Tainted Love

PART THREE: Apart

DRACO

Draco stood in the Love Chamber and stared out the window. There were no leaves on the trees anymore, or maybe they were so brown that he couldn't distinguish them from the branches. The grass in the field was slightly brown on the edges too, and there were no more flowers.

The sky was a sort of mindless grey, the kind where clouds take over the whole sky in such a large blanket that you can't differentiate them. You almost wonder whether the sky was ever blue at all.

Draco didn't usually stare out of the window this much. Iris was gone, long gone, and the clock had chimed, and soon the lifts would be closing.

It was that thought that made him grab his coat and push through the doors. He didn't want to get stuck down here.

His body was on autopilot as he walked through the entrance hall and the atrium and stepped into the mirrored lift. His legs were moving without interference from his mind because his mind was entirely elsewhere.

Specifically on what Iris had said to him.

Her nerve was always shocking, but it had been particularly jarring today. Sometimes she put up a bit of a fight when he grabbed her arm to take her back to his, especially if he had been ignoring her. She had her pride and he didn't mind reminding her that he was worth sacrificing it for.

But it was different now. She hadn't shrugged or looked away or given a couple of excuses.

No, she had laid the whole thing out on the table. Demanded to know how he felt. And even worse than that, she basically admitted that she had feelings for him.

He hadn't been expecting that at all and had struggled to keep a neutral expression on his face as she spoke. What the fuck was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to say? Everything that came out of his mouth had been a knee-jerk reaction to the situation.

Since she left he had been picking apart his words and hers to see where he had gone wrong. If he had managed to steer the conversation in a slightly different direction, she might be with him now, in his bed at his apartment.

But now she had completely taken that possibility away.

Their arrangement had always been clear to him. He had been the one to lay out the terms when it first started happening - and the terms did not include feelings, not under any circumstances.

They included him fucking her when he needed an outlet. Which he realized was selfish. But she had been desperate enough to agree to them, so it was her fault really.

The sun was almost gone from the sky as he exited the Ministry and began to walk home.

So it's just sex for you.

Obviously.

If Draco had been having trouble keeping his facial expressions in check, Iris had apparently found the task impossible. She looked so hurt when he said that, as if she had been expecting him to admit that he was in love with her - as if she had been expecting him to get on one knee in front of the Amortentia fountain.

What the fuck else would it be? When they were alone together they were either working, fighting, or fucking. Draco struggled to understand how Iris could believe that there was anything else besides sex between them. There clearly wasn't.

He opened a pack of cigarettes and stared at the front page of the Daily Prophet. Some loud headline about the Ministry's new broom licensing laws. Apparently they were controversial.

Draco hadn't used his broom in a while. It was probably somewhere at the Manor.

Back at school, especially in sixth year and seventh year, flying had been the only thing that made him feel free. After the war ended, though, being on his broom made him feel trapped, as if he was still existing as a sixteen year old.