An emptiness surrounds the space around your slumber spot and your eyelids open. Your arm outstretches to try and touch him, but the space where he had been is now void of his presence and your heart sinks because you know where he is.
You push the silken sheets from your legs and rise from the bed, the chill of the night air sweeping across your skin. You reach for your dressing gown and tie it closed as the pads of your feet cool with the chill of the floor. With each step you take, you can feel the sadness of his aura getting closer and closer, and that's when you see him standing on the balcony.
You are thankful for the night sky casting an indigo glow across his folds of his sleeves where he had haphazardly rolled them to his elbows. He only ever does that when he wakes up in hot sweats, and your heart yearns to alleviate his pain.
Slowly your hands open the door to the balcony and the scent of the sea swarms you with rejuvenation. You remain silent, but you know that he senses you there.
"I woke you," he comments, and you know he only mentioned it because he was feeling guilt over having gotten out of bed in a manner that disturbed you - of course, that was all in his head, and, normally, he would've known how silly that seemed, but right now, he was anything but normal.
He was suffering from horrible nightmares and you tried to tell him every single night how worth it he was and how much he meant to you, stressing the need for in-tact sanity. He believed you each time, of course, but he still suffers and you consider it a personal goal to see him return to normalcy by any means necessary.
"Not at all," you reassure him, and by the nod of his head, you know that he can hear your sincerity. You close the door behind you and stroll across the wooden boards until you are at his side. The scent of green apple overwhelms your olfactory sensors, the scent of him.
White-blond hair slips down over his forehead as his eyes and chin cast into a downward position and your heart aches. "Nightmares."
He is blunt, but you appreciate his honesty and slide your arm through his, pulling yourself closer to him. "I guessed that," you say, careful to mind your tone.
"Dumbledore," he says, and you nod while your heart shatters. The guilt he feels about what happened all that time ago haunts him like a shadow and he glances over at you, icy eyes shooting nails straight into your soul. "It's like I could redo what happened, though I know I can't." He pauses, and you sense something worse is coming - you are right. "You hated me for it."
"How do you mean?" you question, your eyes softening with compassion.
"I confessed to you about the Vanishing Cabinet and your immediate response was that you'd leave me if I went through with it."
"And did you?"
"Yes...but the look in your eyes...I never want to see that expression again. You were so broken and I did that to you. Me."
You shake your head and press your chin into his shoulder. "You were dreaming, Draco," you say soothingly, your free arm grabbing yous forearm and squeezing sympathetically. "I would never have done that to you - you know that. Reality is here and now, not in there, not in your dreams."
He nods and turns his head, rubbing his forehead to the crown of your own cranium, his way of saying that he understands what you mean and that he more than appreciates your very presence.
You lean up a bit and push your nose into the side of his face and just breathe him in. "You are not to blame for his death and you know that. It would've happened in time no matter what you did or didn't do and...I love you, Draco. You are not at-fault."
"Gin..." he coos, nudging his nose against your temple before turning in to you and pressing his lips to yours for a moment. The kiss is slow and meaningful and still. You love him and you want nothing more than to be his comfort, his everything. "My ginger angel."
You smile against his lips and steal another kiss, unable to ever quench your thirst of his flesh meshed with yours. You tug him back to bed and think of his family and yours and of the fact that neither will ever fully approve of the pair of you regardless of the happiness and comfort you both have found in the sanctuary of the other being's existence.
You don't care.
He's yours.
You're his.