𝒜𝒻𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓂𝒶𝓉𝒽 | 𝒟.𝑀.

47 | ﴾ Casual Analysis ﴿

Draco waited at the Ministry for the entire day after parting ways with Harry and Hermione. It was such a long and emotionally exhaustive affair; hours dragged by as people slid their judgemental eyes down at him where he spent most of it with his face in his hands, shoving his long white hair back into a frenzy. Behind his back, the statuesque father of his wife stood several hundred feet into the air.

It had been his hope to see either Harry emerge with news, or to catch Nott on his way out of the facility so that he could strangle him to death in the streets. To his great disappointment he eventually fell asleep with his back slumped against the stone coping of the fountain.

Well past midnight, the Ministry locked it's doors for the evening at two in the morning, and Draco was brought back to life by an elderly janitor with a long blue beard prodding his shoulder tenderly. In the background, the man had bewitched several cleaning apparatus' to work independently. A score of brooms and mops were dancing around as if at a ball for inanimate objects. Besides this, no one was in sight. The atrium was dark and empty.

Draco reacted habitually by spiking his wand up at the man, stopping it right before his nose. The old custodian ruffled backwards flabbergast, showing off his few remaining and quite ostensibly spaced out yellow teeth, "Oi now there, Prince Charming. You've gotta boot it outta 'ere. Tis past hours."

Draco rubbed at his sore and dry eyes, "I'm not going anywhere."

The keeper stepped back with his hands in the pockets of his plum Ministry overalls, "Malfoy, innit? Waitin' bout for that there White Witch?"

Draco's eyes hardened angrily, "Don't call her that." He stood, scanning his gaze like a laser around the massive cavity. All of the elevators were locked save for level two.

They must surely still have her in there, he surmised internally. "Did you see her come out? Potter?" he savagely turned back to the decrepit figure who was now polishing the stone on the fountain.

"No sir, not a soul," the janitor responded lightheartedly, as if Draco were simply requesting a packet of sugar in a restaurant. His wrinkled eyes trailed on Draco's rumpled and expensive suit, stopping on the dark circles under the boy's long eyelashes, "Go on now, shoo, before one o' them guards comes on out and arrests you too. Open again at seven."

Draco let out an anguished snarl as he marched across the atrium. Every single step made his spine tingle with hesitation. He couldn't help but experience an overwhelming desire to turn back and push to stay, but it would be no good for his family if he too were detained.

On his way to the floo network he grabbed hold of a working broom and snapped it in half over his knee viciously, tossing the still creeping wood shards aside in a clatter.

That night he slept in her bed without asking permission, however sleeping would hardly classify what he was capable of.

He clutched at her covers and pillows still in his suit, crying and inhaling her sweet scent as his cat crawled all over him to attempt to provide comfort. He buried his face in a blue sweater she had left in her bedding with his heart scalding.

Her volatile separation felt like a death had occurred in his life; she was the only person who made him feel whole, the only person in his world who had treated him exceptionally and profoundly. Her hands in his hair and her kisses on his skin were irreplaceable.

The situation was so bad that his mother could hear his howling all the way from the seventh floor, and soon she appeared in the doorway in her long black nightgown with wide blue eyes and a candle in a dish.

He paused his stinging cries to look up with desperate and panting hope that it was somehow Madeleine coming home, letting his head fall back down when he recognized it was instead Narcissa.