Chapter Text
Draco stood in the doorway of his darkened room, looking down at the silhouetted form of his former slave and current lover-one in the same-curled in their bedsheets. It seemed like ages ago that his heart had swelled with the news that Harry wanted to stay with him, even though his contract had expired. But after a day of happy fucking, he'd woken in the middle of the night, his heart hammering in his chest, and a nagging guilt creeping into his brain.
"It's called Stockholm Syndrome, and I suggest you look into it if you have a commendable bone in your body!" Granger's voice rang in his head, over, and over. The thing was, he had looked into it, some time ago. Capture-bonding, they called it, and for good reason. Draco could see where there was a good possibility that the attachment Harry had formed with him was a product of all the beating and harassment and trauma that he'd inflicted on him, followed by Draco's doting and possessiveness...
It was clear that the two of them shared something...fucked up. They were both products of their childhood environments, neither of which, Draco realized now, had any semblance of normalcy. Not compared to other wizards, and certainly not compared to their Muggle friends, Mike and Gideon; who had been led to believe Draco was the disinherited gay son-turned-chemistry-student of a posh and wealthy couple grown rich on the stock market, and Harry a disenchanted but loyal orphan-turned-kept-boy. Which was more or less the truth. Less, because the facts of the matter were, that Draco had grown up in a household that not only condoned, but celebrated the buying, selling, and extreme mental and physical abuse of human chattel and Harry spent the first eleven years of his life locked in a cupboard under the stairs and re-enacting some muggle family's fucked up version of Cinderella. Then after years of teenage rivalry, Harry'd gone and signed himself up for Slave-Academy, and Draco'd gone and bought him with all intents of exacting revenge for said years. Then, somewhere along the way, Draco had grown a heart, a soul, and a set of balls, and Harry learned when to shut his mouth and when to spread his legs, and Bob's your Uncle, happily ever after...Fuck. Draco pushed away from the bedroom, padding softly but quickly to the patio. He needed the cool night air to clear his head.
It took him hours to come to a conclusion. He'd sat out there in the chill, forgetting to cast warming charms around himself, he was so deep in thought. He'd meant to convince himself of all the reasons why Harry should stay with him, why Harry was better off if Draco kept providing for him but in the end, all roads pointed to the opposite. Draco might need and want Harry, but there were only a few reasons that Harry should feel the same. If there was a chance that Harry wouldn't want him if he had time to...recouperate...if there was a chance that Harry would choose someone else, if Draco wasn't hovering over him...if there was a chance Harry would be happy with someone else... with whom he didn't share this fucked up...whatever it was...
Could he even call it a relationship if Harry hadn't had a choice in any of it, for the last three years? He didn't want this if Harry didn't really want him. It was a great fucking mess, is what it was. Because if he'd never latched on to bitterness and boyhood rivalries, he would never have come to love Harry for what he was. But if the way Harry was, effectively, was a product of Draco's making, then he didn't really love the real Harry, and Harry couldn't really love him.
But that meant...it meant that there had to be some way of finding out, if what Harry said he felt for him was real, or if it was the product of some fucking psychological disorder. It meant that Draco had to let Harry go...Draco's throat tightened around a lump so large, he found he couldn't swallow. Wasn't there another answer? Maybe it would be less painful to just obliviate the both of them...
When Harry woke in the early hours of the morning, he stumbled out to find Draco, crouched on the corner of the patio with his arms wrapped around himself. The wet tracks on Draco's cheeks were lit silver by the waning light of the moon.