Draco awoke in a cold sweat, trembling, the image of his mother's lifeless eyes disappearing into a giant snake's maw still stark in his mind. Panting at the ceiling, he scrubbed a hand over his face and tried to shake off the terror, but his heart would not slow its frantic pace. He stared at his shaking hand hovering above him, saw the Dark Mark peeking from beneath his pajama sleeve. It was vile. It felt like having a piece of Voldemort in the room with him always. Some days he hated it so much that he wanted to chop his own arm off just to be rid of it.
Unable to fall back asleep, Draco pushed off the covers and went to the bathroom for a soak. The heat and steam helped calm him until he felt tired enough that he might doze in the water, but the clocktower bell signaling the start of the day had him drying off and returning to the dorm to put on his uniform.
Draco came out of his room still tying his tie and bumped into Goyle in the hall. The big man just flashed him an angry, wounded look and turned away.
"What's your problem?" Draco asked. Goyle just shook his head, pushing ahead of him into the common room.
Theo clapped Draco on the shoulder. "He's just a bit sore that his bride-to-be is now yours," he said, but his tone lacked its usual flippancy. It seemed even Theo, master of good humor, was finding it difficult to cope with the state of the world. "I'd give him some space, if I were you. He thinks you stole her from him out of jealousy."
Draco fixed his stare on Goyle's retreating back. "Jealousy?"
"Draco," Theo warned.
"Who's jealous?" Draco sneered, ignoring his friend as he strode toward the common room, his strides brisk and purposeful. A few other students were starting to stare. "How could I be jealous? My aunt caught us in the garden together, rather intimately," he purred, encouraging the salacious thoughts he knew he'd conjured, "and decided to intervene on our behalf."
Goyle stopped walking but didn't turn around. Draco could see that his neck was flushed red and his meaty fingers were curling into fists.
"I didn't steal anything," Draco said. "She never wanted to marry you in the first place."
Goyle glared at him over his shoulder and Draco shrugged. By now, they had an audience as students filed out of their rooms to watch the drama unfold, a quiet hum buzzing around they murmured to one another.
"And why would she?" Draco went on. "The way I heard it, you were too scared to talk to her. You ignored her—"
"I liked her!" Goyle shouted, spinning around. "And you treat her like trash!" He pointed a thick finger at him. "You don't deserve her."
A hush fell over the room, and Draco was so shocked that all he could do was stare. Goyle had never talked back to him—not once. Perhaps Draco had gone too far. He had assumed Goyle was mad at him for taking something he wanted, but could he have really liked her? As long as Draco had known him and in every single way that mattered, Goyle had been a dumb brute. Until now. His feelings had been genuine, his hopes attached to real plans, and now he was heartbroken just like any normal person would be.
And he was right. Draco did treat her terribly. He didn't deserve her. And he wouldn't get to have her anyway. Not the way either of them wanted. Even if she did marry him, it would be for survival, not love. Draco had known for a long time that there was never a future for them.
Goyle turned and shouldered his way through the crowd, his head hung. Crabbe, looking torn, followed after him. Draco's eyes flitted over the crowd, noting the way the students awkwardly shuffled their feet and averted their gazes. His eyes landed on Pansy, who stared at him with an unreadable expression. And then she turned her back to him, too.
Theo came up beside him. "I warned you," he said. He shoved his hands into his pockets, glanced around the room, and then added, "Guessin' if I ask, you're not gonna deny being matched this time, seein' as you've announced it to the whole house."
Draco shot him a nasty glare and walked out.
-o-
Light streamed into the room from seemingly everywhere and a woman with long, blond hair was laughing. A girl no older than six with blond pigtails curled into ringlets stood on a stool adjacent the older woman, both of them crowding a kitchen island covered in flour and dough. The little girl smiled at her mother, her cheeks and nose flecked with white powder. Happiness flooded him on a current of warmth. The woman hummed a beautiful song even as two strong arms suddenly swept the little girl up, racing with her out into the yard. She shrieked happily on her father's shoulders, opening her arms wide to the bright horizon as he raced her in circles around the rolling fields surrounding their home. There was so much love in their hearts.
Draco came out of the memory with a start, the emotion as raw as the images he saw. Amaris was panting, bowed over with her hands on her knees.
"You're not concentrating," he barked. "Clear your mind and focus. Again."
"Please," Amaris panted, reaching for the wall to hold her up. "I need a break."
"No," he hissed. "Again."
She nodded and had barely straightened before he was casting the spell.
The gentle bite of an autumn chill traveled up her spine as Amaris walked across the Hogwarts courtyard toward an empty bench. Someone bumped into her, nearly knocking her book out of her hands.
"Look sharp, Grey," Draco said to her. "You wouldn't want to trip." He eyes scanned her figure before adding, "You might not survive a fall." And then he brushed past her and plopped right onto the bench she had been seconds away from claiming.
Amaris gaped at him in shock as he pulled a book out of his messenger bag and cracked it open. Embarrassment burned in her belly with sadness and a hint of shame. She was choking, at a loss for words, but her feet wouldn't move. And he ignored her, going so far as to flip a page before lifting his head to look at her.
"Are you just going to stare at me all day?" he asked, his face a picture of amusement. When she didn't answer, he grinned, looking up at her from beneath long lashes, and she couldn't help but think that he was incredibly cute. "Kneazle got your tongue?"
Her embarrassment deepened, jolting her out of her shock. She turned and marched away, and he laughed at her.
Draco was frozen, staring at Amaris across the room. She was breathing deeply, eyes locked on the stone floor. In the short time since they had begun these lessons, he had seen many memories of her parents, of her happy childhood. He had seen that childhood turn unhappy under her Uncle's guardianship. He had seen her days at Hogwarts split between fun moments with her friends and miserable ones where Pansy taunted her. But this was the first memory that he had glimpsed of himself.
He remembered that day. It had been third year, and they all had returned from summer break looking a bit older. That was the year Pansy's nickname for Amaris, Lady Gravefoot, had been born.
"I need a break," Amaris said quietly.
Draco was on the verge of telling her no, that no one who sought Legilimency as a means of interrogation would give her a break, but he could see how tired she was. She wasn't sleeping well, he supposed. Neither was he. But mostly, he needed a minute to dissect that memory, what he saw, what she felt.
Conceding with a nod, he watched her slump down right where she stood and put her back to the wall. They had retreated to their quiet refuge in the South Tower for their sessions, meeting as often as they could. Draco wasn't a very practiced Legilimens, but he had enough skill to at least start her training, to afford her some protection, at least.
Draco crossed the room and sat in front of her with his knees up and his arms resting atop them, his wand clutched between both hands. He eyed her as she stared up through the window at the clear, cold sky, watched her thin fingers curl into the knot of her tie and tug it left and right, loosening it. Watched that top button come undone, allowing her to breathe easier, exposing the curve of her neck.
He swallowed the sudden dryness in his throat and distracted himself with her memory of him. She had thought he was cute. It had been as clear to him in that moment as the sky was beyond the window. She thought he was cute even back then. Had she liked him? Was his mother right all along? He wanted to ask her but didn't know how.
He reached up to loosen his own tie, trying to recall the details of that day from his own memory banks. He remembered seeing her walking alone. Something about her wrapped up in her peacoat with her slim legs made her seem so delicate and small that he thought she was adorable. He chose that bench because she was aiming for it. He wanted to tease her a bit. He hadn't liked her, had barely noticed her beyond that moment, but he had thought she was cute, especially when she blushed in her frustration. And she had thought he was cute, too—was embarrassed despite her anger.
What he wouldn't give for a chance to relive that moment. He would have asked her to study with him. He would have told her that he thought she was pretty. He would have invited her on a walk, coaxed her into a kiss under a tree, and wondered if she wanted to go out with him on their next trip to Hogsmeade Village. So many years wasted. Something as simple as enjoying a nice day in the courtyard was beyond them now, but he would do anything to be able to have that again.
Amaris cleared her throat and Draco realized he'd been staring off into space.
"What?" he asked when he saw her appraising stare. "You thought I was cute. It was a lot to process."
She blushed and looked down, fighting a smile.
"I thought a love confession from Potter was more likely," he continued and she snorted, instantly covering her mouth to hide her laughter. Draco resisted the smile threatening to crack on his mouth. "Well, you can't blame me, can you? I keep wondering if I've gone mad."
She sighed in feigned exasperation, dramatically rolling her eyes as she looked at him, but she was still smiling.
"Well?" he prompted. "Have I?"
She pursed her lips, gazing at him long and hard before saying, "Draco Malfoy, you were a jerk to me since the moment we were reunited first year, and I thought you were an arrogant prat." She shrugged, looking away. "But," she added, "third year, when you came back to school, I also thought that you were surprisingly quite…tall."
Draco grinned.
"Your voice was deeper, which was regrettably charming," she went on.
"Regrettably?"
"Yes, considering most things out of your mouth were quite nasty."
"Mm," he hummed, still grinning.
"Your wit was, at times, rather amusing, and your arrogance was full of enough swagger as to be almost forgivable."
His grin widened. "Almost," he echoed.
"And," she admitted quietly, taking a deep breath, "I thought you were quite cute."
Unable to stop smiling, Draco tilted his head at her, let his eyes rake her head to toe, and then said, "Careful, Grey. You're dangerously close to admitting you liked me."
"You were horrible to me," she gasped.
"Seems you might like it that way."
She laughed and looked away, her knees pressing together in what Draco considered a very telling manner.
"You sound a bit like your old self," she said quietly. When she looked at him, her expression had softened considerably. Draco's smile slowly began to fade. "I'm glad," she told him. "I'm glad you're here with me. That you're helping me. It's funny, isn't it?"
"What is?"
"We've known each other since we were kids, but it took us eight years to become friends."
Draco opened his mouth to tell her they weren't friends but the words didn't form. Weren't they? In some strange, roundabout way, hadn't they developed a closeness that one might attribute to a sort of friendship? He wanted them to be more than that, wanted a great many things that would never happen, but that didn't mean that being her friend was such a bad thing, after all…
"I suppose," he admitted, and the smile that bloomed on her face was beautiful, but it lasted for only a second before twisting up with fear.
"I'm scared, Draco," she whispered, on the verge of tears. "I'm really scared."
Draco stared at her as she lowered her chin toward her chest, wrapped her arms around herself, and tried not to cry. He wondered if she had said it out loud yet, or if this was the first time. He slowly reached out and touched her ankle, tapping his thumb against the bone to get her attention. She looked up at him with glassy eyes and he angled his hand out as if to say, "Come here." And she did. She shifted forward, pressed her face into his shoulder, and cried. He wrapped his arm around her and rested his cheek on the top of her head.
"Me, too," he murmured so quietly that he wasn't sure she heard, but it was the first time he had ever said it out loud.
-o-
Every time that Draco had to attend the compulsory Muggle Studies class, it made him break out in a cold sweat, because it reminded him of how he had watched Professor Burbage murdered, reminded him of his horrible dreams. Sitting there listening to how Muggles were animals, dirty and stupid, filled him with a strange sense of shame. It was rhetoric he had ascribed to just a year before that now made him squirm in his chair. It wasn't that he was entirely convinced that Muggles were equal to witches and wizards, just that he didn't know what they were, and he had lost any bloodlust he once thought he had possessed.
Which was why Defense Against the Dark Arts had become nearly unbearable to attend. That madman Amycus Carrow was having students practice the Cruciatus Curse as though it were a spell of choice. The Unforgiveable Curses were no longer illegal, but to use them as punishments on students assigned detention, which was being granted over infractions so minor that even Draco in his prefect days would've balked at, was unacceptable.
As Draco walked down the hallway away from class, he wanted to vomit. Using the Cruciatus Curse on Rowle had been one thing—a horrible thing—but the man was outright vicious and cruel, and a Death Eater, no less. But Draco hadn't wanted to use it then or ever again. He dreaded another lesson, but Goyle and Crabbe both seemed to enjoy it…
They weren't speaking much these days, but the two still sat with him at dinner and during shared classes. They shadowed him like bodyguards even as resentment still flowed between them. It was the natural order of things, he supposed. They had been together for so long that Draco supposed they didn't know what to do if they weren't following him around, taking his orders.
The sound of Theo's voice pulled Draco out of his thoughts. He slowed as he approached the corner and stopped entirely when he heard Amaris speaking.
"Leave it alone, Theo," she said. "I'm fine."
"How could you possibly be fine?" he asked. "You don't have any friends."
"I have friends, but they—"
"Avoid you."
"They're just afraid because I'm—"
"Engaged to a Death Eater," he finished.
Draco stiffened. Was it true? He knew she looked lonelier with Hayden and Ballard gone, but he hadn't noticed if everyone else was purposely avoiding her, hadn't thought to check. But Theo had, for some reason. Draco peeked around the corner, saw them standing halfway down the hallway, alone.
"Please," Amaris whispered, "don't tell Draco. He'll think it's his fault."
Draco inhaled sharply in surprise then slipped around the corner, muttering a Disillusionment Charm as he strolled closer.
"Isn't it?" Theo asked.
"No! He was just protecting me. They don't understand—"
"Then it's their fault?"
"It's not—"
"Whose fault is it, then?"
"It doesn't have to be anyone's fault!" she exclaimed, frustrated. "Theo, please. It's difficult for everyone. I understand that."
Theo shoved his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels. "At your own expense, love."
"I'm not complaining."
Theo offered her a crooked smile. "You never complain, Amaris."
"I—Of course, I do! I just—" Her shoulders slumped in exhaustion. "Why are you doing this? Last year, you came to me about Draco, but until that point, you've held nothing but contempt for me."
"Contempt is a strong word," Theo said. "I mean, you're damn near saintly, Amaris." When she just stared at him, he sighed. A seriousness that Draco had never seen in his friend settled over him. "Everything's changed now, hasn't it? So maybe you could have a little faith in me, too."
Surprise flitted over her face, reflecting the shock that Draco felt at those words.
"You're right," she whispered. "I'm sorry, Theo."
A grin cracked on Theo's mouth. "First time anyone's ever apologized to me. Figures it'd be you." His eyebrows bounced once and Amaris snorted, but a smile had started to form. "Look. Stop skipping meals and eat your bloody food or you're going to waste away. All right?"
She nodded and gave him a small smile. "All right."
"All right," he said again and turned to go. "See you around, then." He waved as he walked away.
Once he was far enough down the hall, Draco released his Disillusionment Spell. "What did he want?" he asked and Amaris jumped.
"Draco!" she exclaimed. "How long have you been standing there?"
"I just got here," he lied. "Why?"
"It's nothing," she breathed. "Never mind."
"So." He looked at her pointedly. "What did Theo want with you?"
"I…don't really know," she said, furrowing her brow. "He told me to stop skipping meals."
"You're not eating?"
She shrugged. "It isn't intentional. I just haven't been very hungry."
Draco could relate. His appetite had damn near vanished sixth year and had yet to return. He wasn't sure what to make of Theo noticing or even caring. But there didn't seem to be anything romantic about the gesture. He was as genuine as Draco had ever seen him.
"Come on," Draco said, taking her by the elbow. "Time for a lesson."
"But we don't usually meet until later."
"You need the extra practice," he said, tugging her along. Her feet reluctantly started moving.
"But—"
"They're teaching the Cruciatus Curse, Amaris," he hissed, "in Defense Against the Dark Arts."
She stopped walking, eyes wide in shock. He turned to face her, saw the question in her eyes, and nodded. She shook her head.
"I won't do it," she whispered.
"You have to."
"No, I—"
"They will use it on you if you don't. It's being practiced in detention." He took a step toward her. "Remember what I told you? Remember that I said you have to pretend?"
"I'm not going to use it on anyone."
"If you don't, they'll use it on you. You don't know what that's like, and you don't want to."
"Draco," she said softly. "I'm going to get hurt eventually. You can't delay it forever."
Draco's teeth ground together so hard that it hurt. He wanted to deny it, to dare her to stop him. But it was pointless to argue about it. "Time for another lesson," he said again and she conceded with a nod.
-o-
The wind whipped around her legs, the frigid rain clinging to her bare thighs and calves as her broom shot through the sky. Her fingers closed around the Snitch and glee raced up her spine. Girls of varying heights but the same coloring gathered around her as her feet found the ground. Mud splashed their clothes and faces as they congratulated one another, shrieking in delight as a feminine voice called them in for hot cider.
Draco came out of the memory of Amaris playing Quidditch with Ballard and her sisters in a daze. Seeing her mounted on a broom in a dress, flying in the rain, her bare legs speckled with mud, a Snitch in hand—it was somehow incredibly arousing. And yet part of him was also singularly fascinated at see her playing, not as a child but as a grown woman. She looked as happy as he felt when he played. Why had she stopped?
"Again," he said, before the memory could sidetrack him completely. He fired the spell before she could speak.
Draco held his hand out to her and she took it. She thought he had nice hands. He pulled her against him and they danced, and it was like moving across a cloud.
"You're not focusing!" Draco exclaimed.
"I need a break."
"No! You need to concentrate."
"Draco, I need a break!"
He fired the spell anyway.
"How dare you!" her uncle boomed, storming into the Selwyn Estate. Amaris wobbled in after him, her feet in agonizing pain. "How dare you do this to me! The embarrassment this will cause—it's more than you're worth!"
Hurt rolled through her as she bent to remove her shoes.
"Leave them on!" he barked, his face full of fury. A sob choked out of her as she slowly stood. "Won't marry Goyle, but you'll marry Malfoy? Is that it?"
"Why do I have to marry at all?" she rasped. "I could study for a few years. Your reputation wouldn't be—"
Her uncle nodded to Ms. Brumley beside Amaris. Amaris yelped as her tutor cracked her across the cheek.
"Know your place!" he bellowed. "Even your mother knew hers. Until Grey came along and she abandoned family and duty for love. And look where it got her. She's dead! He filled her head with silly ideas and now they're both dead!" He gasped for breath, purple with anger, as he gazed at Amaris, tears streaming down her cheeks. "You think you're clever, don't you?" he pressed.
"No—"
"You think you've won?"
"No, I—"
"He signed your death warrant tonight. You know that, don't you?" Her uncle stormed over to her, got right in her face, his own wrinkled with agony and rage. "You're going to die. Don't you understand that? He can't protect you. The Malfoys have fallen from grace. They have no power anymore. Don't you see? You stupid girl."
Her tutor slapped her again and Amaris cried out.
"You won't marry Goyle, where you would have been safe, but you'll marry Draco?"
When she looked at her uncle, her hand was holding her cheek wet with tears, and her eyes were glassy and red, but they were blazing with anger. "Yes," she hissed.
"Then you'll die like your mother."
Draco was so stunned that he couldn't breathe. His ears were ringing. Amaris was panting, gaping at him, an emotion on her face that he couldn't process. His jaw bobbed wordlessly as he struggled to speak. His heart was beating so hard that he thought it might beat right out of his chest.
He was not supposed to see that.
Amaris bolted for the stairs. Draco lunged and caught her around the waist before he could think about what he was doing.
"Amaris—"
"Let me go, Draco!" she shrieked, spiking his heart rate. "Let me go!"
He did and she ran.
-o-
For three days, Draco would go up to their spot and wait for her, but she never came. He would sit there for hours, picturing those blue eyes, so bright with rage. He had never seen that side of her, raw with hatred. Not when he teased her, when Pansy mocked her, when her tutor slapped her, when she thought she was being forced into marriage—never. There was a fire under all that delicate behavior and saintly attitude that she kept well-hidden.
He pushed her too hard. He pushed her too quickly. He had been stupid, panicked, desperate. That was no way to learn. He wouldn't make that mistake again—not if she ever gave him another chance.
Draco sighed and looked out the window. The sun was setting on day four and he was just about to give up waiting when he heard footsteps on the stairs. He turned in time to see her coming over the landing. Her expression was calm and her movements controlled as she stopped at the top of the steps. For a moment, all they did was look at one another.
"I wanted to be angry with you," she finally said, "for seeing my memories. Every embarrassing, private detail." She took a shaky breath. "I wanted to be angry at you. For taking the Mark, for what you did, for every horrible thing you've said and every cruel thing you've done—I wanted to be mad at you, I wanted to hate you."
Draco swallowed the lump forming in his throat, preparing for her rejection. He deserved it. He always had. Goyle was right. Mr. Selwyn was right.
"But when I saw you at your house, I knew…"
"Knew what?" he snapped, steeling his nerves.
"That I didn't hate you. Not at all."
Draco stopped breathing, his brain tripping on those words. She didn't hate him? Had he heard her right? He warily watched as she took a step closer to him.
"Sixth year, you changed," she continued. "You stopped bullying people, stopped playing Quidditch, stopped striving for top marks… You lost weight, your skin became ashen, your eyes were always ringed with dark circles. You were so miserable and I didn't understand back then, but I do now. You didn't want to do it, what they made you do. You were forced to, and you had no allies to turn to. No one you could trust to save you or your family." She crossed the room to stand in front of him. "When I saw you at your house, you looked as scared as I felt. And I couldn't be angry with you even though I wanted to…"
She bit her lip and looked down at their feet. She reached out and took hold of his left arm, unbuttoning his sleeve. He tried to jerk his arm back, but she placed her hand over his wrist and looked at him patiently. He reluctantly relented and she rolled his sleeve up. She flinched when she saw the Dark Mark and he tried to yank his arm free, but she continued to hold onto him. When her hand rested over the writhing black ink, he was the one to flinch.
"It's just a mark," she whispered, tilting her head up to look into his eyes, and he wanted so badly to kiss her for saying that. "I'm sorry, Draco. I wasn't being fair and I'm sorry. I know you're trying to help me."
Draco's heart was racing. Why was she apologizing to him? Why did she have to admit anything about what she thought or how she felt? Of course, she should have hated him, or at least been furious with him. She should cower from his mark the way he did every time he saw it. Why tell him this at all? So he could feel even more unworthy than he already did?
"Is that what you think?" he sneered, stepping so close that there was barely an inch between them. He looked down on her in every sense of the word. "You have it all figured out, do you?—you and your bleeding heart and your mother's mantras, wanting to believe the best in others. You think I was just forced into this, that I didn't know what I was doing? You're forgiving me too easily."
"That's okay," she said, holding his gaze. "If I'm to be wrong, I would rather it be that I believed you a good person than because I judged you a bad one."
Draco felt himself crack open and, in that moment, he both hated her and loved her. Unable to even consider his actions, he bent down and pressed his mouth against hers. She stiffened beneath him but didn't pull away, and the next thing he knew, his hands were cupping her face, fingers tangling in her hair, tilting her head up toward his to kiss her deeper. The moment he felt her mouth open slightly against his, he took advantage of it, his tongue sweeping against hers. Her hands took fistfuls of his sweater, neither holding him close or pushing him away, and he wondered if she had even kissed a boy before. It was your first, wasn't it, he had asked after their innocent first kiss fifth year, and she had blushed like it was true.
But Draco wanted to do more than kiss her… He had thought that his Dark Mark would forever bar them from physical intimacy, but she had seen it, had touched it, had told him it was just a mark. If she was willing to accept that part of him then maybe there was hope for a future for them. He would have to keep her alive through this war, somehow convince her not to fight, but if he could manage it…they had a shot at being happy. He would make sure that she was happy.
One hand wrapped around her neck, tugging her closer, angling her head just right while the other hand dropped to her lower back to pull her flush against him. She was so wonderfully small in his arms. His heart was racing, blood thrumming, she was trembling, and he didn't know what would happen next but—Merlin—she was starting to kiss him back.
Draco heard the shoe on stone just a second before a voice said, "Well, well."
Draco and Amaris jolted apart, whirling to find Amycus Carrow staring at them with a wicked smirk. Draco instinctively pulled her closer.
"Of all the happenings I expected to come upon, Draco snogging a Hufflepuff was not among them," the professor went on.
"What do you want?" Draco snapped, trying to slow his rapidly beating heart.
"I wanted to see what the girl was up to, sneaking up to such a lonely part of the tower all by her lonesome." He eyed her like a snake might eye a rodent. "Day after day."
Draco's jaw clenched as he realized Carrow had followed her, but it was more than that. He was watching her, which meant he was suspicious of her. What had she done to tip him off? What could he do to fix this?
"We wanted some privacy," Draco scoffed. "Obviously."
Carrow just smiled. "Close, are you?"
"She's my fiancée," he answered coldly, drawing her against him in a clarifying way.
"Really?" The man's eyes widened in surprise. "She is?"
"She is. Is there a problem?" he snapped.
"Is there?" Carrow repeated obnoxiously.
"I don't know. Ask my aunt. She affirmed our match."
Carrow paled. It was no secret that his Aunt Bellatrix was among the Dark Lord's most favored servants. And she was, quite probably, mad as a hatter. No one would dare cross her, part in fear of the Dark Lord's wrath, part in fear of her own.
"No need to trouble her," he all but stammered, his eyes bouncing between Draco and Amaris. There was still suspicion in his beady gaze but Draco was positive whatever hunt he had been on would be abandoned now. "If she's with you, then I'm sure there is no cause for concern."
"There most certainly is not," Draco sneered.
Carrow's eyes narrowed to slits as he flashed a contemptuous smile before he turned and headed back the way he'd come.
Amaris and Draco stood there like statues as the minutes ticked by, and for each one that passed, Draco mentally cursed the bastard for ruining their moment as they slowly peeled apart, their skin clammy with fear, breathing shallow for an entirely different reason. Worst of all was that their sanctuary had been compromised.
"It's no longer safe to meet here," he said when he was sure Carrow was gone. Amaris nodded in agreement. "But I'll think of something," he told her, then added, "if you still want to meet." When she looked up at him in confusion, he clarified, "You said you didn't like me seeing your memories."
She shrugged and sheepishly looked at the ground. "But that just means I have to get better, so no one will see them but me."
Draco nodded and took her hand, and he was happy when she wrapped her fingers around his.
Author's Note: I realize it's very improbable that Draco could perform Legilimens effectively enough to see and feel her memories with such clarity, but I really wanted to explore them a bit so I hope you'll allow me this indulgence. Also, I have no idea about Amycus Carrow's personality, so apologies if he's lightyears off the mark.
