MARA WILLIAMS

Sleep did not come easy, I wouldn't settle gently into that goodnight, tossing and turning until eventually the nightmares came for me.

Cold eyes met colder hearts, a weightless moment between us where we could do nothing but look upon what our parents had cursed us with and dared to call it love.

We were Godless. Without care. Without thought.
Abandoned to this wasteland of lies and broken promises by the very ones bound to us by blood. If they'd ever really loved us, they would've have left us like this.

This was not love. I knew that much, what little affection I'd garnered from my mother before she was ripped from me was enough to tell me that.

Even he knew this wasn't love. Maybe that's why he sought out comfort in the bed of another the moment he'd left my side. I'd begged him not to go to England, but as usually my cries fell upon deaf ears. Our parents made us this way, his only fault was being a product of his father, a heavy fisted, bad tempered liar.
Right from the start we'd been doomed to fail, two hopelessly sick individuals brought together by the instinctive need for something more than what this life had given us. Even if we didn't say it, even if we shut it out, buried it deep beneath the unwavering austerity or the bitterness of a wicked youth, we could never rid ourselves of our most primal desires... To be loved.

The dark figure took a step towards me, running an eerily cold finger down my cheek. Our nature turned us against one another as if the whole world was against us, the wind curling it's frigid fingers around our throats, daring words to pierce the thin veil of silence. We were so desperate for love that we thought we'd found it one another, but yet love wasn't supposed to hurt like this.

Love didn't manifest itself in rage, in broken bones and bloodshot eyes, in fractured skin and bruised bodies. This wasn't love.

I knew it as I stared into Viktor's cold, dead eyes. I knew it with every agonised second that dragged by, now I was older, wiser.

We were oceans apart and still I couldn't drown my demons, for they had learned how to swim. Viktor's fingers slipped from my cheek, dragging all the way down to the base of my jaw where they wrapped around my throat, squeezing what little life remained. An all consuming scream manifested itself within my chest, awakening within me a cruel beast fuelled by grief and angst that raked its sharp claws down by throat and eyes, hitching the shriek within the hilt of my crop, unable to surpass his thick fist. It didn't dare go any further. Even sound shiver at the thought of the him.

My lungs seared with every staved pulse, a horrid fire scorching in my chest as I fought for breath.
Tears pricked my eyes as I clawed at his hands that ensnared my windpipe, he had always been stronger...

"Mara!"

I sat up with a jolt, cold sweat slicking my skin so that the silk covers coiled around my limbs like serpents and I panicked, thrashing to free myself.

I couldn't breathe, I clutched my throat expecting to still feel Viktor's fist around it, greedily gasping air between sobs. "Get away from me!" I shrieked at the dark figure looming over me, a hand outstretched, and I threw myself back against the headboard. "Get out!"

"Not until you tell me what the fucks going on!" A familiar voice hissed. The voice of the one person Hermione swore would protect me, and here he was to ward off the demons that woke in the night.

Snapping out of my hysteria I tried my best to still my thundering heart, slumping against the headboard and placing a shaking palm to my forehead. "-Sorry," I mumbled, "Just a bad dream..."

Pale moonlight cast him in a far softer light that I was used to, his sharp features seeming somehow less menacing and more comforting as he lowered himself to sit on the edge of the bed, careful not to get too close. "...What was it about?"

I let out a quivering breath, staring at my trembling fingers. "Just somebody that I used to know.."

The threat of tears still loomed at the back of my throat, but somehow with Malfoy here, it seemed less so.

"Want to talk about it?" He asked quietly.

For a moment I almost felt like I could trust him. Almost. Then all the memories came crashing down upon me like a ton of bricks. Every single time I'd ever shown him vulnerability, the most raw and aching parts of myself, he had either used it against me or simple walked away. I was done being abandoned by everybody around me. "Not yet..."

"That's okay." He said softly, and maybe it was just the deceitful glare of the stars shining him in a venerate light, or maybe I'd seen the smallest flash of sincere humanity spark behind his eyes, if only for a second before he stood up and motioned for me, "Come on, there's something I want to show you."

Shooting him a sceptical look I peeled myself from the sheets, wearing nothing but a nightgown made from the finest elven lace money could buy.
The air was fresh against my bare legs and I stood before him entirely brazen, daring him to look away.
I could've sworn I'd seen his eyes darken as they slowly crawled down my scantily clad figure, taking the time to drink in every curve and plane of my slender body.
A strange sort of primality radiating from the both of us in suffocatingly thick waves and Draco was the first to break. Turning his back and looking away in a bid to quell the primal urges that struck a hunger within him. I grabbed the black silk robe that hung from the back of the chair, fastening it around myself before I followed him from the room in silence.

A relative hush had fallen over the house, not so much as a house elf nor portrait dared to stir.
My eyes fixated on Draco's solid back, I could just about make out the subtle shift in his muscles beneath his white shirt as he walked and once I'd noticed I couldn't stop staring. He navigated the way straight past the locked door I'd looked into earlier without so much as a glance back at it and it was then that he ducked into one of the many rooms, once that smelled like smoke and rain and fresh laundry. His room.

A sickening feeling settled in the pit of my stomach and I stopped dead at the door. I knew exactly what happened next, I'd had it happen so many times before with him and I wasn't about to fall for it again.

He grabbed a blanket off the back of a leather armchair that sat before an empty hearth and glanced back only to realise that I was no longer behind him. "-Come on, and grab a pillow."

"Where are you taking me?" I said, still not moving. Part of me screamed that Draco wasn't like that, that he was better than that, but still I couldn't bring myself to take that fatal step, I needed to hear it from him first.

He looked almost ashamed as he admitted, "This is where I go when I have bad dreams..."
-And with that he climbed out of the already open window.

What on earth have I gotten myself into? I thought as I grabbed one of the plush pillows off his neatly made bed, clearly not yet disturbed, and climbed out of the window after him and onto the slanted roof.

I sat cautiously beside him, careful not to get too close. Who knows, he might try to push of off the roof...

"Are you warm enough?"

I nodded but a treacherous shiver gave it away, so he opened his arm to me and I shuffled closer so that we were pressed tightly together, the thick fur blanket wrapped between us both, enveloping us in its warmth.

The land before us almost to glow in the pale moonlight, snow settling on ever surface, though luckily due to the warmth of the house the roof had yet to be smothered.

It was then I noticed the bandage wrapped around his left forearm, his shirt sleeves pulled up to his elbows to reveal the concealed wound. "What happened to your arm?"

"Nothing." He said quickly, and he seemed for a moment to revert back to the same old Draco I'd always known, cold and calculated.

We were silent for a very long time. Looking out upon the boundless lands branded barren by frost, letting our thoughts consume us. I was all too aware of the way our bodies were pressed together, his warmth slowly seeping through my robe, but I couldn't bring myself to pull away, some sick part of me enjoyed it even.

The emptiness stretched out to fill the spaces that words never could, but there was only ever so much that could be said without words. Eyes said more than most, yet we refused to even look at one another for fear of what we might see.

"...Why did you leave me?" I said after a while, not tearing my eyes from the trees that swayed softly in what little wind dared to whisper.

"When?" Draco replied, and out of the corner of my eye I saw his throat bob as he swallowed.

"The night before the quiddich trials." My voice felt hollow, as if it wasn't my own. "-After you kissed me..."

"Honestly?" Now it was his turn to falter, the hesitation in his tone telling me more than he'd ever dare to. It was difficult for him to say what he really thought, what he really felt.
He'd spent his entire life telling himself that he didn't feel, that he didn't need to, so now when foreign feelings coursed thick through his veins and his heart ached with an unfamiliar fondness he had no idea how to express himself.

"...You terrify me Mara Williams." He shook his head with a humourless laugh, "-More than anyone I've ever met before."

What worried me most was that I knew exactly what he meant. I felt the same way after all.
-Draco Malfoy had never once struck me, and yet in some strange way I feared him more than any of the demons that stalked my restless nights. That ache in my chest that only grew tenfold when thoughts of him filled the cracks, scared me, and it scared me because I felt so completely and utterly complete, yet at the same time entirely out of control.

We understood one another in a way none else did. Maybe I wasn't as alone in this Manor as I'd initially thought and for that I was thankful.

The emptiness between us was too much to bare, and I knew of only one cure. I turned to look at him only to find that he was already watching me.

Neither of us were particularly good with words, and thus there was a sense of mutual appreciation for actions that spoke louder than a handful of letters ever could.

He looked devastating. Like thunder and heaven and hell and everything godless in between. Yet I yearned for the sins he gave and He was destined to make a sinner out of me yet.

This time it was me to close the distance, pressing my lips to his, and suddenly the world around us didn't seem so cold anymore, and the emptiness not so hollow.

It was as if the snow had melted away, warded off by the mingling of our ragged breaths.

He pressed back, strong and possessive, and in that moment I belonged entirely to him, not a thought outside of this haven we'd built in my mind.
His hands tangled in my hair, holding me to him as if scared that at any moment I may disappear into the night.

There was entirely too much fabric separating us, our chests were flush against one another and yet still I yearned for more. He tasted like the most beautiful nightmare, one that would make the devil himself cry.

He was so beautiful, so much so that it made my heart hurt and tears well in my eyes because he was so blissfully unaware at just how much I felt for him.
Draco pulled away first, toying with a strand of my dark hair as we studied one another as if we were strangers meeting for the first time.

Every line of his face held a sharp sense of purpose that mine never could, I paled in significant next time him. I was nothing.
I expected he would leave me soon, just as he always did, so I decided to do it first, after all I wasn't sure I could deal with the embarrassment of abandonment twice.

"It's getting late," I mumbled, breaking his gaze as I fiddled with the hem of the blanket, "-I should probably get going..."

"-Wait." He said quickly, and though he hid it quickly, I could tell by the look on his face he hadn't mean to say it out loud. "...Don't go. Stay with me, at least for a little while. Please."

Draco Malfoy begging? I thought the day would never come, I thought with a small smile as I leaned back against him, my head rested on his shoulder as we watched the stars until they faded into the morning light.

***
Next chapter will contain mature content so if you're not comfortable w that then you're more than welcome to skip😌🌶
-TFOA