Present day: The Resistance

Amelia Collins walked back from the forest with a satchel full of berries, her boots crunching against the dried leaves as she made her way back towards base.

It had accidentally become a sort of home. The Resistance had set up among the mountains of Scotland and Amelia had grown more than accustomed to their way of life as they hid away from the atrocities of the Wizarding World.

The Resistance looked like a shanty town, with rows and rows of tents, all different shapes and sizes, lined up along the flat in between two vast mountains. Each member had their own tent – unless they chose to share – and then there were common areas, meeting rooms, duelling practice rooms, even a library all to accommodate the people who were working to overthrow the Death Eaters who now had complete control over the wizarding world.

Amelia dumped the satchel of berries in the common room kitchen and made her way back towards her tent, throwing off her boots as soon as she entered her space. Her tent had one bedroom, with a small kitchen, bathroom and living area. She had done her best to decorate it, but when you join the Resistance you typically tend to have no belongings, so it was rather bare for her liking.

Before she had time to go into her bathroom and take a shower, she heard someone say her name behind her. Jumping with fright, Amelia whipped around, instinctively stuffing her hand into the pocket her wand was in.

At the door stood Ginny Weasley, her long red hair perfectly framing her heart shaped face.

"Oh, Ginny! You scared me…" Amelia said, catching her breath and laughing.

"Sorry, I always forget everyone tends to be on edge around here. How was food duty this morning?" Ginny asked, flinging herself onto the small sofa Amelia had in the living area.

Amelia sat down beside Ginny, crossing her legs and shrugging. "It was alright, only found a few berries though."
Ginny nodded in contemplation. "Looks like we might have to risk going into town soon, we're starting to run pretty low on food supplies." Amelia nodded in agreement with a knowing eye roll. Food in the resistance was provided in a few different ways: foraging the area for berries (Luna made a fantastic blackberry jam), a modest but varied vegetable patch in the middle of the shanty town, and surreptitiously gathering supplies from small villages – a risky but necessary manoeuvre.
Ginny had become a close friend of Amelia's since she had joined the Resistance. Those in the Resistance were all like a family now – it became increasingly important that they had each other as times only kept getting tougher for the outcasts. Amelia's older brother, Henry Collins, was also a part of the Resistance. He was an Auror during the beginning of the war, before having to eventually go into hiding with the Order of the Phoenix after the Death Eaters took control of the Ministry. He and Amelia had lost their father – a member of the Order – during the Battle of Hogwarts, and so Henry was the only family she had left.

"Hey, we're going to have a bonfire outside Ron and Hermione's tonight – you wanna come?" Ginny asked.

"Who's 'we'?"
"Me, Harry, Ron and Hermione," Ginny listed happily.

Amelia smiled and nodded. "Sounds good, I'll see if Henry wants to come."
Ginny groaned. "You know what Henry's like – he's not happy unless he's in that bloody tent planning the next mission."

Amelia laughed; it was true - although they were all ultimately working towards the same goal, everyone also tried to make a life for themselves in the Resistance, but Henry was obsessed with the demise of the Death Eaters, often staying up to all hours in the morning standing over a desk with various pieces of parchment with half-formed plans scribbled all over. Even Harry managed to pull himself away from the missions at hand to spend time with Ginny and his friends – though he wasn't much better than Henry.

Amelia agreed to spend the night with her friends, though she knew how these evenings often left her feeling. Ginny, Hermione, Harry and Ron were her closest friends, but they also formed two couples, and Amelia would often leave these gatherings with a distinct feeling of hollowness as she would wander back to her tent alone, while her friends would go off arm in arm. It was these nights that her vulnerable mind would be left thinking about Draco Malfoy, debating what had happened, searching for a way in which perhaps what she knew to be true, somehow wasn't…


1st October, 1997

It was a month into Draco's seventh year at Hogwarts and he felt as miserable as ever. Defence Against the Dark Arts was now merely deemed the Dark Arts, which Draco had with Gryffindor. This made for some light amusement as the Gryffindors often tried to rebel against what Carrow was teaching, resulting in punishment – sometimes on the spot. But despite this entertainment, at which Draco found himself sneering at whenever Longbottom would gallantly protest, he felt empty inside. As the war loomed ever closer to a climax, Draco's place in the wizarding world became increasingly hazy. He no longer felt at home with the other Slytherins, jeering at the other Houses and the misfortune of the muggle borns, and found himself becoming more introverted during these conversations, somewhat uncomfortable with the topics. Most of the time though, he was filled with an intense fear: for his life, for his family's… He had messed it up last year, but the Dark Lord had spared him. By doing this though, it made Draco all the more anxious – knowing that he was being watched by the Death Eaters, knowing that they were all eagerly waiting for his next slip up; for his demise. Try as he might to get on with things and resume his arrogant stance, he was consumed by the fear that the Death Eaters were just biding their time, torturing him with his anxiety until they inevitably put him out of his misery.

To make things even more horrible, Draco had been paired with Amelia Collins in Potions for the year, something that the Ravenclaw girl seemed just as unhappy about as he did. So far, they had endured dozens of excruciatingly uncomfortable lessons, where they worked soundlessly side by side, managing to scrape by with decent enough potions for the time being. Their first assignment though, was to find the antidote to a skin-melting acidic potion, writing out the recipe on parchment as a pair and handing it in to Slughorn. At the end of class, Amelia said what was just about her first words of the year to Draco.

"You do the first half, I'll do the second," she said plainly, pointing to the assignment information she had written down in her diary. She had a mild look of disgust on her face as she spoke to Draco, and it ignited something small inside his chest.

Smirking, he replied, "fine."


Present Day:

Amelia sat around the small fire with Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny as the boys recalled a particularly bad quidditch game where Ravenclaw, for whom Amelia was a chaser, had been brutally beaten by Gryffindor.

Amelia joked that she felt outnumbered, a wide smile on her face, the war about a million miles from her mind.

"Oh by the way! Did anyone see yesterday's Prophet? Dean managed to grab one when he snuck into that town," Ginny suddenly said, rummaging through her small satchel and pulling out a tattered newspaper.

Ron groaned. "What's happened now?"
This was the general consensus towards the Daily Prophet; most of it was propaganda by the Death Eaters, but occasionally they decided to print certain deaths or disappearances, to keep the wizarding world in a state of fear.

Ginny spread the newspaper out on the ground after opening it to one of the middle pages.

Amelia's heart caught in her throat.

Looking back up at her was Pansy Parkinson, donned in a horrid, frilly dress, standing next to Draco Malfoy, his arm firmly around her waist. The headline read 'Malfoy heir celebrates one year anniversary with wife, Parkinson.'

"Ugh, could've warned us, Gin," Ron exclaimed, his face twisted in disgust.

Amelia didn't hear what the others were saying; all she could hear was the echoing sounds of her heart beating as she tried to control the wave of nausea that had suddenly washed over her. She looked at Pansy, who stood arrogantly tall, an eyebrow cocked as she posed for the photo, occasionally looking up adoringly at her husband. And Draco, who stood rather still, his face blank as he stared into the camera. Even through the paper, Amelia felt as though his steely grey eyes were piercing her. She searched them for any sign of recognition of the boy she had known.

"Wish he wasn't such a bloody coward – there's no one I'd like to see more," Harry was saying as Amelia blinked rapidly and pulled herself back into reality.

"Yeah – he's a slippery one, never seems to be around trouble these days," Ron agreed.

"It says here, he's working for the Ministry," Hermione chimed in as she scanned the article. "Ugh, listen to this… 'Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy – who are set to inherit the Malfoy's fortune one day - hope to have their first child within the year. Mrs. Malfoy beamed as she discussed the possibility of a child, stating that it was important to both her and her husband to keep the Malfoy name alive for another generation to come, and that she and Mr. Malfoy are very excited by the idea.'"
Amelia stood abruptly, causing everyone – who were in fits of laughter – to look over at her.

"Just remembered – need to get up early tomorrow. Night," she stammered unconvincingly, before flashing an awkward smile and turning back towards her tent, tugging at her jumper as she did, feeling as though someone was choking her.

Once safe in the comfort of her own tent, Amelia clutched at her chest. Her breath came in gulping heaves. Heavy tears ran down her face as she tried to supress sobs, but as images of the article flashed into her mind she could not hold them in.

Images were painted across her mind, of him. Him, asleep next to her, holding her. Him, kissing her on the forehead with a small smirk, and promising he'd never let anything happen to her.
She squeezed her eyes shut as tears poured down her cheeks; it was all lies. Everything he had said, everything he had done, had all meant nothing. Some days Amelia could take it, and although the ghost of him haunted her still, with unanswered questions searing her brain… seeing him with Pansy Parkinson - his wife – hurt far more than she could ever admit to anyone.

No one in the Resistance knew about Amelia and Draco; when they found her, she had told them she'd been on the run, but did not mention Draco. They had been so secretive at Hogwarts, that no one had ever suspected a thing. The others in the Resistance had assumed that the reason she was so quiet for so many months was from the trauma of being on the run after the Battle of Hogwarts, and as a result no one seemed to query it too much.

It was three years since Amelia had joined the Resistance, four months after she had last seen Draco Malfoy. She had spent the majority of her time with the Resistance training her mind not to think of him, but she had made little progress in that time. Her brain burned with unanswered questions and guilty feelings, a deep frustration always bubbling away inside her as she demanded to know why he had done what he did.


1997

After failing the first assignment, Professor Slughorn had pulled both Draco and Amelia aside at the end of a lesson one Friday afternoon, imploring them both to work together – properly. He reminded them that to get into their preferred fields of work once graduated, that they would need an Outstanding in Potions to stand out from the others.

Once Slughorn had left, Amelia turned to Draco, sighing dramatically.

"I don't think I've ever failed an assignment," she said miserably, glancing at her and Draco's paper on Slughorn's desk. "Look – one hour a week, in the library. Just to make sure we pass Potions. Deal?" She asked Draco, looking about as enthusiastic as someone who was about to eat dragon dung.

Draco smirked, "fine. But my only free hour is at 9.30 on a Wednesday night."
Amelia rolled her eyes. "Seriously?"
Draco cocked an eyebrow. "Head Boy duties," he said simply, watching Amelia's jaw clench as he spoke.

"Fine," she said sharply, before shooting daggers his way and turning her heel.

Draco watched as her hazelnut coloured hair bounced in rhythm to her steps, satisfied with the angst he'd caused her.

For two weeks they met up late on a Wednesday evening – Amelia clearly resentful but trying her best not to give Draco the satisfaction of noticing, which in turn made it all the more satisfying for him. He spent most of the time leaning back on his chair in the library, chewing on the end of a quill, occasionally correcting Amelia's notes.

"You could try helping once, you know? Instead of just leering over my shoulder like that," she said scathingly on their third week in the library.

"I should deduct house points for speaking to your superior like that," he said in a falsely casual voice.

Amelia scoffed and put down her quill. "Superior?"
Draco tapped his Head Boy badge with great smugness.

"You're an even bigger joke than I thought you were," Amelia mumbled, picking up her quill and turning her eyes back to the parchment in front of her.

"Excuse me?"

"The way you're acting – I think even you know that you're a joke," Amelia said. It was her turn to put on an air of nonchalance.

Draco snatched the quill from her hand to bring her attention to him, his temper rising rapidly. He felt the quill crumble in his balled fist as he locked eyes with Amelia Collins, who looked defiant and unafraid of him.

"Watch it, Collins. Don't forget – things have changed around here," he threatened, knowing deep down that it was empty but loathing her all the same.

"Luckily I know that you're not very good at following through on the threats you make," Amelia said, a small but cunning smile appearing on her lips as Draco felt blood rise in his cheeks.

"How dare you?" He hissed, coming in closer to her, feeling her quill snap completely in his tightened grip.

"I'm done for the evening," Amelia said abruptly, her voice still annoyingly airy. She stood and snatched her potions book off the table, quickly stuffing it into her bag while Draco sat, unsure of what to say next. "You can keep that, I've got plenty in my dormitory," she said as she nodded at the crumbled quill, flashing a would-be-sweet smile, before promptly turning her heel, leaving Draco dumbstruck in the library.