A Wonderful Fortuitous Love

12. Mere Shadow

"Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike."

— J.K. Rowling

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August soon rolled around in that same silent way Granger had said it would. Draco thought having her pretending as though he wasn’t there would’ve been a blessing, but it was… odd. So out of character for the woman. He didn’t know why, but it felt as though she had given up on him.

But what the heck did that mean?

Given up on what? He didn’t know.

As mid-August arrived and left, soon to dissolve into September, he was becoming used to the indifferent silence between them. It was as though she wasn’t even there, like he was completely alone. He didn’t know when she ate because it was never the same time he did. He also didn’t know when she used the bathroom, because they never fought over it again. In fact, he barely saw her around the apartment, only at work. But even then, since he mentioned the ‘ridiculous tasks’ she’d set him, she’d laid off and did a lot of it on her own instead, leaving Draco to draw pointless doodles on parchment of stick men hanging themselves. Lucky bastards.

It seemed, however, that he was not the only one miserable. Granger didn’t seem much happier either. He had caught her, when she didn’t know he was looking, wiping away quickly at her tired eyes as though she were crying. This never happened around work and often occurred later on at night, just when he’d hear her toddling off to bed, closing the door with a soft click behind her. Late at night, he thought he could hear her crying from the next room.

Draco went to another afternoon tea with Hopkins and his mother, where he had had to cook a cake before hand. Draco hadn’t made a cake before. Needless to say, it did not go so well.

None of this did anything to improve his life at the moment. He had told himself over and over again that things weren’t as bad as they could be – he had tried, uncharacteristically, to look on the bright side. But when Blaise informed Draco that his mother had broken up with yet another of her boyfriends, Draco knew instantly what this would entitle. So Blaise took a heap of his boxes and went to stay with his mother in Italy. How long relied on how deeply Ms. Zabini had felt for this wizard.

And so Draco was now fully alone.

Things could be worse, he told himself, things could be much worse. I mean, I could have a face like Weasley’s and have to go through all this.

But these thoughts only cheered him up for a few seconds and then died away quickly. At least Weasley actually had friends.

The Derek bloke at work also didn’t help matters. Every time they ran into each other, hell would break loose and Draco found himself swearing more times than he could count. It was only sheer luck that Granger happened to never be too far by when these interactions would happen, but it was only a matter of time, as Armstrong had so often reminded him, that she would not be there to catch them in time before somebody seriously got hurt. Draco had thought he would never hate anyone more than Potter – how wrong he was.

The employees were beginning to get used to his presence and did not pay him much attention anymore. He was a mere shadow to most people now. Bun Woman appeared to be the only one who still treated him the way she always had the moment he’d entered the building, no matter how many times he’d appear at her front desk, asking to know where a certain worker was that Granger had sent him to look for.

“I’m looking for Jennings,” he repeated to her for the fifteenth time, “Mr. Jennings.”

“I told you, I couldn’t get hold of him. You’ll just have to find him for yourself,” she said sternly.