Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or anything thus affiliated and am making no money from this work.
A/N: Much thanks to Sam for the beta work. This is a companion piece to "I'll Never Smile Again", and is based on the song of the same name. I recommend watching Michael Bublé's version.
Everything within you is screaming not to do this, to either change your mind altogether or to just take the coward's way out and write him one of those "Dear John" letters your mum would always mention when talking about your divorced Uncle Peter. It was never going to work out, you knew that, but you didn't think you would have given so much of yourself away by the time you reached the end. This has to be the end, even if neither of you want it, and while you've never been accused of being a coward, you think the description might fit now.
When you get to his flat and he answers the door, you know that you won't be able to hide anything from him. He's sneaky and sly and cunning and male, but he's never been stupid. Just because he seems to lack emotions doesn't mean he is ignorant when it comes to recognizing and deciphering them – he just knows how to control them. It's one reason why you were both able to get along so well, and why things worked with Draco that never could have with Ron. Not more than a few seconds is needed before you see a flash of defeat in his eyes as he stands back to let you in, but it's gone when you turn back around and are assaulted by lips and hands and his hips against yours, and a flood of memories that show you just how you got here.
o.O.o
The first time you really notice him is just after the start of sixth year, after learning about what really happened to make Harry late for yet another start-of-term feast. While Malfoy has always been a bastard, you've never known him to take the physical offense in a situation. That would normally fall to the two goons he claims as friends, though it has always been plain to see that they are more lackeys than any sort of equal. The fact that he calmly and callously injured Harry and left him there sends chills down your spine, knowing that a Petrified Harry could have easily drowned on the blood from his nose on the long train journey back to King's Cross in London. This Malfoy is not the boy who used to taunt you and tease you. This is a man, and he is dangerous. You can't seem to take your eyes off of him.
While Harry looks for the bad things Malfoy must be doing, you try to keep him from jumping to conclusions with no evidence, and you compile evidence of your own. He notices your scrutiny and retaliates with words, but the bite in them is gone and the conspicuous absence of a certain racial slur makes you lock your eyes with his. It seems to take ages for him to take his gaze from yours, but when he does, you know that something has changed.
Weeks turn into months, and you can see him starting to waste away. It's cold, but you go outside to get away from Ron and his disgusting displays with Lavender Brown. If anyone were to see you with your piles of books and parchment floating behind you, you know that you would never hear the end of it or be able to stand the pitying looks. While Ron's coupling with Lavender hurt you at first, now it is just an annoyance – but you know that no one would believe you if you said as much. You sigh and head toward the Quidditch pitch, knowing that no one is out there at the moment because the teams are all scheduled for other nights. No one wants to spend a Saturday night practicing, after all, which is another reason for leaving the castle to study. With a flick of your wand, your things begin to settle on the ground and you follow suit, quickly getting lost in revision and essays and research. The sun is slowly sinking, but you conjure some of those bluebell flames you've always been so fond of and continue into the dusk.
The footsteps are quiet, but the silence of the pitch makes it easy to hear the shuffle along the grass. When you look up, the blond hair and gray eyes are not what you were expecting, yet somehow you aren't surprised. He looks like a deer caught in headlights and you almost laugh at the thought, knowing he would have no idea what you were talking about. You can see he is struggling with himself. Before you even realize you've done it, a space forms just big enough to hold his large frame, and he sits down next to you. On impulse, you reach out to him, figuring if you're in for a penny you may as well be in for a pound, and you are surprised and relieved when his hands takes yours and squeezes as you rest your head against him, and you sit and watch dusk turn to night in silence.
You continue to run into each other throughout the year, never speaking, just sitting and offering what silent comfort you can. The war, your families, and your friends are all topics neither of you care to discuss, so you just hold hands and hold each other, and one day in late February he holds your head as he kisses you so sweetly you wonder how you could have hated each other so much mere months ago.
Stress levels are always high for both of you, so it is no surprise that kissing leads to more intimate things, and you give each other your virginities one starry night under the bleachers of the Quidditch pitch. His soft smiles always manage to make you feel better, even when you sneak into the hospital wing to see him after Harry's curse nearly kills him. To your surprise, Draco doesn't scold you for the friends you keep, and lets you cry on his shoulder as he holds you in the quiet of the night.
It's May when Harry claims to have heard someone celebrating in the room off the seventh-floor corridor, and when Draco comes to find you not an hour later, you know something big is about to happen. He tries to be cruel to you, but it's easy to see through it, and you pull him down and kiss him senseless. He gives in easily, and you join your bodies together one more time before he kisses you and tells you to be careful.
The next time you see Draco, you avoid looking at him because you don't want to give him away. When he refuses to give you away, you want to cry in relief, but you end up crying in pain while his mad aunt tortures you on his family's heirloom rug.
A battle is blazing in the school's corridors when he tries to save you from his friend's curse, and you've never been more grateful for Harry's "saving people thing" than you are when you see him go back for Draco before his body can be engulfed in the magical flames ravaging the room. You lose each other again and don't really notice him until it's all over. He is sitting with his parents' arms wrapped around him, his mother clinging to him as though afraid he would disappear should she let go. You feel as though you're intruding on the grieving Weasley family, so you get up and leave the Great Hall.
It is only a matter of time before he follows you and you know it, so you lie in wait in a secret alcove just off the main entrance to the school. Sure enough, Draco is walking swiftly past you before you reach out and pull him into the hidden space with you.
There are no words for how much you have missed this, missed him, and you're scrabbling for purchase on the wall and for his skin, and his grin is so wide that it disarms you. Tears are spilling down your cheeks, and when he finally enters you, it just feels right. Nothing you have done so far in your life feels as right as being with Draco, and you know this isn't something you will give up.
You speak for Draco at his trial and convince Harry to do the same, and when he gets off with five years of probation and a restitution fee, the two of you celebrate the only way you know how. But time passes, and even though he comes to you every time you ask, without fail, you can see the strain in his eyes and can only think that it must be you. His parents will never think you are good enough for him, and if you know one thing about the Malfoys, it is that nothing is more important than family. No one should have to choose between family and lover, and you won't be one to make Draco do it, either.
It has been more than two years since you have picked up where you left off with Draco back in school, and you know that you can't do this to either of you anymore. You want him happy and free, but more than this, you want him to have love. That is something that you don't think you can give him anymore, no matter how much you might love him.
o.O.o
You knew before coming here that you wouldn't be able to let go without showing him how you feel just one last time, so it's no surprise when you go along with it and find the two of you naked faster than ever before. It isn't slow, and it isn't sweet. When he picks you up by your thighs and slams you back against his door, you wrap your legs around him and he's buried inside you before you have a chance to lock your ankles together behind his back.
His hips are snapping against you so incredibly fast and hard that all you can do is hold on for the ride. The angle of his thrust changes slightly, and a cry tears out of you as he hits the sweetest spot inside of you over and over again, rubbing against it from base to tip and back again each time he moves himself in and out of you. It doesn't take very long to make you come, and he rides you hard throughout, until you're a whimpering mess. You can hear your voice begging him to stop or keep going, you don't know which anymore, and he grasps your body to his as he pulls away from the door and staggers to drop down onto the couch. His hands are urging you to move your body over his, to undulate as he helps you lift your hips from his lap before pulling you down hard as he surges up into you.
This time he is more languid in his movements, the urgency of your coupling against the door gone. He holds your hips steady and still as he rubs his pelvis against yours, grazing your clit with his pubic bone and wringing a sharp, surprised gasp from your lips. Instead of driving into you, he is now barely moving his cock in and out, focusing more on rubbing your clit with each movement, making your need spiral higher as you can feel the tightening in your abdomen. You try to make him move faster, clenching your muscles around him inside of you as though you were practicing your Kegel exercises, but he only smirks up at you and holds your hips tighter as he slowly drives you mad with need. The bruises undoubtedly forming on his arms from your tight grip as you climb inexorably higher to that peak go unnoticed by both of you, until you finally cry out and scream his name when you come. He snaps his hips up to meet yours again as you writhe on top of him, and when your breathing begins to slow he gathers your body to him and gets up once more, finally moving toward his bedroom and bed.
The next several hours are all but lost to you in a haze of slow, sweet lovemaking that leaves you breathless and sensitive and so full of love and sorrow that you can hardly speak. When you finally tell him to let go, you can see the pain clearly on his face, and it's all you can do to keep the tears from spilling down your cheeks. His hand snakes down between you, and you don't know if you have it in you to come again, but your body responds to him once more. And just before the tension snaps, he is gasping and sobbing his release into your shoulder, and you don't think he even knows the words he is saying over and over. Part of you hopes that it is real, that his post-coital declaration means more than a release of hormones, but for as long as this has been going on between the two of you, no one has spoken those three little words that could have gotten you into so much trouble.
You don't expect him to say them again, but after he has recovered and before his body leaves your own, he declares his feelings without mincing words. There is nothing you can say at this point – because you know if you return them, if you let him know just how much and for how long you have returned the sentiment, he won't let you go. No matter how much it hurts, both your head and heart have agreed that this is what is best, that the two of you just can't be together forever. So instead of words, you reach your hand up and cup his cheek, looking into those stormy gray eyes as you lift your head to his and kiss him. The kiss is sweet, and full of the words that you can't say for both of your sakes.
Both of you are quiet as you slowly get dressed, but the inevitable cannot be put off for any longer, and he walks you to the door. Tears are slipping down your cheeks unheeded, and you reach up to him one last time, wanting to make this moment last forever. Your lips touch his, and you can feel yourself begin to break.
Before you walk out that door for the last time, you turn back, not enough to see him, but enough so that he can see you speak as you all but whisper your parting words.
"I wish you love, Draco. I wish you love."
Then you step out, gather yourself as much as you can, and Disapparate. By the time you land, your legs have given out and you are on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. While you wish him love, your own heart is breaking, and you know you will never find another love like this.