Sapphire (Lazuli Book #3) - Harry Potter Fan Fiction (Draco Malfoy)

Chapter Fourteen

Sunlight poured through the windows and slowly enticed me out of sleep, persuading me gently to open my eyes and prepare myself again for the day ahead.

I looked to the man whose chest my head was rested against, and whose arm was protectively wrapped around my shoulders. Draco's chest rose and fell as he slept, his face relaxed and calm in sleep in a way that it never was when he was awake these days.

I looked at the beautiful diamond ring on my left forefinger as I did every morning, and let out an exasperated sigh. It had been nearly three months since Draco had put it there, and I'd become used to thinking of him as my fiancé now. We lived together; I cleaned the house whilst he would cook the meals, and I was as in love with him now as I had ever been. It was like we were married already.

Except the life we lived was a lot different, and a lot harder, than either of us had anticipated.

Once a week, the demand for a potion would come in. Once a week, I was torn away from the blissful world Draco and I shared at the cottage and forced to trek up to the manor, where the Dark Lord's instructions would be waiting. Some days, the potions he asked me to make were relatively normal - invisibility draughts, polyjuice potion, and generally things that would make it easier for his Death Eaters to go about their work. Potions like that I could easily wipe from my conscience, since I had no idea what they were going to be used to do. But it was the other ones, the dark potions no potioneer should ever make, that haunted my sleep and plagued my every thought.

I was ordered to make potions which would deprive people of their wits, burn their insides and slowly torture to extents that the Cruciatus curse looked like a blessing. Those were the potions that would keep me up at night, guilt driving me to near insanity as I wondered who they would be used on. Muggle-borns, half-breeds, maybe even a few unfortunate muggles who had been unfortunate enough to come into the Dark Lord's path. I hated myself for condemning innocent people to such fates; despised myself for being so selfish as to put myself and Draco before those others. I tried to tell myself that the next time I went up to the house, I would tell them that I'd changed my mind, that I wouldn't continue to make their potions any longer.

Then I'd take out as many of the Death Eaters as I could before they killed me.

The engagement ring Draco had given me was beautiful - a pear-shaped, light-blue diamond set on a white gold band, with smaller clear diamonds on the prongs and holding the largest jewel in place. It was the most stunning and perfect ring I'd ever seen; when Draco had opened the white satin box to show me, I'd known then and there was it was as if it were made for me.

I stared at the glittering piece of jewellery on my finger and let out a deep, contented sigh. Draco still slept peacefully beneath me, and so I was quiet and gentle as I slowly entangled myself out of the covers and stood up, grabbing the shirt that Draco had discarded onto the floor last night and pulling it on to cover myself. Grabbing my wand from the bedside table, I slowly pulled the heavy wooden door open and crept out on the landing, shutting it and leaving my sleeping prince to peace behind.

I padded downstairs, rubbing my eyes as I entered the living room. With a flick of my wand, the curtains opened and arranged themselves neatly, the empty tea cups from the table lifted into the air and zoomed into the kitchen behind me.

With a sigh, I opened the fridge and stared for a few moments, before grabbing a packet of bacon and shutting the fridge door with my foot as I grabbed a frying pan from the rack above the muggle contraption called a 'toaster' that Draco was particularly fond off. Humming the new Weird Sisters song to myself as I lit the stove and began to fry the rashers of bacon, I busied myself with preparing breakfast for both myself and Draco, whilst trying not to remember that today was one of the days when I was required up at the house.