Heyyy! So I kinda really like this one! It sort of jumps around a bit and I suppose it's kind of vague but I was trying to make it cute and I hope it worked. It's also a OneShot.
Have a read and let me know what you think :)
Please Don't Die
She looks at him from across the tent and she wonders when she started to trust him. She looks at him from across the room and she wonders when she started to rely on him. He looks at her from across the bedroom and he wonders how in the hell he became so attached to her.
X
She looks at him from across the hall.
There's something about him, this him, that sort of...scares her. He isn't himself. He isn't his boasting, cocky, mouthy, Pureblood bigot self. He doesn't walk around insulting people-not even her-and he doesn't walk about as though he owns the entire castle. In fact, it's quite the opposite. He's quiet, reserved. Sort of like he's lost in his own mind. He keeps to himself, mostly, like he's trying to blend in rather stand out. Like he's hiding. Like he's something dark.
But there's no hiding the dark circles under his eyes, like he hasn't slept in weeks [months]. There's no hiding the paler than normal skin, or calloused hands or the dark eyes. Or the fact that he doesn't pay attention in class, if he even bothers to show up. His grades are slipping, and he doesn't even seem to care. [The old him cared more about his grades than she did, perhaps solely because she had better grades than he did]. Her friends think he's a Death Eater, and even though she consistently tells them to stop accusing him of something they know not for sure, she can't help but wonder... It would explain the lack of sleep. And the fact that he no longer goes out of his way to make her, or anybody else's life a living hell. [Perhaps he's living in his own hell]. And his grades...
He has changed. For better or worse, she isn't yet sure.
She looks at him from across the hall, as he tries to blend himself into the wall, and she wonders why in the world she cares so much.
X
She looks at him from across his family's dining room.
She's lying on her back, on the hardwood floor. His aunt is cackling about bloody purity and screaming about swords and treasures. His family is watching; his father, his mother. But he isn't watching. His eyes are closed and his head is turned and his hands are shaking.
Her sleeve on her left arm is rolled up, and out of the corner of her eye she sees crimson red against her creamy white skin. Blood. Blood, seeping out of eight letters carved into her skin. M u d b l o o d. Mudblood.
It's like he refuses to look. To watch. He's clutching his stomach in a way that makes her wonder if it's making him physically sick. [Why would it make him physically sick, her mind argues.] Perhaps it's just because he won't look. Perhaps it's because he knows who they are, but he denies it anyway. Perhaps it's because she remembers seeing him wince as she looked away from the sight of that poor spider being tortured under the imposter-Moody's wand.
Bellatrix screams at Pettigrew to fetch the boys out of the cellar. Her boys…which means they're safe. She breathes a sigh of relief at the mere prospect of seeing their faces, even if it's just for one more time. Out of the corner of her eye, she seem him inching closer. And closer. She cranes her neck slightly to look at him. His grip is tight on his wand as he raises his left hand to his mouth, signaling for her to keep quiet. And as he raises his wand, pointing it at his own aunt's back, he mouths to her that "everything will be okay." She nods.
She looks at him from across the dining room, as he gets closer and closer, and she wonders why on earth she believes him.
X
She looks at him from across the tent.
He looks tired. Worn out. Exhausted. Confused. He looks exactly how she feels. She reckons he probably feels as exhausted as he looks. And even more confused. He's just sacrificed everything-his family, his faith...his life. He's sacrificed everything he's ever known to save her. To save all of them.
He's sitting on the floor with his back against one of the wooden posts holding the tent above their heads. His legs are bent at the knees, with his elbows resting on top of them and his head bowed between them. He runs his hands through his stringy, white blonde hair. He looks so much like a child that she wants to reach out to him. To hug him. To hold him. To tell him that everything is going to be okay. [They both know that it might not be].
He was their enemy. He is now their ally, their savior.
Harry and Ron are watching him too, albeit skeptically and begrudgingly. It's been weeks but they still aren't sure whether they can trust him. He's hardly talked to them. He's hardly eaten. He's hardly done much of anything really, except brood. She can't blame him though, right? After all, he is in foreign territory. He is tired and confused and alone.
She looks at him from across the tent and she wonders when she started to trust him.
X
She looks at him from the table.
They're back at Headquarters, in the safe confines of Number 12 Grimmauld Place. He's standing at the head of the dining room table. The Order has taken him under their wing as their own, giving him his own room and his own bathroom in the mansion they now call home. He's become their [not-so] secret weapon against the Dark side. For he does, after all, know the ins and outs of the Dark Lord's plans and strategies. He knows how to get in and out of his house-their headquarters- without triggering alarms or drawing attention to himself. He knows all of their secrets.
And he's since taken on the role as the 'plan maker', essentially devising plans and appointing positions to everyone else. Everyone trusts him. Everyone puts their faith in him, and nobody seems to have a problem with him being in charge.
He's covered in dirt and dust and what looks like blood-and she's too afraid to ask him if it's his, because if it is she doesn't know how she'll react. Having just returned from a solo mission, one in which he volunteered himself, he's gathered everyone in the dining room to go over the details of what he did, what he saw, what he heard. Most of is vulgar and cruel and sickening, and they're all so immune to it now that it doesn't even matter. And then just as quickly, he's describing another mission as part of this one and he's talking like he'll be the one to go. He's consistently sacrificing himself, to keep everyone else safe, because "the world needs them, not me." He just wants to help, and this is the only way he knows how.
Still, she wishes he wouldn't. She wishes there could be another way. She wishes he didn't have to go alone.
By the end of the meeting, the plan is finalized. He will go. He says it's almost too simple, one of those 'in-and-out' kind of missions where they won't even notice he's been there until he's already safely back here. She isn't sure whether she believes him or not, or if it's just something he says to make everyone else feel better. Harry offers to tag along for back-up and by 'offers' he really means that the blonde has no choice in the matter.
Everyone leaves the dining room and it's only the two of them left. They're standing, in awkward silence, like there's so much to say but neither of them want to say it. There's a sort of...tension hanging over them. It's been dancing between them for weeks now.
Be careful, she whispers.
I will, he promises.
I mean it, Draco. Please don't die.
She looks at him from across the table and she wonders when she began to worry so much.
X
She looks at him from across the room.
He's battered and bruised and dirty and bloody and she wants to cry. He's coughing up dust and soot, holding onto Harry's dirty and bloody and dusty jacket for support. She breathes a sigh of relief, for he's still alive. They both are. But he's wounded and she's worried. Ron is struggling with Harry to get him to the couch so that Molly can tend to his wounds. He keeps waving them off, like he doesn't need the help. He's too stubborn. He's something of a masochist, she thinks. He coughs again, and this time Harry teases him about keeping his mouth closed when they're Flooing and he laughs. His teeth are white, compared to his dirty, dusty, bloody skin.
She smiles, because it's the first time he's laughed since he saved them oh-so-many months ago. She wants to push through everyone waiting for details, to hug him and thank him and scold him all at the same time. But she refrains, because they haven't yet solved the tension between them and rumors are already circulating through the house about a budding romance and she doesn't want to add fuel to fire too quickly. So she watches as he and Harry go over the details of the mission piece by piece and she listens with only one ear, because really, it doesn't matter what happened out there. All that matters is that he's safe. They both are.
She doesn't want to think about what would happen if they weren't. She doesn't want to imagine what would happen if he didn't make it back alive, if neither of them did. So she focuses on the smile on his face and the laughter in his throat. And she smiles because somehow, it feels as though he truly belongs, as though he always has.
She looks at him from across the room and she wonders when she began to rely on him.
X
He looks at her from the across the bedroom.
She's lying sound asleep on the bed, her back flat against the mattress. He's standing in the doorway, leaning against the wooden frame with his arms crossed over his chest. He watches the steady rise and fall of her chest, listens to the pattern of the air leaving her lungs through her nose.
Molly says she'll be fine. The hex-whichever hex it was-sent her flying into a tree trunk on the outskirts of the battlefield. The Death Eater who had cast it left her for dead, bleeding through a wound eerily similar to the ones he'd endured just last year.
Madam Promphrey says he found her just in time. Any later and she might not have made it. [He tries not to think about that].
Her friends tell him that she's strong enough to survive, which he knows is true but it doesn't stop the fear from seeping into his mind and his body and his soul. And so he watches her, religiously, to keep her alive. Because if anything happens, he can stop it quickly. He can stop it before it happens.
She can't leave him. He wonders if she knows that. That she isn't allowed to go anywhere. Perhaps he should've told her, just in case. Perhaps he didn't even need to. Regardless, he should've told her. He can't do it without her, he can't fight this war alone. He isn't alone obviously, but he'd feel alone. Nobody else gets it. But she gets it. She understands, and if she doesn't understand then she tries to. She can't go anywhere.
He looks at her across the bedroom and he wonders when he got so attached to her.
Please don't die..
