Puzzle Pieces

Section 9:

It wasn’t long after that when things started to go… strange for Draco, and for Draco and me, as a couple. We still loved each other; nothing had changed from that end of the puzzle-piece picture, but the rest of it wasn’t nearly so clear. Draco was keeping things from me, things that were upsetting him, and it was starting to bother me more and more. Something had set him off, and he wouldn’t tell me what.

It started when he got a letter from his father. It wasn’t unusual for Draco to get letters from home, but they were always, *always* from his mother. During the school year, Lucius Malfoy seemed content to pretend that his son was beneath his notice. The only times he deigned to contact his only child and heir was when Draco had monumentally screwed something up. After the ice-cold howler he had sent after the Gryffindor Quidditch match, I dare say that all of us in the Slytherin common room were hoping *not* to hear from him again. This letter wasn’t a howler, but Draco still went pale as he took the scroll from his father’s owl.

Draco read the letter immediately. To my relief, he seemed a bit confused by its contents, but not unduly upset. He shrugged off any questions about it, saying that it wasn’t important, and since it didn’t seem like the letter had done any harm, I was willing to let the subject drop.

The complication came that night when I woke, with no visible reason, around two o’clock the next morning. I’d had a nightmare: fuzzy, indistinct shapes crowding in on me, suffocating me, separating me from… I couldn’t tell who. I had the feeling it was Draco, but I couldn’t be sure. Call it a leftover from being raised by servants who were little more than superstitious peasants, but I never quite managed to shake my fear of bad dreams. I knew it was silly to be frightened of something as ephemeral as a dream, but I also knew that I had to see Draco, had to touch him and know that he was alright, before I’d be able to sleep again.

Simple in theory, but more complicated in reality when I discovered that Draco wasn’t in his bed, and the sheets were cold, signaling that he hadn’t been there for quite some time. Trying to shake off my uneasiness, I went back to my bed to grab my wand and headed upstairs to the common room.

I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until I released it in a sigh of relief when I heard Draco’s voice as I approached the room. My smile faded into a frown as I grew close enough to be able to distinguish what he was saying.

“But surely someone else, someone more personally committed would be better for something this… delicate,” Draco was protesting. I could feel my frown deepening. I knew that tone of voice. He was trying to hold back his emotion, trying to seem unconcerned, and doing a piss poor job of it. Who the hell was he talking to, and what on earth had they said to him to evoke this kind of response?

“I personally made these arrangements,” a second voice echoed through the room, making me tense automatically. Lucius Malfoy? At Hogwarts? Impossible! And yet… I was certain I knew that voice, not to mention that *tone* of voice. “Are you suggesting that my plans are in any way inadequate?”

“Of course not, Father!”

I couldn’t deny my curiosity any longer, and crept over to the common room door, cracking it open just enough to be able to peak inside. Expecting to be confronted with the image of Lucius Malfoy’s imposing figure, I was surprised to see the room looking almost empty.

“You know I’d never question your plans,” Draco continued, pulling my attention in the right direction. I let out a sigh of relief when I spotted my love kneeling on the floor in front of the fireplace. Floo call, then. That would explain what the letter was about; Lucius must have sent Draco a time to be by the fireplace so they could talk without any interruptions. But the answers I found created a whole new set of questions. What was it that Lucius needed to discuss with his son that was too delicate to be conveyed by owl? Why did it have to be discussed at two in the morning, guaranteeing that no one would be around to overhear? What were the plans that he had mentioned, and what was Draco’s role in them?

“I believe I have made myself perfectly clear; have I not?”

“Yes, Father,” Draco answered quietly.

“Good. Then you may expect the delivery—”

Alas, in my eagerness to overhear what was being said, I leaned too hard against the cracked-open doorway. The hinges were deliberately squeaky, to discourage the younger years from attempting to spy on the upper years after their curfew, and they groaned with protest as the door was pushed open further. I was lucky that I had been able to hear as much as I had without triggering the squeaky door, but my luck had apparently run out.

“Someone’s there,” Draco hissed at the fireplace. “I understand, Father. I’ll await the delivery, as you said.”

Without waiting for Lucius’ response, Draco slid fluidly to his feet, drawing his wand instantly and aiming it at the door.

“Who’s there?” he questioned imperiously. “Show yourself this instant, or face the consequences!” Gone was the emotionally scattered boy who had been on the verge of pleading with his father only moments before, and in his place was one of the strongest and most confident duelists of our generation.

“It’s me,” I announced quickly, stepping into the shaky light of the fireplace, which no longer shone green. Obviously, the floo connection had been terminated, and good riddance, so far as I was concerned.

Draco lowered his wand and slumped down into a chair. “Hello, love,” he managed to say, with a weak smile. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Just a moment or so,” I answered. “Woke up from a nightmare and couldn’t fall back asleep. I saw that your bed was empty and thought you might have had the same problem, so I came down here to join you.”

Draco held out his hand to me and I crossed the room, seating myself on the arm of his chair. His hand reached up to trace the lines of my face. “I heard voices,” I said tentatively. “Who were you talking you?”

Draco grimaced slightly but didn’t pull his hand away from my face. “My father,” he answered, his tone bitter. “He wanted to lecture me about my ‘duty to the Malfoy line’ again. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Shifting gears abruptly, he tugged on my arm, pulling me down to sit beside him in the wide chair. His hand returned to my face, circling my cheekbones and brushing the hair out of my eyes. “I’m sorry you had a nightmare,” he whispered. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head. “I don’t really remember it,” I lied. Draco made soft, comforting noises as he continued to caress me, pulling me into his arms.

“Did the charm turn green?” I asked, my voice muffled slightly against his chest.

“Hmm?” Draco asked. “Oh. I don’t know. I haven’t looked. Why?” His voice grew a bit mischievous. “What did you have in mind?” His hand slipped out of my hair to trail down my chest, rubbing up and down sensuously.

“In mind?” I asked, wondering if I was still asleep and simply having a very bizarre dream. “Nothing! I just meant—” I was planning to say something along the lines of how I had meant that he wasn’t usually so affectionate unless he was certain that we would be left alone. Truth be told, Draco was rarely so affectionate at all. When others were around, he was very careful to keep our relationship under wraps, and when we were alone, he was usually more interested in making the most of our time. Simple cuddling and touching, the way most couples did, was something we rarely explored, especially on Hogwarts grounds.

Yes, I was *planning* to say something like that, but I didn’t really get much of a chance. It was a bit difficult to speak with Draco’s tongue down my throat, and more than a bit difficult to think of anything coherent to say when his hand slid the rest of the way down my chest to dip inside my pajama bottoms. I was, in fact, quite prodigiously proud of myself for managing to speak at all when Draco pulled his mouth away from mine to latch on to my neck.

“Is… it… safe?” I gasped out when Draco started removing my clothes, tossing them carelessly to the side, in a way that he had *never* done before in the common room.

“I don’t care,” Draco retorted, wrenching off his own clothes and dropping to the floor where he could stretch out, taking me with him. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” I replied, mentally resolving not to ask any more questions that night.

Draco and I had been together for what sometimes felt like forever, but never was I more certain that he loved me then I was that night. It was impossible to doubt it with the way that he touched me, filled me, loved me to the point of bursting and beyond. When it was over and we were sated and sticky and *I*, at least, was utterly content, he lay bonelessly on top of me, and I felt tears trickle out of his eyes and on to my bare skin. Wisely, I didn’t say a word; I just held him until the tears passed. By the time he let me see his face again, his eyes were dry. He only spoke to cast a cleaning charm as he helped me to my feet and passed me my clothes. We dressed silently and stumbled back down into the dormitories, climbing into our beds where I, at least, fell into an instant, dreamless sleep. When I woke the next morning, I might have thought it was all a dream if it hadn’t been for the bruises left by his possessive fingers on my hips that I found when I awoke.

We didn’t speak of that night again, not for lack of trying on my part. I wanted him to tell me what was wrong, since it was so obviously upsetting him, but he flatly refused to discuss it. And after the turn that his behavior took following that night, I decided it was best not to push him. His temper, always sensitive, suddenly developed a hairpin trigger. He tried to control it around me, as always, but some of the younger years learned to dread his caustic words even more than the possibility of his hexes.

He was more affectionate with me than he had ever been before. He still wasn’t into PDAs, but he was far less concerned with the possibility of being caught when he pulled me into quick snogs in dark corners. But all the affection in the world couldn’t hide the fact that he was far more distant than I had ever seen him. He seemed to weigh his words carefully before speaking, even when we were alone. I knew that he was keeping something from me and while I certainly enjoyed the kisses he used to distract me whenever I brought the subject up, it still galled me that he wouldn’t simply tell me what was wrong.

The situation came to a head during a perfectly normal conversation in the common room with some of the other seventh years about what everyone planned to do for Christmas. Theo was going to visit his brother in Prague. Vince said that he and Greg were going with their parents to the Alps. Tracey, who always liked to feel like she had one up on everyone else, informed us that her parents were taking her to Paris to shop for her trousseau. Apparently, her husband-to-be, a student at Beauxbatons, would be meeting them there. Pansy said that she’d be staying at Hogwarts over the break, and I said that I was thinking of doing that, as well.

“Staying?” Draco interrupted, his face paling slightly. “Why would you want to stay here when you could be going home to Italy?”

I threw him a concerned look, but didn’t want to question him when others were around. Instead, I simply shrugged. “Mum and Dad won’t be there this year, and most of the servants have off for the holiday. Seemed kind of boring, knocking around an empty house, so I thought I’d stay here instead.”

“Maybe you should reconsider,” he suggested, his voice forcibly light. “Your villa is much nicer than these drafty dungeons, even if it is boring to be there alone.”

“Is that your way of angling for an invitation, Draco?” I asked, wondering what he was getting at. “You know you’d be more than welcome, and if I had the prospect of some company, I wouldn’t mind going.”

The sound Draco made was a good imitation of a laugh, but I knew him well enough to know that it was forced. “I only wish I could,” he replied. “But I already told you that I have a project I need to be working on over the break.”

“You couldn’t work on it from Italy?” I questioned.

“No.” His voice left no room for argument. “I need to use resources that they only have here, so it’s looks like I’m stuck for the break. But really, Zabini, you should reconsider going home.”

“Merlin Draco,” Pansy pitched in with her high, nasal voice. “It’s not *that* bad staying here. You and I are both doing it, aren’t we?” She shot him what she probably thought was a discreet wink, which had approximately the subtlety of a hippogriff in a china shop. Pansy never did have much of a gift for tact.

I bit my lip to keep from grimacing in disgust. Was Draco hoping to get something going with Pansy over the break? Was that why he was so eager for me not to be around? Mentally, I shook off the idea. It wasn’t possible. Pansy was a complete and utter slag, and even before she became The Girl Who Slept Around, Draco had never had much tolerance for her inane prattle. He’d never have the patience to put up with her as a lover, no matter how lonely or bored he got.

But *something* was going on, and that was for certain. Mentally, I cursed Hermione Granger. Before I knew her, I had been easily content burying my head in the sand and only seeing what I was told to see. But she had gotten me into the habit of putting two and two together and coming up with my own conclusions, and I couldn’t question the results that were now staring me in the face. Draco was always deliberately vague when he spoke about the ‘project’ that he needed to do over the break, but I knew damn well that it wasn’t for any of his classes. The only other possibility was that the project was something for his father; something secretive that couldn’t be discussed openly, forcing Lucius to arrange for a floo call to the Slytherin common room in the middle of the night so he could give the details to his son.

Death Eater business was the only logical conclusion, especially if Pansy was involved as well. Pansy was a twit, but her father ranked fairly high in the Death Eater organization, so far as I was able to tell, and the girl had, somewhat indiscreetly, bragged that she was slated for initiation after the end of term. Was this some sort of pre-initiation task? If so, why was Draco so upset? He had been planning to join the Death Eaters for as long as I could remember, with the same calm acceptance that most people show when they plan for the sun to come up in the morning. It was a foregone conclusion that didn’t seem to cause him any particular excitement or dismay.

Two things were clear to me. The first was that something was going to happen over Christmas break that was Death Eater related, involving Draco and Pansy. The second was that Draco wanted me to have no part of it. On some level, I suppose I was relieved. I’d have joined the Death Eaters if he asked me to, but if I could stay clear of the whole mess, then I would. The Hermione Granger part of me spoke up, saying that I shouldn’t stop until I had gotten to the bottom of the situation and figured out what was going on, but the overriding head-in-the-sand part of me chose to ignore that voice. I was better off not knowing what was going on.

“Maybe you’re right,” I said to Draco, forcing a bit of a smile. “Maybe I’ll head back to the old homestead after all.”


End Section 9