A/N: I posted this in the cookies section of the D/G boards on portkey.org, but was forced by the person who gave me the challenge that this stemmed from (*cough* Laina *cough*) to post it as a ficlet. It's pretty short, but I hope you enjoy anyway.

Disclaimer: Cookies are yummy. So is Draco *swoon*. I don't own him. I don't own the cookies either…

Making a Choice

I saw him for the first time during my Seventh Year.

I'd noticed him before - white blonde hair always slicked back, eyes hard and cruel, a perpetual smirk destroying any grace in his features. I'd seen him before.

But Seventh Year was the first time I really saw Draco Malfoy.

It was a warm winter day - the day after a snowstorm. The sun was unusually hot, beating down on the students having snowball fights and building snowmen in the front of the castle. I was sitting under a tree writing my History of Magic essay. I looked up and saw him standing by the lake.

He was alone.

I hadn't seen him since his graduation, and I could tell right away that something was different. His hair was loosely falling was loosely falling around his face, his posture slumped and tired-looking. He was wearing the most impeccable black clothing I had every seen, his hands in his pants pockets. I realized that this was the first time that he had ever looked awkward, sullen -

Sad.

When he turned around to look at me, it was as if he were seeing straight through me. It was as if I weren't there. His eyes, usually hard and unfeeling, were the brightest I'd ever seen them, shadowed and haunted by the things he had seen. Grey met brown and I felt a shiver run through me, a part of me awakening that had previously been left untouched.

And I liked it.

He turned back around and beckoned me to follow. He never uttered a word to me, but I knew what he wanted because I could feel him tugging at my heart, my mind, my very soul, and I wanted him. I wanted him with all of my being.

I followed him to a hidden cove in the Forbidden Forest. The dense treetops threw shadows across the ground, black ghosts weaving in and out of the sunlight. He stopped walking and I stepped into the shadows behind him. The sunlight glinted off of his features and he looked like perfection, an angel fallen from grace.

He stepped toward me and ran a slender finger down my cheek. I slid my hands up his arms to his shoulders. He was about to speak, but I pressed my thumb to his lips, ran my fingers through his hair. He never said a word. His eyes spoke volumes.

What are we doing?

My eyes flicked over his face - the chiseled features, the soft hair, eyes like shining silver.

Making a choice.

When he leaned down and his lips met mine, it was like heaven. I felt something inside of me break. He was the missing part of me. I was whole.

As we lay on the ground later, skin against skin, my back against his chest wrapped up in his arms, I asked him why he chose me. The answer he gave me was not one I was expecting -

He needed a reason to live.

He told me that I completed him. I was the reason he didn't crash over the edge of darkness, fall and never climb back up. I'm the light to his darkness, the warmth to his cold. He told me I was perfect - he needed to get lost in my innocence to find himself. He said I would always be a part of him.

He's always a part of me now.

He doesn't look past me anymore. He sees me - really sees me. And I see him.

He said I was the light in his darkness. It's just the opposite for me - he's the darkness in my light.

In all my life, I've never been more tainted then I am now. I've also never been given more reason not to care.

He is my reason.

And I love him for it.