d r a c o

They bundled up in thick layers of clothing. Belly asked him twice where they were headed, but he wouldn't tell her.

She locked the front door, and they stepped out into the cold. As he took her hand in his, he saw a flash of worry cross her expression. A split-second of concern as she glanced back at the house; and then her attention was his.

As they Apparated, he held her tight against his chest. He was afraid of letting her go, afraid of her being splinched; afraid of letting her slip from his arms into the whirling spaces of Apparition.

His fearful thoughts verged on irrational, he knew that. But he was barely accustomed to her company. With his every breath, he was afraid of losing her again.

His feet found solid ground, and he brought one hand up from her shoulder to shield her eyes. He spoke into her ear. "You can't look yet."

They were standing on top of a sand dune, overlooking a small solitary cove. He steered her to the edge of the dune, from where they could see the beach in its entirety.

Wind whipped at his hair and salt air filled his nostrils. He looked down at Belly; saw a smile pulling at her lips, no doubt feeling the bitter wind beat at her skin, too. He dropped his hand. "You expected this?"

Belly heaved out a happy sigh as she gazed around at the white beach, the dark ocean; the grey clouds overhead. She looked back at him. "I might know you better than you think."

"Bit of a shit surprise, then," he replied.

But her smile only grew. "I love the beach. We've never been here together?"

He shook his head. "We've never been anywhere together except school, my house or yours."

She nodded, clearly satisfied by this information. Happy to be on something of a level playing field. "But you've been here before?"

He raised a shoulder. "Once or twice."

Belly studied him for a moment longer, then pulled her coat closer around herself and turned her face against the wind. "It's pretty."

The cove stretched for no more than half a mile. It was hidden away from the main land; enclosed by tall sand dunes on one side and towering cliffs on the other. When he'd stumbled upon it in the summer after the war, the sun had blazed hard on his cheeks and the sand had been hot to touch. Now, the air was icy and the sky a dark grey, but it was idyllic, still.

What he liked most about this beach was that every time he had been here, there hadn't been a single other person in sight.

He looked at Belly as she looked at the horizon, hair rippling back; her chin tilted up against the salty breeze. Thought, he had once looked at her the exact same way, on top of the fountain in the Manor. Had thought that he would one day be able to tell her of all the horrible experiences that had accumulated inside of him, sharp as knives; the way Dumbledore and Voldemort and the Death Eaters had prowled through his nightmares like monsters. But before he had been able to tell that to her, she had taken their place. Had, on the day of the battle, become the person whose face haunted his days and nights.

She had vanished from his life before he'd gotten the chance to bring her someplace like this. It wasn't how he had imagined it might be; her company precarious, the threat of losing her at any second imminent. But still, he thought. It was good.

"How cold do you think the water is?"

Draco's gaze stuttered. "We're not here to swim."

"I don't want to swim, I only want to dip my feet in."

"It's December."

Belly took in his expression, and her face split into a wicked grin. "Are you afraid, Malfoy?"

He looked back at her. Wondered when, over the course of the last three days, the use of his last name had become a term of affection. "Of course I'm not afraid."

"Take off your shoes," she said. "I'll race you there."

He raised his eyes to the clouds. Shook his head. But she slipped a hand into his and tugged at it. "Come on."

He kicked off his shoes, and so did she, and together they ran to the edge of the water. She bent, rolling her jeans at her ankles, then waded off through the water. She looked back at him over her shoulder; her face screwed up. "It's freezing."

"No shit," he replied, but followed her in; pushing through the discomfort of the cold until he reached her. He stood beside her, eyebrows knitted together. Feeling as though a hundred needles were pressing on the bottoms of his feet.

She reached towards him, ran her fingers over his fist. "Relax."

And he did. For her. Unclenched his fists and felt the waves tip gently around his ankles.

Belly dropped her hand to her side. "Nice, isn't it?"

"I think my feet are just numb."

She laughed. "Well, I think it's magical."

Magical. Coming from a girl who had actual magic running through her blood, it was high praise.

"Is this what we had planned?" Belly asked him. Her words were light; gently inquisitive. "Is this where we were going to run away to?"

He tilted his head. "We didn't have a specific location. A few months after I moved to London, I found this. I thought it fit with what we had imagined."

Her gaze didn't leave his.

"But like I said, we wouldn't really have run away."

She nodded, silent still. Then her eyes flickered from his, to something higher up, far behind him in the distance.

He looked to where her gaze rested. On top of a sand dune, surrounded by dense tufts of long grass, sat a tiny cottage.

It wasn't visible from the beach, but they had run far enough into the water to see it. Belly stared at it. "Is that. . ."

Draco ran a hand along his jaw, watching her. He hadn't wanted her to see it. Had purposely Apparated to the other end of the cove; hadn't expected them to walk out into the sea. Hadn't planned on showing it to her, for fear it might scare her.

But she looked back at him; defiant in her calmness. "I want to go in."

He shook his head. "I don't. . . It's nothing. I own it, but there's nothing inside. It's falling apart. Probably rotting by now."

"But can we go in, still?"

He chewed on the inside of his cheek. "If you want to."

"I do." She walked through the water towards him, nudged his elbow. "It's freezing out here, anyway."

He led the way up the curl of dune that led to the cottage. It was steep, and the wind blew sand hard into his eyes. He glanced over his shoulder at her - she hiked up the sand with long, heavy strides. He wrestled the temptation to take her hand in his, to help her up. That was not something he could do anymore.

So solitary was the little cottage that no road led to it on the land where it sat; so long deserted that its path to the beach was overgrown. When he had seen it, last August, he had felt that it belonged to them. Known it was what should have been theirs, and didn't want anyone else to ever set foot in it. He had bought it without a single intention of using it, or even coming back to it. He'd thought it would stand here, deserted and rotting; that he would think of it for the rest of his life and remember what existed in another.

The front door had caved in; was falling off its hinges, so they walked around to the back. Here there was no door at all, and half of the brick wall crumbled away. She led the way into the cottage and he followed; ducking under the low frame to face what he expected to never see again.

The cottage had four, maybe five small rooms. It was hard to tell because of the way that the walls disorderly crumbled into each other; cluttering the decaying floorboards with bricks and debris. Old furniture lay around the place, jumbled and broken.

The largest room was at the end of the hallway, nearest the beach. In the far corner lay the remains of a kitchen. Cabinets, two rickety chairs.

It was no warmer in here than out on the beach. The wind blew in through every broken window; whipped Belly's hair around her cheeks. She was silent, her eyes on the far wall.

A large window stretched over the space of the wall. A wooden bench had been built underneath it years before, lining the window and the adjacent wall. It seemed to be sturdy in places, but was broken and rotting in others. The glass of the window was in some parts shattered, in others barely sticking. Its panes had discoloured; everything was hazy with dust.

The cottage was no more to Draco now than a sore reminder of the life they could have had. Months ago, it might have been enough to bring a lump to his throat, but now it felt like an old, lasting bruise, that had been there for so long he was used to the pain. His eyes stayed on Belly, waiting for a reaction. Anything.

She walked to the window; pressed her fingers against the grimy glass. "I read about this in your letter," she said finally. "We would live in a cottage on the beach and sit in blankets by the huge windows and watch the rain. I can see that, here."

That was enough to bring a lump to Draco's throat. He didn't reply.

"I tore off a part of that letter to write a note for you," she said. "I hope you still have it. That letter is pretty special to me."

"Yeah, I still have it." He looked down at his feet. He didn't give a damn about the letter, but it was nice to hear that she did.

She looked back out the window, out at the beach. "It's perfect, here."

It was perfect. He knew that. She had always been the one that liked the idea of living by the beach, not him. He would have followed her anywhere; would have lived in a tent for the rest of his life if it could make her happy.

He knew this cottage was exactly what she might have wanted, once. But he also knew he would be stupid to hope that she would even consider living here. Not now. Not as she barely knew him, now.

The cove faced south-east, and the sun was beginning to dip over the horizon. It was by no means late, yet - the sun set early in December - but he expected she would want to leave, soon. Expected that she would want to take every minute she could get of the St. Mungo's visiting hours.

-

i s o b e l

It was Isobel's move. Everything he wanted was left to her: she needed to kiss him first, she needed to hug him first; she needed to be the one to say, yes, let's do it, let's abandon everything and move away here. The pressure was on her.

She couldn't give him that. She couldn't just leave her mother, abandon her whole life and everything she had planned and move away with a boy she barely knew. She looked away from the sea, back at Draco. She saw the pain in his eyes, and saw that he knew it, too.

She had unwittingly uttered several harsh words to him since she had met him. I can't promise you anything. I can't force anything. She spoke too much when she was nervous. But this time, she held her tongue.

Here was a boy, offering her everything. Offering his entire life, his entire self. And she was too afraid to take it.

They left the cottage without saying anything more; the air thick with unspoken afflictions. As they walked back along the shore under the dimming sky, she pressed her hand into his and hoped that he understood.