TW: mention of s**c*de

The constellation of Cetus has always been associated with the sea monster sent to attack the land of King Cepheus. His daughter, Andromeda, was chained to a rock as sacrifice to appease the monster, but was later saved by Perseus, who killed Cetus.

─── · 。ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

🤍

The sand was cold and wet between her fingers as she found her footing. Mr Ollivander was struggling to stand up, and she rushed to help him.

Luna came beside her, and they looked around. The shore of the unfamiliar beach stretched as far as the eye could see, and just down the path, a small lonesome cottage stood.

Another crack sounded, then sputtering, as Harry Potter and the rest arrived. Breathing a sigh of relief, she started towards the trio, who were huddled on the ground. But a figure stood some ways away, bent over.

"Harry...?" called Angel, getting his attention.

Harry got up and stumbled towards Dobby, catching the elf just as he fell. "Hermione..." he turned to her. "Do you have something- in your bag- Hermione?" Hermione looked on in despair. She did not have anything.

Angel fell to Dobby's side and touched her wand to Dobby's stomach, repeating three times, "Vulnera sanentur." She hoped she was saying it right, trying her best to recall the memory of Snape healing Draco.

They watched as the blood retreated and the wound began to heal. Dobby had fallen unconscious, but he was breathing.

Harry looked at her curiously. "You don't know the spell to reverse your Sectumsempra curse?" She tried to sound as matter-of-fact as possible, not wanting to let the hint of bitterness in her voice show.

They all trudged to the cottage, where they were received by Bill Weasley and Fleur. The couple did not seem to require further explanation as they quickly ushered them inside.

Once they have had a chance to wash up and Fleur had tended to their injuries, they sat in the living room, reeling from their narrow escape.

A few moments passed, and Harry spoke up. "Just now, at the manor. I had a vision of Voldemort. He was asking about the Elder Wand."

"The Elder Wand? But it's buried with Dumbledore!" Hermione reminded them. They looked at each other in silence.

"What now?" Angel piped up, and they all turned to the Harry.

"Now, Ron, Hermione, and I will look for the rest of the Horcruxes.  I believe one of them is in Gringotts, in Bellatrix's vault. Angel, you and Luna go back to Hogwarts. You'll be safe there. Tell Professor McGonagall everything. And remember, don't trust Snape."

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"You complete IDIOT!" Hannah cried as she flung herself on Angel. "McGonagall told us Malfoy Manor was enchanted and there was no way to know where you were!"

"We thought you were dead! What happened?" Susan's eyes started to well up.

They sat back on their beds as Angel recounted the entire story. She had gotten to the pond earlier than the stipulated time. Movements in the trees made her think the Snatchers were simply Thestrals. They saw her before she could run.

But it when she told them about what came after her capture, that true horror piqued in her friend's features. Susan clasped her hands to her mouth, and Hannah's eyes blazed with an intensity she'd never seen before. "I'm going to kill him," Hannah said of Yaxley. Her face had gone red, and her knuckles were white from gripping the edge of her bed so hard.

"And... Malfoy. He- he didn't come with you?" Susan asked the obvious.

"Why would he? He's one of them!" Hannah said angrily, leaning forward. "Look, Angel. We know you love him, but you need to ask yourself this: does he love you the same way? If a time should come when he has to choose between your life or his family's, believe me when I say he will not be on your side. Don't be stupid and give him all of you when we know he would not do the same."

For once, Susan did not jump to her defense, fiddling with the corner of her folded blanket as she looked away.

Angel stared at her friends. They were wrong. Draco would not betray them. He had changed allegiances, hadn't he? To love means to dive in headfirst and unafraid, to sacrifice, to be selfless. And he loved her.

But to say she fully believed these thoughts would have been a lie. A memory came. They were sat on the deck of the Astronomy Tower. He had told her she was silly and naïve, that love did not exist. She'd merely laughed then. Draco was just being himself.

But now she thought of the way she had bent to his every beck and call - that evening when he'd hinted her to come back to the Tower, the letter bringing her to Hogsmeade, and then going to save Luna.

She had done everything in her power to keep him, to make him stay. Yet it was he who had insisted on leaving her every time.

Like a dog to its owner's heel, she was his puppy, giddy with love-sickness and refusing to take off the rose-tinted glasses her parents had put on her. Perhaps she really was a fool after all.

"Anyway," Susan said suddenly, snapping her out of her thoughts. "Since you and Luna are back, Neville has told the D.A. to prepare."

"Prepare? For what?"

It was only then she noticed that the sheets of their three beds were already made, tucked in tighter than usual. Half-open closet doors showed they were empty, and their trunks were packed to the brim.

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🖤

It had been two weeks since Harry slipped through their fingers, and now they had just learnt about the robbery of Bellatrix's vault.

The Death Eaters kept their eyes on Voldemort as he paced the room. Draco knew that a murderous rage lay beneath the Dark Lord's calm demeanor.

"My Lord, we think Potter might be headed back to Hogwarts," said Lucius stiffly.

"We'll storm the school!" Bellatrix added, more enthusiastically. "We'll burn it down. It'll be nothing but a pile of ashes when we're done!"

His mother shifted uncomfortably in the seat beside him.

"Ashes," Voldemort drawled, turning his father's wand in his spindly fingers. Idle. Calm. "Is that... necessary, Bellatrix?"

Bellatrix raised her eyebrows, startled by the question and wondering if she'd made a mistake. "My- my Lord. Respectfully... They won't give Potter up without a battle," she recovered quickly, shrinking back in her seat.

"If they want battle..." Another twisted smile played on the gash in Voldemort's face. "We'll give them... war."

Draco's mouth went dry. Images flashed in his mind like a distorted film - Hogwarts burning. Walls disintegrating. The Killing Curse shooting from wands, not knowing between friend and enemy.

"The giants have agreed to join us," Yaxley pitched in. "And the dementors... well, they don't need much convincing."

Hatred flared in his heart again. This man - no, monster - who had touched her, taken her by force, broken her spirit, was seated just an arm's length away from him, and he could do nothing about it. They were on the same team, two sides of the same coin.

What Yaxley said seemed to please Voldemort, and the slits of his eyes narrowed.

"Gather our forces. We move tomorrow. But remember, Harry Potter is mine to kill."

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

He lay wakeful that night, for how could he sleep when tomorrow he would have to destroy the very place he had found happiness in?

And what if, amidst the carnage, he could not find her? Or what if when he did, she would be lying dead in the rubble? Would he have to pick her up and hold her body, fallen like a leaf in the autumn?

What if the war brought to him a situation in which he had to choose between her life or his parents'? When Draco thought of this, he prepared to die, for he would not have been able to live with his decision either way.

Two women. His mother, the woman who'd born him from her own body. But what about the one who had breathed the very life into him?

Because oh, how he loved her. Like the sea loves the shore, like the sun loves the moon, like the way the rainbow kisses the clouds after a storm. He yearned for her, a new shoot reaching for sunlight. He loved her in the unseeing wind and the invisible smell of the stars - the smell she had made up just for him.

He forced himself to think of better things. He and Angel would come out unscathed. Potter would kill Voldemort, and the world would return to normal. Then he would run away with her, to Sweden, wherever she wanted to go. They would marry, in a chapel, on a beach, in a small hideaway room, it did not matter. They would live the rest of their days, under the shelter of her amazing, unyielding love - because it was one his could only dream of matching up to.

If he thought it hard enough, it had to come true. Draco held on to that thought, for it was the one thing keeping him from ending it all before the battle even began.