Draco's POV:

"Come here," I told Lizzie a few weeks after her meeting with Granger. "I want to show you something." Grabbing her hand, I led her to our sofa in front of the fire and sat her down. As I sat down beside her, I pulled a small stack of parchment from my robes where I had been hiding it, waiting for when I had built the courage to show Liz.

"Oooo what is it?" she asked, reaching for the parchment. I pulled them back before she grasped them.

"Patience," I chuckled. "I don't know if you knew this about me, but I like to draw. It's not something I go around sharing a lot because once people know I can draw, they want to see some of my works, and I hate showing my drawings." I looked down at the parchment and second guessed my choice to show Liz. Sure I loved her, but I without a question despised sharing my drawings. It's like sharing a piece of my soul with someone. It's personal.

"Is that why your fingers are always smudged black?" she asked, gesturing to my hands which were, in fact, smudged with black residue from the charcoal I used to draw.

"Yeah," I replied, wiping my hands on the legs of my robes only smudging the charcoal.

"Oh, I just figured your soul was seeping through your skin," she grinned cheekily, reaching out and picking the stack of parchment up from my lap.

"Maybe it's your soul rubbing off on me," I joked tensely. Seeing someone looking at my drawings, even Liz, made me feel very self-conscious.

The top drawing was of the bookshelves in the library at my home. It was one of my first drawings, so it wasn't all that good, but it was still one of my favorites. I had somehow managed to capture the rays of sunlight striped across the dusty, old spines of the books loading the shelves.

"Merlin's beard, Draco," Lizzie looked up at me in awe. "You're really good!" She lifted the top piece of parchment and placed it on the bottom, revealing the next drawing.

This next one was a more recent one. It was a drawing of Professor McGonagall teaching us to transfigure a hedgehog to a pincushion in fourth year. She had her wand drawn and pointing at a hedgehog that was curled up in front of her on a table. Her face was taut and stern. It was a drawing I had done in the middle of class when Crabbe had been sick.

Lizzie flipped the page once more. Her own face stared up at her from the parchment. It was a drawing I had done of her lying in the hospital wing in the poison induced coma. Her face had been the most relaxed it had ever been and I couldn't help but try and capture it. The charcoal had been the perfect medium to draw her that day. It brought out the shadows that had been created on her face by the patched sunlight shining through the tall hospital wing windows, the crinkles in the blanket that wrapped around her body, and especially her dark hair that surrounded her head in a halo like array.

She looked up at me in confusion. "You drew me?"

"Keep going," I urged her with a nod. She switched the page once more.

The drawing that had come to the top was one of my absolute favorites. It was once again of Lizzie, and I had captured her face on the parchment. Her head was thrown back, laughing. The lines of her smile were prominent and the shine of her aura had been caught as well. Her face seemed to shine with her own light. She was radiant when she laughed like that, which, thankfully, was often. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her eyelashes sticking out like spider legs.

"Why didn't you show me these before?" she whispered. "They're beautiful, Draco. You are so talented." She turned to the last piece of parchment in the pile and drew in a sharp breath of air.

I had drawn the two of us standing on the astronomy tower, leaning our elbows on the railing and staring up at the night sky which seemed alive with twinkling stars. Liz's hair was blown back from her face by the light that had rustled our hair the first night I had shown her the area. The light from the moon and stars lit our faces up slightly, revealing our expressions. Mine was somber and tight, as if I was thinking about something that stressed me out, which I had been. I had been thinking about Liz and how beautiful she had looked in the starlight. Her expression was one of wonder and beauty. She was taken over by the breathtaking brilliance of the night sky.

"Draco," she hummed quietly, lifting her face to look at me, "I love these."

"Really?" I asked, returning the glance.

"Really," she confirmed. "I never knew you were so talented."

"You think so?" I turned my head to the fire and stared into it.

"I know so," she grinned in my peripheral vision. We fell into a silent spell as she went through the pictures once more, with the same awe on her face as the first time. "Can you draw me now?"

"What?" I asked, taken my surprise at her request.

"Can you draw me here, now?" She looked up at me. "One that I can keep."

"Y-yeah, sure," I stumbled. No one had ever asked me to draw them before, so I hadn't been expecting it, but Lizzie was one of my favorite subjects and I couldn't turn down drawing her once more. "I'll be back in a second."

I stood and made my way through the common room to my dormitory where I hid my drawing supplies. Crouching down and reaching under my bed, I pulled a black case out. I returned to the common room by Liz.

"Sit on that chair," I instructed her, pointing to the chair opposite from the one I chose. She sat down and looked at me expectantly. "Just sit like you normally would." She nodded and brought her legs up and crossed her thighs in front of her, angling herself a bit to her right.

"What should I do with my hands?" she questioned.

"Put your left elbow on the armrest, yeah, like that. Then your hand, put it on your chest." She put it above her chest like she was holding her heart and made a face of melodramatic surprise which caused me to laugh. "No, I mean on your collar bone, delicately, yeah, perfect." She rested the tips of her first three fingers on and around her collar bone while the other two floated beside them. "Now your right. Put it on top of your thigh. Yes, like that," I smiled her. "Just keep your face slack and sit as still as possible."

I opened my case and brought out a fresh piece of parchment and my charcoal pencil. Placing the case on my lap and the parchment on top of it, I stared at Liz for a moment, getting a sense of her.

My first stroke started on the top of her head and finished below her chin, outlining the right side of her face. I finished her head with another quick flick of the pencil and brought my eyes up to see how accurate it was. Surprisingly, I had gotten the shape of her head almost perfect.

I finished the outline of her body and the chair she was sitting in within a matter of ten minutes, the soft curve of her shoulders, the point of her chin, the arc of her bare foot, the roundness of her bent knees, the space between her fingers, and the contour of her breast against her arm.

Moving on to her clothing, I drew her uniform. I started with the outline and then started with the details. Her tie was crooked to the left and I made sure to capture that. Her skirt was ruffled slightly above her knee. Her shirt was folded in front of her stomach, so I added a shadow.

Once her clothes were adequately detailed, I decided to move onto the details of her body. I drew her fingernails and the creases of her knuckles. The lump her collar bone created and the line of the tendons in her neck were next, plus the shadow under her chin and her jawline. Then was the shadows of her knees and thighs. Her calf muscle, her toes, her heel, her ankle. I was sure to capture every detail I could, wanting the drawing to be as accurate as possible.

"So are you going to tell me about this meeting with Granger yet?" I asked her while moving onto the details of the chair she was sitting on. I always saved faces for last, if I could.

We had been carefully dancing around the subject of her meeting since it had happened.

"I already told you. We only talked about the most recent Educational Decree," she sighed. She had been giving me the same answer since she got back to the common room that night.

"Anything else?" I flicked my hand across the page to capture the line of the cushion Liz was sitting on.

"Well, uh- do you know why Umbridge passed it?" she asked quietly. I remained silent but drew the curve of the armrest. "It was because of the Death Eater break out. Apparently, teachers were talking about it to students and Umbridge didn't like it, so she stopped it." She looked at me, judging my expression. I kept my face as emotionless as ever.

"Really?" The buttons of the backrest appeared.

"Yeah. I hadn't heard about it until Hermione told me." The shadow on the ground and the chairs feet next.

"Do you live under a rock?" I asked her. The only thing people had been talking about recently was the breakout.

"That's what Ron asked me," she smiled. Charcoal was brilliant for shadows, that's why I love it.

"Weasley was there?" I looked up to her with raised eyebrows.

"Of course he was," she replied shortly.

"Was Potter there?"

"Yes, Harry was there. Along with Neville, Ginny, and Luna." She shifted slightly in the chair.

"Sit still," I snapped.

"Sorry," Liz muttered. Her face became slack once again, so I began on it. Faces were my favorite thing to draw, especially when I had a reference to look at. And Lizzie's face was so exquisite, I loved to draw it. But they were difficult and very easy to mess up.

I dragged the pencil down the center of her face, drawing the arch of her nose then the curve of her nostrils. The ball of her nose was left blank, giving the idea that it was lit by something. In this case it was the fire beside her.

My hand flicked against the paper multiple times adding the hairs that made up her eyebrows. I used my ring finger to blend the strokes slightly, giving the impression of the distance she was sitting at.

I moved on to her eyes next, drawing the large almond shape that dominated her face. I rapidly drew her eyelashes and eyelid lines. The charcoal was a perfect color to add the color of her irises inside her eyes. It showed the darkness and deepness in a way that was almost better than life.

Next was her lips. Below her nose, I marked the indent and shaded it with my finger. I slowed down on her actual lips, the body part that I struggled the most with. Carefully moving the tip of the pencil across the parchment, I capture the curve of her top and bottom lip, while adding the shadow where they connected.

Very quickly, I added her hair to the drawing. The way it rested on her shoulders and curved softly. It looked silky in the firelight and I tried my best to capture it.

Leaning back, I held the parchment Lizzie up in front of me and compared it to the Lizzie sitting before me. The likeness was crazy. This was one of my best works yet.

"You done?" she asked shyly.

"Yep," I answered standing up and crossing to the chair she was in. I squatted in front of her and handed her the parchment. She uncrossed her legs and grasped the parchment gently in both hands.

I watched her eyes study the paper, taking in every detail of herself.

"This is perfect," Lizzie whispered. "Honestly Draco, you are bloody brilliant." She jumped from the chair and wrapped her arms around my neck, pecking my cheek. I laughed at her.

"Thank you." I placed my hands on her back, embracing her tightly.

"No, thank you," she buried her face into my neck and smiled against my skin. I couldn't help smile with her. Seeing her happy made me happy.