A Throne of Blood and Stars

Chapter Three

Draco wakes.

It's to bright light and rustling some little distance away. He feels very comfortable, until he realizes that it's grass that's tickling his ear and not his own hair. He jumps up, disoriented for a second and does not think twice about running.

He runs as fast as he remembers he can, since he doesn't remember running at all, but he's in an unfamiliar place and he doesn't remember what happened--

"Whoa!"

And then he's falling, very ungracefully, on the ground, and his whole front hurts and Merlin's beard, what the hell did he run into?

"Are you alright?"

Draco never thought he could reorient himself so quickly but he does. He does, and he's standing now, looking in utter disbelief at what's staring right back at him.

It's a man, or Draco thinks it's a man. He looks very familiar but also very large and he knows he's seen those hideous jeans before--

"Will you stop that?"

Draco stares again, and the man in front of him squirms. "What?"

"Stop staring at me like that. You did that before you knocked out and you're doing it again. I'd appreciate it if you'd stop ogling me like that."

Draco splutters to catch his words, scoffing in the process. "Ogling you? You? No way, I am not...not ogling you. I am not. You. You look..."

"Different," the man laughs. "Just a bit, I suppose."

Draco was going to say familiar, but he'd recognize that stupid smile anywhere. "Potter?"

Harry chuckles lightly, tilts his chin upwards in acknowledgment. "In the flesh."

His response is so languid, so calm and casual. Like he hasn't been missing for almost half a semester.

Draco very unceremoniously loses it.

"You," he starts, and Harry's smile just drops. "thoughtless, self-immersed twat. Do you know what hell it has been the last couple of months? I have been walking on eggshells, because of your disappearance, and the lot of your friends think I have something to do with it! Clearly, seeing as I do not have an important sentence to fulfill or anything of the sort. Those two idiots have been giving me visual death threats, Potter. Death threats! I have had to walk in the crowd as to not get plummeted by your Weasel friend, Granger has been dumping dead cockroaches at my bedside somehow, and you are here, looking like some model that just came back from Spain? Where the bloody hell are we and how do we get back, because I can tell you, I am not staying here. Not with the likes of you. Explain."

Harry purses his lips, surprised. "Hermione wouldn't harm a fly, let alone--"

Draco swears the sting on his hand is a lot worse than the sting on Harry's cheek.

But Harry just twists his face back to look at Draco, hurt in his eyes. "Ow."

"I am waiting for an explanation, Potter."

Harry sighs. "I didn't feel like going back."

"Yes, Potter, it seems that way," Draco scowls. "But it would also seem appropriate of you to answer the letters you've been sent."

Harry frowns at that.

Draco's features soften slightly. "Everyone thinks you committed suicide."

His green eyes widen. "Suicide? What? Why?"

"Potter," Draco clears his throat, steps away from Harry's arms. "You have missed three months of school. You were not found at Grimmauld Place and your muggle relatives were questioned by McGonagall herself. Any owls that have been sent to you have returned with the same letters. It seemed as if you just...disappeared."