Draco just wanted to enjoy his coffee. Was that too much to ask? Apparently so.

He watched beadily as his ex-husband entered the coffee shop. Draco’s favourite coffee shop. As if there weren’t hundreds of coffee shops all over the city that would keep him well away from Draco.

He felt an unfamiliar twist in his chest as he realised that Harry was with someone. A woman. Draco shouldn’t be surprised, but it was easy to et that Harry was equally as interested in women as he was in men. It felt like an extra twist of the knife lodged in Draco’s chest to think that Harry now hated him so much he was back to dating women.

Draco watched as Harry tipped his head back laughing at something the woman said. Draco used to make Harry laugh like that. He hadn’t made Harry anything other than angry in the last four years. God, Draco never thought he’d be a divorcee by thirty. A three-year divorcee at that. They’d been married too quickly, everyone knew that, but Harry’s hadn’t cared. He’d told Draco no one else could know how they felt except them, so who were they to say they couldn’t be married at twenty-three. Of course, three years later they only went and proved everyone right anyway. Three was quickly bing an unlucky number for Draco.

Not that he was maudlin. Of course not, he’d never do anything that would make his father even remotely proud of him. Draco surreptitiously pulled his wand down his sleeve and cast a disillusionment charm over himself. Harry and his lady-friend had sat at a table so that Harry was facing the door and there was no way Draco could leave now without being noticed. Disillusionment charms were great, but they couldn’t make a door open and close without anyone noticing. Draco wondered whether Harry told this new woman why he had to face the door. If she knew about the war and how Harry always had to have his main exit in his eyeline in case he had a panic attack.

Draco wanted the ground to swallow him whole as he saw the woman flirt hopelessly with Harry. She looked remarkably like a female version of Draco. Long blonde platinum hair, tall, slim. Harry couldn’t get more obvious than that. Still, it made Draco’s skin crawl. He knew hanging around after the divorce wouldn’t be a good thing for him. He saw reminders of Harry everywhere; a new broomstick advert, a new Twilfitt and Tattings formal robe advert. Draco had stopped going to Diagon a few months after he’d moved out —desperate not to see Harry’s face everywhere he went.

And then there was Ted. Draco couldn’t leave him. He’d been so young when Draco and Harry had first gotten together, he didn’t remember anything else. For all Draco’s faults, he couldn’t let the poor boy think that what went wrong in Draco and Harry’s relationship was his fault. He had to stick around to watch his favourite little wolf grow up. Not that Teddy was very little anymore. Still, Draco would never admit how much he loved him with all his heart. Nope, Malfoys don’t do any kind of affection. Absolutely not.

An hour. An hour Draco had to sit in that damn coffee shop waiting for Harry and Leggy-Blonde to be done with their little date. Draco was fuming.

How dare Potter have a life outside him? How dare he date someone else like he wasn’t absolutely heartbroken by their divorce? Draco paced back and forth across the small living room of his flat, trying to burn off his extra anger. He wished he could just let Potter go. He had him, he fucked it up, he lost him and he needed to move on.

‘Draco, you’re being ridiculous.’ Pansy sighed through the floo. She was used to Draco’s small fits over Harry.

‘I’m not being ridiculous, Parkinson.’ Draco snapped. ‘Potter has gone and bloody replaced me! With the female fucking version of me!’ How could Pansy not understand how insulting that was.

‘Draco,’ Pansy started carefully. Draco knew from experience that when Pansy’s voice takes on a soft tone, you’re in trouble. ‘Did you expect him to stay alone forever?’ She asked him gently. That took the wind out of Draco’s sails. He stopped pacing. He felt cold all over, like he’d been drenched in ice water. Pansy said nothing.

‘No.’ He said, his voice wavering. Of course he hadn’t. He couldn’t ask Harry to stay sad and alone forever just because Draco couldn’t be what he wanted.

‘Maybe it’s time you did something new? Get your mind away from Potter. Go on a date, buy some new clothes, take up golf or something.’

Draco rolled his eyes.

‘Golf? Really Pans, do I look like a middle-aged muggle bank manager?’

Pansy scoffed.

‘If you keep moping around like this then yes, that’s exactly what you’ll look like.’

Sometimes, Draco really hates Pansy. She had a point though. Nothing about Draco’s life had changed at all. After the war, Pansy had gone off to Dubai to head up some fancy corporation Draco never listened to her tell him about. He needed some of Pansy’s balls.

‘Parkinson.’ He declared decisively. ‘Get the fuck out of my floo.’ Unlike any other human on the pl, Pansy grinned madly.

‘YES!’ She yelled, and the connection closed.

‘YOU CAN’T MOVE TO FRANCE!’ Hermione shouted in Draco’s face. He’d asked her to have lunch with him to tell her about his plans for project Move On From Harry.

‘Hermione, please.’ Draco said, rubbing his forehead. He didn’t need another rant, he’d already had one when he’d had the self-same conversation with Pansy. ‘I can, and I will. I don’t see why this is such a big deal. There really isn’t much keeping me here anymore and I need a change of scenery.’

The only thing worse than an angry Hermione, is a sympathetic Hermione.

‘Oh, Draco. I understand, I really do, but surely there’s something less drastic you can do than moving to another country.’ His gaze dropped to his half-eaten salad. He couldn’t look at her when she was giving him that look with those big brown eyes. Who knew how Ronald didn’t bend to her every whim. Who was he kidding? Of course he did.

‘Hermione, what do you want me to say? It’s been three years and I’m not any better than I was. I need to get out of here, I need to not see him around every week, I need space to figure out who I am without him.’ He knew it was cowardly. A better man than him would juste right out and say that he was still in love with Harry Potter and seeing his face made him want to tear his hair out and cry.

‘What about Teddy? He adores you Draco, you promised him when you left Harry that you’d still be there for him.’ Trust Hermione Granger-Weasley to cut straight to the chase. That woman wasn’t known for holding her punches.

‘I did not leave Harry.’ Draco said petulantly. It was always a source of contention; whether Draco left Harry or Harry left Draco.

‘That’s not the point, Draco. Teddy needs you. He loves you just as much as he loves Harry and children can’t have too many loving influences in their life.’ Draco knows she’s right, he knows that Teddy is the most important thing in his life at the minute, but he’s at his wit’s end.

‘I can’t keep doing this,’ he tells her. ‘It’s too much.’ He hadn’t admitted it to anyone, how much the divorce had taken its toll on him. He’s not even angry anymore, he can’t be. He doesn’t resent Harry for the way things ended, he just wishes there was another way.

‘Give it a bit longer Draco, please.’ Hermione pleads with him. She reaches across the table and takes his hand in hers. He never would’ve thought he’d be sat having lunch with Hermione Granger, using her as an emotional crutch.

‘It’s been three years Granger, haven’t I given it long enough?’

She smirks at his slip, she’s not been Granger for a long time and she can always tell she’s getting through if he idently calls her by her old name.

‘Six months. Just wait it out six months. I swear you can do all the planning andanising you need in that time, but don’t leave for six months. Can you do that, for me?’

He thinks about it.

‘Ok, fine. Six months. Not a day more, Granger, and if I don’t have the most concrete reason in the world to stay here then I’ll be gone. Don’t think otherwise.’ In truth, Draco was scared that if he did leave, Teddy would never ive him. Of course, Hermione knew that and was playing on his weakness. Bloody Gryffindors, Draco swears most of them are snakes in disguise.

‘I really need to go; my lunch hour is up.’ They kiss each other’s cheeks and Hermione makes her way over to the lifts while Draco heads for the ministry floo. The food in the atrium really was always terrible.

His resolve was somewhat diminished by the time the floo spat him out into his small flat. It had just meant to be a stop-gap in the early days after the split. Draco had half expected Harry toe charging after him and tell him it had all been a huge mistake and he didn’t want him to go. Draco’s life obviously wasn’t destined to be a crummy romance novel.

Somehow, he’d never been able to bring himself to leave. He supposed that said a lot about how he felt about the whole thing, but he was never quite willing to admit defeat and buy somewhere more permanent. This flat was small and cramped and half of his stuff was probably ruined now that it had spent three years under a shrinking charm, but he’d done his best to make this place a home.

He strode over to a cab in the corner of the living room/kitchen and pulled out a battered old pensieve. It had belonged to his grandfather and Draco had managed to save it from the Manor before it had been auctioned off as ‘war reparations’. Draco wasn’t bitter, he needed an excuse not to live in that death trap anymore.

He didn’t need to look long to find the memory he was looking for, it was the most viewed of all the memories he had collected in the few short years since he’d been doing this. After the war, a mind healer had told him viewing his memories from a distance might help him understand the trauma he went through. At the time he’d thought it was bullshit but it seemed to help, and he’d been doing it ever since.

The label on the vial was almost worn off and every time Draco reached for it he reminded himself he needed to make a new one—he never did. He tipped the silvery memory into the bowl and watched it swirl around, waiting for him.

With much less trepidation than he’d had the first time he’d viewed this particular memory, he delved in.

‘Not this again!’ Draco heard his own whiny voice drawl.

‘YES THIS AGAIN!’ Harry bellowed in his face. Harry’s face was as red as a tomato and the veins of his neck were standing so proud Draco could actually see the blood pumping through. Far too quickly for his liking.

‘Harry please don’t do this now, we’re going to be late.’ They were late for their third anniversary dinner reservations. It wouldn’t have been a big deal, but Luna had agreed to watch Teddy for the night and Draco didn’t want to leave him there any longer than he really had to. Teddy had been sick for the past week and although he seemed to be better now, Draco was still worried.

‘Why shouldn’t I do this now? It’s never a good time

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