Not JK Rowling. Anything you recognize is hers. Anything else including the plot is mine. I am making no money off this trifle of a story.
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"I'm sorry, Harry, but I think its time that we see other people." Draco bit his lip and tried to avoid the hurt welling in Harry's eyes through the physical outlet of tears pooling and blurring the emerald shade that Draco was so accustomed to staring into.
At first, Harry didn't reply. He just stood across from Draco in the privacy of the Head Boy room, staring at him as if Draco had just hit him. His fingers were balling into fists and he was finding himself teetering, striving to obtain equilibrium as he resisted the urge to both hit him and beg to be taken back. Neither reaction seemed appropriate and so Harry remained quiet, silently brooding until he could find a response that did feel suitable.
"You mean that you're breaking up with me," said Harry at length, voice even, and finally breaking the silence. He rubbed at the sore muscles in his neck and looked past Draco to the window just beyond his shoulder. "On today of all days, you're breaking up with me."
Draco sighed. "We're graduating tomorrow, Harry. There's no way we can continue as a couple. School is over and we're going to be out in the real world. Hogwarts won't be there to protect us. Unless you can come up with a better option because I have none."
"Gee, Draco, I don't know," snapped Harry. "How about you don't become a Death Eater? I know you don't want to. You've been complaining all year about how the Death Eaters are pathetic."
"I have no choice in the matter. You know who my father is. You knew when we got together and I've been warning you all year that this day was going to come. Ever since we got together I told you that I was going to have to become a Death Eater after I graduated. Well, tomorrow is graduation. Our time together is over."
"Why does it always have to be that way with you, Draco? Why do you always have to do everything Lucius tells you to do?"
"I respect him, Harry. He's my father and I'm just abiding by what he thinks is best for me."
"What do you think is best for you?"
Shaking his head, Draco crossed his arms and sighed a second time. "It doesn't matter what I think. My father knows what's best for me and he wants me to become a Death Eater. I've told you this countless times. I should think that you would have listened by now."
"You're a coward, you know that?" Harry hissed at him, equal parts anger and disappointment mingled in with the hurt Draco had seen there before. He had to look away because seeing Harry look at him like that made him sick. "You're such a fucking coward, Draco."
"I'm doing what I have to do." His voice was soft but commanding, a tone that Harry had frequently heard Lucius Malfoy use over the years. It was the kind of tone that demanded respect and did not have to be loud because the sheer lack of volume created an air of unease alone that held authority. It gave the person in control of that voice advantage because the precise and commanding qualities to it were overwhelming in one's mind.
Harry nodded. "Fine. It's been nice, Draco. I'll see you out there eventually. Try to be somewhat merciful when you kill me again."
He turned and stalked from Draco's room, allowing the door to swing on its hinges as he had not bothered to close it. For a long time Draco stared at the empty doorway, mentally willing Harry to come back before he gave up hope, collapsed on his bed, and cried until his tear ducts were dry.
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"Draco? Hello? Earth to Draco. Draco, come in. Draco, this is Houston. Can you read me? DRACO!"
Draco jumped; his head snapping up at the vision of a dim, empty coffee shop came into view. He looked down at the rag clutched in his hand and finished wiping up the counter where he had been working before drifting. Beside him he could feel a set of eyes on him and Draco tried to ignore it but before long he disposed of his rag and turned to face his coworker.
"What is it, Gwen?" he finally asked.
"What's with you?" she retorted.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure you don't. Look, Malfoy, we've been friends for a while now, right?" Draco shrugged, nodding. "I've come to know you pretty well and I know when something is up."
"Nothing-"
"And when you're lying about it," she finished grinning. He sighed. "What is it?"
"It really is nothing. I was just thinking."
She arched her eyebrow and leaned onto the counter. "About?"
"Just stuff," he mumbled. "Cherish. Melody. Stuff."
"How are things with you and Melody?"
"Good I guess." He paused, looking to the clock on the wall. "I'm done cleaning up. Can we lock up and go home now?"
"Sure," she replied, moving into a storage room and reemerging with two jackets. Passing one to Draco and pulling on her own, she extracted a set of keys from her pocket and walked toward the door. He followed close behind and once outside, Draco pulled the black material closer around his body and pulled up the zipper. Gwen locked the doors to the coffee shop. "See you tomorrow?"
"Yeah," he replied, watching the small puff of air that had been produced by his breath in the late November chill. "Night, Gwen."
"Night, Draco."
Turning in opposite directions, they headed off down the sidewalk.
Even when it was past ten o'clock at night, New York City was still alive with traffic, lights so bright they threatened to blind him. He headed down the streets of Greenwich Village in the direction of his apartment building, the sound of his keys loudly jingling in his pocket. This had to be one of Draco's favorite times of the day, walking home after a long day at work when the city felt alive and pumping with energy.
The only problem with his nightly walks was that they gave him time to think, a pastime that Draco had revoked any interest in two years ago when he first moved to the city and the country all together. Upon arriving in the city he had began looking for an apartment and when he found the place he currently resided in, he also found three new friends. With his job at the coffee shop, he had found a friend in Gwen. Thinking led to remembering and Draco quite preferred to focus on his new life rather than remember the hell he went through in the old one.
Gwen. That certainly had been a close run in. Draco wasn't sure what had happened. One minute he and Gwen were chatting about the latest Dave Matthews album and then she disappeared into storage for no more than five minutes. Through that time, without Gwen to keep him occupied or customers to wait on as he cleaned up, his thoughts had drifted back to the day before his graduation, the whole ordeal playing over again in his head.
That was someplace he didn't want his mind to go again. Not to England, not to Hogwarts, and certainly not to Harry. Draco was bisexual, had been to his own knowledge since he was fifteen, and Harry was the stereotypical one who got away in Draco's life. However, Harry hadn't really gotten away since it was Draco who ended it over two years ago. He had set the path for his own personal disaster and Draco never really got around to forgiving himself for it.
Draco moved to New York City from London, England only two years ago in an attempt to start a new life. He seemed to have come out of nowhere to his new friends which was mostly true. Even in London he would have seemed foreign since Draco was not just an average person. Draco Malfoy was a wizard and a good one at that who had graduated as top boy of his year at his wizarding school, Hogwarts. Harry, who was also a wizard, had unfortunately been on the opposite side of Draco's coin of fate.
In the wizarding world, Harry Potter had been probably the most famous name you could ever utter. As there is all good magic, there is also dark, and the Lord Voldemort was the most powerful and darkest wizard of Draco's time. Harry was the one who had so conveniently been the one to cause Voldemort's first fall from power and continued to deny him of completely regaining the strength he once had. Lucius Malfoy, Draco's father, was a Death Eater, supporter of Voldemort. Draco had gotten stuck in the middle, forced to choose between his love and his father.
Ultimately, he chose his father over Harry and ended their relationship with the full intent of becoming a Death Eater himself. He graduated, left Hogwarts forever, and went back to Malfoy manor for the summer holiday. Everything seemed to be set in stone only when Lucius had confronted Draco about his initiation, Draco couldn't bring himself to agree. He had said no, he would not become a Death Eater, and had to leave home. Too ashamed to go to Harry, it was then that he decided to start over and after all his affairs were in order, he found himself on a plane to New York.
No one here knew about Draco's past. He told his new friends a watered down version of the truth: that Draco and his father disagreed on a matter of inheritance and Draco had been disowned. Not wanting to live in England any longer, Draco had decided to move to America where he became a citizen. He lived with his roommate, Joel, had a girlfriend, Melody, and worked five nights a week at a coffee shop four city blocks away from his apartment.
The only memento he still had of being a wizard was his wand. It was eleven inches, made of mahogany, and contained a dragon heartstring in its core. He never used it but polished it often and kept it packed away in a tiny box hidden under a loose floorboard in his closet. Even now that he had started over, he couldn't bear to part with his precious wand as he felt it was too much a part of him to ever destroy. It just might take the last of his sanity with it.
For the first time in his life, Draco had friends. Four wonderful ones, in fact, who included Gwen, Joel, Melody, and Melody's roommate, Samantha. Gwen Norris was his age and went to school at Fordham University where she studied Dance. Joel Montgomery, Samantha Straker, and Melody Fontana were all four years his elder and had been students at New York University together. Samantha and Joel were best friends from high school and Samantha lived just across the hall from Joel and Draco. It was Joel who had persuaded Draco to ask Melody out in the first place as he was still brooding. He never told them about Harry because though they knew about his sexuality, Harry was a private subject to Draco and it remained just as locked in the back of his mind as his wand was in his closet.
Instead of disclosing information about Harry, Draco caved to Joel and asked Melody to dinner. Seventeen months later they were still together with a five month old daughter by the name of Cherish. Draco couldn't say that he loved Melody because though he cared for her, Harry still held a big part of his heart and was awful stubborn about letting go. He should know because Draco had tried repeatedly with no avail to shake Harry forever from his mind. Draco supposed that it never worked at Hogwarts so why should New York be any different.
When the sight of his building came into view, Draco pushed the thoughts as far away from his mind as possible and reached into his pocket for his key.
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