Recently, he had been plagued by dreams.
Horrible dreams, amazing dreams, and dreams that one would never expect Draco Malfoy to have about a certain Nisha Potter.
He dreamed first about holding her. Just sitting out by the edge of the lake, under the stars. It was peaceful and he felt happy. That was the amazing dream.
The horrible dream had been the one that made him awaken and go wandering around the castle. It had featured Nisha, crying and covered in blood, while a black snake wound its way around him and stopped him from going to her. He understood it, of course-the symbolism of it. If Nisha was in trouble, his tie to the Dark Mark would prevent him from being with her because of her brother.
He hadn't been instand enemies with Nisha like he had been with Harry Potter and the rest of the Dream Team. Her twin brother was Pothead, and he should be laughing about the dream instead of disturbed by it.
Nisha spent a lot of her time with her brother, but in the classes she had with Draco they had become fast friends, and the best of friends at that.
And now he was dreaming about her-nightmares and daydreams.
He opened the door to the Room of Requirement, startled by how it appeared to him now. He spent so much of his time here to try to accomplish his mission for the Dark Lord, and it always appeared as the Room of Hidden Things. Now, however, it was different. Still cluttered and messy, but there seemed to be an order to the chaos, as though it was trying to hide something. It was horribly dark. A gasp and the soft sound of tears reached his ears.
"Who's there?" he asked, stepping forward. There wasn't an answer. "Lumos."
It was Nisha. She stared up at him with wide emerald eyes from behind her dark black bangs. Her pale face seemed luminescent in the wandlight, and fear radiated in her expression, though he didn't understand the cause of it. She clutched her arms to her chest.
"Nisha?" he asked, stepping towards her.
"Stay back," she warned, her voice ragged.
It was oddly reminiscent of his dream, he thought. She was in the same position, just without all of the blood. His silver eyes narrowed on her defensive posture. "What's wrong, Nisha?" he asked, ignoring her words and coming closer.
"My brother says that you're a Death Eater," she said quietly. He froze, but there was no anger in her voice, no accusation: simply curiosity. So he didn't yell at her, or get defensive. He simply looked at her. She nodded. "So he's right, then."
"Are you going to tell him?" Draco asked, swallowing drily.
She gave him a smirk like so many of the ones he had given her before. She didn't seem remotely afraid or sorrowful now. "Of course not." When his face still showed doubt, she sighed and beckoned him closer. He obey immediately. "If I told you a secret of my own, would you feel better?" she asked as he sat next to her.
He narrowed his eyes. "What kind of secret would you have?"
She didn't become offended, just raised a single black eyebrow. She lifted his left hand from where it lay in his lap. She tapped his covered forearm. "You show me yours, I'll show you mine."
He stared at her in shock, thinking along the lines of her sounding like she had a Dark Mark herself. But he slowly pulled back the sleeve of his robe.
Like a shadow on the pale white of his forearm, the twisting lines of the Dark Mark seemed to draw all the color out of his skin. Nisha traced a cold but gentle finger along the lines of the snake and he flinched away, covering it quickly, taking it away from her fascinated and piercing green gaze.
"Why are you so interested?" he asked sharply, drawing his walls around him. She just watched him impassively, the dark green of her eyes impenetrable.
"And you can't tell me that you a Dark Mark," Draco said forcefully. He didn't want to believe that his personal angel would-could, even-fall to that evil the way he had.
"Don't be silly," she said quietly. "Voldemort would kill me first, or use me to get to my brother. That's all he wants."
Draco, not altogether reassured because of the bitterness in her voice, nodded. "So what do you have to show me?"
Wordlessly, Nisha held out her own left arm to him, and he noticed something dark trailing along her fingers. It looked...it looked like blood. Shaking, he raised his hand and pulled her sleeve back. It stuck on the liquid a little, but then everything was revealed. Like his dream, blood covered her arm. He gingerly held her wrist in his hands, careful of hurting her, using the expensive fabric of his own robe to try and stop the bleeding. She, however, seemed unperturbed.
"What happened?" he asked, his voice dark. He would hurt whoever had done this to her. He pulled out his wand and healed the gash before she could protest.
Nisha hissed, but he cleaned the blood off her arm. And then froze.
Slowly, very slowly, he raised his white haired head. Silver met emerald in shock and defiance.
Carefully, the silver eyes dropped to the pale wrist he held. His trembling fingers traced over the delicately laced scars decorating her skin. It was beautiful. Horrifying. Frightening. How could scars like these create such a eerily beautiful pattern? It hit him then.
"Nisha, did you do this to yourself?" he asked, his voice breaking on the last word as he stared in horror at her face.
A brilliant smile lit her face and she seemed about to protest, but then she closed her eyes and nodded. He didn't know what to do for a moment, but then pulled her into his arms and held her tight. She was stiff for a moment, but then broke down sobbing into his arms when he whispered that he was here for her.
"Why?" he whispered. His voice shook. She shook her head and clutched his shirt tighter. He rubbed circles on her back without saying anything more.
When her shaking calmed, she just rested in his arms with her head on his shoulder.
"Why? Nisha, why would you do this to yourself?" His fingers stroked her long dark hair and he felt hers tighten on his now-ruined shirt.
"Have you ever been absolutely ignored?" she asked instead of answering his question. "That, no matter what you did, your life didn't matter? Not even to the person who's supposed to love you the most?" Before he could speak again, she continued. "My life, my thoughts, my soul is nothing compared to 'The Boy Who Lived' and the 'Chosen One'."
"What has Potter done to you?" asked Draco dangerously.
She chuckled. "Harry would never hurt me, not on purpose. Actually, I'm not even mad at him. He hasn't been ignoring me. You and him are about the only ones who don't, and I've been having to practice Occlumency to keep him out."
She had told Draco years before that she and Harry, being twins, could often feel each other's thoughts and emotions.
"So...who?"
"Well, Harry's been having meetings in Dumbledore's office. Girls, even guys, follow him in the hallways. Ginny's been fascinated by him for years, and now she's started to hang out with them. Hermione and Ron are...well, being Hermione and Ron. Harry won't get over his theory of you being a Death Eater, and spends his time outside the Room of Requirement. Slughorn ignores me-what's the 'Girl Who Should have Died' compared to the Chosen One?"
Draco didn't say a word, and simply looked at her. At the emotion in his mercury eyes, she suddenly stopped her rant.
"Everything," Draco whispered, answering her rhetorical question with passionate protest. "You are worth everything."
She opened her mouth slightly but was unable to say anything as the Slytherin Prince leaned forward slowly, his eyes on hers. He looked for rejection, but found none.
So he kissed her.
His lips teased at hers gently, feather light. She pressed closer, but he still kept the kiss gentle. It was the tenderness of the kiss that told her it wasn't brought about out of pity, or lust, or taking advantage of her vulnerable state. It was out of love, true love, hidden love. Lasting love.
When he pulled back, her eyes fluttered open to stare at him. And it was then that he truly understood his dream. The snake, the snake was him. It wound around her, not threateningly, but to give her comfort. The blood was her own cause, the tears her internal pain. And he knew, without a doubt, that he would, somehow, end it. He would save her from that pain.
He brushed his lips gently across her forehead, her cheeks, her nose. She seemed frozen in surprise at the tender gesture, and her eyes were wide as he pulled back to look her in the eyes, silver to green.
He smiled reassuringly at her and she immediately relaxed against him. "You are my everything, Nisha," he said to her quietly. "Don't ever doubt that."
She was quiet for a while, and he might have thought she had fallen asleep were it not for her small fingers tracing the black tattoo on his wrist. He wondered at how she could so tenderly touch what was the worst of him. The source of his own shame. He lifted her scarred left forearm and kissed the inside of her wrist before giving her back his own.
"Thank you, Draco," she said quietly.
"For what?" he asked gently, wiping a tear from her cheek. She smiled slightly up at him and tilted her head towards his, lightly brushing her lips across his own again before speaking.
"For giving me a reason."
A/N: Yeah, it's a repost but there was something I wanted to fix.
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