the boy who had no choice [d.m]

𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖙𝖞 𝖘𝖎𝖝

He looked at her finally for the first time since he'd started talking. His eyes fell on the tear on her cheek, on the ones brimming her eyes.

He pushed off the railing, came to stand in front of her. "It's okay. It happened a long time ago."

"Eight years," Elara whispered, her throat constricted. "You've been living with this for eight years?"

Draco's eyes were a dark silver as he gazed down at her. "She retreated into her shell after it happened. She used to -" He let out a soft sigh. "She used to smile so much. Now she always looks - haunted."

Elara recalled the look she'd seen multiple times now in Draco's eyes. When he'd cried into her neck in the sixth floor bathroom, when she'd been about to tell him she loved him on the counter in his bathroom, when she'd been leaving him in the library and when she'd given in and gone back to him and finally told him how much she loved him.

Haunted. And tragic.

Draco Malfoy had been torn apart by the very same event Narcissa Malfoy had been broken by. Mother and son, destined to be haunted together - forever.

"Don't," he murmured, catching one of her tears with his thumb and pressing a kiss to another one. "You asked so I answered. It's okay."

"How are you comforting me?" Elara let out a watery laugh

"I meant what I said," Draco said, softly, his hands moving away from her face and down to bring her right hand up, pressing his palm against hers, the other resting on the railing by her side. "You make it easier for me to breathe - to live with the things that happened and try - try - to be better."

He looked at their hands, pressed against each other and she saw his eyes focus on the ring on her index finger - the one that had used to be his mother's and that was now hers.

He intertwined their fingers, leaving a kiss against the ring, and the breath evaporated from Elara's chest.

He met her eyes. "I don't want you to hate me."

"I would never," Elara replied, immediately, her vision blurring at the raw emotion in his voice. "I love you."

Draco's eyes flickered and his throat bobbed - he always seemed to be shaken whenever she said it.

"Promise me you'll never stop," he said and his eyes were suddenly tragic again, dim and heartbreaking.

The air seemed to drop a few degrees, the city below them hushed in the early beginnings of morning. The sun wouldn't rise for another few hours, the moon still high in the sky.

Draco's hand tightened over hers, his dragon ring pressed against her snake one as she said, "I promise."

He looked at her for a moment longer, tensed, expecting her to take it back before his body relaxed and he blew out a breath, the slightest tremor in his fingers.

She shut her eyes when he dropped her hand and cupped her face, pressed his thumbs into her cheekbones, tilting her head up.

Her voice was edged when she spoke. "I want to kill him - whoever he is."

"Me first," Draco whispered, a ghost against her lips, before his mouth met hers, soft and inviting, a gentle, reassuring caress.

She shivered under his touch, reaching up to fist the front of his shirt, and his fingers tangled in her hair, the other sliding down to push under her sweater and rest on her bare waist.

"I love you," she said again, mumbling it against his lips, and he shuddered at the words, tilting his head to the side to kiss her harder. "I swear I do."