It should have been obvious that Preya, a strange little community that was almost like a magical snowglobe in which you could never escape once you got inside, would be too small for the two of them and that inevitably they would run into each other. It was hubris, really, to think that if it were to happen he'd be alright and he could just flick him off and be on his merry way.
He'd thought seeing him on the network would be bad enough, but bumping into him just brought all of everything back to the surface.
Salazar, but he hated him. The wind might have blown cold around him but the hatred swirled soothingly around him like a loving embrace. They'd been friends what felt like a lifetime ago. Mates since their Sorting, Theodore the only non-clotpole friend that Malfoy had had, the voice of reason that wasn't a simpering yes-idiot. But even back then Nott had thought Malfoy was an idiot. Course he was, moaning on about Saint Potter and his friends and his Broomstick, and blah, blah, blah.
Sure, he and Malfoy had always been different. Draco was destined to follow in his father's footsteps, one way or the other, he was vocal and opinionated and very much the opposite of Theo in many ways. Theodore was withdrawn, kept to his studies, was fiercely loyal and protective of his family's beliefs and very proudly out and gay, something which his father and even the Pureblood community had respected due to his family's history.
The hatred of Potter, their fathers both being Death Eaters, the fact they were both classmates, it was these various things that kept them good mates in school, but it came to a head in seventh year around the time of the War when the Malfoys became outcast by the Pureblood community as blood traitors. And maybe it was childish and a little immature for Theo to hate Draco simply because he escaped all that, he and his family got out. But that was exactly it. Theodore's only father wasn't long for this world after the war anyway, he was old and crippled with disease, he went into the last war knowing that it was his last hurrah. But he didn't even need to go to Azkaban, he was withered, pretty much bedridden, could barely eat or talk and Theodore was perfectly prepared to care for him in the short time that he had left on his earth.
But the Ministry, the Aurors, the fucking Order, the last dregs of Dumbledore's Army, he blamed anyone he could, because they saw the criminal as a criminal and not as a human, not as a father who could barely lift a feather let alone a wand, and refused to relinquish him to Theodore's care. So he died in Azkaban without even being able to say goodbye to Theodore.
So Theo was angry and hurt at Draco because he got his family. And because Draco had been his friend once upon a time. And once upon a time he'd felt something a little more than that, and he hated himself for feeling that same flicker of something when he saw that stupid handsome face. Damn him.
"I would have apologised to her," he sneered, smirking proudly, "but not to you. The Hell you off to in such a hurry anyway? Tea party at Potter's place?" He could have come up with a better line than that, he was sure, but he was still smarting from losing his cigarette.