━━━━  · 。ﾟ☆ .☽ .* ☆ﾟ. ━━━━

(n.) traitor; someone who has lost
your confidence

DRACO LAY AWAKE IN THE HOSPITAL WING THE ENTIRE NIGHT, STARING AT THE CEILING. It hurt to move, considerably so after having been hit with some sort of spell meant to slash someone open by the sound of it. So he had laid there, stock still, a hand over his abdomen and feeling the scratchiness of the bandage with the tip of his finger.

He looked over to his left and there sat Louis, his head tilted back, eyes closed. Draco didn't know how long he had been there and if he had been there as long as he thought, he surely would have a crick in his neck by now. And if he did, he didn't seem to mind.

With the hand that lay over his abdomen, Draco inched closer to Louis's until the nurse came in. His hand dropped, not for the reason that he was afraid because that fear was long gone after what he had done in the Great Hall, but for the fear of being scolded by the nurse for wanting to hurt himself even more. So he let his hand fall.

"You know he was there all night," the nurse said, tilting her head towards Louis, who had opted for a more comfortable sleeping position (his head nestled into his shoulder, his arms crossed and tucked), "hasn't moved 'til now. The little bugger refused to go until Dumbledore sent him a pass."

So that's how he managed to not get caught sneaking up to the Astronomy Tower all these years, thought Draco. Dumbledore. That revelation shouldn't have surprised him. The old man always had a knack for do-gooders and Louis was the most do-gooder of the lot. How Draco fell for him, he would never know completely. Maybe it was the amount of compassion he held, which is what probably made his heart so breakable. All these promises made and strings tied, just for them to be broken and cut in the end. And yet he went on, still as compassionate as before, his smile all the same.

"You can tell he cares about you," the nurse spoke up, interrupting Draco's labyrinth of thoughts. When he shook his head, he realized he was still looking at a sleeping Louis.

"If you met him, you would know that he cares about everybody." Draco tried not to speak too defensively. Because after what I'm about to do, he's not going to want to care about me anymore.

"But it's different with you. I can tell. Out of all the people he's visited in the hospital wing—which wasn't very many—you're the one he's stayed with the longest. Other than worry, he had this look in his eyes. Some would see genuine content that you were okay, others love."

Draco shifted in the hospital bed involuntarily. "Why are you telling me this?" he asked, wondering what she would respond with because he technically already knew at this point, although he couldn't help but think she was guilt-tripping him into something. She didn't know anything, she was just someone with an outsider perspective of the two of them. But if anyone were to bother looking hard enough, they would be able to see everything. And it didn't help with the little display that Draco had put on earlier that morning. Everyone had known then. The stars had planned on telling them, but Draco beat them to it. He didn't say much, but he had said enough to shut them up.

"I just don't want you to do anything stupid to hurt him."

"What makes you think I'm gonna do something stupid?" The defensiveness leaked into Draco's tone then, putting some of his walls back up with whatever bricks that had been left lying in the rubble.

"I saw the way you looked at him before you went to reach for his hand. You had this sort of pained look on your face like you had some sort of realization where you had to let him go."

"Maybe I was wincing from the stab wound," Draco grumbled. He didn't like being read like this. Louis had already done it to him enough times but he never really got used to it. He didn't even realize his face managed to give away so much. Or maybe it didn't and some people were able to see past what could have been a permanent scowl. That was what happened when you let a boy like Louis into your life. You learn to feel things instead of shoving them down and into a corner before it begins to fester and eats you whole. If Draco had gone on like that, he would've broken eventually. So Louis only sped up the process.

The nurse shook her head before getting up, not disagreeing with the blond but rather amused at how stubborn he was being. "Whatever came across your face just then must have hurt more than the wound."

When the nurse left finally, Louis stirred. Draco looked over to him, watching him slowly blink and open his eyes. "It's nice to see that you're alive."

"Barely," he grumbled, smiling softly.

Louis shifted around in the chair, trying to find another comfortable sleeping position as he started to run out.

"You wanna lie down? Because you're starting to look worse than me." Draco patted whatever space was left on the hospital bed, which honestly wasn't much but nothing they couldn't handle.

Louis looked at the bed before looking at Draco, contemplating his answer. Draco could see his mouth begin to form the word "no" so he stopped him before he could. "Come on. Lie down."

"But- "

"Start with me and I might actually drag you out of that chair. And don't even think about telling me that you could go to bed because you and I both know that you'd pass out on the stairs."

Louis sighed, conceding finally. Begrudgingly, he got out of the chair, walked around the bed, and got in on the other side so as to not climb over Draco. "I'm just glad that you thought I would make it all the way to the Ravenclaw tower."

"Oh, that's what you got? I meant that you were going to pass out on the changing staircase."

Louis gave him a look before tucking his head into the area between Draco's head and shoulder, not wanting to argue considering how dead tired he must have been. Throwing an arm around Draco, Louis was careful in trying to not press where he had been hurt. Caressing his thumb across Draco's abdomen, Louis mumbled, "I was worried."

"I know."

"You scared me."

"I know that, too, unfortunately."

"I thought I lost you there for a moment. It was a lot of blood, you know."

Draco let out a wry laugh. "I would figure as much. I could actually feel my life beginning to slowly leave my body."

"I was holding onto your hand while Snape cleaned up the blood. I was wondering if you felt it."

"I did. Despite losing copious amounts of blood, I felt it. I felt you."

They sat still, letting the silence fill the void for the moment. From what Draco could tell, they were the only two in the hospital wing, save for the nurses that wandered in and out to check on him.

"Hey," Louis spoke up, "any chance you know what time it is?"

"It's eleven-eleven. Why?"

Louis held a wistful, mischievous, yet sleepy glint in his eyes as he said, "Make a wish. But don't say it out loud or else it won't. . .come true."

The hand lying across Draco's abdomen had gone completely still and he looked to see that Louis had fallen asleep. Panic did strike once more, seeing that Louis was able to fall asleep so easily in his presence as he had done last time. He trusted him. He trusted him so much.

Draco sat and thought about how it would be if he didn't go through with the plan. He thought about the possibility of never having to leave the boy that was sleeping peacefully at his side, nose twitching absentmindedly as though he were a rabbit. Then he thought about how if he were to go through with the mission, Louis would never look at him the same ever again, and would probably not want to look at him either way.

So Draco made a wish. He wished that whatever happened, he'd still have Louis in the end. He was the constant happiness he had for the last few months, his light at the end of the tunnel. Soon enough, it was time. Draco quietly slid out of bed as to not wake Louis, who looked at peace while he was sleeping. It was a sight that made Draco want to stay, want to crawl back into that tiny hospital bed just to see him wake up or be partially awake and accuse him of staring. But he couldn't so he pressed a feather-light kiss to Louis's forehead, tears forming at the corners of his eyes at the action before letting go and leaving the hospital wing to finally do what he had been assigned since the start of the semester, still holding onto his wish with a death grip.

When Louis awoke almost two hours later, Draco was nowhere to be found, his side of the hospital bed ghostly and empty.

Blearily, Louis sat up in the hospital bed, hearing a crinkle sort of sound underneath his leg as he did so. Pulling whatever it was out from under him, he turned the sheet of paper over in his hands and saw his name addressed on the front. His chest constricted the tiniest bit, a little nervous at what could have been written. Pulling it apart, he found two words along with two initials, a mirror of what Louis had written on Christmas.

Find me.
—— D.M.

Louis could feel himself already getting out of bed, autopilot taking him over and making his way to the Astronomy Tower. The trek over was a more difficult one and the night sky over his head seemed darker than usual, blacker than its mystical sapphire hue. The air felt sticky, the wind swept through Louis's hair in a way that almost gave way to chaos. He was confused but on he went, slowly making his way up the steps and coming to a stop when he heard Draco's voice, cracked and wavering, almost meek. His wand was out and pointed at something or someone. Louis raised his head a little to see that it was pointed at Dumbledore. Louis bit his tongue to keep himself from gasping aloud.

"I have to do this," Draco said and Louis thought he almost saw his hand shaking, "I have to kill you. Or he's gonna kill me."

Dumbledore tried to calm him, tried to get Draco to lower his wand but it wasn't any use. At this point, Draco wasn't tearing up at the possibility of dying at the hands of Voldemort but over the fact that where he was standing was an encapsulation of everything good that's happened to him in the last five months. Now, the safe space was tarnished, probably beyond repair, by the threat of having to kill Dumbledore. Louis would never look at him the same again.

And then it was over as quick as it had begun. Snape then intervened and released the Killing Curse on the headmaster and Louis could just barely see Dumbledore fall out of the window. The two of them began to make a break for it and Louis managed to get ahold of Draco's upper arm, just above the crook of his elbow, and stop him. His voice was low, pitiful to the point of devastated when he asked, his mouth struggling to find and form the words, "You're. . .you're a Death Eater?"

"I didn't have a choice."

"You had one." Louis was calm, however, destroyed with the way his voice was wavering, his eyes beginning to brim with those same fallen stars, and it was in that moment that Draco would have preferred Louis raise his voice at him. "You had a choice. You could've told me."

"Then we wouldn't be where we are right now."

"I'd rather be here with the truth than get stuck with the memory of it all being a downright lie. How could you, Draco? After everything I told you, I put a target on my back and my mother in danger!"

"You think I'd run and tell them?" The hurt in Draco's voice was palpable, "You really think that low of me?"

Louis didn't answer, partially ashamed that he had stooped so low, so Draco continued.

"And it wasn't a lie. When I had said that you were the only person that's ever made me feel this way that morning in the library, I wasn't lying. The only thing I never told you was that I had joined the Death Eaters in my father's stead. That was it. What more could you want from me?"

"Not joining a group of wizard murderers would have been a nice place to start but since that cat's out of the bag, there's not much left for me to ask of you."

"You really think I would do this to you?"

"How can I be so sure that all of this isn't some ploy? Huh? What can you do to assure me that everything I've told you hasn't gone back to them?"

"If I had said anything, you'd be dead where you stand." The deadpan coolness to Draco's voice—despite his face beginning to contort and scrunch to keep himself from crying—was what made Louis go cold.

The dead silence that fell upon them was suffocating, making its way up Louis's throat and choking him, leaving him with little room to speak. When he did, the pitch in his voice rose as his face scrunched, burning, tears stinging as they started to take the plunge, "And you wouldn't think, to try, to stop them?"

"I'd try, I'd tell them to let you go, I'd tell them you didn't do anything, and they'd see that you mean something to me. Then they'd kill you, anyway, despite my pleas, hurting us both in the end."

Tears were free falling from Louis's face at this point, the dam within him cracking more, little by little. "At least one of us would be able to heal from it eventually."

"I wouldn't, believe it or not." The stoic look on Draco's face had fully crumbled, that vulnerability that's made its appearance time and time again shining through, "I'd hurt and I would continue to hurt for days on end. The hurt would begin to subside, but still be there, underlying. Then the pain would get worse on the day I left you and more so on your birthday, knowing that you should've been there to celebrate it. I should've been kissing you and congratulating you for being another year older, but instead I would be standing in front of a headstone.

"Or worse than that, I don't think you'd have one because your mother wouldn't have the heart to bury you. But I don't think I'd even be able to visit either way because I'd be too much of a coward to face all the pain I had ended up inflicting upon you. I'd apologize to your mother, instead. I'd tell her it was my fault and I'd tell her that I love you and will continue to love you as long as you'd let me, as long as I'd still be breathing."

There was a pause, and that pause began to thicken the more and more the silence went on to prolong itself. It was deafening, as well, and claustrophobic, and Louis could feel the walls around him sinking in—

"I love you." The proclamation, Louis having heard it from Draco for the first—and possibly last—time ever, hit him as though it were the deadliest curse to the chest, slowly making its way to his heart and beginning to fester in all the right possible ways at such a wrong time. "I love you, and that is not a lie. It never was, it never will be. And nothing you do or say is ever going to change that, gods and kings be damned."

"Please." Louis's face was burning at this point, tears stinging at his eyes. "Don't do this."

Draco walked over to Louis, closing the distance between them with each defining step. He then pressed a salty kiss to Louis's forehead, all the while palming his face, Louis refusing to look his way, face slightly downward and skewing his line of sight. He should've pushed Draco back, made him pull away, but here Louis stood, selfishly indulging in the contact, taking touch deprivation to its lowest of lows.

"Say it back," Draco requested quietly, pleading, that desperation making a reappearance. His voice was a hair above a whisper, that same register where if he had gotten any louder the heavens would come crashing—as if they haven't already, "tell me you love me. Please."

Louis winced at the action, feeling a kiss on the tip of his nose afterward in hopes to conceal it.

"Say it," Draco whispered against his mouth before the softest kiss was then pressed to it, a stark contrast to what had been said beforehand, that calm after the storm, the light rain after a hurricane.

And for a moment, Louis fell, momentarily turning into one of those stars that made a fool of itself as it burned itself out on the way down.

He let himself fall into that constant, steady stream of happiness he had felt for the last five months, feeling himself begin to reciprocate, a hand digging itself into the lapel of Draco's suit, the other winding itself around his neck, pulling him forward and deepening the kiss before remembering where they were standing and stark disappointment shooting through his being as a result.

"Stop it. Please, just stop." Louis pulled away, still gripping onto the boy who was ironically slipping from his hold. "I don't know if I can, Draco. I don't even know if I can bring myself to trust you right now." Louis was shaking, his chest heaving and burning from constantly racking up sobs.

Hearts beating in that same, now desolate, twin rhythm, they looked at each other—not gazing, not staring, and surely not simply withholding eye contact with someone so brave.

"So I suppose we made a mistake, then?" Draco made no move to step away, having a hard time letting go of the one good constant he had in his life. A destructor of his own happiness, he was. Always will be. Even if he didn't want to believe it.

With one last guttural sigh, hailing from the pit of his stomach and the bottom of his heart, Louis said, voice ragged, "Of course not." He was absolutely drained, dead tired, and he could feel the world spinning out of control beneath him, but what he said was the truth. It hadn't been mistake. It had been real, and it had been wonderful. However, with the way things were right now, it started to feel like a lie.

"But I do love you," Draco said one final time, "and although I did hope that you'd say something, you don't have to say anything. I. . .I just wanted to let you know. I wanted to make sure you knew."

Louis was already defeated and to hear what he had said be thrown back at him felt like a kick in the gut. He knew there was some good intention in the phrase but it didn't stop him from shaking his head and then dropping it, before muttering, "Oh, for fuck's sake" and letting out a scoff, laughing dryly afterward. But he didn't really mean it, unfortunately. He never would.

Louis looked up and those celestial irises of theirs aligned for one last moment, both still flowing with the dead stars that had made fools of themselves as they burnt out before crossing and dooming them until they met again, hoping—always hoping—that they'd both come out on the other side.

END OF ACT I.

✧˖*° ━━ AUTHOR❜S NOTE

so. . .uh. . .yeah.
we made it to the end of act i !!
i hope you enjoyed reading it and i'm glad you stuck around this long
act ii is gonna take us into the aftermath of their breakup and essentially
see what happens when they aren't with the other for a long period of time, among other things
again, thank you so so much for reading !!

n.e. way, tell me what you thought ! what you liked, anything confusing i can help clear up, what made you put your phone down so you could process what you read, all of it ! i love seeing and reading each and every one of your comments !
they mean a lot to me <3