Potter? || Draco Malfoy x Reader

» 75 «

I couldn't think straight. I still couldn't think straight.

Harry and I had stayed at the order just for a few days after the events, knowing we couldn't just go back to Hogwarts, attend classes and do homework like nothing had happened.

I didn't cry once. Whenever I thought back to the moment, I felt nothing; I was absolutely numb, and was starting to wonder whether there was something wrong with me. But Lupin told me everyone grieved differently, and there was, in fact, nothing wrong with me, at all.

Lupin and Tonks insisted on staying with us until we felt ready to go back home. And while it was nice of them, it quickly turned out being here without Sirius wasn't much better than being anywhere else without him.

Harry and I decided to leave two days after.

And now my heart was pounding in my chest, and I felt sick walking into the castle. Knowing everyone here had seen the papers, read the headlines, and listened to the stories being told. Knowing I'd have to explain myself to anyone who asked tomorrow morning.

I couldn't stand the attention it had cast on me. Harry was used to this, but I definitely wasn't, which is why I insisted on coming back at night, past curfew. Dumbledore let me.

Harry had made his way here hours before me, but I didn't mind. That way, the students could throw their curious glances his way and bombard him with questions, and maybe I'd get off without having to go through any of it. Maybe that's why he did in the first place; he knew how much I hated attention.

I wandered along the corridors towards the dungeons, feeling oddly at peace once I had stepped a foot into Hogwarts. Everything I had was here. It was home.

It was a day before the password to the common room would change again, so, luckily I didn't have to knock on Snape's door to ask for it, instead just mumbling the words and waiting for the wall to open up.

I sighed as I stepped through the opening, ready to get back to my own dorm and hide out until the morning to spend some time with Wren.

We could skip classes, walk around the grounds with a comfortable silence hanging over us, and just enjoy each others presence.

I completely neglected the figure still in the common room, too focused on my thoughts to do so. Though, their voice sure caught my attention.

"Y/n."

I stopped in my tracks, taking my time to turn around to match the face with the voice.

"What are you doing up?" I asked reserved, swallowing thickly as I looked right into Draco's piercing grey eyes. The eyes that reminded me so much of his father, and what he had said. And what he was responsible for.

"But seducing the only family Potter has left; getting so close to you you'd run to Draco as soon as anything happens. That's a true Malfoy's doing."

I shook my head vigorously to get rid of the memory, walking towards the blonde until I was standing right in front of him.

"I figured you'd be back when I heard your brother was. I thought it was worth a shot to stay up." He shrugged, not taking his eyes off mine.

I furrowed my brows at how nonchalantly he was speaking, and before I fully realised what I was doing, my hand moved up to his cheek almost automatically, hitting it hard enough for his face to give in and fall to the side.

Shocked, he snapped his head back to look at me, rubbing his cheek with his hand. My facial expression stayed blank, and I didn't move an inch. Even when his jaw clenched, and his brows furrowed in anger.

"What the fuck?"

"Are you happy now?" I asked suddenly, finally feeling myself let go of the walls I had build around my emotions. They crumbled one by one; slowly allowing the anger, the grief, the betrayal, and whatever else had accumulated over the past week, to slip. "Are you proud of yourself, Malfoy? Seducing the only family Potter has left?" I mocked his father's words, feeling sick when I heard them come out of my own mouth.

My breath grew heavier, waiting for him to say something, anything, but he wasn't moving a single muscle in his body. He just stood there, staring at me, his brows still slightly furrowed.

"Do you feel accomplished now that you've done it?" I shouted, feeling myself grow angrier by the second. Tears welling up in my eyes out of sheer frustration. "Now that you have her where you want her? Now that she's comfortable around you? Now that she likes you?"

The words slipped out of my mouth before I could stop them, but I didn't regret them in the slightest. After this conversation was over, I would never speak a word to him, anyway.

"You're a nightmare, Draco Malfoy!" I continued, my voice loud. "To think I was naive enough, enough of a fucking idiot, to think you could actually be a decent human being sometimes. Harry was right this whole time. Merlin, that's embarrassing. You're just-" I rambled on, groaning in between sentences, and trying to find the right words to portray my anger. He interrupted me.

"I care about you, Y/n."

"You don't have the right to interrupt me right n- what?" I was so angry, I didn't even listen to what he was saying, only registering his words seconds after. I tilted my head slightly when I did, my mouth closing slowly.

"I care about you so fucking much," He repeated a little louder than the first time, his eyes glued to my own, not daring to break the eye contact we held.

My breath hitched slightly, hopefully not loud enough for him to hear.

"You don't get to say that," I whispered lowly, my head shaking in denial. "No, you don't get to say that after what your father told me. I know you know what I'm talking about."

He scoffed, grey eyes still piercing into mine as he stepped closer to me. So close, I had to tilt my head up to continue looking at him. "I can't help it if it's the truth," He said.

"You've never cared much for the truth, Draco," I reminded him, my chest rising and falling heavily.

"I do now."

His fingers traced the outline of my face gently. He had never touched me this way before, treating me like I was fragile enough to break under his fingertips. "I don't blame you for believing what he said to you. And I don't deny telling him exactly that, either."

He sighed once. "Only for him to back off, of course. You've met him now... He can be very, how do I put this, intense." He shook his head at his choice of words. "I just didn't want him meddling with anything."

I thought hard and long about what he said. Hoping I wasn't making a huge mistake in believing him. I nodded slowly, and I felt my pulse picking up at the motion before he overcame the few inches separating us from each other.

Gently, he began to move his lips against mine, sighing into the kiss as soon as I reciprocated the movement. My stomach turned at the feeling of his lips on mine, his body so close to mine; when ten minutes ago, I thought I'd never experience any of that again.

And I smiled softly, his lips still on mine-a small, genuine smile. The first one since Sirius died.

I felt myself completely melting into the kiss, savouring every moment of it like it would be the last. But it wouldn't be; there were so many more to come.

There was more to come.

✧ End of year 5. ✧