pixiefairybloom

[pixiefairybloom]

~ 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕮𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒~

𝔄 𝔉𝔞𝔫 𝔣𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔟𝔢𝔱𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔬 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔄𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞

_____________________________________________

Chapter Sixty: Scorpius

_____________________________________________ Draco’s POV

The world had been reduced to the sound of her breathing.

I sat at her side, my hand tangled in hers, my thumb brushing over her knuckles in a rhythm meant to keep both of us steady. Her hair was damp against her temple, her eyes sharp and focused, but there was no fear in them — only determination.

“Almost there,” the healer said from somewhere beyond my line of sight. I couldn’t look away from Astoria.

She gave a small, breathless laugh. “You look worse than I feel.”

I huffed out something halfway between a scoff and a prayer. “Impossible.”

She squeezed my hand hard enough to make my fingers ache, and I would have gladly let them break if it helped.

And then — it happened.

A sound filled the room, small but fierce, like the world announcing a new presence with absolute certainty. The healer moved, and suddenly, I was staring at something impossibly tiny wrapped in a blanket, his cry fading into a curious, almost indignant quiet.

Astoria reached for him first, her arms trembling, her smile breaking something open in my chest. I leaned closer, my hand brushing over the soft curve of his head, my breath catching in a way I hadn’t felt since the night I asked her to marry me. I kissed her head softly and then the baby's.

We didn’t speak for a long moment. We just looked at him — at the way his fingers curled, the faint, perfect furrow of his brow, the impossible fact that he was ours, that mine and her love combined, created him.

As I sat there with Astoria’s head resting against my shoulder and our son asleep in her arms, I thought of all the places we’d been — the quiet corners of the Slytherin common room, the lake in spring, the Astronomy Tower under a sky full of stars — and realized that every step, every fight, every moment we’d almost lost each other had been leading here, to this quiet room, to her, to us, to him….

When she finally glanced at me, there was a question in her eyes. Not uncertainty — just the quiet, unspoken moment of choosing.

I nodded, my voice low. “Scorpius.”

_ _ _

THE END

[pixiefairybloom]

~ 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕮𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒~

𝔄 𝔉𝔞𝔫 𝔣𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔟𝔢𝔱𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔬 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔄𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞

_____________________________________________

Chapter Fifty-Nine : The First Night

_____________________________________________

WARNING: Mentions of sex

Astoria’s POV

The reception had ended hours ago, but I still felt the ghost of music in my bones as Draco and I stepped into our room. Someone had been in to light the candles, the air faintly scented with jasmine. The bed was turned down, soft and inviting, a quiet contrast to the whirlwind of the day.

I turned to him, smiling — and found him watching me.

Not with hunger, not with impatience, but with something gentler.

“You don’t have to,” he said quietly, as though he’d read my thoughts before I’d even had them.

I blinked. “Don’t have to…?”

“Tonight. We’ve had a long day.” His hand reached for mine, thumb brushing over my ring. “I’m not expecting—”

“I know you’re not,” I cut in, stepping closer until the space between us was barely there. “But I want to.”

His brow furrowed slightly. “Astoria—”

I pressed my fingers to his lips, silencing him. “I want to,” I repeated, slower this time. “Not because it’s expected, not because it’s tradition… because it’s you. And I’ve waited a long time for this.”

Something shifted in his eyes then — relief, maybe, or the last thread of restraint loosening.

When I dropped my hand, he kissed me, slow and deliberate, like he was still giving me the chance to change my mind. But I didn’t. I only pulled him closer, my hands at his shoulders, my heart steady with the certainty of it.

The rest happened without rush — layers falling away one by one, laughter mingling with quiet sighs. Every touch felt like a promise we’d been building toward for years, and when we finally came together, it wasn’t hurried or tentative. It was exactly where we were meant to be.

When it was over, neither of us moved for a long time. His arm was still around me, my head tucked into the curve of his shoulder, the rise and fall of his breathing steady against my cheek.

Eventually, he murmured, “Bath?” in that low, almost lazy voice he only used when he was completely at ease.

I smiled and nodded.

The bathroom was warm and softly lit, steam curling in the air. Draco had run the bath with a flick of his wand, and I sank into the water with him, leaning back against his chest. The scent of the jasmine bath salts mingled with the faint trace of his cologne, the combination making me feel heavier and lighter all at once.

We didn’t talk much. His fingers traced idle patterns along my arm, my hand rested over his on the edge of the tub. There was nothing that needed to be said — not tonight.

When we finally dried off and returned to bed, the sheets were cool against my skin. Draco slid in beside me, drawing me close, his lips brushing the top of my hair.

“Sleep,” he whispered.

And I did — warm, safe, and sure in the knowledge that when I woke, he would still be there.

_ _ _

[pixiefairybloom]

~ 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕮𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒~

𝔄 𝔉𝔞𝔫 𝔣𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔟𝔢𝔱𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔬 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔄𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞

_____________________________________________

Chapter Fifty-Eight: The Rest of Forever

_____________________________________________

Astoria’s POV

“I do.”

The words left my mouth steady, but my pulse was a storm.

Draco’s eyes stayed locked on mine, full of a fierce kind of certainty that made it impossible to look anywhere else, even though, from the edge of my vision, I caught the stillness of his parents in the front row.

Lucius Malfoy sat rigid, expression carved from marble. Narcissa’s face was softer, but her eyes didn’t warm when they touched me. We’d both known their views, how my rejection of pure-blood superiority made me, in their eyes, an unsuitable wife for their son.

Draco had told me, more than once, that their approval wasn’t part of his future. But knowing that and standing here in white silk, feeling the weight of their gaze, were two different things.

The officiant’s voice drifted over us, announcing us husband and wife, and then Draco’s hands were on my face, his lips pressing into mine in a kiss that made the rest of the world dissolve. For a moment, there were no disapproving stares. No ideological divides. Just us.

By the time I could breathe again, we were already moving together on the dance floor. The rest of the room blurred—golden candlelight, the slow sweep of music, the faint murmur of voices.

“I thought you hated dancing,” I said quietly.

“I do,” he replied, smirking just enough to make my chest ache. “Except with you.”

I let my hand settle against his shoulder, the other still caught in his. His eyes never wandered, not to the crowd, not to the tables, and certainly not toward his parents.

But I could still feel them watching.

“You’re staring past me,” Draco murmured, reading me like a page.

“I’m not,” I said.

“You are.” He pulled me closer, his voice low enough for only me. “Let them look, Astoria. They don’t get a say. Not anymore.”

The conviction in his tone eased the knot in my chest. I nodded, letting my forehead rest briefly against his.

When the song ended, he didn’t release me right away. His thumb brushed over my knuckles in a slow, absent motion, like he was memorising the shape of my hand. Then he leaned down, lips just at my ear.

“Come with me.”

Before I could ask where, he’d guided me away from the floor, through a side door, and into the cool night air. The laughter and music faded behind us, replaced by the quiet hiss of the sea and the distant crash of waves.

We stood on the edge of the balcony overlooking the dark water. The moonlight caught his hair, his tie was loosened now, and for the first time all day, he looked almost at ease.

“It’s better out here,” he said simply, resting his hands on the railing beside mine. “Just you. Just me.”

I tilted my head toward him. “And no audience.”

He gave a faint smile. “Exactly.”

The breeze lifted the hem of my dress, and I reached for him without thinking. His arms came around me, pulling me close, solid and warm against the night air. We stayed like that for a long while—no speeches, no stares, no Malfoy expectations pressing in from the edges. Just the sound of the waves and the steady rhythm of his breathing.

“I meant what I said,” he murmured against my hair. “They don’t get a say. You’re my wife now. That’s all that matters.”

I closed my eyes, letting the truth of that settle deep in my bones. And when I looked up at him again, the shadows from earlier felt smaller somehow, unable to reach us here.

“Come inside,” he said softly, brushing his lips against my temple. “We’ve got forever to start.”

And with his hand warm in mine, I followed him inside.

_ _ _

[pixiefairybloom]

~ 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕮𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒~

𝔄 𝔉𝔞𝔫 𝔣𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔟𝔢𝔱𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔬 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔄𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞

_____________________________________________

Chapter Fifty-Seven : The Way Back to the Stars

_____________________________________________

Draco’s POV

Leaving the Ministry early felt like committing a small crime.

Granger had raised an eyebrow at me—the eyebrow, the one that preceded either a lecture or a list. I escaped before either appeared.

Two hours. Two hours of train benches too small for legs too long, stale tea, and a copy of The Daily Prophet I didn’t bother opening. And still, I made the journey without blinking.

I hadn’t seen her in weeks.

We wrote, of course—letters folded with charm-repellent spells and ink stains in the margins. But it wasn’t the same. Something in me had shifted, and paper wasn’t enough to hold it.

I needed to see her face when she talked. Hear the shape of her breath when she said my name. Be reminded that this was real—not something I made up between policy drafts and closed-door meetings.

By the time I reached Hogsmeade, the sun had gone soft and low behind the trees. I took the path toward the gates, slower than I needed to. The air smelled like pine and old stone.

She wasn’t expecting me. She never expected me.

That was part of the problem.

I gave my name at the gate. The wards recognized it. I half-expected the castle to reject me on principle.

Instead, it welcomed me in.

---

The castle was quiet this late—less like a school and more like a memory. I found her in her classroom, just as the candles had started lowering themselves. She was alone, seated at her desk with a half-marked stack of essays and a steaming mug she probably hadn’t touched in an hour.

I watched her for a moment. Just breathing. Just existing.

She hadn’t changed.

When I stepped into the doorway, she didn’t look up right away.

“Professor Greengrass, I presume?”

Her head snapped up. Eyes wide.

“Draco?”

I didn’t smirk. I wanted to. But I was too full of the space between us.

“I came to make sure you hadn’t replaced me with enchanted chalk.”

Astoria stared at me, stunned.

Then she stood, slowly, like she wasn’t quite sure I was real.

“You… took the train?”

“Obviously”

A beat. Then, “That’s two hours from London.”

“Yes, I was there. I know.”

“You left work early?”

“I did.”

“For me?”

“For tea,” I said. “And possibly a very smug smile from you.”

She stared a moment longer, and then, only then, did she cross the room.

Not fast. Not slow. Just inevitable.

She reached out and touched my sleeve, like she had to confirm I was here.

She whispered, “You’re a ridiculous man.”

“Everyone keeps saying that.”

“Tea?”

“I’d murder for it.”

She smiled—slow and warm, and without another word, took my hand.

The desk, the essays, the waiting world—they could all wait.

We’d wandered everywhere—past the Black Lake, through the quiet green-glow corridors of the Slytherin dorms, even across the courtyard where we often kissed. Each step felt like turning pages in a book we’d been writing for years, and all of them led us here.

The Astronomy Tower.

I pushed the heavy door open, and the cold night air rushed to greet us, smelling faintly of pine and old stone. Above, the stars were scattered wide and brilliant, exactly as they’d been the night of our first date.

Astoria stepped beside me, breath clouding in the chill. “It’s just as I remember,” she murmured. “Maybe more.”

I smiled faintly. “That’s because of the company.”

She gave me that look—half amusement, half warmth and moved to the railing. I followed, my shoulder brushing hers.

“This was our first date,” I reminded her.

The wind caught her hair, and I reached out to tuck it behind her ear, my hand lingering against her cheek.

“Whatever happens,” I said softly, “I want you to remember this night.”

She laced her fingers with mine, steady and sure. “I already will.”

The stars above felt nearer, like they’d bent down to listen. And before I could second-guess myself, I reached into my coat pocket.

Her eyes followed the movement, curiosity flickering into realization.

I held out a small, silver box, simple, no enchantments, no gaudy flash. Inside, a ring rested in the moonlight, the band twisted like two vines intertwined, set with a single starlit diamond.

Her breath caught.

“This place,” I said, voice low, “was where I realized I didn’t want to imagine a future without you in it. I’ve made mistakes, Astoria—Merlin knows I’ll make more—but the one thing I know without a doubt is that I want every day, every quiet moment, every ridiculous argument … with you.”

The wind wrapped around us, carrying the silence that followed.

I sank to one knee on the cold stone. “Astoria Greengrass… will you marry me?”

For a heartbeat, she only stared. Then she laughed—soft, trembling and covered her mouth with her free hand.

“Yes,” she whispered, and then stronger. “Yes.”

I slipped the ring onto her finger, my hand shaking only slightly, and she pulled me up before I could stand on my own. Her arms wound around my neck, and I held her there, against me, under the same stars that had seen us begin.

And for the first time in years, the future didn’t feel like something to fear.

It felt like ours.

_ _ _

[pixiefairybloom]

~ 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕮𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒~

𝔄 𝔉𝔞𝔫 𝔣𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔟𝔢𝔱𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔬 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔄𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞

_____________________________________________

Chapter Fifty-Six: Offices and Interviews

_____________________________________________ Astoria’s POV

I hadn’t been back to Hogwarts in years.

Not since the Battle. Not since the smoke. Not since the corridor outside the Transfiguration classroom cracked like eggshell under falling stone.

And now I was back—not as a student, not as a casualty, but as a candidate.

Professor Vector had met me at the gates with a surprisingly warm smile and a clipboard that looked more dangerous than any curse. “They’ve reviewed your records and letters of recommendation,” she said. “They liked what they saw. But McGonagall will want to speak with you herself.”

Of course she would. Minerva McGonagall didn’t hand over Transfiguration lightly. It was her subject. Her battleground. Her legacy.

No pressure.

The classrooms hadn’t changed much. Dust lingered in high corners. The stone was the same—a little more worn, maybe. And the desks still bore years of student etchings and wand-burns. A few were newer, replacements after the war. But one near the back caught my eye.

Third row, second seat from the end.

I ran my fingers along the edge without thinking, heart thudding.

"D + A"

Barely visible now. Faint. Faded. But still there—two initials, scratched into the wood one evening when we were fifteen, hidden behind a stack of spellwork and eye-rolling sarcasm.

He’d carved the “D.” I’d followed with the “A.” Neither of us had said anything after. It was stupid. It was a joke. It was everything.

Now it was still here. Waiting.

The Headmistress arrived precisely on time, looking as formidable as ever in tartan and an expression that could still reduce grown men to dust.

We talked about curriculum. About teaching styles. About war and how one lives after it. She asked me a final question before I left:

“Do you believe in second chances?”

I didn’t hesitate. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

Draco’s POV

The Ministry was worse than I remembered.

Everyone smelled like parchment and self-importance. My office was two floors below Hermione Granger’s, which wouldn’t be so unbearable if she didn’t actually acknowledge me in the halls like we were colleagues. Friends, even.

Worse still, Potter stopped by her office regularly, all cheerful and slightly windblown, like his hair had never learned professional etiquette. I dealt with it the way any self-respecting man would.

By pretending they didn’t exist.

Most days, I buried myself in legislation drafts, diplomatic summaries, and international magical trade disputes. I was good at it. Sharp. Cold. Efficient.

Exactly the kind of person Granger pretended not to find mildly infuriating in meetings.

But I found myself checking the owl perch every day at lunch.

Nothing.

Then, one Friday, I returned from a meeting with the Department of Magical Transportation to find a single scroll on my desk—rolled tightly, sealed in dark green wax.

I knew her handwriting immediately.

“I got the job.”

No flowery introduction. No dramatic punctuation.

But I read it three times.

Then leaned back in my chair and, very quietly, smiled.

Hogwarts. Transfiguration.

Of course she did.

_ _ _

[pixiefairybloom]

~ 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕮𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒~

𝔄 𝔉𝔞𝔫 𝔣𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔟𝔢𝔱𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔬 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔄𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞

_____________________________________________

Chapter Fifty-Four: Unnecessary Necklaces & Terrible Timing

_____________________________________________ Astoria’s POV

It had been three weeks since he showed up on my doorstep with that ridiculous coat and more honesty than I knew what to do with. Three weeks of hesitant letters, quiet walks, and conversations that circled around everything we used to be and everything we might be again.

Draco, for his part, had decided that the best way to apologize for the war, the silence, and several months of aloof emotional distance… was shopping.

Apparently, nothing said “emotional maturity” like dragging me through Diagon Alley with the energy of a newly freed Crup.

We’d already survived two robe fittings, a dramatic monologue about proper collar structure, and an alarming detour into “just looking” at magical boots that cost more than my family’s sofa set.

Shopping with Draco was a sport.

An elegant, judgmental sport with excellent posture and no budget.

We were halfway through Flourish and Blotts when he suddenly veered left.

“Wait—where are you going?” I called, juggling my bag and the world’s most aggressive scarf.

He pointed, sharply. “Jewelry. Clearly.”

“Clearly,” I muttered, following him into a glittering shop windowed with floating displays and subtle gold enchantments. The kind of place where everything sparkled and nothing had a price tag because if you had to ask, you didn’t belong.

He was already browsing with his usual air of detached royalty when I noticed another couple in the shop—young, still in school, clearly sweet on each other. The girl was staring at a silver starlight charm necklace in a little glass case like it contained the moon itself.

“I can ask,” her boyfriend was saying, voice low. “Maybe if I—if I come back next week—”

I glanced at the necklace.

It was pretty.

Delicate and enchanted to shimmer like constellations when touched.

“Pretty,” I murmured under my breath, mostly to myself.

Unfortunately, Draco Malfoy has the hearing of a cursed hawk.

“What was that?” he said sharply.

“Nothing,” I said quickly, but it was already too late—he’d turned to the shopkeeper with that cool, polished Malfoy tone that meant he was about to cause a scene just by existing.

“How much for the star necklace?”

The boyfriend blinked. The shopkeeper blinked. I froze.

“Oh no,” I whispered. “Draco.”

“It’s very limited,” the shopkeeper said delicately. “Four hundred galleons.”

Four. Hundred.

For a necklace the size of a Sickles.

“Lovely,” Draco said, already pulling out his coin pouch. “Wrap it.”

“Draco.”

He turned toward me, entirely unaffected by the silent screaming I was doing inside my own brain. “You said it was pretty.”

“I also say sunrise is pretty. Are you going to buy me the sun?”

“I would if it were in stock.”

I might’ve choked.

Behind me, the girl’s eyes were wide, her boyfriend turning a vaguely tragic shade of grey-green. I felt awful—not for owning an absurdly expensive necklace now, but for the timing. Draco, on the other hand, looked like he’d just bought an entire kingdom at a discount.

The shopkeeper handed over a velvet box like it contained national secrets. Draco took it and handed it to me without ceremony.

“There,” he said. “Sorted.”

“I didn’t ask for it.”

“You didn’t not ask.”

“That’s not a thing!”

“Now it is.”

I clutched the box, torn between awe, embarrassment, and the overwhelming urge to kick him under the nearest glass counter.

He, of course, looked smug enough to fuel a weather pattern.

“Do you enjoy ruining the entire emotional tone of other people’s anniversaries?” I asked quietly as we exited the shop.

He smirked. “A little.”

I shook my head, laughter breaking through despite myself. He glanced sideways at me and added, quieter, “Besides. You liked it.”

I looked down at the box in my hand.

“…Maybe.”

He looked triumphant again.

“And for the record,” I added as we kept walking, “if you ever try to buy me a broomstick just because I sneeze near one, I’m hexing you.”

“Noted.”

(Liar.)

_ _ _

[pixiefairybloom]

~ 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕮𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒~

𝔄 𝔉𝔞𝔫 𝔣𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔟𝔢𝔱𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔬 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔄𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞

_____________________________________________

Chapter Fifty-Three: What He Meant to Say

_____________________________________________ Astoria’s POV

I wasn’t expecting anyone that evening.

I was still in a threadbare sweater, sleeves pushed up as I battled with a dying houseplant on the windowsill. My hair was pinned in a halfhearted twist, wand tucked behind my ear. There was dirt on my cheek and a smear of ink on my wrist from a list I’d started writing and never finished.

So when the knock came, I wasn’t ready.

I opened the door expecting a neighbor—or, at worst, a Ministry owl with more paperwork.

What I got was Draco Malfoy, standing on my porch in an elegant, floor-sweeping black coat, boots that gleamed like polished obsidian, and gloves so soft-looking they probably cost more than my family's entire mansion. He looked like he’d stepped out of a restoration painting of the aristocracy, just casually dropped into my lopsided cottage.

We both stared at each other for a long moment.

“…You’re wearing velvet,” I said.

His lips twitched. “I was going to send a letter.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I changed my mind.”

He hesitated before adding, “I figured if I was going to make an absolute disaster of this, I’d do it properly. In person.”

I blinked. “You picked now to remember you’re a Malfoy?”

He looked down at himself. “I had a moment.”

“Well,” I muttered, stepping aside, “Come in.”

He did, carefully navigating the narrow hallway like it might attack him. His coat brushed a hanging plant. He winced. The hanging plant survived.

“I had a whole letter written,” he said after a beat. “Three, actually. None of them sounded like me. One sounded like a Defense Against the Dark Arts essay. The second like my father. The third accidentally rhymed.”

“Tragic.”

“I burned them. Obviously.”

“Of course.”

There was a pause—quiet, not tense. Just… waiting.

“I couldn’t stand not knowing if you’d actually read it,” he admitted, not meeting my eyes. “And if I sent it, I wouldn’t get to see your face when you did.”

I didn’t say anything at first. I just walked to the kitchen, grabbed two chipped mugs, and filled them with tea. When I returned, he was standing in the exact same place, hands clasped behind his back like he thought I might hex him.

“Here,” I said, handing him a mug.

He looked at it warily.

“It won’t explode.”

“Not reassuring coming from you.”

“Still true.”

We sat—awkwardly—on the couch that creaked far too much under his coat’s protest. I took a sip, let the steam fill the space between us.

“Why now?” I asked.

He stared at his tea. “Because if I waited another day, I was afraid I’d never try. And I think I’d regret that more than saying all the wrong things.”

“And if I don’t want to hear them?”

“Then I’ll leave. With my ridiculous coat. And bruised pride. But I had to try.”

I looked at him. Really looked. He wasn’t as polished beneath the velvet as he thought. There were faint shadows under his eyes, a stiffness in the way he sat—like he still didn’t know how to belong in quiet spaces.

“I never asked for perfect words, Draco,” I said softly. “I just wanted you to speak them.”

His eyes flicked up to mine. Uncertain. Hopeful. Tired.

And then—relieved.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

“For leaving?”

“For not coming back sooner.”

He didn’t reach for my hand. He didn’t try to close the distance. He just sat, with me, in a silence that felt fuller than any apology could be.

And for the first time in months, I let myself believe we might have more than ashes left between us.

Maybe not everything needed to burn to begin again.

_ _ _

[pixiefairybloom]

~ 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕮𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒~

𝔄 𝔉𝔞𝔫 𝔣𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔟𝔢𝔱𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔬 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔄𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞

_____________________________________________

Chapter Fifty-Two: Letters

_____________________________________________

Draco's POV

The manor was too quiet now.

No footsteps. No orders barked across polished floors. No distant echoes of his father’s voice, brittle with pride. Just dust settling on furniture that hadn’t been touched in months and the low, incessant creak of the house remembering everything it had witnessed.

And me. Trying, once again, to write a letter I wouldn’t send.

The parchment stared back at me, still blank except for my name at the top—Draco Malfoy—as if mocking me.

I dipped the quill in ink. Paused. Wrote two words.

Astoria,

Then stopped.

I sat there, hand poised midair, as if the next sentence might break me.

How do you apologize for something you can’t name properly? For cowardice, for silence, for disappearing into the kind of boy she never believed he’d become? For surviving?

I tried again.

Astoria, I hope you’re—

No. Too distant.

I crossed it out.

Astoria, I know I have no right to ask, but—

Too desperate.

Crumpled it. Tossed it across the room. Watched it bounce off a half-unpacked trunk and fall flat. The others were already there—five? Six? I’d stopped counting.

I stared at the blank parchment again, like it owed me answers.

What was I even trying to say? That I was sorry? That I’d thought of her when the fire closed in? That I'd looked for her in the crowd as the castle burned down around us and wondered if I'd ever see her again?

Or that I saw her. That day.

She saw me too.

And I did nothing.

I let my mother take my arm. I let Voldemort embrace me like a prize pet. I walked away across that bridge like I didn’t care who was watching.

Like I didn’t care about her.

Truth was—I hadn’t said a word in weeks, but she had filled every silence anyway. In the stillness before sleep. In the mornings when the sunlight hit the window the way it used to in the Slytherin common room. In the ache I couldn’t name when I thought about the Room of Requirement and how close it had come to being the last place I existed.

I picked up the quill again.

Astoria, I wanted to tell you I’m alive. You probably already know. But that day—I didn’t get to say anything. I should have. I wanted to. I just—

I stopped. The ink was already starting to smudge.

This time, I didn’t crumple it. Just… folded it once. Set it aside.

Then stared at it.

Did I even deserve her reading it?

Would she?

I stood up and crossed the room, grabbed the letter, and held it in my hand just long enough to almost want to keep it.

Then tossed it into the fireplace. Watched the edges curl and blacken. Watched it vanish.

Ashes. Again.

Maybe tomorrow.

Maybe next time.

Maybe I’d find the right words.

Maybe she'd still want to hear them.

But for now, all I could do was sit back down.

And try again.

_

The parchment in front of me was already curling at the edges, like even it was tired of waiting for me to write something worth keeping. I stared at the ink drying in hesitant, useless strokes.

Astoria, I don’t know if I—

A thud at the window.

I turned.

There, pressed against the glass, was a pale, speckled owl—one I hadn’t seen since school. Small, fast, stubborn. Just like her.

My breath caught.

The owl stared at me, unblinking, with that particular kind of judgment only hers ever had. Then it tapped the window twice, sharp and impatient.

My heart moved before I did.

I crossed the room and opened the latch. The owl swooped in, feathers rustling softly like a secret, and dropped the letter neatly onto the desk before settling on the back of my chair like it owned the place.

I didn’t touch the letter right away.

I just stared at it.

Her handwriting. Her seal.

Not a dream.

Not a ghost.

I reached for it with fingers I didn’t realize were trembling.

Draco.

That was all the envelope said.

Not Mr. Malfoy. Not even To. Just… Draco.

Like I hadn’t disappeared. Like she still believed I was someone worth writing to.

I opened it slowly, careful not to tear anything.

Draco,

I don’t know what made me send this. I wasn’t sure I would until I tied the parchment to her leg.

You should know—I’ve written and rewritten this letter more times than I’ll admit. Burned most of them. I imagine you’ve done the same.

Maybe this is foolish. Maybe it’s a mistake. But I saw you.

That day. On the bridge.

I was so sure you’d died in the fire. And then there you were. Breathing. Walking away.

You didn’t look back.

I told myself I was angry. Maybe I still am. But mostly, I’m relieved. You’re alive.

That has to count for something.

I’m not writing to fix anything. I don’t know if we can. I’m just writing to say… I still see you.

I always did.

—Astoria

I let the letter rest in my lap.

I didn’t move for a long time. Just sat there with her words pressed to my palms like they might sink in through the skin.

The owl gave a soft, impatient hoot.

“Tell her I got it,” I murmured.

The owl stared at me, unimpressed.

“Fine. I’ll write back.”

It ruffled its feathers, almost smug.

For the first time in weeks, I didn’t look at the blank parchment in front of me with dread.

This time, I didn’t crumple the page.

This time, I picked up my quill, dipped it in ink—

And began.

_ _ _

[pixiefairybloom]

~ 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕮𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒~

𝔄 𝔉𝔞𝔫 𝔣𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔟𝔢𝔱𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔬 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔄𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞

_____________________________________________

Chapter Fifty-One: A Breath Apart

_____________________________________________

Astoria's POV

The castle had never felt colder.

Even with the fires still burning in some halls, even with the bodies still warm, the chill was everywhere now—settled in our bones, in our breath. In the hollow space between heartbeats where we waited for the next tragedy to unfold.

And then it came.

A single scream shattered the silence.

The doors to the courtyard creaked open, and with them, a wave of dread.

Voldemort stepped through.

I felt Daphne’s hand tighten around mine, her nails digging into my skin. My lungs forgot how to work. Even the wounded sat up straighter, as if the very air bent beneath his presence.

And there—carried in Hagrid’s arms like a broken offering—was Harry Potter.

Still.

Limp.

Dead.

The collective gasp was a wound in itself. Someone sobbed. Someone else collapsed. My knees nearly buckled.

“No,” Daphne whispered.

But yes.

Voldemort’s face twisted into a grin that didn’t belong to any living thing. It was something carved from bone and shadow.

“Harry Potter,” he said, voice echoing unnaturally through the courtyard, “is dead!”

The words rang out like a curse.

The Death Eaters behind him laughed, jeered, shouted triumph into the morning. Bellatrix spun like a dancer drunk on blood, and Hagrid wept, cradling Harry as if he were still a boy who could wake up from this.

Narcissa Malfoy stepped forward.

Her movements were delicate, deliberate. Her eyes—too sharp, too calculating—searched the line of defenders, then flicked to the figure in Voldemort’s arms.

Or no… not Voldemort’s.

She moved to her son.

To Draco. He’s alive.

My breath caught. For a second, the world tilted. The Room of Requirement, the fire, the fear—it all rushed back and fell away in the same heartbeat.

He was bruised, haunted—but alive.

He stood stiffly near the front of the Death Eaters, pale and trembling like a shadow caught in the wrong place. He didn’t belong there. He never had.

“Draco,” she called, soft but unignorable. "come..."

He hesitated.

Everyone watched.

Then—slowly, like wading through tar—he walked.

Every step was agony to watch.

Voldemort opened his arms.

I wanted to be sick.

The hug was nothing but uncomfortable. I could see it in his eyes.

Draco didn’t flinch, but I saw it—his eyes, darting sideways, never quite meeting Voldemort’s gaze.

And then he was back at his mother’s side. She took his arm in hers, tightly, possessively. Like she might lose him again if she didn’t.

Lucius fell into step beside them. Hollow. Ashen. The mask gone.

The Malfoys turned.

And walked away.

No one stopped them.

They simply… left.

Slipping through the wreckage of a war not yet over, a family undone by the weight of its own choices.

Across the broken bridge they went—mother, father, son. Not victorious. Not loyal. Just done.

And I watched Draco’s silhouette disappear into the fog, unsure if I’d ever see him again.

But at least now I knew.

He’s alive.

In the breath that followed, everything broke loose.

And Harry Potter… opened his eyes.

_ _ _

[pixiefairybloom]

~ 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕮𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒~

𝔄 𝔉𝔞𝔫 𝔣𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔟𝔢𝔱𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔬 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔄𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞

_____________________________________________

Chapter Fifty: Ashes

_____________________________________________

Astoria's POV

The war paused, but the silence screamed.

I walked down the corridor like I was sleepwalking, the hem of my robes dragging ash in their wake. I’d lost track of time—of how long we’d been fighting, how many spells I’d dodged, how many names I’d whispered like prayers under my breath.

When Voldemort’s voice had cracked through the air, cold and clear, it froze everyone in place.

He wanted the bodies buried. Said it like a mercy, like a favor. But there was no kindness in that voice. Only calculation.

And then he asked for Harry Potter.

I don’t remember deciding to go to the Great Hall. My feet just took me there. As if the castle itself pulled me toward the grief, toward the truth of what we were losing. The doors were open, and the moment I stepped in, the smell hit me.

Blood. Dust. Smoke. Grief.

The air was thick with it.

People were sobbing. Some cried silently, heads bowed over bodies on stretchers. Others wailed openly, shaking the stone walls with their sorrow.

My throat closed.

For a moment, I was terrified to look too closely. What if I saw Daphne? What if I didn’t?

But then—“Astoria!”

I turned just in time for my sister to pull me into a hug so fierce, I nearly lost my balance. Daphne clutched me like she hadn’t seen me in years, like this war had already taken us both and we were clinging to scraps.

“You’re okay,” she whispered, over and over. “I couldn’t find you, I thought—God, I thought—”

“I’m here,” I said, even though it barely sounded like my voice.

We didn’t let go for a while.

When we finally did, I looked around again—at all the families curled around the fallen, at the faces turned to the doors in wait for someone who would never walk in.

It didn’t feel real. And yet it felt too real.

“I heard something,” Daphne said, her voice quieter now, eyes darting around like she wasn’t sure if she should say it. “About the Room of Requirement.”

I turned to her, alert.

“What about it?”

“There was a fire. Some Gryffindors made it out, I think—Potter was there. Someone said Goyle cast Fiendfyre and couldn’t control it. The whole room… it’s gone.”

I stared at her.

Gone?

My mind reeled—because the Room of Requirement was where Draco always disappeared to for the past year.

“Did you hear… was anyone hurt?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

She shook her head slowly. “No one knows. I think some of them got out—Potter and Granger, I’m not sure who else. There was talk about Draco being seen, but it could be wrong. Everything is…”

She didn’t finish. She didn’t need to.

I turned away from her and stared at the flickering candles hanging in the air, thinking about a fire so wild it ate an entire room alive. And the people inside it.

Draco.

Was he there?

Did he burn?

I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until Daphne touched my hand again.

“He’s probably fine,” she said gently. “He always finds a way, doesn’t he?”

I didn’t answer her.

Because Draco didn’t always find a way.

He just got better at pretending he did.

_ _ _

[pixiefairybloom]

~ 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕮𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒~

𝔄 𝔉𝔞𝔫 𝔣𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔟𝔢𝔱𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔬 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔄𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞

_____________________________________________

Chapter Forty-Nine: The War

_____________________________________________

Astoria's POV

It started with the clang of iron and the rumble of stone shifting.

Professor McGonagall’s voice echoed through the corridors—firm, measured, and unshakably calm. But there was something final in the way she moved. In the way the suits of armor began marching into place. In the way the staircases stopped shifting. As if the castle itself had drawn breath and was holding it.

Hogwarts was locking down.

I stood just outside the Slytherin common room, my fingertips pressed to the cold stone wall. I didn’t know what I was waiting for. Maybe someone to tell me it was a drill.

Everyone knew.

The war had arrived.

I should have gone to my dorm. Should have found Daphne, or at least pretended I wasn’t shaking in my shoes. But all I could think of—through the rising hum of spells being cast, through the murmurs of professors gathering students into lines—was him.

Draco.

I hadn’t seen him in weeks. Maybe longer. He was hardly at school anymore, and when he was, he walked like a ghost. Pale and drawn, like his bones were too heavy for his body.

And I hated him for it.

Not really. But in that moment, I hated that he left me without saying goodbye. That he thought pushing me away would protect me. That he didn’t believe I could handle the truth of what he was drowning in.

He never let me love him properly. Not when it counted.

I knew it wasn’t his fault. I knew more than anyone how deep that fear ran in him. He wore it like a second skin. But none of that stopped the ache in my chest as I stood alone, surrounded by the ticking heartbeat of war creeping into the corridors.

A first-year started crying down the hall. Someone else shouted for their sister. I didn’t move.

Where are you, Draco?

I remembered the sound of his voice. The way he used to say my name like it tasted different in his mouth. Like I was a place he could rest.

Maybe he was at the Manor. Maybe he was somewhere deeper in the castle, forced to fight for people he didn’t believe in. Or maybe—just maybe—he’d come back.

We were all waiting for something we couldn't say out loud.

The floor trembled beneath me. The first cracks of spells being hurled against the outer wards. I pressed my hands flat against the wall, breathing through my teeth.

And then I whispered, more to myself than to the air:

“Don’t die, Draco.”

Because even after everything—even after the silence, the cold looks, the way he vanished from my life without explanation—I still loved him.

I always had.

And if tonight was the end of everything, I just wanted the universe to know that.

_ _ _

[pixiefairybloom]

~ 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕮𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒~

𝔄 𝔉𝔞𝔫 𝔣𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔟𝔢𝔱𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔬 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔄𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞

_____________________________________________

Chapter Forty-Eight: The Things I Never Said

_____________________________________________

Draco's POV - Seventh Year

Avada Kedavra.

That sound haunts me more than the silence that followed. It didn’t come from me. It came from Snape. But it was supposed to be mine.

Dumbledore fell, and something in me cracked open. That moment lives behind my eyes now. It breathes in the quiet, in the corners of my thoughts, right between my ribs. And even now, I can't tell if it’s guilt that keeps it alive… or relief.

Everything else—what came after—feels like a blur painted in grayscale. I could list it all: the months spent shuffling between Hogwarts and the Manor, the way fear soaked into the walls like damp rot. The night Potter was brought to our doorstep. How I hesitated. How I couldn’t say it was him. How he disarmed me. How my mother handed me her wand.

But none of it ever weighed as heavily as what I did to her.

Astoria.

I thought I was doing the right thing. Ending things before they got too tangled, before she got too close to the fire I was already swallowed in. She never begged or cried. That made it worse. She just looked at me for a long time, like she already knew. I wanted her back.

I told her it wasn’t safe. That I had to protect her from what was coming. From me.

But the truth is, I was afraid.

Afraid she’d see me for what I was becoming. Or worse—what I wasn’t strong enough to become. I thought distance would keep her safe. That if I stayed away, she’d be untouched by all of this.

Except the world doesn’t work that way. Pain has a way of echoing through the cracks, even if you close all the doors.

I still catch myself looking for her.

In hallways. Across the Great Hall. On the rare days I’m at Hogwarts, I feel her presence before I ever see her. She’s different now. Sharper, quieter. There’s this stillness in her I can’t read anymore. Like she built her own armor the second I dropped mine and left her out in the cold.

I miss her in ways I can’t name. I miss the version of myself that only existed when she looked at me without fear.

But I stay away.

Not because I want to.

Because I have to.

Loving her now would be like pulling her into quicksand with me, and I’ve already done enough damage. I used to imagine a future with her—something distant and soft, a quiet life where my name didn’t feel like a chain. But that was before the world asked me to choose between survival and soul.

She deserved more than a boy haunted by a curse he didn’t cast. More than someone who flinched at his own reflection.

And still—I think of her every night.

I think of the way she would sit beside me in the library, close enough that our shoulders touched, but far enough not to crowd me. I think of the one time she touched my hand under the table, after a particularly brutal day, and didn’t say a word. Just warmth. Just presence.

She never needed me to be brave. Just honest.

And that’s the one thing I never truly was.

So I stay in the silence she left behind, wondering if there will ever be a day when I’m allowed to speak her name without tasting regret.

Astoria.

_ _ _

[pixiefairybloom]

~ 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕮𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒~

𝔄 𝔉𝔞𝔫 𝔣𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔟𝔢𝔱𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔬 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔄𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞

_____________________________________________

Chapter Forty-Seven: Smoke and Mirrors

_____________________________________________

Astoria's POV

The whispers came before breakfast.

By the time I stepped into the Great Hall, they were already bouncing off the stone walls like hexes — half-truths dressed up as fact, eyes darting across the Slytherin table, curious, gleaming.

“Did you hear?”

“Potter, they say — Sectumsempra—”

“Blood everywhere.”

“Snape found him.”

“He almost died.”

I didn’t need to ask who.

My stomach dropped, untouched toast on my plate, the warmth from my tea suddenly too sharp against my fingers. I didn’t say anything. Didn’t ask Daphne, didn’t turn to Pansy, didn’t look at Blaise.

Instead, I waited.

Waited until classes ended. Until curfew crept closer and the corridors thinned. I took the long way toward the dungeons, wand clenched in my hand, breathing shallow and sharp.

They said he’d been healed. That Snape had gotten there in time. That Potter had attacked first, or maybe second — no one seemed to know the truth. But Draco hadn’t been seen all day.

Not at meals. Not in class. Not in passing.

Just—gone.

And it wasn’t like him to hide. Not unless he had something to hide.

The empty hallway outside the Slytherin common room felt colder than usual. I stood in front of the wall, not sure if I’d even be allowed in anymore — not sure if I wanted to be.

Then, I saw him.

Not walking. Not standing.

Just… sitting. Back against the wall, head bowed, hair falling over his face like a curtain. His school robes hung loose around his shoulders, pale knuckles clenched in the fabric.

He didn’t hear me at first.

“Draco.”

His head jerked up. His eyes — wild for a second — softened when they met mine. But the rest of him didn’t move.

I stepped closer.

“Is it true?”

He didn’t answer.

“Was it Potter?”

Still nothing.

I lowered my voice. “They said he used a spell that nearly—”

“Do you want to hear it?” His voice cut the air like glass. “Do you want all the bloody details? Would that make it easier to hate me properly and leave me alone?”

I flinched.

“I don’t hate you,” I said. Quiet. Honest. “I couldn’t if I tried.”

He exhaled, shaky and slow, like the weight of the world was pressing on his chest and he didn’t know how to lift it anymore.

“I wasn’t ready,” he whispered.

“For the fight?”

“For any of this.”

I sat down next to him. Not close enough to touch. Not yet.

His hand twitched like he wanted to reach for something — or someone — but stopped short.

“There was blood,” he said. “Mine. All over the floor. I couldn’t breathe. I thought—”

He swallowed hard. Looked away.

“I thought that was it.”

A beat of silence.

“Snape saved me.”

I nodded.

We sat in the hush of the dungeons, the only sound the quiet humming of the castle, distant and muted.

“You don’t have to pretend with me,” I said finally. “I know you're scared.”

His jaw clenched. “I’m not scared.”

“You are. I see it. Every time I look at you.”

He didn’t deny it.

Instead, he said, “I wish I could forget what it feels like to bleed.”

I closed the space between us. Just barely. Just enough that our knees touched.

“You don’t have to bleed alone.”

I meant it. Every word. And for one flicker of a second, he looked like he might believe me.

His shoulder brushed mine. His breathing hitched. I saw the crack in him — a jagged fracture just beneath the surface, the boy I remembered clawing at the edges of the stranger he'd become.

Then it was gone.

He pulled away like I’d burned him.

The space between us reappeared — cold and sharp and deliberate.

“Don’t,” he muttered, barely above a whisper.

I blinked. “Don’t what?”

He shook his head, like the words hurt to say. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

“You think pushing me away will protect me?” I said quietly.

“It’s the only thing I can do.” His voice cracked then. Not much. But enough.

“You nearly died.”

He didn’t look at me. Just stared at the wall like if he focused hard enough, he could vanish inside it.

His silence answered for him.

I stood slowly, the ache in my chest spreading like frostbite.

“You’re not the only one bleeding, Draco,” I said. “You’re just the only one trying to pretend it doesn’t matter.”

His hands curled into fists. His mouth opened, then shut again. Whatever he wanted to say — whatever part of him still wanted to hold onto me — he buried it like he buried everything else.

So I left.

I didn’t look back.

I wanted him to follow.

He didn’t.

_ _ _

[pixiefairybloom]

~ 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕮𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒~

𝔄 𝔉𝔞𝔫 𝔣𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔟𝔢𝔱𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔬 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔄𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞

_____________________________________________

Chapter Forty-Six: The Vow

_____________________________________________

Draco's POV

It happened by accident.

I wasn’t meant to hear it — then again, I was never meant to survive any of this, so the rules stopped mattering a while ago.

I had gone to Slughorn’s office after hours. He owed me a favor, something about brewing supplies or ingredients I couldn’t be seen ordering through the usual channels. I wasn’t in the mood for company, but when I passed the dimly lit corridor outside the staff rooms, I heard Snape’s voice.

And then hers.

My mother.

“…you swore it, Severus.”

I froze.

“I did,” Snape said quietly. “And I intend to uphold it.”

I pressed my back to the wall, breath caught in my throat.

“I had no other choice,” she whispered. “If the Dark Lord fails to get what he wants from Draco, he’ll… he’ll kill him.”

My stomach turned to ice.

“That is why you asked me to make the Vow,” Snape replied evenly. “To protect him. And to complete the task if he cannot.”

My heart stopped.

No. No, no, no.

The stone beneath me might as well have opened up and swallowed me whole.

My mother — my mother — had gone to Snape. Had begged him to make the Unbreakable Vow.

And he had done it.

He would kill Dumbledore if I didn’t. And if he failed to do that? He would die too.

I stumbled backward, knocking something off a shelf. Glass shattered.

A silence cut the air like a blade.

“Who’s there?” Snape’s voice rang sharp.

I ran.

I didn’t stop until I was on the second floor, my lungs burning, my mind screaming.

So this was it. I had been handed a suicide mission. But now… now I wasn’t the only one trapped in it.

I collapsed in an alcove behind a suit of armor and buried my face in my hands.

It wasn’t just about me anymore.

Snape — cold, unreadable, powerful Snape — had bound himself by magic to carry out my task if I failed.

He would kill Dumbledore.

Or he would die trying.

All because my mother couldn’t bear to lose me. And because I’d been too much of a coward to admit I couldn’t do this in the first place.

I didn’t even realize I was crying until my throat burned and my fists trembled.

There was no way out. No escape hatch. No hero waiting in the wings to save me.

The path I was on ended in blood — mine, or someone else’s. And now Snape was walking it beside me.

♧

After that night, I stopped flinching.

I stopped hesitating. I stopped questioning.

If they were going to make me into a weapon, fine. Let them believe I’d sharpened myself gladly.

It was easier, somehow, to act like I wanted this. Like I wanted Dumbledore dead. Like I wasn’t drowning every time I looked at my own reflection. Like I wasn’t waking up in cold sweats, hearing screams that hadn’t happened yet.

Let them think I was a willing monster.

At least then, they’d stop trying to save me.

Snape cornered me a few days later — pressed me with those dark, unreadable eyes like he knew something had shifted.

“You understand what’s at stake,” he said.

“I do,” I replied. Calm. Even. Empty.

“I’m still willing to help you.”

I smiled — not kindly. “Don’t need your help, Professor.”

He studied me for a long moment. “Don’t be foolish.”

“I’m not,” I said. “I’ve got it under control.”

That was the first real lie I told him.

But I kept lying.

To him. To everyone.

I strutted through the halls with my mask on straight. Smirked when I passed Potter. Let the Slytherins whisper about what I was doing, let them wonder.

Fear made people easier to deal with. Easier than pity. Easier than Astoria’s eyes on me, like she could still see the boy underneath.

I started skipping meals again. Skipped sleep, too. Some nights, I worked on the Vanishing Cabinet until my fingers bled. Every crack I repaired, every spell I cast, brought me closer to opening that door — and letting death inside.

The pressure was unbearable. I carried it like lead inside my ribs. Every second I spent pretending to be confident was another second I was closer to shattering.

But no one could see that. They couldn’t.

Because if I looked scared, if I looked broken, then it would all be real. Then I’d have to admit I was going to fail.

So I wore the sneer. I stood taller. I laughed when Blaise asked if I was nervous.

Nervous? No. Excited, I said.

What a performance.

Only when I was alone did the truth return. In mirrors. In reflections. In the dead eyes I didn’t recognize anymore.

There was blood on my hands already — metaphorical, for now. But I could feel it drying into my skin. A part of me wanted to scream for help.

But I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.

Because I had made myself a promise, beneath the fear and the guilt and the exhaustion that clung to every inch of me like rot:

If someone was going to pay for this, it would be me — not her. Not my mother. Not Snape.

I would take this to the end. Alone.

Even if it killed me.

_ _ _

[pixiefairybloom]

~ 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕮𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒~

𝔄 𝔉𝔞𝔫 𝔣𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔟𝔢𝔱𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔬 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔄𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞

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Chapter Forty-Five: Hollow

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Draco's POV

I told her not to follow me.

She didn’t. But her silence burned more than anything she could’ve said.

I didn’t go back to the dormitory. Couldn’t. I wandered the castle like a ghost, hands shoved deep in my pockets, wand gripped too tight. I kept expecting the stone walls to collapse on top of me, just to finish the job already. Put me out of my misery.

When I finally made it back to the Room of Requirement, I locked the door behind me, dropped to my knees on the cold stone floor, and just sat there.

Astoria had looked at me like I was still something worth saving. That was the worst part. The cruelest part. She saw someone I couldn't be anymore.

She didn’t see the boy standing in a manor basement, surrounded by masks, choking on the smell of fear and iron. She didn’t hear the screams.

I did.

I heard them every night.

The first time I attended a meeting, I vomited in the corner after. I was lucky no one noticed — if they had, I don’t think I’d be breathing right now. The second meeting was worse. By the third, I stopped flinching when the Cruciatus Curse echoed off the walls.

And then — the assignment.

Not a test. Not a mission.

A sentence.

Kill Albus Dumbledore.

It sounded impossible the first time he said it. Even now, it didn’t feel real. How was I, Draco Malfoy, supposed to take down the greatest wizard Hogwarts had ever known?

I knew what it was, of course. I wasn’t stupid. Voldemort didn’t expect me to succeed. He expected me to fail. To die trying. It was a punishment, dressed up as duty. A trap set in my father’s name, and I was the bait.

Astoria would’ve told me to find a way out.

But there isn’t one.

If I fail, my family dies. My mother. Maybe even her, if they decide I cared too much.

If I succeed… what’s left of me doesn’t get to come back.

I stared at the wall, at the vanishing cabinet I’d spent weeks trying to repair. It taunted me. A door to destruction that I was too afraid to fully open.

What if it worked?

What if it actually let them in?

What if I led monsters into this castle, and people — students, everyone— died?

My hands shook. I gritted my teeth and slammed my fist into the floor, just to feel something real.

I hated him. I hated Voldemort. I hated my father. I hated Potter. I hated the mark on my arm. I hated the way I couldn’t scrub it clean no matter how hard I tried. I hated—

I hated that I missed her.

Her voice. Her fire. The way she’d look at me like I was more than this, not less. Like I still had a future worth fighting for.

But I couldn’t drag her into this. I’d rather she hated me than watched me become the thing I was pretending not to be.

So I let her go.

And now I was alone, in a castle full of people who wouldn’t cry if I disappeared tomorrow.

_ _ _

[pixiefairybloom]

~ 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕮𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒~

𝔄 𝔉𝔞𝔫 𝔣𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔟𝔢𝔱𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔬 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔄𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞

_____________________________________________

Chapter Forty-Four: Let Me Go

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Astoria's POV

Draco Malfoy had always been distant with the rest of the world — but never with me. At least, not like this. He hadn’t said a cruel word, hadn’t staged a dramatic exit. He had just started disappearing. In little pieces.

First it was skipping breakfast, then leaving class the second it ended. Then it was the way he stopped waiting for me outside Arithmancy. The way he never met my eyes in the corridors. Like I was suddenly just another face in a crowd he didn’t want to be part of.

It started after that article in the Daily Prophet.

People stared at him differently after that. But not me. I still saw him.

Or I did, when he let me.

By October, I’d had enough. Enough of the silence, the space, the growing knot of dread in my stomach that tightened every time he walked past me like I didn’t matter. However there was something still bothering me ever since the train ride.

The Mark. The Dark Mark. Did he really have it? Was he actually a death eater now?

I didn’t sleep that night.

So I waited until I could find Draco alone. Not easy lately — he was always surrounded by Crabbe and Goyle like human barricades. But I knew his habits better than anyone. Knew the places he went when he didn’t want to be seen.

The Astronomy Tower, late. After curfew, after the castle had gone quiet.

I found him there, just like I’d guessed. Standing at the edge of the tower, hands braced against the stone railing, face tilted up to the stars like he was begging them for answers.

He didn’t hear me at first. Or maybe he did and just didn’t care.

“Draco.”

He flinched. Just a little. Then turned his head slowly, as if every movement cost him something. “Astoria.”

He said my name like it hurt. No sneer, no smirk — just that flat, exhausted voice I barely recognized anymore.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

No response. Just silence, and that cold wind tugging at his robes.

“You won’t look at me. You don’t sit near me. You don’t even try to lie about it. I’m not stupid, Draco — I notice when someone I care about disappears.”

His jaw tightened, but he still didn’t speak.

“I heard Potter,” I said quietly. “Talking about you. Saying you might have the Mark already.”

That got him. His shoulders went rigid, and his hand curled into a fist on the stone.

“I don’t care what he thinks,” I continued. “I care about what’s true. So tell me — is it? Is it true?”

He finally turned to face me, and the look in his eyes nearly knocked the breath out of me.

He looked like someone who was drowning — and had been, for a while.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

“That’s not an answer.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not. It’s too late either way.”

My heart clenched. “Too late for what?”

“For me. For us.” He looked away. “You don’t understand what I’m in, Astoria.”

“Then make me understand,” I snapped. “Because right now, it feels like you’re trying to vanish before my eyes and pretend it’s for my sake. Like I’m safer if you just… fade out of my life.”

“Aren’t you?” he said bitterly.

“No,” I said, stepping closer. “I’m not. I’m just angrier.”

He stared at me like he didn’t know what to do with that.

“You don’t get to protect me by breaking me first,” I said. “I want the truth. Even if it’s awful. Even if you regret it. I want you, Draco — not this ghost of you that walks around like he’s already gone.”

His hand hovered at his side, clenched and twitching like he wanted to reach out and didn’t trust himself.

“I didn’t want you dragged into this,” he said finally. “You’re the only thing I’ve ever had that wasn’t… poisoned.”

“Then stop treating me like a weakness.”

That landed. He closed his eyes again, exhaling through his nose. “I can’t tell you everything.”

“Fine. Then tell me what you can.”

A beat. Two.

He didn’t speak. But after a moment, his sleeve slipped back just enough for me to see the edge of something dark inked into his skin.

And then — just as quickly — he covered it again.

I didn’t move. I didn’t cry. I just stood there, heart thudding, as everything I’d suspected snapped into place.

“I see,” I whispered.

He looked at me like he expected me to run.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I reached for his hand — and when he didn’t pull away, I held it.

Tight. Certain.

If he was already falling, then I would be the one to remind him where the ground was.

His hand was cold. Not the kind of cold from the wind or the stone beneath our feet, but something deeper. A kind of cold that felt like it had seeped into his bones.

Still, he let me hold it.

I stared at our hands for a moment — his, pale and trembling, mine steady but only just. There were a thousand things I wanted to say. A thousand ways I wanted to pull him back.

But I didn’t speak. Not yet.

Neither did he.

When he finally did, his voice came out thin and sharp, like he’d had to cut it out of himself.

“I shouldn't have let this go on.”

I looked up slowly. “What?”

“This,” he said. His eyes were on our joined hands. “You. Us. It was selfish. I knew what was coming. I thought I could… hold onto you a bit longer before everything fell apart.”

My chest tightened. “Draco—”

“I thought I could keep you separate from it.” His voice cracked, just slightly. “But I can’t. I won’t. Not anymore.”

I let go of his hand, but he didn’t pull away this time.

“Don’t do this,” I said, even though I already knew I was losing.

“I already have.” He stepped back — just one step, but it felt like miles. “You need to stay away from me. This year, next year… after. It’s not safe. I’m not safe.”

“You think I didn’t know what loving you meant?” My voice was rising, and I didn’t care anymore. “You think I didn’t see the signs? I chose this. I chose you.”

“You chose someone I’m not anymore.”

That hurt more than anything.

He looked down, then back up at me — and in his eyes, I saw regret so sharp it felt like glass.

“You made me feel like I was still normal, like everybody else, when I'm not.” he said quietly. “That was your mistake.”

“No,” I whispered. “That was your proof.”

We stood in silence. Just us and the wind and the stars above that didn’t care what either of us were going through.

Then he turned.

“Don’t follow me,” he said.

And just like that, he was gone — down the steps, into shadow, into whatever darkness he’d already chosen.

I didn’t cry. Not right away.

I stood there with my arms folded tight across my chest, trying to remember how to breathe.

I had come looking for answers. I got them.

But nothing in the world prepares you for the moment someone you love decides you're better off without them.

_ _ _

[pixiefairybloom]

~ 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕮𝖑𝖆𝖎𝖒~

𝔄 𝔉𝔞𝔫 𝔣𝔦𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔟𝔢𝔱𝔴𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔇𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔬 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔄𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔦𝔞

_____________________________________________

Chapter Forty-Three: The Dark Mark

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Astoria's POV

The small compartment felt suffocating. Too close quarters with Daphne, her arms crossed, tapping her foot impatiently against the worn carpet. The train rumbled on, carrying us back towards Hogwarts and the inevitable start of sixth year. I kept stealing glances out the window, towards the front of the train where I knew Draco would be. Every time the corridor outside seemed empty, I risked a longer look, hoping, dreading. Avoiding him felt like cowardice, but facing his newfound coldness felt like walking into a blizzard.

"Are you going to stare out the window all day, Astoria?" Daphne's voice was dry, edged with her usual, slightly impatient curiosity. "Or are you finally going to tell me what's got you so jumpy?"

I dragged my eyes back to her, forcing a semblance of normalcy. "Nothing. It's just… jitters, I suppose. The thought of all the work."

Daphne raised an eyebrow, unconvinced, but let it drop. She pulled a chocolate frog from a bag, examining the card before taking a bite. The familiar crackle of the door being opened made me jump, and Daphne looked up, ready to shoo away whoever it was.

But it was just some third-year Ravenclaws asking if the compartment was full. Daphne nodded curtly, and they moved on. As the door clicked shut behind them, a wave of relief washed over me, quickly followed by a fresh wave of anxiety. Where was Draco? Why hadn't he come looking for me? Or perhaps more accurately, why didn't I feel brave enough to go find him?

I leaned back against the seat, closing my eyes for a moment. The train gave a lurch, and the familiar chugging rhythm continued. Just then, a different sound filtered through the compartment walls – voices. Not nearby, but distinct enough to catch my attention. Familiar voices.

"Don't you see, it was a ceremony, an initiation," Harry said.

The words landed like ice. I couldn't catch much more, the sounds blurring together again. Then, another distinct sentence, Hermione speaking to Ron, her tone serious and matter-of-fact.

"Harry is under the impression," she said, "that Draco Malfoy is now a Death Eater."

The colour drained from my face. I stumbled back from the door, bumping into my seat. Daphne was fully alert now, concern etched on her features.

"Who's got what?" she asked, her voice low.

I couldn't answer. The implication of Hermione's words crashed down on me, amplified by Harry's earlier statement about a ceremony and an initiation. They thought Draco Malfoy, the boy I was trying desperately to understand, the boy I cared about, had undergone the horrific ritual of becoming a Death Eater. The coldness, the distance – it wasn't just him being difficult, it was the chilling aftermath of aligning himself with Voldemort.

My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic, painful rhythm. The train lurched again, pulling us forward, but leaving me tangled in those specific, horrifying words, staring towards the front of the train where Draco stood. The figure I had thought I knew was now irrevocably altered in my mind, tainted by the terrifying reality they had just whispered. The unraveling had begun, and their voices had delivered the devastating first blow.

_ _ _