Hullo- This chapter is long but it is one of my favorites. -kittyhawk
Draco threw the door open as soon as I knocked, and yanked me into his arms.
"Draco," I laughed as he spun me into his room, "It's barely been a day since you've seen me."
Draco closed the door with a simple wave of his hand. "I know," he said, his face buried in my hair, "But it felt like an eternity."
"Is that so?" I challenged playfully, running my hands along his shoulders. He was wearing an incredibly soft sweater; but even if he had been wearing rags, the feel of him in my hands was more soothing than any Ring of Ataraxy.
I heard a throaty scoffing sound in the room. I looked up and saw that Blaise Zabini was lounging on his bed, a copy of The Daily Prophet in his hands. I flushed, not aware of the fact that Draco was not the only occupant in his room.
"Please, don't stop your frolicking because of me," Blaise sneered. "I rather like the show." I wriggled free from Draco's arms, regaining my composure and crossing my arms over my chest.
Blaise swiftly closed the newspaper. "Thank Merlin you're finally here, Thorncroft. I thought he'd never get out of bed. In fact, you may want to check it for mushrooms-"
"Some privacy, Blaise?" Draco interjected, as one of his hands reached up to smooth the back of his hair. Blaise rose from his bed, not arguing, as he was familiar with hearing that request whenever I came around.
"I was already leaving." Blaise plucked his coat from a hook on the wall and threw it over his shoulder, swiftly exiting the room while casting a slightly irritated glance at us.
Before closing the door, Blaise quipped sourly, "Say, don't forget to clean up after you're done. I would like to return to the room without seeing mysterious stains." Draco chucked a book at Blaise, but Blaise anticipated Draco would do that and closed the door just in time for the book to collide loudly with the wood. Blaise chuckled to himself in the corridor.
"Ass," Draco said under his breath.
Blaise had a tendency to poke fun at us, and I got the impression that he hadn't quite warmed to me yet. "It was just harmless banter," I said.
"Yeah, yeah." Draco stewed with a frown on his face for a moment. "I just don't like how he looks at you."
I scoffed. I didn't notice anything at all unusual about how Blaise looked at me. "What? Come on, Draco, is any man allowed to look at me?" I said lightly.
"Not if they want to keep all their limbs."
"Oh, please, don't be irrational-" I stopped mid-sentence, noticing that something was strange about the room's scent. I grimaced. "Why does it smell like a Muggle train station in here?"
Draco had likely never been to a Muggle train station; so he didn't know what I was talking about. "Muggle train station?" Draco sounded slightly offended as I sniffed around, trying to place what the unpleasant smell was that I associated with London Muggles. The room looked as it usually did; Crabbe and Goyle's half of the room was a bit of a contained mess thanks to the House Elves, and Draco and Blaise's side overly neat and organized, thanks to Draco's peculiar affinity for minimalism. I thought the weird odor would be coming from Crabbe and Goyle's side of the room; but to my surprise, it was concentrated on Draco and Blaise's.
My eyes landed on a green jade ashtray, where four cigarette butts were inside, bent at frustrated angles like little white check marks.
"Cigarettes?" I looked at Draco under lowered brows. "Please tell me they aren't yours."
Draco drew his wand and banished the ash, clearing the air with a klaero spell. "They're Blaise's." His voice lowered with guilt. "...But I smoked a few."
"Draco," I pressed a frustrated hand to the side of my face. "Are you really so stressed that you're willingly ingesting toxins into your body?"
"You're talking to someone with Dark Magic in their skin," Draco replied sourly. "Muggle toxins are merely a way to pass the time."
I firmly replied, "Well it's a nasty habit and I'd rather you not start. I mean this as your girlfriend and as your Matron."
Draco guiltily placed a hand on the back of his neck. "...I probably should tell you, then, that today was not the first time I've had a cigarette."
"Oh." I glanced down at the floor with a dry mouth. "I didn't realize it was a habit of yours."
Draco's hands stuffed themselves in the pockets of his slacks. "It started as something Blaise gave me to take the edge off of OWLs last year. Now it's a crutch I lean on when I'm stressed. That's all."
I was about to object, say that that couldn't possibly be true, but then realized just how little I knew of Draco before we returned to Hogwarts together. All the times before that we were "broken up" or arguing with one another, I rarely saw him, and when I did he always looked a little sicklier than before. It was a definite possibility that he had been doing this all along without my knowledge.
"I want you to stop," I said firmly. "Even wizards can get sick from smoking. Lung tissue restoring potions are nasty and I've heard they taste like liver and loam." Draco listened to me with a stone face.
"I have something for you, actually..." I reached into my bag and produced the Ring of Ataraxy, which I had worn most of last night, until the effects wore off after about four hours. Draco's eyes flashed in surprise when I pressed it into his palm.
"It's a Ring of Ataraxy," I said as he eyed it carefully, turning it over in his fingers which were already decorated with silver rings. "Wearing it will help you feel... calmer."
"....I know. I had one of these as a child," Draco said, brows furrowed in deep thought, his eyes darting between me and the ring. "But my father confiscated it. He thought I was becoming too dependent."
"Well, it's yours now. I'm officially prescribing it to you as your Matron." Draco looked extremely surprised by the gift, and he gazed at it as if it was solid gold. "But you should know, it's a re-gift. Greta had it ordered for my birthday. But you need it more than I do, so-"
"Was it your birthday?" Draco said, alarmed. "When?"
"It- it was in December, right after Christmas. But please don't worry about it, I really don't give two Galleons about my birthday-"
"...You should have told me." Draco sounded betrayed.
"There were more important things going on," I said to him reassuringly, remembering that as soon as we returned from holiday I had broken the news to Draco about my Squib father, so there was no opportunity for chit-chat about anything else. "Please, don't worry about it."
Draco glanced at me, checking to see if I was really sure. He flattened his lips into a line, still thinking. I got the impression from his silence that he wasn't going to let it go easily, and I would likely be hearing about it again- but for now, he removed one of his own rings from his hand that was inlaid with obsidian and slid the simple Ring of Ataraxy on in its place.
He exhaled, his head rolling upon his shoulders as they flexed then relaxed. I could tell right away that the Ring was working.
"It'll only last four hours," I muttered. "And the more you wear it, the less potent it becomes."
Draco looked at me softly. "It's... it's good. Thank you." He took my hand, stroking it with his thumb. "...I should be the one giving you a ring."
My eyes widened. Before I knew it, Draco was sliding his obsidian ring onto the ring finger of my left hand. It was big at first, but magically adjusted to fit my smaller finger perfectly.
"H-hang on," I objected, my face turning all kinds of shades of red, stumbling over my words like a broken record, "You- you- you're just kidding. Aren't you?" I laughed nervously, trying to play off the fact that Draco and I just exchanged rings.
Draco looked at me calmly. "What if I'm serious?"
My face got hotter. I didn't think a marriage proposal was something to be taken lightly. "Funny joke, Draco." I retreated to the sitting room conjoining the bedroom, seating myself on a long, brown leather couch and drawing my knees to my chest. Draco followed me, seating himself beside me on the leather couch, extending his legs to the shiny wooden coffee table and crossing one ankle over the other.
"What makes you so certain that I'm joking?" he said with an indiscernible expression.
"We're not even eighteen," I said, as that was the only logical objection I could offer to his pseudo-marriage proposal, which I wasn't even convinced was fully serious. It couldn't be serious.
"No, we aren't eighteen," he said, but a smile grew upon his face when he eyed the obsidian ring upon my finger. "But you only have to be sixteen in Scotland to be married."
I couldn't believe that he was actually entertaining this idea- the more he spoke, the less I was convinced that this conversation was theoretical. I scoffed and looked away. "We don't even know each other's middle names."
Draco laughed, his self-assured smile not faltering. "Is that what you're concerned about? Middle names?" He extended his arms across the back of the sofa. His wingspan was so long, he could almost reach either end. I could feel his gaze on the side of my face.
"Tell it to me, then," he ordered.
"No. It's embarrassing. You'll laugh."
Draco sighed. He lifted a hand to my face, turning my head to face him, so we were almost nose-to-nose. "I missed your birthday. I refuse to let another piece of information about you slip past me."
I looked into his eyes- his grey, handsome eyes, and felt my resolve soften.
"I-I can't look at you while I say it," I said hastily, looking away from him again. He scoffed.
"Fine, fine."
There was a beat of silence. I buried my face in my arms, muffling my voice so it was just barely audible.
"....It's Beryl."
I could hear Draco suppress laughter beside me, and I lifted my head to glare at him indignantly. "I told you not to laugh!"
Draco pressed his knuckles to his mouth, hiding his smile. "I'm sorry- it's just- Barrel? What kind of a middle name is that?"
"Beryl is a mineral! My mother has a likening for precious stones." I grumbled, "I suppose she thought Ruby or Pearl was too simple. Hey- stop laughing! It's not Barrel!"
Draco almost had tears in his eyes from laughter. He continued his bad attempt at hiding his amusement. "Right. Right- I shouldn't laugh. Beryl is a- it's a fine middle name."
"At least my parents didn't name me after themselves," I grumbled, "People who do that are so self-important."
Draco's laughter stopped.
"What?" I asked.
"My middle name is Lucius," he replied quietly.
A hand clapped over my mouth. "Oh. I'm sorry- I didn't mean-"
Draco scoffed again. "Just another reminder of my lineage, I suppose. You're right about the self-important thing, though. Entirely unoriginal."
I pinched the obsidian ring upon my finger. "You can have this back," I said glumly, "I don't think you want to give this to me anymore."
Draco's hand stopped me. "You're keeping it," he stated. His voice was so firm, I didn't bother attempting to argue. "Consider it a placeholder until I get you an actual gift to make up for missing your birthday."
"Oh, please, you've already put a star in the sky for me," I retorted. "If that's what you do for Valentine's Day, I fear what astronomically extravagant gesture you would do for a birthday."
Draco smiled to himself. "Perhaps a planet could be arranged."
I gently socked him in the arm, and suppressed a smile. I actually did like the ring very much- it was like I had a piece of Draco with me. I didn't need anything else.
Draco relaxed back into the couch. "I was only joking about the marriage idea, in case you couldn't tell." I sighed in relief.
"When I get you an actual engagement ring, it will be much nicer than that obsidian piece of crap," he added casually, as if it were an afterthought.
My jaw almost hit the floor. Draco used the word when, not if. That meant he was certain- he had already made up his mind; he wanted to marry me someday. I wouldn't- I couldn't think about that; dating was one thing, but marrying- just when did that become an option all of the sudden?
"We're not talking about this any further," I announced, rising from the couch to retrieve something else from my bag before I forgot.
"Did I scare you away, Beryl?" Draco chortled as he said my middle name, making me almost trip over nothing. His sudden easy liveliness caught me off guard; it reminded me of the version of Draco I had seen in previous years, when he was young and joked carefreely with Crabbe and Goyle. It was rare to see him like this nowadays. I supposed it was partially due to the calming effect of the Ring.
"I'm already regretting giving you that Ring. I ought to jinx you to even you out a bit," I said sarcastically. I returned to the couch, my notebook in hand. "I have that painting for Gregory."
Draco blinked, trying to place for a second just who the hell Gregory was. "Goyle?" He corrected me, frowning. "When did you start calling him by his first name?"
I shrugged. "Last names are so impersonal. I never called my friends Parkinson, Vaughn, or Munch-"
"You don't need to be personal with anyone but me, as far as I'm concerned," Draco grumbled. "Give it here. I'll see to it that he gets it."
"That's alright- if you tell me which bed is his, I'll leave it there for him whenever he returns-"
"If you leave it on his bed, he'll likely sit on it," Draco pointed out. "Just give to me."
I really didn't want to show it to Draco. He always made fun of my "Muggle art"; like something about it personally offended him. I pulled out the simple painting of a willow tree against a white background and handed it over. Draco stared at it silently.
"What is it?" I asked him with hesitation. His eyes were fixed on the painting- but I couldn't discern if he liked it or not. After a few seconds, he looked up.
"Goyle could never make this," Draco stated.
"O-oh." I had purposely tried to make it look amateurish. I had only used three colors and skipped sketching an outline. It had taken me all of ten minutes. "I-I thought it was reasonably simple...But I could make another-"
"Don't bother," Draco said flatly, rising from the sitting area to place the painting somewhere in his bedroom.
Draco didn't say anything else about it. He was probably just trying to spare my feelings and hold in his real opinion- it wasn't my best painting, after all, and I had put almost no effort into it. When Draco returned to the couch, he eyed my notebook. I was about to put it away in my bag, but stopped when Draco spoke.
"Could I see those paintings of me?" he asked.
"Oh," I pursed my lips. "I, um, don't have them anymore."
Draco frowned slightly. "What happened to them?"
"...I burned them."
Draco nodded to himself, smiling slightly, like he should have considered that possibility. "I likely deserved that," he said.
"You did."
Draco and I sat in silence for a minute. I did feel bad for burning those paintings of him- but at the time, it felt justified. Besides, he didn't even like Muggle art; so why did he want to see them, anyways?
"I could make new paintings of you, if you'd like," I offered, fully expecting him to say no.
"Okay," he replied instantly. "Make them right now."
I thought I had heard him incorrectly- but he situated himself on the sofa so that he was facing me, and I realized he actually intended for me to paint him, right then and there. Not wanting to let this rare opportunity go to waste, I hastily opened up my notebook to a blank page and prepared my enchanted brush.
Draco must have had his portrait painted before- because he knew exactly what to do. He held completely still, shoulders squared, with a neutral but pleasing expression. His grey eyes were set intently below straight brows, watching me work on the other side of the couch.
It was quite different, to say the least, painting Draco while he was right in front of me compared to painting him from memory. When I looked up from my notebook, there he was, in the flesh, staring right at me- and it made my stomach flutter without fail every time. His face was so handsomely striking that after looking at him I would entirely forget what I was just doing in my painting. And to make matters worse, the fact that he would want to see it afterwards made me so fucking nervous that I could barely bring myself to make any markings upon the page for fear of it not being good enough.
"Do you always look this distressed when you paint?"
I opened my mouth to reply, and then realized I had indeed been scowling. I unclenched my jaw. "I don't usually have an audience." I side-eyed him. "Why were you so eager to see my paintings of you, anyhow? Making a shrine to yourself?"
Draco's stoic expression broke with a glimpse of a smile, and then reverted right back to its stern smolder. "I suppose a portion of it is ego, or self-absorption... But I haven't had my portrait painted since I was a boy, with my mother and father. The portrait of the three of us used to hang in our parlor. It got moved to my parents- ah, my mother's bedroom not long after the Dark Lord chose our Manor as his headquarters." When he mentioned his family and the Dark Lord, I thought I could detect hints of sadness. But it was gone in an instant, making me think I had just imagined it.
"But, I digress," he said. "I would just like to see a picture of myself where I'm not nine."
I continued painting. "I would like to see that portrait," I remarked. I had seen pictures of Draco's handsome father before, in the Daily Prophet- as well as a few in-person glimpses of the stately man when he visited the school to harass Dumbledore. And I had met Draco's mother, who was absolutely striking, both in her appearance and her mannerisms. I bet that seeing the three of them together in an animated wizard portrait was magnificent.
Draco stared at me. "Is it unrealistic of me to ask if I'll ever meet your parents?" he asked.
I stiffened. Draco's question had distracted me from the painting entirely. "Yes," I said bluntly, lowering my head and trying to refocus on the task at hand. "I don't believe that is likely to happen."
"Because they live in America," Draco said, a hint of a question in his voice.
"...Because my father is a Squib. Which makes us blood traitors," I muttered, trying not to let emotion show in my words. "Even if they still lived in England, I would not-" I stopped myself from saying 'I would not allow you near them'. Instead, I muttered, "I don't think it would be wise of me to introduce you."
Draco looked solemnly resolved; he accepted my response as fair. But he followed up with another hard-hitting question.
"Do they even know I exist?"
My stomach tightened into a knot. Draco and I had never discussed him meeting my parents before; I had purposely avoided discussing my parents as much as possible with him because I was afraid of the two worlds mixing somehow.
As indifferently as I could, I said, "No. They don't know," which came off rather cold.
I couldn't bring myself to look at Draco. There was a beat of silence before he said a solemn, "I see."
He understood why, of course- my parents were already frightened of the Dark Lord's growing influence in England. That's the whole reason why they relocated to America in the first place. If they knew I was romantically involved with a Death Eater, that would make them feel infinitely more vulnerable- and worse, it would make them fear for my safety, as well. They thought I was safe at Hogwarts. If they were aware I was dating Draco Malfoy, I may not be permitted to stay in England at all.
Something unspoken seemed to occur to us both in that elongated silence. That our age or our middle names would not be the reason we wouldn't marry. It was ultimately our families, and our blood, that would be the insurmountable obstacle. But neither of us were willing to say it. I think we both wanted to remain in our state of peaceful lingo for as long as possible.
"...It's finished," I said quietly. Draco shifted on the couch to see the portrait, which I shyly held in my hands. I had painted him precisely as he had arranged himself on the sofa; with his eyes firmly set, mouth taut, his jaw hardened, lounging on the sofa in a grey sweater. He gazed at the picture of himself with an unreadable expression.
"...It's good," he finally said. "It's... actually very good."
My throat swelled with happiness. "I don't suppose you want me to sign it with my full name?" I said teasingly. Draco laughed, shaking his head.
"You should keep it," he replied.
"You don't want it as a reminder of how handsome you are?"
Draco smiled sadly, and I wondered why he was looking so forlorn all of the sudden. "No, I think you should hold on to it," he said. "You should have a picture of me." He looked away, and his hardened expression seemed to say "just in case".
I swallowed. I believed I already knew what he meant. As much as we wished it wasn't so, we would not be together forever. This portrait would be a reminder of the time we spent, however much longer that lasted, before the world inevitably caught up to us and wrenched us apart. It made me sad. I didn't want to think about "in case".
It wasn't until almost three months later that I discovered what Draco actually meant.
He wanted me to have a picture of him because he thought he was going to die.