Catch 22 (Harry/Draco)

Promise?

Draco is sitting on the staff table. Sometimes he sits in the Headmaster's chair and does Dumbledore impersonations, which always manages to amuse, but this time he is sitting on the edge of the table, legs dangling over the edge, with his head in his hands. This is unusual—Draco is usually looking up at the stars, mapping out constellations, rambling about how he wishes he could go up there someday and see them up close, and sometimes, when he's feeling particularly audacious, attempting to count them all.

Blaise wordlessly approaches him, and wonders if Draco even noticed him come in. Probably not; Draco may be sly and cunning and nasty to boot, but his powers of observation aren't as keen as he likes to pretend they are. Smirking, Blaise practically skips to the table, stopping about three feet from Draco and waiting, wondering how long he'll have to stand there making increasingly loud shuffling noises before Draco notices him.

This close, he can finally see Draco's face in the near-darkness, and Blaise blinks, cocks his head, and then is benumbed with shock, as if someone has suddenly hit him with a Freezing Charm.

Blaise has this list he uses for all close friends, something he has been developing and perfecting over the past seven years. It's a list of things to do in any given situation based on the established facts, how the particular friend in question is acting, and the gravity of the problem. After so many years, the List is near-perfect; he's witnessed about every sort of issue an overly emotional and less than rational teenage boy can create for himself.

Blaise depends heavily on the List to get on with Draco, who is perhaps the most temperamental of his friends; also one of his closest, and Blaise devotes an unnatural amount of time to him because of this, because Draco just needs that sort of attention. It's because he's terribly insecure, something that bewildered Blaise when he realised it, because Draco is perhaps the last person in Hogwarts with reason to feel diffident. He's pure-blood, wealthy, practically a noble by wizarding standards, popular, good-looking, intelligent and pretty sharp on a broomstick. Girls swoon over him, his fellow Slytherins obey him as if he's their general, and his father is one of the most powerful men in the country.

But in spite of all these assets, there is one thing a seventeen-year-old scion with Draco's background is not sanctioned, and that is the freedom to make up their own mind. Draco has responsibilities he doesn't want but must take, obligations to fulfil that he hates, and standards to live up to that he couldn't care less for. Blaise always asks him why he bothers, since it obviously isn't what he wants—Blaise can't understand why someone would uphold something that makes them so obviously unhappy.

It's just part of being a Malfoy, Draco tells him. Part of the job. Could be worse, right?

Apparently, it can be worse. Blaise stares at him, unsure of what to do, because nowhere on the List do instructions appear for a situation such as this. Blaise is bewildered and shocked and more than just a little worried, because he has never, ever seen Draco cry before.

To Draco's credit, it's not the sort of crying most boys do. Deny what they will, most boys cry just like girls cry, the uncontrollable and messy and sobbing-all-over sort of crying, when the occasion calls for it. Boys are just generally better at restraining the urge to cry until they're alone, and then they can pretend it never happened. Draco's not even crying if Blaise wants to be technical. Technically speaking, Draco is just sitting here with his head down and hands wound painfully tightly into his hair, quietly leaking tears. Or maybe Blaise has just missed the actual crying part, because Draco's collar and sleeves are damp, and his eyes are red-rimmed and he looks as if he may have been here a while.

Draco starts as he feels someone moving behind him, and with a rush discovers that Blaise has taken up the other side of the table, coming to sit back-to-back with him. He knows it's Blaise, because only Blaise knows he comes here when he wants time away from everyone else, and only Blaise would know better than to try and confront him when he's like this. He can feel Blaise's head resting against his own, and feels his shoulders heave in a heavy sigh as he leans back into him.