Marilyn thanked Draco for risking his life to save hers by more or less immediately defying his advice. She stood barefoot in a Parisian alleyway for all of ten seconds before coherent thought managed to sink in through the panic - aided by the unforgiving cobblestones beneath her bare feet. It would be difficult to get far on the run, whether literally or figuratively, without shoes. She needed her bag. The emergency one reserved for a situation just like this. Her bag was in her flat. The Death Eaters didn't know she'd been at the wedding - not yet - and she doubted she would be priority in terms of who to grab immediately after their takeover.

Oh Merlin, oh god, they'd taken over - they'd really managed it, they'd- no. No. She couldn't afford to panic. Not yet.

Her backpack was in her flat, and the longer she left it, the more likely it was that her flat would be raided by them. She had a very small window of time in which it would be safe, or something vaguely resembling safe, to run and grab it. That window grew more and more narrow the more she stood here and dithered.

All in all, it took less than one full minute for her to Apparate to her flat, pick up her backpack, and Disapparate again immediately - but it was one of the longest, most tense minutes of her life. She barely even breathed during it, certain every single second that a blur of black robes and silver masks was about to descend upon her. It was a wonder that her grip didn't snap her wand.

Twenty minutes later, she was in the very same hotel room that she'd last shared with Draco, sitting on the floor because it felt somehow more secure than the bed, a pair of white trainers ruining her otherwise very elegant look. Although the shakes stubbornly wracking her body didn't help much on that score, either, and she was pretty certain her eyeliner had begun a magical mystery tour all around the general vicinity of her eyes. She'd given the woman at the front desk the name of Monroe when she booked the room - earning a rueful look that suggested she didn't much believe that it was her real name. But given that the most she could really suspect was a questionably young explicit love affair, Marilyn didn't give much of a shit.

Would Draco think to seek her out under that name? Would he be able to seek her out at all? If somebody had seen them, if they'd been caught, if one of his lot even so much as suspected he may not even still be alive. Curling her arms around herself, more for the reassuring solidity of her own skin beneath her hands than for the warmth the move offered, she refused to pursue that line of thinking any further.

The room was silent and stifling. Hardly very big to begin with, mostly just with the bare minimum amount of room required to walk around the bed, the door to the small en-suite, and for the small wooden desk in the corner which housed a questionable looking kettle and a couple of chipped mugs.

Leaning back against the bed, she tilted her head back and debated how long she should stay. There was no clock in the room, and it was difficult to decide whether that was a blessing or a curse. It was impossible to gauge the time as it passed in her current state, and one minute felt much the same as ten. But if she didn't know for sure how long had gone by, she didn't need to do anything about that fact, either.

She didn't dare even turn the lights on or shut the curtains, sitting on the floor and staring up at the patch of sky just visible above the roof of the building on the other side of the street. How long should she wait? An hour? Four? Twelve? What length of time marked the turning point of Draco coming to her, to his being detained or…well.

Too long went on like that. Thoughts of his being caught, of his being tortured, of his giving up her location, or of He Who Must Not Be Named tearing it from his mind by force reeled unendingly through her mind, broken up only by flashing images of what she'd seen at the wedding, and what still might be going on there. Somewhere in the midst of it all she broke and crawled towards the window, yanking the curtains shut from where she sat on the floor, half crazed with fear that at any moment a Death Eater might woosh past on a broomstick and see her.

When a series of loud knocks that were more bangs sounded at the door, she was on her feet with her wand raised despite the fact that she could feel neither her legs nor her arms.

"It's me," a voice hissed behind the door.

Relief and a fresh wave of fear warred anew within her. Fingers still curled tightly around her wand, she went to the door and opened it just enough for him to slip through. When Draco kicked it shut behind him and yanked his hood down, she didn't quite point her want at him, but it was certainly waved in his general direction.

"What significance does this room have?" she demanded.

"It's the most alarmingly blue room in all of France," he all but sneered - but then when her eyes flashed, he sighed and clarified "It's where we first had sex, Baxter. Is it my turn now? Why did you stop speaking to me at the end of our fourth year?"

"You laughed at Cedric Diggory's memorial."

Draco scoffed "I whispered a bit, and I might have smirked - that's hardly oof-"

Yeah, it was him alright. Marilyn all but accosted him, barrelling into him and wrapping her arms tightly around his neck, her face buried in the dark cloak he wore.

"What if you were caught? What if someone saw? You shouldn't have…"

She trailed off. As selfless as she fancied herself, she couldn't really bring herself to actually say that he shouldn't have saved her life.

"If that sentence is going where I think it might, you've become as dim as the company you keep these days," he snorted.

Despite those choice words, though, his arms wrapped around her in return and she could feel the shakiness of his breathing in his chest beneath her cheek.

"Nobody saw me," he said - and then undermined the confidence of that answer by continuing "I don't think they did. They mustn't have. They couldn't have."

"But if they find out that I was there…if they start to suspect."

She spoke into his chest, unwilling to let go long enough to speak properly.

"They can't," he replied firmly "I wasn't supposed to be there at all, I snuck out once I caught word. It was a stroke of luck that I even heard anything at all…I knew you'd be there the moment I heard Weasley wedding. It can't be pinned on me. One mask fades into another…it was all chaos…and to be honest most of them are as moronic as a sack of house-elves. Even if they find out you were there, they'd just think that you got away on your own."

Marilyn suspected his comment on the stupidity of his colleagues was more an attempt to ease his and her mind both than an actual fact. People who were moronic as a sack of house-elves did not overthrow the Ministry of Magic. Did they?

"Thank you," she said, finally stepping away from him and raking a hand through her hair "I know deciding to come can't have been an easy call to make."

"...It didn't require as much debate as you might think."

Before they could risk growing too heartfelt, though, his gaze flickered downward to the trainers on her feet - and then the backpack on the bed - and he stilled.

"Where did you get those? You didn't have them at the party."

"It's a bolt kit. All the rage with filthy mudbloods like me these days - in case we need to cut and run. I kidded myself that it was just a paranoid precaution while I was putting it together, but…well."

"Where did you get them, though?" he pressed sharply.

"I had to run to my flat for them," she said, and then pressed quickly on when he stepped back, his jaw clenched and head shaking "I was in and out in less than five seconds, Draco. Literally five seconds. If you- if they are taking over, and if he wants me dead, then it's a matter of 'when' rather than 'if' as far as them ransacking my flat is concerned. I had to go immediately or not at all, while I knew for a fact that they were preoccupied with bigger fish."

"You went home," he breathed a tired, humourless laugh "To pick up shoes. Marilyn, I am doing what I can to keep you alive - at great personal risk. I would appreciate it if you wouldn't do your best to undo my work!"

"I had no choice, Draco, I'm going on the run. Doing that barefoot isn't the best idea - I'm not a sodding Hobbit!"

"It was an unnecessary risk!"

"It wasn't unnecessary, I need this bag if I'm going to stay alive until…"

Until what? Until this was all over? That seemed a laughable thing to look forward to already considering it had only just begun in earnest an hour ago. Considering they'd taken the Ministry, and the hopes of every decent person in their community now rested on the shoulders of three teenagers her own damn age, it seemed a laughable thing to look forward to at all.

But she'd survived tonight. With Draco's help, yes, but she'd done it. She was still breathing. And she'd survived the bullshit hurled her way when she was on stage, too. As far as facing peril was concerned, her track record wasn't phenomenal - but as far as surviving it went, she was an absolute pro. That had to be worth something.

Draco deflated at the same time she did, and when she moved to perch at the foot of the bed he followed a moment later. He looked only marginally better than he had the last time she'd seen him, and even that was leagues away from his looking good - or even passably decent. The circles still lurked beneath his eyes, perhaps half a shade lighter than they had been last time, and the pallor of his face remained a touch too grey to be passed off as just being that usual Malfoy pasty lunar glow. But he wasn't on the verge of tears, and nor did he seem one mishap away from a fit of rage or nervous breakdown. Given the times, and given what they'd just done, that was a pretty major win.

"I don't want to fight," she murmured "Not with you. I've missed you - so much, and every day I've sat and wondered where you were, how you were doing, if you were okay, if you were safe, if you…if you thought about me at all."

Under normal circumstances, she might've been embarrassed to voice something that she'd usually think sounded so terribly wet and pathetic. But as it was, she could have died tonight - and he had saved her life. That had a way of putting things into perspective.

"The tricky part was not thinking of you," he admitted with a grimace.

If she'd been enough of an idiot to not realise the gravity of their current situation, his words - and the fact that they lacked any kind of teasing, sarcasm, or snark - would have driven it home.

"I couldn't write," he added "Not after what happened to you. It would've been too dangerous."

"I know," she said "That's why I didn't, either."

"I thought so," he muttered with a nod, and then added "I hoped so."

"What else could it have been?"

"Paranoia is rife these days. With everybody. On both sides - and it's hardly unmerited. You might've convinced yourself I had something to do with it. Or that I knew about it. Especially with my silence afterwards."

Marilyn shook her head, replying quietly "You wouldn't do that."

She said it unthinkingly - it wasn't some great emotional confession, announced with an entire world's worth of gravity. It was just a fact. Not just because even the greatest guilty conscience to ever exist would never have somebody who tried to kill her a few months ago now risking everything to save her life, after the better part of a year of no contact.

The casual nature of her rebuttal did nothing to dampen the impact it seemed to have on Draco, though. His shoulders sagged and he breathed a sigh of relief of the like only previously uttered by dying men who had just found water in the middle of a desert. His hand found hers in the tiny gap between them on the bed, their fingers entwined. He was freezing, but the solidity of his skin against hers grounded her, bringing her back to her body and out of the buzzing fog that had surrounded her ever since pandemonium had put a swift end to Bill and Fleur's wedding.

She turned her head with the intention of speaking - but then he met her halfway with a kiss, and she couldn't remember what it was she was going to say in the first place.

It would have been a lie if she pretended that she hadn't wondered whether Draco's continued care for her safety still extended into desire. Weren't folk their age supposed to be famously fickle and at the mercy of all of those hormones? It wasn't so much that she doubted him personally, nor what was between them, but it just seemed daft to have two thirds of a year pass with no word and keep assuming that nothing had changed. Life was rough for him at the moment, could he be faulted if he ended up finding solace in the arms of some prim and proper Pureblood girl? Or if he had to put on a show of doing so to keep suspicion away from him? Maybe he had.

But he was here with her. Now. Which made the rest feel very irrelevant - especially when she climbed into his lap, and he slid the straps of her dress off of her shoulders.


"What are you going to do?" he asked quietly.

It was some time before they were able to speak - and even longer still after that before they did. The silence had become almost meditative. Like if they just stayed here, in the dark, and didn't breathe a word, time would magically pause and they wouldn't have to deal with anything at all.

Draco was the one to break it in the end, as they laid curled up facing one another, their legs tangled.

"Is this your way of telling me you don't have a fancy holiday home you could set me up in so I can see this thing out in cushy luxury?"

"I considered it," he murmured "There are too many risks. Elves popping in and out all the time to fetch things or keep the place in shape…my family could decide at a moment's notice to go to any given one for a night or a weekend, and I wouldn't have any good reason to convince them otherwise."

"I was only joking," she pointed out softly.

It was the only thing she could think to say - because he'd considered it. Her eyes had long since adjusted to the dark, which was how she saw the rueful look he shot her, albeit one tinged with fondness.

"I got that part," he snorted "What's it to be, then? Scouting out abandoned homes to claim as your own? Hotel hopping?"

"Nothing quite so glamorous. I'm going to have to rough it."

The prospect didn't fill her with glee. Not because the thought of getting a bit of dirt under her nails horrified her, but because it was something she'd never done before. Magic certainly made it a bit more doable - she wouldn't be huddled furiously rubbing sticks together so she could get a fire going - but it wasn't a fix-all miracle. It just meant that it would be pretty fucking difficult rather than a surefire way to die of exposure. Of course, "pretty fucking difficult" was always rosy compared to "death by torture".

"There's been a lot of discussion on the topic - in safe circles," she said quietly "It's easiest for people with…well, people. Relatives and friends who can hide them, so on. I don't have a family. I don't have...anybody. Not who could help, anyway. I've already put my ballet contacts through too much danger as it is, and the Weasleys…"

"The Weasleys are about to become the most heavily surveilled family in the Wizarding World. Given their well-known sympathies."

"I was going to say they've done enough for me, too. Even if asking anything more was a practical possibility, I couldn't do it. I can't stick to urban areas. Too many eyes. Staking out abandoned places - old overgrown cabins or whatever - is what a lot of people suggested, but it's too obvious. The second anybody looking came across it, they'd know they hit the jackpot. It's too easy to pinpoint. It's easier to guess where a Muggle-born might be if there's a hundred mile stretch of woods with an abandoned farmhouse in it, than if it's just a stretch of absolute wilderness. My bag has a tent. Some supplies. I can…I can make do. I can handle it."

She would have to. This was about survival. There would be no shrugging and deciding it wasn't for her.

"I can't decide whether it's times like these that make it better or worse to not have a family," she snorted, doing what she could to shallow out the furrow in Draco's brow "On one hand, I don't have to worry about them. On the other…I don't have them to worry about me."

Sure, she had people. Fred and George had been her knights in shining eccentric suits, but the priority of the Weasleys would always - quite rightly - be the Weasleys, first and foremost. That was the way it was with families. It just added an extra sting to the fact that she'd never had that, ever the outsider in that regard. The fact that she felt that way wasn't anybody's fault (bar her own), and nor was it the product of any wrongdoing by anybody at all. It was just how it was.

But the other fact remained that when she was with Draco, that feeling went away. Of course, the irony of that fact was not lost on her. Anybody who knew either one of them would probably say that she should never feel more isolated and othered than when she was in the company of Draco Malfoy. But others didn't get it. He did - implicitly, with no need of anything so mortifying as voicing it all.

"I think, Baxter, at this point I worry about you enough for every other living soul out there. Twice over."

Marilyn watched him quietly - and she could feel the damn sadness emanating out of her eyes. It took a hell of a lot for Draco to admit something like that. So she figured it was her own turn for an admission.

"You know I love you, don't you?"

Saying things that dragged a physical response out of him was turning out to be her habit tonight - because he looked absolutely stricken by her words. Staring at her in disbelief, his mouth opened in response and then promptly shut again.

"I didn't say it to hear it back," she reassured him (or tried, at least) quietly "I just wanted to say it."

He continued to stare. But she supposed staring was better than leaping up, dressing, and promptly vanishing the second the last button was fastened.

"That sounds a lot like a goodbye, Marilyn," he said flatly.

The part of her, even if it was just a small part, that was tempted to regret saying anything at all wondered if she should believe that what he'd just said betrayed his only problem with her admission.

"Isn't it?" she countered "I'm not exactly going to be available for coffee or dinner over the next few months. Maybe years. Depending on how things go, we might never even see each other ag-"

"Stop," he snapped.

Up until that point, they'd barely spoken above a murmur. Even when they'd bickered upon his arrival, it had been in hisses and stage-whispers. His decision to break that unspoken rule gave away just how bothered he was by the prospect.

"Draco," she said evenly "I'm being realistic. We're on different sides of this war. Victory for one means bad, bad things for the other. We can't ignore that. We have to be realistic."

"If we were in the habit of being realistic, we never would have made up after that first fiasco at Hogwarts," he said "I'll be realistic all day long, but I won't entertain that."

"So by your logic, when will we next see each other, then?"

She regretted asking it the moment she did. Mostly because she expected him to splutter, then get pissed off when she realised she'd clamped him, which would then ruin their moment of peace before the world began to seep into the peace they'd carved out for themselves in this room. Instead, he looked thoughtful. The frown remained on his face, and his eyes lowered like he was reading a passage from an invisible book. Then, finally, he looked at her again - with a new kind of determination shining in his eyes.

"I can check in with you," he said "Not often. But occasionally. At irregular intervals."

"What? Of course you can't - it's too dangerous."

"Tonight was dangerous. We managed. My life is dangerous now, no matter what I do. It makes little difference. At least this way, the danger might mean something."

"Someone will notice."

"Nobody will."

"Of course they will! What will you say to whoever runs Hogwarts when you go back? Yeah, I just have to dip out. Don't wait up?"

"I'm not going back to Hogwarts," he scoffed "What's the point of NEWTs in a time like this? How do you think it is that I'm here now? My parents have their own worries, so long as I turn up for meals and when…when he decides to hold court, nobody cares where I am."

The words sent a wave of renewed heaviness over her that probably weren't intended, and she brought his knuckles to her lips as her thoughts ran rampant.

It wasn't that she didn't want to see him. Of course it wasn't that. She knew well enough from the times she'd been stuck at "home" before her sixteenth that being devoid of any meaningful human contact could be as much of a killer as a lack of food or water. And this was Draco. If he dipped in and out, she couldn't convince herself that he'd been murdered by his psychopathic master. Maybe he could even fetch warnings - tell her what areas to avoid. Although she'd never demand that of him. But the danger. The danger, the danger, the fucking danger. If he got himself killed trying to make sure that she wasn't going nuts wandering the woods, she couldn't live with that.

"The logistics," she said doubtfully, a last ditch effort to convince him otherwise "Even if it was a good idea, it's not possible. I don't even know where I'll be one, two, three weeks from now. It's best, they said, for the ones who have no choice but to do this. If we don't know. If we have no idea where we're heading next, if we make all of the decisions on our feet, there's no way for those pursuing us to pre-empt our next move."

Draco said nothing, his lips set into a thin line, and Marilyn was equal parts relieved and disappointed that she'd 'won'. Until he sighed slowly, and then spoke.

"The bracelet."

"The bracelet? What about the bracelet?"

"The newest charm on it - the one I just sent you. It was how I found you tonight. How I could Apparate to you without ever having seen the Weasley hovel. So long as you wear it, I can find you."

And she had no idea what to say in response to that. It was almost endearingly protective from someone like Draco, who scarcely had a kind word to say about most people. It was also invasive, and if anybody else had done it to her, she'd have denounced it as creepy, too. Yet if he hadn't done it, she'd be locked up in a dungeon right now, awaiting torture. And that was the best case scenario.

"You could have told me," she settled for a bit of a grumble.

She was too tired for another fight. And their time was limited - whether he agreed with that fact or not.

"I could have. But you hadn't heard a thing from me in, what? Eight months? Getting a letter from my so-called side after all of that time with a 'hello, here's a tracker - don't worry, it's not sinister' would hardly have induced you to wear it."

It would have rang an alarm bell or two, he was right about that.

"And I'm telling you now," he added, seeming unsure of whether or not he wanted to sound cagey.

His tone was certainly prickly enough, but that was Draco's default mode. Whatever bite the words might've carried was dampened by the softness of his gestures - his fingers trailing endlessly up and down over the curve of her spine.

"So if I refuse to wear it?" she challenged.

"I can hardly stop you."

"Fine," she nodded.

"Fine? What does that mean? That you'll attach it to a stray dog at the first opportunity?"

Marilyn grinned - her first proper smile since the chaos at the wedding - and Draco muttered something beneath his breath about the foolishness of giving her ideas. For a moment, they almost felt like the old them.


A/N: Tumblr - esta-elavaris