ETL Echo presents Sight and Seeing by mightbewriting

Chapter 2: The Summer Solstice

The day after a Friday: April 14th, 2007

The flash of the Floo startled Theo, pulling him from his thoughts. He’d just been considering the logistics of a little indoor fencing with the busts in the south hall when Draco stumbled out of the parlor’s fireplace looking simultaneously dazed and devastated.

It was only four in the afternoon. Theo tensed; Draco rarely showed up during daylight hours.

“What happened?” he asked before Draco had the chance to dust the specks of cinder from his trousers.

Draco looked up at him, eyes wide and round as if he hadn’t actually expected Theo’s presence. He didn’t answer. Instead, Draco lifted his hand in a failed attempt at communication via stunted gestures before he dropped it again. He walked to an armchair—seventeenth-century—and sat on the edge of it, immediately folding, head in his hands.

Theo hadn’t moved from his place on the adjacent sofa.

“Draco?”

Spoken to the granite floors, hands muffling his words. “I think I kissed her.”

The World of Wait and Hope, ETL Echo