Disclaimer: Harry Potter and its characters do not belong to me in any way, shape, or form
A/N: This is just a(nother) teensy drabble during the apparently very lengthy wait for me to finally write longer things. I'll try to get some multi-chap action up eventually, I promise! Anyway, this is a soulmate AU where if one person gets a tattoo, boom. Soulmate has it too. Not very original, I know, and I apologize. But hey! At least I made them cool, moving wizarding tattoos! Written for qmalfoy on tumblr.
Draco seems to be incapable of avoiding trouble.
His fingers skim absently across the still-tender skin at the base of his back. Faint lines, even now slightly raised from the needle's invasion, ripple and sway under his touch. It would be impossible to discern their shape if he hadn't seen it earlier in the mirror. A skull, with a sickle splitting its crown and blood dripping in slow moving rivulets from the fracture.
A declaration.
A warning.
A condemnation.
He is no fool. He knows that the theoretical love of his life bears this same gruesome image now. He knows that only desperate sentimentalists and those made bold with curiosity dare to do what he has just done.
But this is no act of desperation.
It's an act of insurance.
Draco Malfoy has some strange ideas about love. One, for example, being that it is sacred. That it should not be entered into lightly, or by the weak. The thought of burdening anyone with his demons… It's enough to make him want to scream until his lungs are shreds and his voice is gone. Hence, nobody will ever be permitted to get close enough for that to happen. Not unless they are fully aware of the hellhole they're about to dive in. Not unless they are ready.
This could be considered a first test.
Someone rounds the corner of the bookshelf he is leaning against, frowning, preoccupied, and he stiffens. The stiffness becomes total immobility when he realizes it's Granger.
Granger. Granger, whose screams still stain his living-room carpet. Granger, who had averted her eyes rather than gape like the others when she'd discovered he would be going back for one last year of school as well, looking sick, looking inexorable as granite…
Her hand brushes the shelf edge across from him mindlessly. Her eyes are fixed on the books they pass, but they are blank, unseeing. She hasn't noticed him yet.
He prays this will be a permanent situation.
Of course, her head jerks up then and Draco sees that spine-pricking sense of not being alone touch light fingers to her nerves. She whirls around.
"Granger."
He nods at her, lashes narrowed around his eyes to conceal the guilt in them.
She doesn't move for two and a half seconds, looking like a deer caught in a beam of light, and he thinks perhaps he has scared her. Then her gaze frosts over and she returns the nod. He wonders how he has never thought about how strange it is that such warm, warm eyes can look so very cold when they are focused on him.
"Malfoy."
A chill seems to sweep between them, harsh and somehow thick.
A question: has Draco Malfoy ever really looked at Hermione Granger? He assumes not. Blindness isn't selective. Experiencing the world through his crooked views… it had skewed too much for him.
Maybe he has never really seen anything clearly before.
And what does he see now? Well. He sees a girl. A strong girl.
A fearless girl.
A girl who has stood tall under weight that should have crushed her for years, even though that weight has been added onto more times than anyone could count.
He sees a girl who is smart- not just smart, brilliant- who has always, always been better than him at absolutely everything.
And even so had been branded by him as inferior.
He sees someone who has looked death in the eye and told it she will not relent. How many times had he himself proved unable to do that?
Forget girl. What stands before him is a flame.
She turns away and he shivers at the sudden sensation of vision.
An exhale punctures the air. He watches Hermione as she bends down to pluck a volume from the lowest shelf. As her shirt slides up a few inches on her back. As three droplets of blood slither not on, but through the exposed skin. Spilling in an inky stream down her waistline.
Oh, yes.
Draco is completely incapable of avoiding trouble.