When Princess Ariadne was abandoned by Theseus, Dionysus saw her crying and fell in love. After their marriage, he threw the crown he'd given her into the sky, creating the Corona Borealis constellation.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

🖤

Potions was the only class he bothered to attend now. His eyes followed Angel as she walked into room and sat down beside Cho. He waited for her to turn around and smile at him like she always did, but today, her head tilted to the floor.

"Gather around, students," Professor Slughorn called, placing a cauldron in the middle of the table. "Today, we're going to learn all about Amortentia. Can anyone tell me what it is?"

A hand shot up. "Yes, Miss Granger!" Slughorn called.

"It's the most powerful love potion in the world. It smells different for everyone, depending on what attracts them the most," Hermione stated proudly.

"You're quite correct! Would you come forward and tell the class what you smell, please?"

Hermione stepped boldly up and sniffed the steam. "I smell... freshly mown grass, parchment, and...mint... toothpaste..." She flushed a deep beetroot and shook her head, stepping back.

"Well done!" Slughorn turned to the rest of the class. "Amortentia smells different to everyone, depending on what - or who - they find the most attractive. It doesn't actually create real love, of course. It will simply cause infatuation or even obsession, but never real love. Remember, it's almost impossible to imitate or manufacture love."

Draco scanned the students for Angel and found her standing behind Parvati Patil. She seemed to realise he was looking at her and was taking great effort to avoid his gaze.

"Now, I want you all to pair up and try brewing your very own Amortentia. You can get your ingredients from the front. Quickly, now!"

Students scrambled to pair with each other, and he started towards Angel before a dreadful voice call his name. "Draco," Pansy cooed. "Let's be partners!" He rolled his eyes, knowing their Amortentia would surely fail with Pansy at the helm. From the corner of his eye, he spied Angel pairing up with Zach Smith, who looked mighty pleased. He simmered, mentally cursing both Pansy and Zach. 

Pansy gossiped beside him the entire time, banging on and on tirelessly about Lavender Brown and Ron, both of whom he could not care less about. "I don't think you're cutting that right," he pointed out, interrupting her. She looked at him in bewilderment before snorting with laughter. "Since when did you care about Potions? You do it, then."

He took the knife and deftly sliced the root the right way. "Where'd you learn to do that, mister Smartypants?" she gushed, dropping it into their cauldron.

"It's in the instructions." You complete imbecile, he wanted to add.

"Alright, class, by now, your Amortentia should have a white pearly sheen and smoke. Would any pair like to volunteer their potion as a demonstration?" Slughorn looked around the class expectantly, and Hermione raised her hand again. "Now, Miss Granger. Let the other students have a go, shall we? How about you, Miss..." he looked straight at Pansy.

"Parkinson. And Malfoy," she filled him in. Slughorn gestured for the pair to bring their cauldron to the front. "Now, tell me what do you smell?"

Pansy inhaled the fumes and grinned excitedly. "I smell green apples, pine, and candy."

"Fancy a boy with a sweet tooth, do you, Miss Parkinson?" Slughorn quipped, and Pansy blushed, casting a sideways glance at Draco. "And what about you, Mr Malfoy?"

He stepped up to the cauldron, feeling the warm steam graze his face. "I smell...flowers, and... apple strudel." He caught Angel's eye then, and she quickly looked away. He sniffed again, unable to make out the third smell. The scent was fresh, with a crisp quality to it. If he could put a word to it, it would be 'silvery'. But of course, that did not make any sense. He stepped back and shrugged.

"Did we do it wrong, Professor?" Pansy demanded, bending over the liquid again. "Amortentia is indeed a difficult potion to manage," smiled Slughorn encouragingly. "I don't expect more than half the class to get it right."

When class was dismissed, Pansy clutched at his arm. "I didn't know I smelt like flowers! Although I am named after one. Ha! Fancy getting a-" She did not get to finish her sentence. He had already packed his books and began making his way out of the classroom.

Angel was walking fast too, already hurrying down the hallway. He quickened his pace, but students kept getting in his way. Before he knew it, she was lost in the sea of black robes.

He saw her during lunch, but she only came in to grab a sandwich before leaving. It was strange. She was always present for every meal. Cedric was there, so they could not have run off for a secret lunchtime rendezvous.

Later, he caught sight of her again in the hallways, but she practically ran in the opposite direction when she saw him. He hurried after her, but when he turned the corner, she had disappeared.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Angel was late again, but when she finally arrived, she did not have any surprises with her. "I  wasn't sure if I wanted to come," she admitted as she joined him by the railings.

"Are you ignoring me?" he demanded immediately.

"If I was, I wouldn't be here," was her simple reply, but she was still not meeting his eyes.

"Well, it seems like you are. I just- I just wanted to talk to you."

"What about?"

"I don't know, really," he admitted. "After last night, I-"

"I think last night was a mistake," she interrupted. Her tone was gentle but she might as well have slapped across his face.

"What do you mean?"

She looked back at the ground and shrugged. "Hey," he said softly, growing concerned. "Are you alright? Did I hurt you or do something wrong?"

"Malfoy..." she sighed. "It's not you who did something wrong. It's me."

"How do you mean?"

"We... kissed."

He still did not understand. "Should I not have?"

"No, I shouldn't have. Do you get it? I kissed you back. I'm with Cedric," she explained sadly. "And now I've gone and completely betrayed him, haven't I?"

"You could just not tell him." He would not admit it to her but he felt incredibly hurt and angry. Not at Angel, but at the fact that she still cared about that boy's feelings.

"I could never do that. I... I suppose I'd have to break up with him now."

Those words somehow failed to make him happy. He remembered the way she had smiled when she told him about Cedric the other night, how happy and proud she had seemed when she said that he had 'chosen her', even if she had been sleepy and a little bit tipsy then.

It had not even been a full day and he'd already broken his personal vow to never make her upset again. "I'm sorry," he said, meaning it. 

She shook her head. "It's alright. I'm sure you didn't mean to. Emotions were running high, then, weren't they? We were both probably caught up in it."

"Angel, I just have to know," he wrung his hands nervously. "D- do you feel the same way about me?"

"Which way is that?"

He could not tell if she was feigning ignorance or not. Was it not obvious enough? Or was she just trying to get him to say it out loud? No, he quickly decided she was not that type of girl. But before he could even open his mouth to reply her question, she filled the silence.

"Anyway, I guess now's probably the time to tell you that I really do love you, Malfoy."

Draco's eyebrows shot up, and he was short of gasping in shock. Maybe he heard her wrong. "Wh- what?"

"I love you," she repeated simply, the words rolling off her tongue like melted butter. Her face remained inscrutable, but there was something about the way she said it. It was raw, real, tangible. Simple. I love you.

He sat in stunned silence for a while. Fire prickled at his skin, and the warm ball of hope flared up in his chest again. "Do you really mean that?"

"Of course!" she said, mildly offended. "Why would I say it if I didn't?"

"You say it so easily, like you say it to everyone."

"I do love everyone. All my friends, especially."

"And me?" he looked at her anxiously. "Do you love me like... a friend?"

"No," she said. "You're more than that to me." Her expression was still indiscernible, and he would not have believed her if he had not looked into her eyes. But he did, and they shone with the truth of her words.

"Does... does me telling you this make you uncomfortable?" she asked genuinely. 

He felt extremely confused. He wanted her so badly, but at the same time, he could not shake the nagging feeling that he was no good for her. He would not be able to keep her safe. "I just don't understand why. I thought you'd hate me. I'd hate me. I've been horrid to you for years, and you care for me, talk to me, bring me food..."

Angel listened, frowning ever so slightly. "What's wrong with that?"

"Well... because I did nothing to deserve it."

"Is that what you think, Malfoy?" she asked incredulously. "That you have to do something to deserve love?"

He looked off into the distance, setting his jaw. Despite her jab, all of his worries suddenly fell away. This changed everything he had decided on last night. She loved him. He had a chance after all.

"Well, I'm telling you different now," Angel said, as if she could read his thoughts. "But of course, I wouldn't get in the way of you and Pansy. I would never do that," she assured him, suddenly seeming a little self-conscious. Before he could protest about Pansy, she changed the subject.

"Hey, what did you smell in the Amortentia today?"

"Oh. You know the first two. Flowers and apple strudel. I couldn't quite make out the third one."

She nodded. "It might be pumpkin. She does love pumpkin."

"Who does?"

"Pansy, of course! She was always extra grabby whenever Susan had any pumpkin snacks."

"It wasn't Pansy I smelled," he said. 

"What? Who else would it be? Flowers, Pansy. Apple strudel, Pansy. Like that day at Hogsme-"

He scoffed. "Pansy doesn't even like apple strudel! She thinks I'm in love with her or something. It was you, you idiot. I smelled you in the Amortentia."

Angel's eyes widened, although he simply could not understand why she was so oblivious. She really had no clue. For someone so in tune, she could really be quite daft sometimes. 

"I just can't quite make out what that third smell was," he carried on. "It smelt... silvery. And sparkly. Like snow. I know it sounds completely mad, but it was so... glittery that it stung my nose a little bit."

"I know it sounds completely mad, but you know, that's how I always imagined the stars to smell like." She laughed easily, and he realised she did not fully register what he had just admitted to her.

In the bout of silence, they both turned at the sky in front of them. It was unusually clear tonight, giving way to the light of a thousand stars. Looking up at the silvery pinpricks, he suddenly felt like he could smell them. It tickled his nose, and he could see flashes of silver when he blinked.

He put an arm around her, and she looked up at him in surprise. An energy passed through them, one he could not quite explain. There was a familiar sensation of being lost in her eyes.

"Angel," he whispered. "Can- can I kiss you again?" 

She hesitated, confusion clouding her face. Then, he saw the 'click' in her mind as she finally understood what he had been trying to tell her all along. Her eyes sparkled with a new, unspoken excitement as she nodded.

This time, he pulled her as close to him as he possibly could. She kissed him back, more confidently this time. His heart ached. That feeling he felt with her - of being at home, belonging to somewhere and someone, it drove him crazy.

He pressed his forehead against hers and closed his eyes, speaking the words that had been caught in his throat for so long. 

"It's you, Angel. I love you. I love you so much. I love you, I love you, I love you." 

They flowed like a stream from his mouth, as if he had been saying it to her for years. "Angel Dawson, you're the first and last girl I will ever love."

Truth be told, Draco would have given up the world to say these words in front of their friends and families, before walking down the aisle together.

But tonight, as he breathed in her florals and the strange, made-up smell of the stars swirling around them, they were meant for her and her only.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

A/N:

I was literally squealing as I wrote this chapter!!! I truly love them with all my heart.

Also, am I the only one who thinks Draco wouldn't smell like cologne in the amortentia? I was going to write in what Angel smelt, but I don't want to commit Draco to three scents hahaha. What do you think?