the sweetest con [d.m]

nineteen

The Aurors step aside for her, some bowing their heads as she takes those last steps towards the grave. Another flash of white — more bone — and by the time she's taken the last step to the edge of the drop, the entire skeleton comes into view.

She's curled up — like she'd tried to hide as the earth had come down on her. Turned in on herself like that could've saved her.

Mavi can't do this. She's going to throw up.

But she has to. She has to. She has to do this — once and for all.

She forces herself to look. There's nothing recognisable left — no hair, no skin, not even a trace of muscle or a tendon. Just faded white bone — stained light brown with soil and disintegrating.

Mavi looks closer. It takes twelve seconds — exactly twelve — and then it catches her eye. And it makes Mavi's world shatter into a million little pieces, never to be fixed again.

A gift — Here, Mavicim. Now we're matching — and one Mavi still wears around her own ankle. She can feel it acutely against her skin now, seeming to tingle — so close to its counterpart for the first time in over a decade.

An anklet, silver and glittering, as if waving to Mavi after all these years.

———

He watches her as she drops to her knees, sobbing. As she grips at the soil with her hands, her strangled scream enough to scare off the birds in the trees.

He watches her cry for her mother — like a young child would, pleading and begging, calling for her. She nearly crawls into the grave herself — but Deiji hauls her back, tears streaking her own face.

And Draco does nothing. He doesn't go over to her. He doesn't comfort her. He doesn't say a word to her as she cries and screams and thrashes, begging for her mother, begging for it not to be her.

He only turns to Vera standing beside him. "It's her," he says, his voice blank. "Have the bones brought in."

She nods, eyes fixed on Mavi, sympathy flickering in them. He's never seen Vera look sympathetic in her life.

Draco takes one last look at Mavi. She's gone limp, on her knees in the soil, Deiji kneeling beside her, arms wrapped around her to hold her back.

Her eyes, red and wet, stay locked on the remains of her mother — on the anklet glimmering in the soil. Her face is haggard and exhausted like all the fight has been sucked out of her.

Draco aches to help her. To hold her. To gather her up into his arms and take her back to the Manor. To lay her down and slide into bed next to her. To turn his face into her hair and pull her into him, wrapping himself around her until she falls asleep. Until she forgets. Until she wakes up, safe and sound, in his arms.

But he can't have any of that. So he leaves her behind and Apparates away.

———

She cries alone in her room for a long time.

She doesn't have the heart to tell her father — but when she finally does, red-eyed and exhausted, he only lets out a long breath. Like he'd been expecting this. Like he'd known all along.

And when a tear traces down his cheek, Mavi climbs into the bed and curls up next to him like a child spooked by a nightmare.

She doesn't dare close her eyes, knowing all she'll see is decimated bones and a small, glittering anklet.