✓ | RECKLESS AND BRAVE | Draco Malfoy

75 | WABI-SABI

     Sebastian only grinned, mischief glinting in his turquoise eyes. "One of the perks of having poison in my blood, is that I learned I don't have to stay as human to still have it."

     Draco blinked stupidly. "I don't follow."

     Sebastian rolled his eyes. "What creature is perhaps one of the most poisonous in the world?"

     Draco stared at him blankly for a moment before realization dawned on him. A snort left him as he covered his mouth to conceal his laughter. "Don't tell me — you can turn in to a poison dart frog?"

     "Indeed I can," Sebastian said proudly, crossing his arms.

     Draco put his forefinger and thumb close together with barely any space between. "Do you even get as big as an inch?" he asked, wheezing slightly between laughs.

     Sebastian glared pointedly and sniffed. "Be quiet, child, I can kill you in your sleep without so much as a blink."

     Draco was still laughing, hands on his knees as his shoulders shook with mirth. It's been a long time since he's laughed this hard — the last when he was with Tessa and Theo altogether. It made him feel light and warm inside, and he missed that feeling — he missed her.

     Sebastian said dryly, "Laugh all you want — but if you choke, the tables shall turn."

     Draco didn't choke on his own laughs. He broke off gasping in immense pain that blinded him for a moment. Indescribable agony filled him all over as he crumpled to the ground, panting as sweat trickled down his brow.

     "What's wrong?" Sebastian asked, by his side at once as he held Draco by the shoulders to stable him. "Is it — ?"

     "Tessa," he rasped out, hands flying up to his throat that burned. "She's in pain — she's throwing up." He groaned in torment, hands clutching his stomach as he curled to his side. "I don't know what's happening — but whatever she did hurt her a lot."

     "Get up," Sebastian said, throwing Draco's arm over his shoulders. "I'm taking you to Madam Pomfrey."

     Stumbling over his feet, Draco grunted in pain. "You'll he caught — I'll go alone."

     "Shut up and put your bloody feet to work or I'll drag you there myself," he snapped. "I'd very much prefer I didn't leave this country knowing I'd left someone's mate dying on the floor in misery."

     Draco huffed as they stepped out of the threshold of the trophy room. "I'm not dying — "

     "Be quiet."

     "Okay."

ϟ ϟ ϟ ϟ

Tessa was gasping for air, struggling to breathe into her lungs that burned terribly. Her vision turning back to her half-perfect half-blurry sight, vertigo hit her like a tidal wave, and Tessa barely had any time to turn to the side and hurl her guts out.

She was crying out in agony, a hand pressed to her sides that seemed to be on fire as she continued to vomit into the earth. With a shuddering gasp of breath that filled her greedy lungs, she sat up away from her vomit and glanced around while clutching her sides.

Green and gold covered her everywhere — the trees of the forest seemed to be wherever she looked. Turning to the others, Tessa's heart stopped when she found Ron covered in blood with Hermione on her hands and knees by his head.

"RON!" Tessa shouted, stumbling to get up as she hurried to his side. She dropped to her knees by him, wincing at the pain that shot up her side.