching onto the floor at the idea that one of those losses might be his to mourn.
“If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one, I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste.” Theo’s knees buckle, even as one of the fourth year’s begins to sob.
“Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately. You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured. I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself…”
The words continue, a promise of an hour of respite, and the end for them all if Potter didn’t seek out his own death. With trembling fingers, Blaise grabs Theo, pulling him closer to the group of children. “Everyone, hands on Theo, yeah?” He tosses Theo the marble, stepping forward as it begins to glow.
He knows he has moments, barely seconds, and he lets Theo see his decision just as the portkey burns in his hand. He won’t be going with them. Theo’s blue eyes widen, both understanding and despair burning there in full measure.
“N–” Theo is gone before he can speak the full syllable and then Blaise is alone, his path clearer than it’s ever been.
“Harry Potter is dead!” The voice that rings out fills Draco with cold resignation, their last chance at peace well and truly gone. Cries of pain and outrage sound from all around as he watches the limp body of his schoolyard nemesis. A waste, he thinks, a life that had always been so aggressively good, vanquished in the end.
This was all wrong.
“From this day forth, you put your faith in me.”
Draco can see his parents, standing on the other side of the courtyard, a meek mockery of what had once been the proud house of Malfoy. His mother’s eyes are glued to his, and he trembles, trying to give himself the strength he needs to join her, to betray what is left of his morals, of himself.
Heat at his back, a warm hand reaches around him, tugging him into a firm chest.
“There you are, tesoro.” The cruelty of fate, Draco’s last shred of courage dies as he feels his love at his back. Blaise was here, he had stayed.
It feels as if it were all for nothing. If Blaise was here, he’d follow, fall into line and take the ink that had fractured Draco’s soul, if only to keep them together.
He raises his hand, lacing their fingers together over his heart, hidden by the crowd surrounding them.
“Now is the time to declare yourself,” the madman roars, spinning to face the doomed army. “Come forward and join us…or die.”
“Did you think that I would not find you, Dray? Did you think for a moment that I could survive a day on this earth without you by my side?” The words are whispered, as much a confession as Draco has ever hoped to hear.
He hangs his head, heart breaking at the reality of their situation. Doomed.
"You were supposed to be far away, safe.”
“Draco, come.” He flinches as his father’s voice echoes across the fallen bodies and cracked stone. The Dark Lord turns, feral in his victory, arms open wide in welcome.
Blaise’s embrace tightens around him, holding him like something precious, and he lets himself take comfort in his friend’s arms for the first time…if for only a moment.
“In another life…” he whispers, so low that he’s not sure that even Blaise can hear his words. “In another life, I would have loved you beyond reckoning. I’d have loved you so well. ”
He gives Blaise no warning, simply untangles their laced fingers and points his wand beneath his arm, whispering a quiet, lackluster knock-back. A jinx with enough power to propel the only person that really mattered, far away from him as he takes a step forward...
6 months later
Blaise sighs, lifting his face to the sun, encouraging it to warm him from the inside out. The Italian weather had always suited him, the heat more like a long lost friend than a nuisance. He liked his breakfast best outside, the sprawling gardens of the estate having become a haven of sorts.
He’d returned to his favorite of his mother’s properties at the conclusion of the war, submitted his memories for evidence, and begged to be given visitation. Draco had been brought to Azkaban, his Draco, in that derelict and icy prison. The idea still made him ill.
Blaise had met nothing but roadblocks and sneers since.
In another life, I would have loved you beyond reckoning. I’d have loved you so well. The words are as much a part of Blaise now as his flesh and blood. From any other seventeen year old, the words would have been too much, a ridiculous declaration for one so young. But from Draco, standing on the precipice of a war that would possibly separate them forever, nothing had ever rang more true.
He had been denied visitation, again and again. Had sunk to his knees in front of the golden trio and begged them to listen to reason, to understand what Draco had done to get the children of Hogwarts safely away. That, paired with his actions during the battle, the way he had thrown Potter his wand as though his own safety was nothing.
But there had been not a word, not a whisper of trial. No news, no owls…every effort of Blaise’s to find out more had come up a dead end.
Sighing, he lifts a perfectly prepared espresso to his lips, letting the smells of the vineyard fill his senses. Theo and Pansy are nearby, always. The two of them, relentless in the affections they’d finally decided to admit. He was happy for them–he truly was and yet…there were days when their love felt like a splinter. A sliver of glass just inside his beating heart.
A shadow falls over his shoulder, his sunshine stolen momentarily by Theo’s hovering concern. His eyes roll, not even turning to face his well-meaning mate.
“I’ve told you Theo, leave me to my own devices. I am quite content with the quiet and your near constant state of attentiveness is exhausting me. Can’t a wizard brood in solitude?”
He listens, waiting for Theo’s dramatics, his bubbly insistence that Blaise needed to get out, to do something, anything.
Instead, there’s a soft huff of amusement. The posh and intentional voice of his dreams, the only one he’d ever truly let call him on his bullshit.
“Well if that’s what you want, then I suppose I will leave you to it.”
Blaise freezes, turning his head to the side, catching shades of moonlight in his peripheral vision.
“Come back to me, have you?” He keeps his voice cool, unwilling to show that his insides are akin to a hurricane of swirling elation.
“Hmmmm,” Draco hums considerably, walking around Blaise’s breakfast table and settling into the seat opposite him. “I promised a bloke, rather poetically, might I add, that had we been given another life, another chance, that I would love him beyond…”
“Reckoning.” Blaise finishes for him. “I recall. Always the dramatics with you, Dray.”
For moments they stare, drinking each other in like two men parched. Draco’s thin, his always wiry frame diminished some. His eyes are ringed in dark stains of exhaustion, his skin perhaps even paler than its norm. To Blaise, he is the most beautiful thing.
He’s not sure which of them moves first, but the crash of the table between them, well and truly destroyed by the way they tackle each other into the grass, sends birds flying from the trees. He can’t touch him enough, grabbing Draco with trembling hands and whispering fevered Italian into his neck.
“Sei qui. Tu sei qui. Tesoro, stai bene.” You’re here. You are here. My darling, you’re okay.
He has no idea how something can feel so new and exciting, and so like coming home at the same time. His fingers trail, searching for hurts, squeezing his biceps, his shoulders, his waist.
Draco stills him, gripping the back of his neck in a way much the same as that day in the Great Hall. “I’m here. I’m here.” His smile is a blinding, beautiful thing. “I told you I would find you. It just took…a bit longer than I intended.”
Blaise wastes no time, there is nothing standing between them now, nothing stopping him from running his nose along Draco’s jaw, breathing him in.
Their mouths move together effortlessly, a dance that the two of them know as well as they know the other, despite it being their first.
Two young wizards’ first taste of what the world should have looked like all along. It's the beginning of a lifetime of love
A love beyond reckoning.