November 2008
Wizarding London, England
Ministry of Magic of Great Britain
Office of Magical Law Enforcement, Auror Department
Friday

Draco found her hiding in the library, absentmindedly thumbing through a book on the the Second Wizarding War. He was nervous to approach her after the events of the morning. He wasn't sure what to expect. He lowered himself tentatively into the chair across from her at the table. She eyed him skeptically as he did so.

"Lyra, I..." he paused and took a breath. "Potter and me will always fight like cats in a bin but it's no excuse for how I behaved."

Lyra raised her eyebrow at him and put her book down. "You used to say that same thing about us," she mused. "Cats in a bin. Here's the thing about cats, kid...When it's cold and dangerous, they still sleep in a pile to protect each other and survive. Maybe that's us but it's not what's going on in between you and Harry. What you two do transcends all sense. You're still trying to punish each other for shit that happened ages ago. Shit that has nothing to do with us. If you guys want to have it out so bad, fine, but not like this. Not through me. Please," she whispered tiredly, shutting her eyes.

Draco nodded and reached out for her hand, which she gave him willingly, lacing her fingers with his. "Potter told me what he said to you. Would you like me to have him murdered?" Draco offered sweetly.

Lyra chuckled. "No. You leave him to me," she replied.

"I'm sorry about all this. The press, the exposure. My mum's kind of a master of PR, so I've asked her to stop by this afternoon, if that's alright with you, of course," he added.

Lyra settled her cheek in her palm and rubbed her fingers anxiously against his. "Honestly, I don't see what it could hurt at this point. My Dad's coming in tonight too, as if there wasn't enough going on." she sighed.

"Are you going to tell him?" Draco asked.

"Well, he's probably going to wonder why the press is tailing me everywhere, asking me about an Ex I haven't mentioned in years," Lyra replied, looking miserable.

"Sweetheart?"

"Yeah?"

"You have to make a decision here," he said softly.

"About what?" She asked.

"About us. So far as it seems, all anyone knows is what's in that picture. We can spin it as a one off, or we can own it and admit that we're...whatever it is that we are," he hesitated. "If you want to stop, you say the word. It stops. We fight this off and leave it at that," he said, trying to sound like that wouldn't destroy him. "If you want to continue, and even if you don't, you'll have my absolute discretion. You'll have the last word on what goes public, when and how. You will also have every resource I own or can acquire to keep you save and keep people out of our business," he confessed to her.

"That's a very serious way to ask someone to be your fuck buddy," she noted.

Draco grimaced. "That's not the term I would use."

"What term would you use?" She asked.

"Girlfriend. Lover. Partner. Whatever you want," he replied evenly.

Lyra stared at him in surprise, like she'd never seen him before and he just apparated into the room. She blushed and looked down at their hands. Now, in the bedroom, she knew Draco was the kind of person who would give her whatever she wanted, because he liked watching her come apart. He was generous in that particular way, but this was different. This was in public. People would see her comparative roughness and judge her for her pushy American ways. This was cameras and questions on her. On them. Together. It was something she didn't think he would have done for her ten years ago, not that she would have wanted the attention. She didn't know what to say.

"I want us to have time. Time to fumble, time to see if there's potential here, time to talk about...all the scars," she mumbled dejectedly.

"And time, unfortunately, is exactly what we don't have," he replied.

"Why? Why do we have to address it at all?" She questioned, pulling away from him and sitting back in her chair.

Draco sighed. "Because, sweetheart, with things like this, if you say nothing, people will just start saying things for you, typically untrue things. You have to do what my mother calls 'controlling the narrative,'" he explained.

"I just feel like we're being forced into this. Like we have to call it something just to retain the ability to find out if it really is something," she complained.

He tried to mask his hurt at her words, but she saw it.

"Draco, I'm just trying to be honest, here. I really don't know. I mean you killed me a week ago, you know? You also broke my fucking heart when we were kids," she began.

"Wait. What about what you just said about me and Potter. About punishing people for things that happened years ago," he countered.

"I'm not mad at you about it, and I have no intention of punishing you, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I trust you either. I mean, look at it from my perspective. The last interaction I had with you when we were young was you putting me on a plane after fucking me senseless for three days and then never speaking to me again. One of my father's last letters to me ever, before he died, was basically a Dear Jane by proxy telling me that, despite being in the middle of a goddamned war, you'd moved on to a worthier woman," Lyra shut her eyes against the tears.

She really didn't want to do this now, or ever, but if she was going to do this, was going to do it right. She inhaled shakily. "I was so angry," she whispered. "And I was afraid you were going to die...and then Severus died and I had nobody to..." she shook her head trying to keep her composure. She looked over to Draco to see an anguished look plastered across his handsome face.

"I'm sorry, but I have to finish this," she said sympathetically.

He nodded, looking down.

"So that was the last, and now my reintroduction to you has been a crash course in how your family's dysfunction knows no boundaries. It reached across the ocean and it found me. It came to me. Threatened me. Made me bleed. Made me run for my life." She clenched her fists nervously.

"You said to me in the ballroom that I wanted to save you. That it was my reason for being in that room. But really, that was the least of it and, in the end...you were wrong. I was in that room for Scorpius. I didn't want him crushed under the weight of your father's bullshit just because he was born to a name. That's why I stayed. That's why I fought. I was..." she took a shaky breath. "When you told me what you did, that you'd poisoned me. I was ready to kill you. I was trying to kill you," she whispered. "For you, the thing I wanted more than anything was...that I just didn't want you to be someone who'd killed his own son, but that...that didn't require that you live, just that you be stopped."

Draco nodded again in understanding, wiping away a tear.

"He was the last thing I saw, you know," she mused, looking off into space.

"Who was?" Draco asked in a soft, strained voice.

"Before I lost consciousness," she explained. "I saw Scorpius, playing with that little train he has, the one that makes the smoke and I was okay with it. Okay with dying. For him. Not for you. At that point, I was pretty much like fuck you...no offense. I mean, I felt bad for you or whatever, but not enough to die for you."

Draco gave a somber huff, but said nothing. They sat in silence for a few moments before Lyra spoke again.

"I forgive you," she said, her voice thick. "All of it. But I can't promise I won't fuck it up and neither can you. Look at us. We fuck up. It's just...what we do."

Draco shook his head and buried his face in his hands. She let him be alone for awhile but then went over to him, pulled him up for a hug and let him drop his tears into her hair.

He squeezed her close, inhaling the scent of her and let her go, wiping his eyes. "Alright. When my mother arrives, we'll come up with a plan. We'll stop. We'll shut it down," he said, not meeting her gaze.

Lyra furrowed her brow. "No. I don't want that," she replied.

"What do you want?" He asked, confused.

"What I want is to find out, but if we're going to do this, then we're going to fucking do this and it has to start with the truth. If not, there's no point," she said softly.

"What?" Draco asked, looking down at her in shock.

Lyra started to tremble. "I...I guess...I mean...I think I want to keep sleeping in a pile with you for now...like just for safety and stuff until we can figure everything out," she mumbled, not looking up at him, cheeks burning. "Protect each other and survive," she said, parroting her earlier words.

Draco didn't know what to say, so he simply held her until his heart rate returned to normal and he could think again. He used a finger on her chin to get her to look up at him. "I can't think of anything more romantic than that to an old Slytherin like me," he said cracking a heart breaking smile.

She smiled back at him timidly.

"So, we're doing this?" He asked.

"I suppose so," she replied, nervously.

"We can go back. Do the courtship thing. Stop having sex. Anything you want," Draco offered.

Lyra made a grumpy face. "What?! No! Are you crazy?! Media scrutiny? Investigations? Public trial? Do you want me to go nuts?! No! Absolutely not! The fucking continues until morale improves!"

He laughed loudly and nuzzled her hair with his nose.

He nodded. "Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, of course," she answered.

"Why would you even give me a chance? Don't get me wrong, I want it. But if you had kicked my teeth in when you saw me on Monday, I would have understood. What was that like for you?" He asked.

Lyra furrowed her brow. "Well, I was surprised to see you, but I think the exact thing I thought before I passed out was 'Fuck you, Frog. You were supposed to be food,' and I completely stand by that sentiment," she joked. "But after, when we talked, you were just you. The quips, the sarcasm, the temper, It was all still there. It was like finally, in the middle of all this mess, in the sea of new faces, there was one I recognized. It made me feel so...relieved. I didn't realize it until I saw you standing there, how desperately I just needed someone who knew me," she explained.

"As for why I wanted to give you a chance...the kicker? You ate the curry. Ten years ago you would have shoved me out the door, into a private car and then forced me into some overpriced bistro for escargot and port. That's an interesting change and I want to see where it leads," she added with a shrug.

"But do I make you happy?" He questioned softly.

She narrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "Yes. And you make me angry, and confused and frustrated too. It's almost like you're a complicated person capable of arousing an entire range of emotions in other people. If what you expect is to make me happy all the time, you're in for a world of disappointment," she replied honestly, powering through the dissatisfied look he made with his attractive face.

"Look, you make me feel beautiful and cared for. You keep me incredibly sexually satisfied and the way you look at me sometimes..." she sought to elaborate, but trailed off.

"What?" He asked, looking down at her with the exact same look she was thinking about.

She signed, looking up at him evenly. "It's devotion. Absolute devotion. It makes be nervous and scares me and I adore it and I don't know what to do with it."

He gave her a break from his staring by leaning in and kissing her forehead.

"Draco, I don't know what to do. I mean, I don't know how to do cameras and and everything. You know me. You know what happens when I get nervous. I ramble and I say too much. I just...I don't want to get up there and end up babbling about how Narita Simhai pulled my skirt over my head in our 2nd year," she said anxiously to him, grabbing his hands.

"Now, I actually love that story," he replied, running his thumbs soothingly over the backs of her hands.

"You love any story that involves the exposure of my butt," she countered.

"Not generally unless I'm the one doing the exposing," he said down at her with a little smirk.

She rolled her eyes and wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her face in the soft fabric of his shirt. It was the one he'd worn for breakfast, he hadn't even changed. He brought his arms around her shoulders and rested his chin on the top of her head.

"What should I call you, out of curiosity?" He asked, tentatively.

"I dunno, Lyra, I guess," she joked at him. "I don't care. Well...anything but lover. That makes you sound like a skeevy old guy on a swinger's cruise," she griped into his chest.

He laughed. "Right."