the sweetest con [d.m]

eighteen

But they seem to be levitating out the dirt, six or seven Aurors working in unison. Draco can hear Aumutage laughing from the front of the lodge, probably bound and being watched by Deiji and the others.

And then his bracelet begins to cool.

There's only pure raw pain, barrelling through his muscles and making him lunge forward, trying to shove the Aurors aside. They force him back, chanting their spells and removing soil faster than he ever could've — but it's no use. It's no use if she's gone, if she's stopped breathing, if the bracelet has stopped burning.

Please. Hold on, Mavi. Hold on. I'm here. Please don't leave. Please, I—

Her face appears — but the soaring hope that flashes through him is quickly doused.

Her face is blue.

Only a tinge — but how many times has he seen that colour in his career? How many times has he seen victims strangled to death, suffocated — with that very same tinge of blue under their skin?

He was too late. He was too late, he let her down and he can't breathe, can't suck in a sliver of air as he stumbles back after that first glimpse. As he falls to his knees again and stares at the grass in front of him.

They're shouting around him, gesturing for the Healers to come forward, lifting her limp body out of the ground. Draco watches — in a trance — as they lower her onto the ground a couple feet from him.

She's still dressed in blue — that pretty baby blue sundress she'd bought with Nezryn and Nadia. She'd showed it off to Draco with a twinkle in her eye the day she'd bought it — and he'd cornered her against the wall outside his study a moment later and kissed her senseless.

Her hands are still bound, fingers of her right hand shoved under the thick ropes to touch the bracelet on her left. She's covered in dirt. It's smeared across her bare skin, staining her cheeks, clumps gathered on her eyelashes. Thin rivers of blood wind down her arms, staining her palms. She must've been dragged across the earth.

He needs her to open her eyes. He needs to see that dark shade of brown — the colour he'd deciphered so long ago on the night they'd snuck into the library. The colour he'd studied underneath rays of sunlight and moonlight, in rain and snow. The colour he'd woken up to every morning for those few weeks that they'd lost themselves in each other — before he'd fucked it all up.

He's failed her. He was supposed to protect her. He put her in this situation — and now she's gone. Limp and lifeless, lying in front of him — yet she's never been farther away.

Mavi means blue and she's in that blue dress and her face is blue. It seems the colour has followed her throughout her life — from birth to death.

Draco twists and throws up onto the grass.

———

There's only peace as she drifts through nothingness.

A gentle caress of a hand — her mother's. She can hear the jingle of bracelets, the smell of berries surrounding her in a gentle, comforting cocoon.

She's never felt closer to her. Since her mother went missing, all Mavi has done is mourn her loss — but now, she's never felt more connected to her  She can even hear her mother's soft voice, always soft-spoken, always kind.

Mavi wants to stay here — wherever this is. In blissful darkness, surrounded by nothing and everything all at once, within memories of her mother. She's tired of fighting, tired of having to be strong to survive.