𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐃𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐓| 𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐨 𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐟𝐨𝐲✔️

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐗|𝐆𝐎𝐃 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐒𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐍

MARA WILLIAMS

We stayed there, at the apex of the hill, staring out over the grounds that were blanketed in snow, until our lips turned blue and our fingers grew numb.

We warmed our aching limbs before the fire, blazing high to lick the hearth with its crimson tongues and casting the huge room in an orange hue.

His hair, damp from the snow, looked almost bronze in the light as we stared into the flames, the smell of smoke that I'd now grown to associate with Draco invading my senses.

Part of me hurt at the thought of the coming Christmas, as it meant that our days alone would be drawing to a close. I told myself to savour every moment, but we were already more half way through out time together and every second spent was one I wished I could live in forever.

Staring up at him caused a deep throb of pain somewhere deep within his chest, the agony of untold words. I couldn't even begin to articulate how I felt about the boy before me, the one with the wicked smile and and steady hands and every once in a while the kindness that glinted behind his eyes, no words were strong enough to describe this want inside of me.

We remained wordless, each far too deep in the mess of their own thoughts to break the comfortable silence that echoed between us. Flames curled to the sky like pleading hands, outstretched and desperately trying to grasp at the smoke only for it to slip between the fiery fingers.

After a long while Draco finally spoke, steady and sure as the ebbing tides, "...Mara, can I ask you something?"

"Of course." Already a knot balled in the pit of my stomach, and in some sick way I already knew what he was going to ask before the words even left his lips. Maybe if I hadn't have answered, maybe if I'd have just stayed silent then he would never ask and I'd never answer. We could just be, as we were, in peace and in the ignorant bliss of never knowing the secrets that lay beneath the hollow.

"You know your nightmares..." He turned to me with a softness I'd rarely seen in him, no cocky facade or dashing smirk to dull the edges of his painful question. "...What are they about?"

I felt my breath catch in my throat as the panic settled over me, but I pushed it down, forcing myself to remain present.
Forsaken by a cruel God we were left to figure these feelings out by ourselves, and there was only one way I could think to show Draco just how deeply I felt for him; trust.

I stared down at my hands, fiddling with the hem of the sweater he'd leant me to distract myself from the weight of his gaze. "Life wasn't so perfect before I met you..."

There was a breath that shuddered from my lips, all the while I was hoping he'd say something, anything, but he didn't. He stayed silent, waiting for me to continue.

"I used to live with my parents, at least until my mother died..." Her emerald eyes swam through my mind, along with her dulcet voice that sung me to sleep, but soon her voice faded, replaced by the roaring of the flames as my house was burned to the ground and my life torn apart before my eyes. "...After that I had to move out, and for a while I lived with a boy that I was stupid enough to think cared for me..."

I cleared my throat and looked up, "-And well, by the sounds of it you already know the rest."

I expected to see pity as I stared back at him, everybody that I'd ever told had looked at me as if I were some sort of kicked puppy. But I saw no condolence in his face, still soft, yet plagued by an emotion I couldn't quite decipher.

"No. I don't." He said quietly, as if admitting a great lie. He'd always claimed to know me, but that was impossible, no one truly did, I didn't even know myself anymore. "-I know what you did... But no one ever told me why."

I let out a humourless laugh, sharp and unforgiving. How could he say that as if it was any simpler than the articles portrayed. -Maybe I was just inherently evil and who was he to tell me otherwise? He didn't know me, not really. "Tell me what I did Draco." I said darkly, staring into the flames. "-Say it."

There was an uncomfortable shift in the air, the dichotomy of our wicked hearts aligning as he answered carefully. "...You used an unforgivable curse."

"Which one." The fire mirrored the angst that raged within side of me, a vile beast awakening within me to claw at my eyes and throat.

The whisper was so slight that a single breath and it would've been missed. "The Cruciatus Curse."

"Exactly!" Tears blurred my vision as I glared at him with every agony I had in my heart. "How can you know what I've done and still look at me like that?"

There was no use fighting grief, it would always win, one way or another. So instead I let it manifest within me, pulsing thick like tar through my veins to taint my aching heart with its bitter blackness, like a disease it consumed me.

"-Because, I know you're better than that!" He looked genuinely distraught. But I knew better, I'd lived a life of lies, I would not live another. I'd spent years trying to outrun my demons, but in a matter of moments I'd let them in, and now they were here to stay and I doubted I would ever be free.

He was a liar.

"-I'm not!" My voice broke with the weight of the world, the crushing guilt at my mother's death, the unending shame of a lover that chose to love another, the heavy fist of a father who's name was black as sin, and the betrayal of what he'd chose to become.
I was everything thing they'd ever said I was and worse. I was a coward.

The boy grabbed my shoulders, fingers biting into the skin and yet he didn't yield even as my eyes remained trained to the floor.

"You are! You're good!" There was a pain in his voice I'd never heard before, the torment inside of him struggling to surface, and he held me tightly as he spoke his misery. "-Mara Williams I've never met anyone as good as you..."

"Now look at me..." Gentle fingers slid under my chin, forcing me to face him. Forcing me to witness every sullen cry he'd ever wept in his eyes. "Don't you dare say something like that ever again."

Those were the words to tear me in two, to break me so irreversibly and unconditionally. I let him hold me in his arms as I poured my soul out in tears before him, no longer caring if he thought me weak.
I didn't care about anything anymore.

There was no more holding back as I showed him every scared inch of my bitter heart.
My breaths where shallow and raged, raw with every untold agony, his arms were wrapped firmly around me like the strong walls I'd spent so many years building, and if he where to let go... I would surely fall apart.
The fragments of my heart would shatter like tiny glass splinters, wounding me from the inside out.

My pain was not physical anymore, in a way it would've been easier if it was. This was a whole new world of trauma, and every day was just as horrid and aching as the last.
Torn flesh would heal to leave scars, time would serve to soothe the spilling of blood but time did little to dull the heartache.

Guttural sobs were only fractured by the words that fell from my lips, held in and guarded for so long I'd hardly notice them slip out until it was too late.
"Draco, he hurt me."

Strong arms held me tighter to his chest, and I could hear every wretched beat of his heart that was just as broken as mine as he said all he could.
-And yet somehow it was enough. He was enough. He was the light of the stars to lead me from this unending night. "I know."

***
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-TFOA