Between the Lines We Drew

Prologue

There had never been a time in Aurora's life that wasn't, in some form, occupied by Draco Malfoy.
He was woven into the very fabric of her past. He was there in the moving photographs tucked away in her mother's leather bound albums, his pale hair shining alongside hers under the silver-framed glass. He was there in the polished halls of Malfoy Manor, where their childhood shoes had tracked mud across marble floors and their laughter had echoed off towering portraits.
He was there on cold Christmas mornings at the Manor, on hot summer afternoons when boredom drove them to wild broomstick races over the Quidditch pitch, and on the afternoons she had sworn never to speak to him again because he had stolen the last Cauldron Cake off her plate. That particular promise rarely survived the hour.
Their families were bound by bloodlines, money, and old magic; as children, the two were practically inseparable. Draco knew which sweets she hid beneath her pillow; Aurora knew precisely which slight shift in his posture meant he was truly angry, and which meant he was merely putting on a show. They spoke in a language built on years of shared silence and subtle, knowing glances.
When Hogwarts came, the transition was seamless. Sorted into Slytherin together, they moved through the dungeons as a paired set. While she became fiercely close with Nott, Zabini, and Parkinson, Aurora remained the softer edge of their inner circle patient where Draco was sharp, warm where he was cold. Yet somehow, the contrast held.
For years, that was the boundary of their world. Best friends. Nothing more.
There had been moments, of course a quiet crush Aurora had harbored deep in her second year for Draco, though nothing ever came of it because she kept it entirely to herself. And later, a Slytherin girl Draco had dated, who had realized early on that she would only ever have half his attention. But those were minor blips, quickly forgotten. They always gravitated back to center.
To each other.
Except people change. Sometimes so slowly the foundation shifts beneath your feet before you notice it moving.
By the summer before their sixth year, they spent more time apart than they ever had before. Aurora had spent the holidays traveling to visit her family's relatives, while Draco's family had separate plans of their own, leaving the two of them with only brief, scattered visits over the long months.
When Aurora finally stepped onto the Hogwarts Express into the dim, steam-filled corridor, she expected everything to be as it had always been.
They were still best friends. They had always been.
Yet as Draco looked up from his compartment seat and caught her eye, something unnamable hung heavily in the air between them and for the very first time, he found himself wondering when his constant companion had become someone he couldn't stop looking at.