Every wizard's birthday was a special day for him, celebrated with family, friends, and usually a large amount of firewhiskey. But for Draco Malfoy his birthday was also the only night of the year that his angel would come to him.
She had always worn a dark green mask in an attempt to hide her features from him but it was pointless, he had always known her identity.
Her wild chocolate curls were a dead give away, always left down and uncontrolled when she visited him. There was no one else in the world with hair like that. As often as he had made fun of it in the school days, he dreamed of it wrapped in his hands or fanned out over his body now.
The real clue to her identity, though, was her eyes. Deep pools of molten chocolate that could never hide a thing from anyone brave enough to look into them. Back in school whenever he had dared look at them, they showed only deep hurt and distrust. But now… now they were filled with fire and passion unlike any other. It was intoxicating, and he yearned for it all year round until he would finally see it.
He remembered the first year she had come to him, his sixth year at Hogwarts. She had come to him in the Room of Requirement, wearing only her mask and a sheer green dressing gown.
She told him that she knew he was troubled. That she didn't care to know why, just that she wanted to offer him comfort on his birthday. She said that no one, not even blond haired prats, should be troubled on his or her birthday.
That was the night he lost his heart to an angel. See the problem with angels is that they rarely stick around. Angels have too many people to save to stay with one, especially one as miserable as Draco Malfoy.
He never thought he'd see his angel again after that night. Not really, anyways. Of course, he'd see her around Hogwarts, but it wouldn't really be her.
To say he was shocked when a year later she showed up in his bedroom at Malfoy Manor would be an understatement. They were in the midst of a war for Merlin's sake. Malfoy Manor was the least safe place she could be on the planet.
But again, she told him that no one deserved to be troubled on their birthday and she took away his pain, if only for a few hours.
This year was different though, this year he wasn't in the midst of a war, his mother wasn't dying, and his father was out of Azkaban.
Theoretically, she had no reason to show up. But he knew she would and when she did, he would ask her to stay. To stay and be his guiding light for the rest of his life. She wouldn't though, she couldn't. She would always be his, but only one night a year.