It can never be the same

Chapter 16

Warnings: panic attack, violence, mentions of blood

When Draco was a little boy and he used to get upset or bored, he'd escape to the gardens behind the manor. He'd lie in between the daffodils planted in honour of his mother and stare up at the sky, creating great and fantastical images out of the clouds. The daffodils were planted in an area sectioned off by hedges; it was almost like a mini garden within the gardens. Sometimes, he'd lie there for hours, just listening to the leaves sway in the gentle breeze before his mother would come find him and bring him inside in time for dinner.

Eventually his parents put a bench there for him to sit on instead of him having to lie on the ground but he preferred it that way. He had become accustomed to lying down in his special spot in the gardens; it was more comfortable to him. He could only really enjoy that spot during warmer weather but he still liked to lay there in the colder months - until it became too cold for his mother to allow such a thing.

Daffodils signified the end of Winter, the end to the miserable, cold, dreary months, as they were one of the first flowers to bloom in Spring. The flowers must've been well passed the stages of blooming since March had turned to late April.

Draco found himself longing to be lying between the daffodils again.

Maybe one day he could go to his special spot again, one day when his home wasn't filled with death eaters. Maybe one day he could bring his love to lie between the daffodils with him. A day like that would be far into the future or maybe a day like that would never exist at all.

The task of fixing the Vanishing Cabinet was really wearing him down and he knew it was wearing Y/n down too. Progress was slow, even with the help of the books Y/n's father had sent them, and they had hardly been able to meet up on Saturdays anymore. Her beloved Captain had added another day for Quidditch practice because of the upcoming match in May. Guess which day that happened to be?

So, she would come to help him with the Vanishing Cabinet whenever she could but her schedule was pretty packed - as was his but he had taken to spending every spare moment he could in the Room of Requirement again. He pretended not to notice Y/n's concerned gaze when she realised what he was doing.

It was just that he couldn't take the waiting anymore. He wanted to be done with this task. He wanted his mother's safety and his safety to be guaranteed. Ideally, he would drag her along with him but he knew that she would never agree. Why would she ever want to go anywhere with him anyway?

Yet, things seemed to be slowly improving between them lately, not that he should want them to. He should've been keeping her at a distance but that wasn't what he was doing at all. He looked for her in every class, in every corridor, every time he was in the Great Hall, he even looked for her when he needed his nightmares to turn into the sweetest dreams.

He tried to give off an indifferent demeanor but it never seemed to work. His whole existence yearned for hers at any given time of the day and his soul would finally be soothed once they were in the Room of Requirement together, existing in their own world. His sunshine, made his numbest, dullest days bright by just walking into the room.

She didn't know any of this, of course, for all intents and purposes he was keeping her at arms length - she didn't need to know how much he struggled with doing that. He could see the question in her eyes though, the confusion because he refused to talk to her outside of the Room of Requirement. Their relationship was improving but their relationship only existed on the seventh floor, in a room most of the students at Hogwarts didn't know existed.