Just as you thought light was shining down from the sky, things got darker. and darker. Until you could barely decipher one thing from the other. Everything kind of merged together between your fourth year and your sixth one. The sixth one was crazy so far, there was so much tension you could cut it with a knife. You'd shiver so often just walking down the hallways.
So many things were happening all at once and you felt like you were going under, beneath the surface of a lake and you couldn't come back up for air. The nightmares, they didn't stop, and each one the monster seemed to become more and more human looking. You still didn't tell anyone out right that you had been having these dreams, but somehow you figured that Draco knew.
Despite the tension between Slytherin and Gryffindor, for reasons plain to see, you, Harry and Ron still spoke when you had time, it was your sixth year after all. Hermione still didn't like you one bit, but she had a right not to. It was nice actually, to have some friends who weren't . . . well, Slytherin. You and Draco had many small gripes about your friendship with the 'enemies', but in the end you won. Though, you'd always be a loyal Slytherin and that was something he couldn't argue with.
You tried to block it all out, just put a cork in it but really that was just plain impossible. Not only that, but as the year drawled on, you had seen the changes in Draco, not that you were too dumb to notice obvious things. He looked sickly pale, dark circles formed under his steely eyes, he was often distant, and he had been even more short tempered. That might have just been natural, stressful school work, ya'know, but you had a feeling something else was going on.
Possibly, it could have been because his father was sent to jail for being a Death Eater. . . or was it the obvious staring you in the face? Excuses, excuses, you would make them up all to put a little shining light on that boy. Just imaging it you could see your mother, waggling her finger at you and saying the word, 'shame'. You knew deep down Harry was right, Draco had replaced his father for some reason or another, as a Death Eater. Fearful of the cult as you were, you wouldn't say anything. Nothing at all, you were more than determined not to get any more involved than you already were. . . Oh Draco.
Draco. That hot headed blonde that stole your heart and knew that he could run away with it if he pleased. The thing that really surprised you was he didn't, you'd never known him to stay with the same girl for more than a few months. Somewhere between one and two years, you deserved a trophy or something for that. Granted, you both had snapped at each other, but didn't all couples? He was not a 'fairy tail' guy, your father would have been proud. At least you were happy for a short amount of time, and thought you loved him. You would no matter what, right? Even if he left you for some pretty whore with fat lips and big breasts, somewhere deep inside you'd still be sentimental. That wouldn't happen though, because he loved you too. At least, you liked to think. You liked to think a lot of things.
He was worrying you, severely. Yet, there wasn't any way you could do anything about it. He plain and simply was ignoring you, and seeing him in this state. . . well, you wouldn't push him. So you just had to sit back and watch- not that you watched. He on the other hand, did. You didn't know though, you just focused on one thing or the other.
It illuminated the faces of your family, old friends, and your new ones. Since the year you'd joined Hogwarts, you'd added some photo's to your nightstand. One was of you and Draco, it was one of the only pictures you had of him actually attempting to smile for you, while your grin was over the moon. The other new addition was of you and Eve, she had a hand on your hair, ruffling it. Although, you hated it when people knotted up your hair in such a way, you didn't look annoyed.
It was late, right about now, Eve was in the infirmary with a bad case of flu, so you had been alone for a few days now. Completely, utterly alone. The creaking of the floor boards or the wind tapping on the window always got the hairs on the back of your neck to stand up. You didn't want to sleep, but exhaustion drove you to it. That old sweater, you had thrown it into the back of the closet long ago, but you drug it back out just to hold it close and pretend it offered some sort of remedy against whatever might try to bother you. It didn't work, so there it was, wrinkled beneath your pillow.
The papers sprawled out across your bed sheets looked dull and uninteresting. They weren't even organized, potions notes there, a transfiguration report almost falling on the floor, a charms textbook laying on top of the head board. How that even happened, you have yet to recall.
Wearing loose pajama pants and whatever t-shirt was still clean at time, even if it had short sleeves, you were slouched over these assignments trying to concentrate on them. The words were smudged together, like you tried to wash the papers and the ink had started to run.
You rubbed your tired eyes, sweeping your outstretched and tingling leg across the bed until all the sheets of paper fell on the floor. You'd fix that later. It would be fine. Everything would be fine if you got some sleep and could stop. Stop every emotion, just sink into a dull fog that wouldn't have monsters trying to crawl out of it.
Puffing out your cheeks you leaned closer to the candle and blew out the small flame, it went out in a puff of smoke. You had to wait a moment before dull grey shapes made their way out of the dark exterior of the room. Touching the hilt of your wand that laid beside the golden dish holding the wax pillar, you let out a sigh of relief before removing your hand from the object. You smiled a bit, throwing the blankets down far enough for you to crawl onto the thin layer of sheet that separated you from the actual mattress.
The door opened with a loud creak and it made you freeze in your spot. You heard the door close and heavy footsteps follow, ones that weren't like Eve's at all. You panicked, quickly snatching your wand and whispering Lumos under your breath. You nearly yelped when Draco himself came into the light, the blue color making him a life-like zombie.
"You scared me!" You snapped, wanting to throw the stick at him and yet just hold him at the same time. He cringed slightly at your harsh words, eyes shifting downwards to look at the parchments scattered across the floor and then back up at you. Carefully, he stepped around them and seated himself on the edge of the bed.
"(Name) I-" He stopped when you shifted from your position, balancing on your heels, to a more comfortable one of sitting on your knees beside him. You had gotten much closer to him, more than he had expected when he first stumbled into your room. You still held the wand in your other hand, now you were clearly trying to study his face, the light ghosting over the red rims and dark areas.
"Stop shinin' it in my eyes," He growled lowly, voice gruff and a little weak. You obliged his command, lowering it just enough that you could still see the sharp features of his face but not bother him.
"What's wrong?" You asked, tentatively reaching up and brushing your hand across his cheek. It was damp, as if he had been crying. It was just like you to wonder something out loud that you already knew the answer to, or well, had a hunch about.
He leaned down, away from you, and kicked off his shoes. At first you were a bit offended, thinking he was just not going to tell you, but that wasn't the case. He slowly turned to face you, crawling onto the bed and sitting with his legs folded sideways. Reaching his hand up to brush across your face, fingers smooth and gently, a sad smile crossed his face. He ran circles across the skin, staring straight into your (e/c) eyes with a little flicker of light in his own.
You touched his fingers, just barely, then trailed down to the exposed skin of his wrist. You started to curl your hand around the ligament, before he jerked away roughly, the sleeve of his cloak hiding his entire hand.
"Draco-" You were about to ask again when he pulled you into his arms, face pressed deeply into the crook of your neck. His breath was hot, coming out in ragged gasps and sputters, his entire body shuddering. Moisture falling from his eyes as he held you in a tight grip. The wand dropped from your grasp in surprise as you left it lying on the floor with your unfinished work. The light, coincidentally, went out just as soon as the stick hit the ground. Instead, you let your sense of touch and hearing take over for you while you wrapped your arms around his scrawny waist. You couldn't remember the last time he'd even spoken to you with so much as a kind word, let alone a heartfelt gesture.
Was this even considered a gesture so much as a miniature therapy session? As having you be a shoulder to cry on? Who cared, you certainly didn't.
"(Name), I'm sorry, I'm sorry,"
"I know, I know, I can hear you," You whispered into his hair, rubbing circles in his back in a weak attempt to calm him. You just had to sit and wait it out, there wasn't any way you were going to push him away
An entire explanation gushed out in several different parts, all separated by long silences and sniffles. It started with his father, how he, himself, took the older Malfoy's place to protect his family, and finally how he was supposed to take on the most impossible task of killing Dumbledor. He also told you about how he was trying to fix the vanishing cabinets to accomplish that. Which that one, seemed to be the softest spoken of them all, no more than a mere wisp of sound against your ear. Of course, he left things out. Dangerous secretes that could get you killed if you knew. More sobs commenced, his arms constricted around you, as you both shook. You didn't realize you were crying too.
When you both finally calmed down, you were just sitting there, heartbeats falling slowly in sync with the other's. That was the only sound echoing off the stone walls enclosed around the both of you.
You opened your mouth to say something, then thought better of it and closed it again. You were not sure how to react, exactly. It could have been your fault, why hadn't you expected this? Well, you did, but decided to push it to the depths of your mind. Right next to those old dusty memories of times long since passed. Just now you had to dig it back up, trying not to break the fragile glass it was buried beneath.
"Don't go, please," He added in a hasty voice,
"I'm not going anywhere," Calm as ever, you pushed him backwards, enough that you could see the ashy gray outline of him in the dim darkness. Of course there was no natural light source, it was the Slytherin Dungeon, after all, an under ground place and the lights just weren't on at the moment. You reached over the rim of the bed with your foot and picked up the wand between your toes, which earned you a skeptical look from Draco.
"Oh, you've done it too, I guarantee," You huffed, whispering 'lumos' quietly waving the wand in a circular motion. You then set it on the table next to the candle again, with the warm tip hanging off the edge and angled just enough that it cast the ghostly blue glow over the over the two of you
Scooting back into the position to his side, you took the pads of your thumbs and ran them beneath his eyes, wiping away the last of the tears that lay there. "Draco," You said very quietly, unsure of yourself, "I- don't- I'm not-" A frustrated grunt followed while you tried to un-hook one word from the other and piece together a proper sentence.
"Now,"
"No, just quiet," Silencing him quickly, you continued to think on what to say. It was obvious you had no ideas of what to say, so you tried to express what you were trying to say.
Moving forward you draped your arms over his shoulders and pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek. He replied with a hushed murmur of apologies and thanks.
"It's al- not alright, Draco, really it's not," whispering softly against his skin, you released him. Draco stared at you, only a dark silhouette against artificial teal light. He turned away, head hung, and slid off the edge of the bed. You weren't sure what to say, maybe the best thing was silence. Delicate as glass it was, so you just had to break it when he made his way towards the door.
"Wait, stay," Pleading in an almost helpless voice, you reached out, managing to hook your fingers around the crook of his elbow and tug him back towards you.
He turned slowly, spinning on sock clad feet and a plush rug and stumble towards you. He let out a sigh of relief, at least he hadn't tripped and broken something in the murky blackness. Draco stood straight again, like nothing happened.
"What?" He asked, puzzled, you could almost see his expression, a half frown on his face. It almost made you smile a bit when you replied,
"Stay here tonight, with me,"
"Are you sure? W-what about Eve and-"
You let out a guttural sound of annoyance, "Oh, like you'd care, like I care," and you leaned up and pecked his lips before he could say anything else. He swiped out towards where you had been, as if to hold you there, close up against him.
"Is this your way of asking to sleep with me?" He was grinning in a feeble representation of his old self, flashing you a wink that made your face set itself on fire. Good thing the light didn't give your face too much color. It wasn't helping that the darkness, surrounding him, with just enough light to give him unearthly shimmer, made him all the more sexy.
He was your boyfriend, you could think he was sexy, just as long as you didn't say it aloud. It wasn't the greatest decision in the world to stroke his monster of an ego. . .
"Oh, hush, dragon boy," It was the most common thing you could have said, without treading on delicate ground. You reached back and fished around for a pillow, ending up and grabbing the book and chucking it at him. It landed safely on Eve's bed, with a soft clunk, just barely missing his head. "Oops, wrong object," You chuckled nervously.
Reaching over to the wand you whispered 'Nox' quietly, the light went out. It took a few moments but you adjusted to the darkness, just enough to see the ashy grey, kind of static like shapes of the furniture and the blonde boy.
"What were you trying to throw at me?!" He hissed harshly, glaring at you, almost in a playful way. Not that you could see it properly.
"A pillow. I'm not that cruel as to purposefully try to kill you with a book, accidentally is a different story," You stated, smiling as you pulled the sweater out of it's hiding place beneath your own pillow and shoved it under the bed quickly, you wouldn't be needing it. He supposedly gave one of his famous eye rolls while slipping off unnecessary items of clothing. Which technically would be everything, but you were confident that he had some decency. Besides that, he was just teasing you. You hoped.
"Kill me with a book? I'd like to see you try," He pompously stated. You just waved your hand in his general direction, half in mind to smack him gently just for being himself.
"I just did, weren't you watching?" You both laughed faintly, it felt nice to both of you. Comforting and sunshiny even in the bleak darkness, but it melted away as quickly as it came leaving only the residue of happiness behind. You fell back into your pillows, gratefully accepting their embrace with a sigh escaping your chest.
You felt the bed dip as Draco put all his weight onto the soft sheets, then his bare palms brushing up against your fingers, up the column of your throat, and over your face. You fidgeted slightly, peaking open your eyes just as he settled down beside you, like some kind of big dog, his hand flopped ungracefully over you with the other curled beneath his head. As if he were just setting up camp to stare into the side of your head, read your thoughts, your fears, and the memories you held so dear.
Having to sit up to reach the blankets, you grabbed them quickly and pulled them up to about shoulder length. Then you rolled onto your side, until you were nose to nose with Draco. Letting your hands float in the sea of silk and cotton until you found his chest. The white blouse covering most of it, except a few buttons at the top had been loosened. Moving your digits up and down you felt the similarities between his skinny body and an old fashion washboard. It concerned you.
"Draco, I'm scared," You let the words slip out, almost regretting it as he gripped your hands, pushing them back towards you. Then his arms were around your shoulders, bracing you there, and you could practically smell the soap he used, lingering in his hair and on his complexion.
"Don't be," It was a simply answer, but it held so many feelings. It was a very Draco like answer, he wasn't one for much condolences, but with you it was a bit different. It was a tender and compassionate way of saying, 'Just shut up, everything will be fine,'
You didn't know if everything would be fine though. What if it wasn't? Where would that leave you? Him. Everyone you cared about.
Whimpering slightly, you just shifted closer to him, letting the soft sound of a beat echo through your skull. You didn't want to loose him, you didn't want to loose yourself or anyone for that matter. Death hadn't sat well with you ever since. . . your father. Was it normal for it to in the first place, though?
Eventually, your eyes drooped closed and that was it, you were asleep.
Draco didn't follow immediately, just listened to your breaths mellow out and brush across his skin. He'd never admitted it out loud before, but he needed you. It wasn't something that he could explain entirely, you were his rock. Someone who meant the world and stars to him, his sunny day, a good mood, just that one thing that made him smile despite the world and life around him. A person that cared.
Gingerly he ran his fingers through your (H/L) locks, untangling the knots and feeling the almost unapparent weight weighing his hand down. He sighed softly, pressing his lips to your forehead. He would protect you, if it even came to that. Draco trusted that you knew how to take care of yourself, but even then, he fretted something terrible might happen.
A light jerk from you caused him to fall out of whatever gruesome thought raced through his brain, and bring him back to right now, in the moment. You were safe, he was relatively safe. It almost felt like nothing could touch either of you, this was just your little corner of the world and it would survive anything. Draco drew a small amount of comfort from that thought. Only a tiny bit.
He found himself slipping, slipping away into a fuzzy area of dreamland where there was no sun, but at the same time no clouds or rain. It was probably the most peaceful bout of rest he had gotten in a while.
That was the last time you spoke to him, well, last time you two spoke in depth, at least. It didn't happen fast, agonizingly slow, actually. Everything hit you at once, slugging you down even more.
When Dumbledor wound up dead, it was even worse. People were a wreck and you had to join in with them, Harry- Harry especially. Harry knew, and you knew he knew who did what up in the astronomy tower. Well, you didn't know such details exactly, but you knew the gist of what happened. It was only a guess, but that's why a certain Slytherin went missing all of a sudden. Maybe not even sudden at all. Harry and yourself seemed to come to a stale mate in a way. Neither one of you would budge an inch in your opinion nor would you fight to defend it.
At Dumbledor's funeral, you cried. Silent, shadowy tears that streaked down the side of your face and disappeared as soon as they came. It wasn't so much that you were sad about the headmaster dying, he was a great man sure with many accomplishments, and had governed the school with a whimsical outlook. Strange but effective, you supposed.
You teared up because you hated funerals, you hated graveyards, coffins, fog, the smell of decaying flesh but most of all you hated death. You weren't afraid of dying per say, you were afraid of the concept of not knowing when or how you were going to go. The thought that you'd never get to say goodbye. . .
Crabbe and Goyle tried to pester you about anything, they seemed lonely without their boss around and turned to you for everything now. It surprised you that they didn't get told off at least once, you just ignored them some times and others you made small, short and unsweetened answers in their general directions.
So, when Harry Potter came up to you, asking for you to join him on the hunt for horcruxes, it shocked you.
"Harry- I don't know what to say-," you were touching the side of your face in awe, staring wide eyed at him. He must have been desperate to ask you. A Slytherin.
"Yes. Say you'll come. You're a great wizard (Name), and you want to help right?"
"Of course I do- but," You bit the nail on your index finger, just hard enough to feel the fiber between your teeth, not enough to tear it. You let a sharp breath squeeze between your teeth.
'But what?' Your mind argued with you, 'Am I really that sick- er- love sick to protect someone who can't be protected? To choose the wrong thing purposefully? And what about mother. . . if I die in this goose chase- she'll have nobody left. . .'
"(Name)! It's either yes or no," Harry put his hands on your shoulders and shook you gently, as if that would change anything.
"I can't, I just can't. I want to, I really do, I don't want to stand by and watch the things I've come to love. . . leave. I can't- my mother-"
"Your mother will be fine, she's safe wherever she is, I'm sure she can take care of herself," Harry's expression softened slightly, "Your father would want you to do this, for the school he loved, he wouldn't want you to cower away when you could do something to help, Right?"
"Don't you dare try to guilt trip me, Harry Potter," The words spilling out of your mouth were sour and mean. Your (e/c) darkening with anger. "You didn't know my father, you only know what I told you,"
"(Name)-"
"Don't '(Name)' me! The answer is no, and if you can't accept that I'm not sorry," Grabbing his wrists roughly and shoving him away you re-entered the castle in a huff. How dare he. Just how dare he.
The next year was hard, and no, not just academically. You felt like you had no side, you were just a bystander doing nothing, watching everything crumble and crack. Eventually it would all fall. Fall around your feet and leave you standing alone in the rubble. Eve still spoke with you, helped you study and memorize while you tried your damnedest to concentrate. Of course you still spoke to Vladimir, whom you had made up with a while back, and Robyn. . . but they didn't understand. They couldn't, they were safe wherever they were for the moment. Out of harm's way.
Slow and agonizingly, you got through the first portion of the year without flunking anything. Not that you didn't adore Hogwarts, the old brick work, the winding passageways and nooks to hide in, but you wanted to go home. Away from the mess of a war going on, just a week of peace and quiet.
Home. It was a nice place, made of all wooden boards and old paint that still smelled new if you got your nose right up to the wall. It was a safe place, just as long as no one was upset, or speaking to each other, everything was fine.
Mother didn't ask you what happened at school last year, nor did she when you came home for Easter break during your seventh. She waited in vain for you to tell her, and you would have if she had asked. She wanted to hear it from your mind, to tell her about the Headmaster, tell her what you knew, your fears, but you didn't. You just trudged up to your room, flopped on your bed and inhaled the scent of you.
A week at home for Easter? Despite you and your mother not seeing eye to eye, you wanted to be at home, away from Hogwarts. Just read your father's old books, sleep, and hope that everything didn't implode while you were gone. You'd realized exciting things happened often when you weren't around.
Today felt different though, it was to quiet. It was never too silent for you. It was a piece of cake for you to curl up with a book in your room with a blanket and be totally happy until the wee hours of the night. Around that time your eyes would be a light pinkish shade of red from trying to read in the dark, and they would blink very slowly until finally they closed. Then you'd wake up wondering how you got on the floor.
Suddenly, you heard a bang from down stairs. Similar to the sound of pots and pans falling off the shelves from an earthquake only felt by cookware. You shivered, the metallic banging making you jump out of your skin a bit. It was never a pleasant feeling when your spine started to tingle as if it had fallen asleep in your back.
Placing your bookmark carefully in between the pages, you set it onto your (color) sheets and stood up. You weren't wearing anything special, just jeans and a (color) t-shirt, with your hair messy, unwashed and uncombed. You always vowed to do such things, like scrub the grease from your locks, one day and then get really into a paperback to the point you forgot about such basic needs.
The cover was stone grey, slightly rough to the touch, with curly silver letters on the front, reading 'The Grimm Legacy'. The spine was well worn from many years of reading and reading it, and the edges were frayed severely from your young fingers picking at them when your father would read to you. It used to be your favorite book as a child, and still was to the present age of (seventeen/eighteen).
There was a character named Aaron, in the book, that reminded you a lot of Draco. He was a dolt, and just plain rude most of the time, but in the end- he turned out to be a bit sweet. Though, the actual main character was a girl and an odd one at that, but she reminded you a bit of yourself, in a way. A little shy, a little snappy, just a sprinkle of different traits here and there. Maybe it made sense that the two of them got together in the end. Sure, they hated each other at first, but I guess that was just the side plot of the story to keep dumb minds interested.
Even if it was a muggle written book, you probably preferred it over some of the wizard written fairy tales. Magical born people didn't have a sense of adventure, they thought they knew everything there was in the world and there stories weren't as magical as they thought they were. Muggles were dumb as rocks when it came to magic, so it would only make sense that they had a wider range of stories.
You slowly slipped on your (color) sneakers, the ones you always wore at home, in case there was broken glass, who knows you had gotten very cautious after reading so many horror titles. The door to your bedroom creaked loudly when you pressed your hand tentatively against it and let the white board slowly open to reveal. . . the upstairs hallway. The carpet that lined this part of the house was a dark, lush green. You remembered picking it out with your parents when you were younger, it was like Hollywood's red carpet, only green.
Silently you made your way downstairs, relishing on every creak the stairs made when you put your weight on them. When you finally reached the ground floor, you didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Well, except that the house was empty. Your mother was normally around during this time, and you hadn't heard her snoring when you were upstairs, so she had to be up.
"Mom?" Hesitantly you walked towards the kitchen, the doorway just a off white frame. You peaked in, your feet stopping at the edge between the tile and the hardwood.
Everything was in it's proper place, not even a spoon seemed to have fallen from the drawer. You weren't imagining things, were you?
"Mom?" Taking in a shaky breath you were just about to head in and explore the non-damaged room when you heard heavy footsteps behind you and the swooshing of fabric behind you.
You didn't even have to turn around to know it was your mother, a sigh of relief left your lungs. What were you getting so worked up about, anyways?
Oh how wrong you were.
Without even enough time to turn around you felt a sharp pain in the back of your head, a yell left your mouth quickly. It was enough to jolt you forward and then backwards again, your feet tripping over each other in attempts to fix the balance of the world.
The edges of your vision pulsed with black edges, the world blurred together in a large mush of color and shapes that your brain couldn't identify. You fell backwards, the world closing over, a scab over the wound that was your vision, with blackness.
The disoriented stage only lasted a moment, so, the last thing you felt in your conscious mind was the impact of the wooden boards. The final feeling was of the ground jarring your brain into numbness.