- REMINDER -
it's literally chapter 22 — this is a slow burn , they're not gonna get married and have kids all in the duration of short chapters :)
tw - descriptive gore.
𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘-𝐓𝐖𝐎 | "𝐈𝐭 𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬. 𝐏𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞, 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐩."
ϟ
When I was nine years old, I entered a talent show with a random neighborhood boy named Matthew. A muggle— but I knew very little of the wizarding world at that time. He had vibrant auburn hair with curls that sprung softly when he raises his hand to wave to me. After we won first place for our childish magic tricks, we began hanging out once a week. That one time a week turned into, twice a week, then three, then four— until we alternated sleeping over at each others houses.
Summer 95', we are leaned against a great big oak tree, gentle leaves symbolizing the beginning of autumn drifting onto the rich green grass.
This is where he decided to inform me of his feelings towards me.
Shock and, to be fairly honest, disgust blended beneath the chambers of my heart. He was like a brother to me. I realized— the recent tucking of my hair, the holding of the door, the "gentleman" gestures were out of heartfelt affections for me.
Things were never the same with Matthew and I after I denied his request to appeal a relationship. I swore I could never be embedded into a circumstance where I felt a further more awkwardness than that day.
Tonight, I proved myself wrong.
We've been trapped in silence for the past five minutes, situated in the same position we were in after we finished— after he said the eight lettered word. I can barley move, I feel as though the oxygen around me will spear through my skin.
My spine is sunk into the mattress of the bed, my naked body solidifying with a cold frost.
"I didn't say it with the intention of thinking you would say it back." His tone is remorseful, tossing the blanket over my frail body without taking a glance. "Y/N— are you okay?"
"Yeah," I blink and my body is mushy again, no longer frozen in shock. "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine— I, um— the phrase just jumped at me. Wait," I pause turning to Vance's worried eyes. "You love me?"
Truth be told, my mother was the last individual to express those words to me. It struck a delicate nerve that powered down the rest of my system. Whilst I had the meaningful words my father wrote for The Quibbler, I had nothing from my mother. Nothing but presenting as the last person who had told me they loved me.
Vance unknowingly snatched the memory from my grasp, deactivating it's significance.
"I do," he says, leaning forward and down to place a warm kiss to my lips— but I don't kiss him back. I am too stuck in the warp of reminiscing the memories of my family. My psyche hasn't fully wrapped around the reality of being parent-less. Staying at the Malfoy Manor felt like a sleep-over, a very long sleep-over. "What about you?" He inquires.
"N— I don't know."
He hoists himself from the bed, striding to pick up his articles of clothing from the wooded flooring. His face is wiped clean of any emotion, "well, I'll see you later." A pop emits through the air and with that, he has apperated.
Hearts, roses, love notes, candlelit dinners, satin sheets, sweet nothings. That's romance.
Love is being able to be completely stripped clean of every mask you've put on, tell every secret, have your moments of shame, disgusting, dirty and everything else that might make another human being turn away— having a partner that not only doesn't care about your flaws, but loves you for who you are.
It is not a let-me-purchase-your-custody-to-be-bartered-to-me-so-I-can-claim-you-as-long-as-I-live. Nor is it a I-am-a-billionaire-so-I-am-better-than-everyone.
I slip my garments back onto my body, my skin tenses around the cotton fabrics. The feelings I've previously had for Vance simmer within the curious chunk of my brain, contemplating if the puttering emotion I had for him were even real.
My bottom sinks into the mattress, my feet dangling off to the side as my right shoulder and the side of my head rest against the bed frame. Grasping the fact that this— the isolation, the limitations, is my life. If I choose or somehow manage to leave, there is no family for me to be comforted by.
My brain screams at me to suck it up, to be appreciative that I am alive— but does living and breathing in misery outperform the mysterious afterlife that follows after death?
A solitary tear streams past my waterline, it's warm temperature contrasting with my cold cheek. I do not consider myself grown up, I am in need of my mother and father to guide me, to love me, to teach me.
My heart aches, it feels like all of the hope and happiness have been sucked out of the world. A future is stolen, and in its place is left a desolate expanse of seemingly endless grey. Nothing is interesting or engaging. The loss is all encompassing.
The door bursts open, the entryway wide. "Y/N! You—,"
"—Draco, I thought you were under the body binding curse?" I rotate my face after glancing at the blond to confront the bed-frame, harshly swabbing and polishing my cheeks to be free of wet tears
"I was— up until ten minutes ago, I broke out of in— anyways, I was going to come in here to give you a piece of my mind for making me listen to that fucking shit and maybe— possibly have some rough sex but you need to come se—," he pauses. His voice shifts from an enthusiastic volume to a neutral tone. "My apologies— did I disturb a crying session?"
I plummet my eyes into my palms, my elbows resting at my knees. "No," my voice muffles, my throat felt swollen as I tried to converse the words in my head. "I'm not going to have sex with you. Can you leave?"
"We can leave, sure."
Before I have a sliver of a second to debate, his hand plants onto my shoulder and we are blending with the air. Twisting, turning, rotating, warping— each bone in my body rattles as we land on our feet.
Instantly I am hit with a smell of metallic, the familiar scent of blood. It emits a sickening, sweet, iron scent— it's too strong, there is too much.
"Well done Vance, you've killed about a third of our guards." Axel appears from the darkness within the corridor causing Draco scoff in a laugh. "The fuck did they do to deserve this?"
The patches of blood that puddled sections of the tiled floor now dampened a partial portion of my sock— a disgusted expression plastered across my face. It soon fades into an articulation of horror as my eyes land on the bodies.
Some had no damage to their skin, assuming Vance had utilize the killing curse on them. Others had stab wounds that spread blood through their armory. Overall, a total of fifteen individuals lay lifeless.
Glancing at Vance, his eyes are empty— hands stained with red. "They shouldn't have said what they said." He shrugs, rotating his body to face mine.
"Wh— What did they say?" I questioned, concealing the factual evidence that I become scared for my life as Vance steps within my vicinity.
He only grips onto my wrist, wrenching my body to walk with him as we distanced ourselves from the two boys. Vance hauls me down a narrow hallway, towards the end— a steel blue door.
"What are you doing? It hurts me to see you like this— please stop." I say as the heavy iron leisurely opens, revealing a newly pained cell.
"You don't love me. Do you?"
He doesn't allow me a chance to respond, jerking my presence inside the confinement.
The walls are freshly painted and the sheets of the bed are fairly new as well. I ponder the duration of time it took for him to plan this out.
The iron door slams shut and the lock clicks, leaving me in isolation once more.
"Y/N, I told you that I loved you." His fist colloids with the metal, a booming echo rioting around the four corners of the cell. "When someone says that to you, you're normally suppose to say it back."
I am in an isolation he has created— shoving me into an imprisonment he molded and shaped within his palm.