𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐃𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐓| 𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐨 𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐟𝐨𝐲✔️

𝐅𝐈𝐅𝐓𝐘𝐓𝐖𝐎| 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐒&𝐒𝐈𝐍

DRACO MALFOY

My heart thundered in my chest, only one question echoing throughout my mind over and over and over again. Where was she?

I felt sick to my stomach as I stared down at the blood on my hands, the blood of a boy who had looked up and me and begged for mercy. Of course he deserved none. Every strike he deserved and more, yet the way she had looked at me in that moment was enough to make me question myself, eyes wide and filled with the one thing I had never wanted to see from her. Fear.

It was only for a moment, but even so I would never forget it, the image of her standing there, I saw it even now, every time I closed my eyes. What had I become?

She had looked at me as if I were a stranger, a monster, something entirely foreign and so far removed from who she had spent her nights with beneath the stars, staring out over the land and wishing that the moment would never end.

-But it had, and the moment we had left the manor we had been sent crashing back down to reality.

I heard her before I saw her as I neared the fifth floor and relief flooded my chest as I rounded the corner to see her. -But then I saw him too and the way he looked at her, like a dog would meat.

• • •

MARA WILLIAMS

"Draco..." I breathed, a feeling of dread settling in the pit of my stomach. "-What are you doing here?"

"I was looking for you." His eyes flickered between Cedric and I but there was no kindness behind them, only the vile bite of jealousy clutching at the last threads of his resolve as he sneered. "-I wanted to check you were alright."

"She's fine, you can go." Cedric placed a firm hand on my shoulder, staring him down and when he didn't move he added. "-Don't you think you've caused enough damage already."

Without warning Draco snapped and launched at Cedric, easily pinning him to the wall with his forearm firmly against the Hufflepuff boy's throat, "What the fuck do you think you're playing at?" He hissed, ignoring my shouts entirely as I pleaded with them to stop.

"Why can't you just leave her be?" Cedric's face contorted into an almost mocking smile, "-She doesn't want you Draco and you damn well know it, just let her go already."

It all happened so fast, Draco punched Cedric, triggering an all out brawl between the two.

Fists flew, skin split, and all I could do was close my eyes, praying that when I opened them again it would all be over. I had witnessed a lifetime of violence, and seen first hand the devastation that came from it, my every waking moment fuelled by the fear of the strike. For a while I thought I had escape it by coming to Hogwarts, now I realised I was wrong.

"Draco stop!" Blaise a familiar voice rang out and when I opened my eyes he was already pulling him away, "He's not worth it!"

"What's the matter..." Cedric crawled to his feet, wiping his lip with the back of his sleeve as he spat blood. "-She didn't like that daddy was a Death Eater?"

"Draco don't!" I yelled, throwing myself between the two as he thrashed against Blaise's arms, willing to rip the Hufflepuff boy apart.

His eyes fell upon me for a God forsaken second, and I feared my legs would buckle beneath the weight of his hatred. He knew what we had done, I could see it in every aching line of his face. Draco let out a sneer as Cedric began to walk away, clutching at his nose to stem the blood flow. "Let me know how my dick tastes, Diggory."

"What the fuck is wrong with you!" I cried, watching as Draco's chest heaved with the weight of breath and a crimson tear crawled from his lip.

A shiver ran down my spine when he looked at me, with eyes that were cold and dead and entirely void of felt or feeling. "I was only trying to help."

"I didn't need your help!" I replied hotly, "Not with Viktor, not with Cedric! -I can handle myself!"

"-Sure as hell didn't look like it."

There was nothing more I could do than stand there dumbfounded, letting the utter disbelief slowly seep through the rage.

"You know what? -No." I shook my head. Even the words felt like a dagger to my heart. "-I'm done."

The words implied more than was said, more than even I could comprehend and yet I had meant them entirely.

He didn't call after me as I walked away, he didn't even move. He just let it be.

• • •

"Come on get up," Parvati huffed, arms folded firmly across her chest as she stared down at me. "-You need to at least try your dress on."

"I'm not going." I grumbled, staring up at the ceiling as I lay on my back spread across bed.

I felt the bed dip as she sat down beside me. "Mara the Yule ball's tomorrow you can't just quit now, you've been looking forward to it for months!"

"My dress is ugly, it's three sizes too small, and I have no one to go with." I scoffed, "-I think I'll pass."

Footsteps up the stone stairs signalled the entry of Hermione and at once Parvati turned to her for backup. "Hermione, tell Mara she has to come to the ball!"

"-You have to come to the ball." Hermione echoed, throwing a brown paper package onto the bed beside me. I shot her a questioning look but she simply shrugged and added. "Not a clue, It's not from me."

There was no tag, only a single silver string fastened firmly with a bow to hold the wrapping in place.

I tore away the brown paper, to reveal a dress.

The colour of jealousy, -of secrets and serpents and the most sacrilegious of sins. My breath hitched in my throat as I pulled it from the package to hold it up to the light and the silk glimmered in a way stars could only ever hope to.

"Wow..." Breathed all three of us in unison as I dragged myself from the bed to hold the dress flush against my body in the mirror. Parvati's eyes looked like saucers. "Mara that gorgeous."

Hermione gave a small smile. "...It matches your eyes."

-And then all of a sudden I was back on the train. Draco staring out the window as trees streamed past like emerald ribbons against a cerulean sky.

"-Slytherin colours? Really?" I had said as I'd slumped down opposite him. He still hadn't looked at me, maybe he couldn't bear to. Did it pain him just as much as it pained me?

He had answered numbly, devoid of felt or feeling but behind the mask there hinted at light that struggled to seep through the cracks. A hidden, forbidden kindness. "...It matches your eyes."

I clutched the dress to my chest, staring at it in the mirror with tears in my eyes. The mere memory of him was enough to bring me to my knees and pray for things to be different. If a God did exist he was cruel, he did not care for those which he once created. Instead he left us to kill and cry and love one another with an inhumane urgency.

The sadness was suffocating, infecting my body like a disease until eventually the sadness became me. It crawled thick through my veins, inky black and violently melancholy in it's intent as it slowly overwhelmed my sorry heart.

I thumbed the pendant that still hung around my neck, the one he'd given me all those weeks ago, despite the great knot that formed in my chest every time I caught it's glint. I'd never once taken it off, only hidden it beneath my robes so that no one else could see it.

Some nights I thought about taking it off, I'd came close once or twice, but every time I'd tried I couldn't help but hold onto the hope that one day, maybe somewhere far, far from here, there was still hope for us.

***
QOTD-What do you guys thinks going to happen at the ball?
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-TFOA