When You Turn Your Back [Drarry]

[15] Trouble

Once under the pressure of a disbelieving friend, people start questioning their own thoughts. That was what Draco suffered from at the present. Doubts swarmed his mind in guilt filled tears while he wallowed in the absence of will to get back to work. But it did not do for him to sit around and feel sorry for people. He would drag himself if he had to, but work he must, for that was the way he dealt with everything; be it pain or anger, which his insides were filled up equally with. And that was his final word.

Two weeks, he counted on his fingers with great anguish, that the couple had been gone. Meddling person that he was, but the man was smart enough to fool a group at a glance. Although there were things that one couldn't hide despite of practiced pretense, and that was his self. Indeed there was a way to tell him apart from Harry and the others! There always was, but Draco had been too caught up in the present to notice the little signs that had been dancing naked in front of him all this time. It all crashed upon him like a wave when he sat in his study chair, reliving all the memories that he had been escaping for so long. It was filthy, but the only way of knowing. Hence, he had hired a pensive for the best results.

Standing in the same room as he was sitting, he watched as the man stepped in from the fireplace, partly covered in soot but face the same as Harry's. The resemblance was uncanny, from his gait to the way he spoke, but the divergence could not escape his notice the second time.

The whiff of cigarettes was the first red flag on the spot; Harry drank, but never smoked. But as the memory proceeded like a movie in front of his eyes he found the more minute details of the way the man spoke absolutely diverse from how he knew Harry to be.

"Yes, I am. I'm a Head Healer now."

"So, you really cracked the National Assessment Test for Wizarding Medicine and now hold an independent certificate?"

And then,

"Yes, but you can get rid of that. If you can pass the Ministry Affiliation Test, then you are going to rule the world!"

With utter bafflement, Draco questioned himself how could he ever have missed those words. The way the man had phrased his excitement was so obviously unlike Harry, yet hidden so well hidden in plain sight, it puzzled his wits away. It was almost like Hermione was speaking to him, only in a man's voice -

His head suddenly felt like a dead weight on his shoulders while he wobbled on his feet, watching the two pairs of eyes turn toward him as if they knew all along that he was stood there, witnessing their conversation. The Draco on the couch moved ominously, reaching for his wand on the table that he hadn't noticed before, and he took a giant step back in horror. Pale fingers wrapped themselves around the lean wooden stick with dead eyes strictly unmoving from his figure. He was sure that his memory self would throw a curse at him, even kill him, only, he realised his feet back on the hard ground of his apartment, most importantly, in the present.

Scenarios evolved within minutes, banishing the lean men away in his mind for further dissection in the near future, and sharpening up the empty apartment in front of the eyes of a sputtering Draco on the floor. It was incongruous and unprecedented for him, making his head spin with surprise and fear in all the bad ways while he regained his breath amongst the dream like images still floating in front of him; and he hadn't even reached the end of it.

"Quite a shock, wasn't it?" his head spun around with more force than he could have gathered in one split of the second, but there it was, in the rawest form, sitting in front of him with legs crossed.

He stared at the man with utter shock, contemplating on a run out of the door, but couldn't move.

"Well, yes, I'd assume from your state." he still looked the same as Harry, only the posture struck Draco's eyes in a negative light. "Sorry, I love doing that." he spoke again, with his chin low and hands up, mocking a state of surrender. "It gets everyone so worked up, like they hadn't seen a meddled memory before...oh, I said sorry, now. Don't be like that. Get up! See, it's your cozy apartment."