The kiss, at the end, brutal, a mark.
Then gentle.
A whisper along lips.
Knowledge. Acknowledgement.
Not hope. No.
But peace.
For a moment.
Frigid.
The feel of cold air biting at his cheeks.
Calming. Calming.
Calming his over-heated blood. The betrayal of his body.
Snow underfoot.
Wind across his person, moving the hair on his head, billowing a black cloak swung around his shoulders, hands fisted.
Control, control.
Mental barriers, wards, fragmented, reapplying them, focusing, focusing. Battling though, straining, not wanting to exist, wanting to remember, wanting to remember with something akin to starvation, a thirst, desperate, heated, grasping at his throat, tearing, tearing, tearing.
Gods.
A silent prayer to something he doesn't believe in.
Needing something. Control, control.
The feel of her, the smell of her.
Then.
Now, the way her body vibrated in front of him.
Sickness.
To bring that memory up, a feeling of nausea, combing, twisting.
A fist.
Slamming into a tree trunk.
Pain.
A focus.
He hadn't meant to; running a hand through his hair, shaking, ignoring the shaking, running a hand through the hair again.
He hadn't meant to.
But it was there, had always been there, that last exchange, after the funeral, the words, words that had sliced him, cut him open, bleeding, guts dropping onto the snow around the cemetery.
Her words.
This, this isn't right, what we did, not right, what I did, not right.
Her words.
Bleeding him.
And his fury.
And hate.
Not of her. No never ever her, he would never hate her, not after everything, not after what he'd seen, done, been forced to do, not hate.
No.
Hate, directed at a dead body. Hate over something he didn't understand. Honour?
Perhaps.
Guilt? More than likely.
And above, underneath, all of it, the memory of a little boy in a big manor.
Not betrayal, no not betrayal, something more, a knife, twisting, twisting, twisting, not in his back, but in his chest, unseen until the very end.
Walking away from her then, ten years prior, leaving her before he can hear any more of her poisonous words, determined, gathering himself, falling, falling, but straight backed, razor sharp, walking away, walking away.
Broken.
Bloody fucking Weasley, never good enough, never enough for her, stupid, callous, a sidekick.
Another fist.
Another tree.
Focus. Focus.
Pain.
The thoughts, coming unbidden, the fury, hot, true, unresolved, lurking, didn't even know it had been lurking, bringing that Weasel up. He'd seen red, seen the gathering darkness, around his eyes, around his mind, gathering, gathering.
Pressure.
That night, never anything but reverence, the memory, pure, but now, darkness, stabbed by his actions, a memory filled with something he had never forgotten about, a peace, a brilliant beautiful wonderful peace, just a moment.
A moment.
Now defiled.
"Merlin," barely whispered, a stumble through the snow, black cloak trimmed with the white moisture, moving through trees, between large trunks, moving farther and farther away.
Running.
Because he can't be there, because he can't, because he can't.
The sound of the sea in front of him, the flicker of sun peaking through a cloud, swallowed, somewhere in the back of his mind the thought.
Wasn't the sky clear earlier?
But clouded now, slowly covering the light, and he comes out of the trees, comes out to the cliff, jutting out over the sea, grey in its coldness, in its frigid chill.
And there he stops.
Wind billowing about his person.
Water against cliffs, pounding.
And there he stops.
Silent.
Until he can just hear her step behind him.
There, because she is who she is and she knows who he is, and in the end, he has never intimidated her and they have come so far from that moment years ago when he had called her a Mudblood.
He feels her magic, whirling about him, about her, reaching out, and because he did not think she would follow, because he thought she would be long gone, his own magic reaching out unbidden, the connection, the compulsion, vibrating between them.
She stops by his side, her own black cloak wrapped around her, head bare, hair whipping around her face and shoulders from the wind of the sea.
Then she speaks.
"You told me that you owe me a life debt, that I saved your life."
Words. Words. Circling. Quiet.
He can feel her eyes on his face, the slight shift in her magic, in the connection between them.
Pausing.
A whisper of breath.
Quiet but harsh, belaying the meaning, underlining the words, continuing, magic touching him.
Then.
"The reason was not because of guilt, why I made the decision I made. I have never felt guilt over that night. I have never felt anything but wonder at those hours together."
A pause. Gathering. Gathering.
"That decision was made because in the end Draco, in the end, I chose you."
Moments.
Moments.
Clarity. Not perfect. Not even adequate.
But something.
She turns away from him.
"I will be in the library going over the catalogs."
A pause. A touch, not physical, but magical, of their compulsion.
Gentle.
And then, lilting over her shoulder as she walks away, "Don't stay out here too long."
The crash of the sea, against cliffs made of stone below.
Water the exact colour of Draco's eyes.