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The summer garden party wasn’t the same without Rigel.
Draco supposed that Rigel hadn’t been there for the first ten years of his life, either, and he’d been fine, but it was different now, his absence a glaring hole in what would otherwise have been a lovely evening. He stood at Pansy's side, clumped slightly closer to her to compensate for the all-too-present gap at his left.
Theo, Millicent, and Blaise's emotions were oozing, a mixture of bitterness, discomfort, and melancholy, and it only made the buzzing in his head worse. Things had been awkward since the others had arrived, the three of them abruptly cutting off their whispers as soon as they saw Draco and realized he was in hearing distance. That had only put him in a worse mood.
He knew they all had Rigel on their minds, but that didn't mean they had to act like they couldn't talk around him at all. He was fine. He wasn't going to shatter to pieces the moment someone poked at his oh-so-fragile opinions. It. Was. Fine.
"What is it?" He turned his glare on Blaise, who just so happened to have the misfortune of standing directly across from him.
Beside him, Theo shifted, gaze darting to something over Draco's shoulder, in the same general direction as where his parents stood receiving guests. "It's—"
"Nothing," Blaise intercepted, "Nothing you would care about."
Draco's fingers tensed, but Pansy eased him with a hand on his shoulder, letting out a false laugh that would have been convincing had Draco not been standing close enough to feel her emotions. "Let's not worry about trivial things. It has been so long since we've all been gathered; we should enjoy ourselves."
Draco saw Millicent grimace a moment before he felt the prickle of another presence up the back of his neck; a faint haze of amusement with an iron core of something harsher underneath.
"May I join you?"
Draco turned to see the speaker. It was a boy, about their age, a little taller than Draco with loose black hair that curled ever-so-slightly as it fell past his ears. Draco didn’t think that he’d ever met him before, which was distinctly odd. He definitely had a look of a British pureblood, but—
He stepped into the empty spot in the circle. Rigel's spot, something inside Draco screamed, jarring like a knife against a grindstone.
Pansy swept into a curtsy. "Heir Black."
The frostiness in her tone was probably imagined; with her hand unmoved from Draco's shoulder, her emotions were still far too clear.
Oh.
The boy—Black—the real Black, Draco thought to himself, stomach churning—answered her with an easy smile before casting his gaze around the circle. "I do hope I'm not interrupting
"I don't believe we've been properly introduced," Draco said, voice dripping ice.
Black placed a hand on his chest. "In the name of true transparency, I must admit that I have met you all before," he said. "—However, I would not dream of robbing you a proper introduction."
He turned back to Pansy and dropped into a bow. "Arcturus Black."
Draco took his hand back from her shoulder, breaking the connection between them with a sensation of mild static. The emotions of the others in the circle immediately swelled, and he had to take a deep breath to stabilize himself.
He'd missed whatever Pansy had said in response. Black took her hand, proclaiming something melodramatic about how much of a delight it was to finally meet her as himself.
The smile on his face shone genuine—as did Pansy's blush in response—and the falseness of it sickened him, the biting undercurrents of disdain and distaste still thick in Draco’s sinuses like a too-strong perfume.
He stepped forward as Pansy giggled, cutting between her and Black. "Why bother?"
Black's eyebrows rose to his forehead. "What?"
"Why bother showing up here?" Draco had to restrain himself to keep his mouth from twisting into an uncouth snarl. "Don't you have some light party to go to? Perhaps with a few more half-bloods to cavort with?
"Draco—!"
He pulled away from Pansy's attempt to tug him back, and was almost satisfied when Black's smile fell, pulling back into something grim and closed-off.
"You'd think you'd sound a little less disgusted at that; considering who you spent the last four years 'cavorting' with."
Draco's blood sparked hot. "If you think you can just show up here and replace him—"
The shadow of an almost smile that crossed Black’s face made Draco's rising urge to hex him swell even further. "I wouldn't think of trying.”
Draco wanted to put his hands around the other boy's throat and ask him precisely what was so funny. "What exactly do you think you’re doing here?" He gestured at their circle. "We're his friends. Not yours"
Black looked at him, slowly, eyes lazily sweeping up and down.
"My father wanted to come." He gave a slight nod in the direction of a group of socializing wizards and witches on the other side of the ballroom. "He wouldn't have admitted it, though, and he needed an excuse."
Draco let out an abrupt guffaw. "So you told him what? That you wanted to come make friends with all the kids you didn’t meet at Hogwarts while you were lying to us all?"
There was a spike of irritation, at that, but Black's returning expression hid it carefully behind a mask of bland pleasantness. "Exactly, dearest cousin. Won't you please consent to being friends? As a political gambit only, of course;" he added, teeth showing. "No strings attached."
There was a beat of silence, and the emotions of the group seemed to draw back like a low tide, momentarily stalled in shock and surprise. It only made room for the buzzing in Draco’s ears. "If I recall," he spat, "You were the one who asked him to risk his life for you so you could steal your fiancé's place at that trashy American school. What kind of strings did that take, may I ask?"
Black smirked back at him mirthlessly. "If you think what we did was my idea, you know him less than you think."
Draco's teeth ground together, and he opened his mouth for another retort, but Pansy put her hand on his shoulder again, her presence throbbing with warning. "Let's all calm down. There's no need to be uncivil."
Draco resented the way her eyes met his, specifically, though her words seemed to be directed at them both. He would have ignored it, had it not been for the accompanying sense of pleading he felt through her fingers. She wanted something from this; wanted it more than she would if she were only trying to preserve a suface-level facade of politeness, and it didn't take much thinking for him to realize exactly what that was.
She’d had a bit of a one-track mind, lately.
"We were really his friends," Blaise said quietly. "I don't know what you must think of us, but we did—do care about him."
Black looked Blaise in the eyes long enough to make Draco's skin prickle. "I'd like to believe that."
Beside Blaise, Theo's eyes burned. "You weren't at Hogwarts. You don't know anything about our friendship."
"Only what Rigel told me," said Black, his heavy gaze smoothly sliding onto Theo. "But I knew him."
He paused for a moment, eyes flicking over all of them. "And I could read between the lines. He may not have ever directly spoken ill of any of you, but it doesn't say anything good that he was so certain you'd hate him if you ever found out."
Pansy flinched.
A ball of ice crystallized in the pit of Draco's stomach.
Certain you'd hate him.
He wanted to look at Black in scorn, knowing for certain he was wrong, but it was far too easy to imagine.
He remembered the hard look in Rigel's eyes the last time he'd had seen him, when he'd told Draco their friendship had been a lie.
Pansy had talked him out of believing it. She'd told them that there had to have been something, that it made far more sense for that to be the lie rather than their entire four years together. But maybe it had held more truth than they'd thought.
That was just an elaborate lie, Draco. Rigel Black isn't real.
He'd cared about them. Draco was sure of it. But it made all too much sense that he would have thought they wouldn't care about him—the unnamed half-blood beneath the mask of Rigel Black—now that they knew the truth.
"I'm pretty sure all of us have said things we regret," Pansy said. "But that doesn't mean we didn't care."
Black's face was unreadable. "Good. But I'm not the one who needs to hear it."
It was that that finally made Draco snap.
"You think we don't want to tell him?" he practically shouted. "We’ve tried, we’ve done everything we can to find him, but he’s gone, Black!"
Black didn't even blink. "Put out a public statement," he snapped. "I'm sure, wherever he is, he still has access to the Daily Prophet."
"Our parents—"
"Deal with the consequences from your parents," he threw back, pausing again to glare at all of them. "I don't think you all understand that people like them are the reason he's on the run. If you really care, then do something about it. You all have power. Maybe you should try using some of it for once instead of prancing around trying to get him caught."
"We don't," Pansy said, voice wavering a little. "Not as much as you think."
Black's voice softened a little. "You do. I know it's hard to see it, but you do.”
The almost-fondness in Black's tone as he looked at Pansy made Draco's stomach tighten. Without the hard edges and artificial charm stripped away, he almost looked like—
—No.
“I had to have some of that awareness smacked into my head myself,” he continued. “And that was after spending four years of my life at a mixed-blood school with a Muggleborn best friend. But nothing's going to change unless we do something about it. And people will listen to us in ways they won't to people like Rigel."
"And what are you suggesting we change?" Draco said. "The rules about half-bloods at Hogwarts are there for a reason, Black. I want to protect Rigel, but lowering standards at Hogwarts won’t help."
Black just stared at him for a moment before shaking his head.
"Impossible," he muttered, snorting in disgust. "I should have known better than to try reasoning with you all."
He swiveled on his heel, and the edges of his cloak rippled in the air as he turned around. No one in the circle spoke as they watched him go, eyes locked on his retreating back.
From behind, he didn’t look like Rigel at all, his stride far too graceful as he stalked across the floor.
It only made sense, Draco thought dully. He was the real pureblood, afterall. Good breeding showed.
(He still missed Rigel's clomping, confident walk so much it ached)