𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐃𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐓| 𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐨 𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐟𝐨𝐲✔️

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄|𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖

DRACO MALFOY

Cold breaths spiralled to the sky like weightless clouds, carrying with them all the words we thought but never dared speak, shuddering from the parted lips of which they fled. A certain crimson tint stained her cheeks despite the cold, a strange warmth in this world of ice and frost.

"Are you sure you're not too cold?"

She still shivered, even when wearing two knit jumpers and my thickest winter coat, but she grit her teeth and persisted, too proud to admit otherwise, "I already said, I'm fine... How the hell aren't you freezing?"

"Guess I'm just cold blooded." I laughed, admiring the way she wrapped the coat around herself, burying her nose beneath the emerald scarf and closing her eyes with a blissful inhale, savouring the scent of me.

I envied the snow the same way she stared at the stars, a kind of comfort in this empty oblivion, blanketing the land beneath an unwelcoming layer of ice. And though she might deny it, I knew she liked it too, I could tell my the way she dragged her feet through the snow, watching the way her footfalls tore through the canvas, leaving deep scars.

"...Not that I'm cold or anything, but how much further?" She groaned, her voice muffled by the thick scarf. She looked good in green, so much so that it caused a pang of pain within my chest, the Slytherin colours perfectly matching her piercing eyes. "It feels like we've been walking for years!"

"Mara it's been twenty minutes... And not much further, it's just over there." I said pointing off in the distance, causing her to groan dramatically and start kicking up the snow like a child, deliberately aiming it at the back of my legs so that half of it went down my boots.

"Do you mind?" I scowled at her but that only made her grin, in that heart stopping, stomach churning kind of way. She was unlike anything I'd ever seen before, with her mess of thick raven hair, slight cheek bones cast in an unholy light by the sun and emerald eyes that glinted with mischief.
-She looked ethereal, something close to godly.

"No, not really." She sang as she skipped past me, kicking up more snow as she disappeared off to the side, behind the tree line.

"Wait Mara, you're going the wrong way!" I called after but it was too late, she had already gone. "Slow down!"

This girl would be the death of me yet, and didn't she damn well know it.

It was almost like the wanted to ruin me, and I'd let her, every single time, I'd beg for the blasphemy, I would willingly light the fire to burn us all if it meant one moment alone with her.

I'd never felt this way before, not even close, and in a way it terrified me to feel so entirely weak before another. I had bared her my soul, every aching inch of it, and in return she'd bore me hers, yet somehow I worried that at any given moment she'd leave me, taking with her the parts of myself I'd never given to anyone before.

"Mara?" The shout echoed in this world of white, and yet beyond the reverberations of my own voice there was only silence. Not a sound stirred beyond the mouth of the woods, and it was as if even the trees themselves had held their breath.

I felt my heart plummet into the pit of my stomach as the realisation hit me. Only the sharp whisper of the wind was there to answer my call with a chilling cry of its own.
-She had gone. She was gone.

Or at least that was what I thought until something frightfully cold came slamming into the back of my head and I span around instantly, only to hear her shriek of laughter as she sprinted off again.

Had she seriously just thrown a snowball at me?

When a second came whizzing inches from my shoulder, only missing as I ducked behind a tree, I called out to her, "Mara come on. What are you, ten?"

"-Twelve actually." I heard her giggle from somewhere off to the left and I looked over, right as a snowball hit me square in the face.

The cruel frost slipped its way down my neck to invade the warmth of my coat and I groaned, muttering a string of curses as I wiped it from my face. "...Right that's it. You asked for it."

There was a flash of black against the ice as she darted out from behind a tree, disappearing off up the hill and I sprinted after her, swiping the snow off of the limb of a tree as I ran, compacting it into a perfect sphere before launching it at her.

It collided with the back of her head with a satisfying thud and a cry, "-You dick!"

And a moment later she was gone again, and I was left roaming the forest in search of the devilish girl. "You can't hide forever Mara," I called into the void, "You've got to come out sooner or later..."

It was then with a satisfied smirk that I noticed the footprints... I followed them to the apex of the hill, to the small clearing I'd intended to show her in the first place, it was the only place that you could look over the entirety of the manor grounds, but now she'd discovered it all on her own, and she stood there motionless, staring out over the horizon.

The wind lapped at her hair, stealing the breath from my lungs as I moved wordlessly to stand besides her. Her soft lips parted slightly to allow out a whisper that shook with the weight of the world.
"It's beautiful..."

I couldn't help but stare at her. I couldn't tear my eyes away. I was transfixed by her, completely and utterly under her spell.
She was entirely devastating. Like heaven and hell and everything holy in between, a kind of consecrate beauty, so foreign and perfect that even heaven itself would bow before her.
She was the only sanctity in this land of spite and sin, standing steady like the last remaining shreds of humanity in this world that otherwise threatened to tear me apart. "...Yeah, it is."

Mara turned to me with a fire in her eyes, alight with that childish innocence no hardship could dampen. She was enough to make a God kneel.
But it was then I noticed the snowball in her hand that raised towards me, and I acted instinctively, closing the distance between us and tackling her to the ground.

"-I win." I said smirking as she thrashed beneath me and I pinned her by her wrists to the snow.
"Draco that's not fair!" She cried, and the way she said my name alone had my heart pounding out of my chest. "-That's cheating!"

I stared down at her as she stilled, and though she tried to scowl, a wry smile soon broke through the cross facade as she cocked her head, "What? Why are you looking at me like that."

An eternity would not be long enough to spend with her, to tell her all the things I wanted so desperately to but could never bring myself to speak out loud.
-Maybe it was because by saying them aloud there was a certain finality to it, I would never be able to take back what I had said. The words thrown irretrievably into the empty space between us, and I wasn't sure I could handle it if she didn't feel the same. I'd rather live in this ignorance, never knowing as opposed to the certainty of her rejection.
Or maybe because saying aloud would make it real, if I told her exactly how I felt then there was no turning back. I could carry on, pretending that I felt nothing as I looked into her wide eyes, but that would be the greatest lie of all.

"No reason..." I whispered, the echo of the words wrapping around us as I pressed my lips to hers and it felt as though the world around us had ceased to exist.

***
QOTD-If you're enjoying HDLS so far then make sure to watch out for my NEW 🤠TOM RIDDLE🤠 fanfic coming soon! Already available to add to your reading lists, just click on my profile and it's called "THE AGONY OF LOVING YOU"
-TFOA