Last time:
"She's got to be okay," the nearly colorless boy practically pleaded with his inner demons, "She has to," he reassured once again, before finishing, "Because I lo-"
"WAIT!"
"Oh no. I don't, do I! I don't lo... lo-" Draco was unable to even think the word, "That must mean I don't, right?" The Slytherin looked up, horrified, into the smiling (or smirking, in Snape's case) faces of his teachers and said mildly, "Oh no."
Dumbledore opened his mouth, about to speak, when a small noise came from the cot beside Draco's, the sound of someone waking. At the slight declaration of the girl's consciousness, Snape walked rapidly to the child's side.
"Nuage, ou est Ciel?" Roanoke spoke quietly, but beautifully.
"Il est ici. Attends, mon amour," Snape replied with the same volume, but Draco caught every word, and though he spoke no French, he got the gist of the conversation. He paid no mind to the actual expressions, just the voice behind the lovely words. He recognized the voice, twice. He had heard it before he met the girl near him, but somehow all the more far away.
"Where?" Draco interrogated his memories. He knew, but could not find it.
Suddenly, with a rush of recognition, Draco understood.
Rain.
The girl, her long red hair flowing down her back. Somehow he knew her...
"Rain."
It seemed right.
Beautiful eyes.
"She's my..."
"Draco?" The girl in question inquired at the sound of his voice, then pulled back the curtain obstructing the view of him, and the blonde boy gasped audibly. The Venus reincarnate in his sight was not the same girl he had run through the garden with two nights ago, that child had been lovely, yes, but this, this was beauty, pure, simple, and staring at him.
Roanoke had changed in his eyes, somehow. She was neither a child nor an imp. She was a goddess. The oddly named girl used to be round, short and mischievous. The spectacle before him was curvy, petite and curious. Her turbulent eyes no longer innocent and naive, but pure and not thus far jaded by the painful world, yet still much wiser than Draco would ever be. She was an angel, sent from Heaven. She was Heaven. Heaven on Earth. Even before the overwhelmed boy smelled the scent wafting through the air, his jaw had dropped as far as it could possibly go, but once he got a whiff of her rare perfume, he nearly died. By perfume, one expects some cheesy cologne reek, but this was different. It was not something the beauty wore, it was her. The stench of rain, sweet and newly fallen, intermingling with pine and blueberry that created something wholly indescribable. Something told Draco's brain it was the smell of purple. The scent of his...
"Mate." The prince of Slytherin said without doubt. Roanoke, Draco's lifelong mate and true love gave the boy a strange look and then turned her attention back to Snape and asked in rapid French:
"Qu'est-ce qu'il dit?"
"Mate, you are his, I'm afraid," he replied to the confused and frankly frightened sixteen-year-old, "I'll explain soon. Both of you should get some sleep after what you've been through. When you wake, we shall have a meeting with Professor Dumbledore," Snape finished with a nod to the Headmaster. Had Draco or Roanoke been paying attention, they would both have detected worry and compassion in his voice, but Draco's senses were much too overloaded with the discovery of his mate to think clearly, and Roanoke far too confused. The emotion went unnoticed, but not by two shadows who quickly fled the premises whilst Snape and the Headmaster left.
The two soul mates glided to Dreamland. Once asleep, Roanoke dreamt of her childhood, and Draco once again had a dream with the girl Rain in it, but this time, her name was Roanoke.