Warnings:
1) As usual, foul language abounds due to Draco's potty mouth and snarky attitude. Proceed with caution if this type of thing offends.
2) This fic was born prior to the HBP. I have gone back and attempted to make various adjustments to bring it more in line with the changes brought about by the HBP. However, the morphed plot line continues to have a few holes. I hope you will forgive these as you make your way through it.
Author's Note:
Okay, we're going to try this one more time. This fic was originally posted in July '05. I stumbled with Chapter 3, hit a roadblock, and crashed. Due to the poking and prodding of lizzyop and Marcia, it's back. I would like to thank them as well as the two other people who were reading it at the time. It was such a mess that I decided to pull it, rework it, and repost it. To make a long, painful story short, here it is. I hope readers will give it a whirl and let me know what they think. Any constructive criticism is welcome as this one is teetering on the edge of a premature cyber death anyway. - fallenwitch
Chapter 1
Breaking His Goddamn Heart
He didn't start the goddamn War. The Slytherin put an elegant, shaking hand to his forehead and closed his eyes, trying to shut out the nightmare. What the hell did she expect him to do? No, he couldn't just walk away. He was a Malfoy. His family was overflowing with bloody Death Eaters. It was a family tradition. Exile? Not an option, at least not in this lifetime. They would find his sorry arse, and when they did, he would spend the remainder of his life, all three glorious seconds of it, looking down the business end of some Death Eater's wand, praying for a quick Avada Kedavra.
What the hell was wrong with her? Why did she equate his impossible situation and lack of options with not loving her enough? How were those things related? They weren't. The witch was impossible and driving him insane. No, he wasn't a goddamn Gryffindor and had absolutely no intention of starting now. That kind of arse backward bravery and nobility would get him killed. He had half a mind to tell her to sod off.
No, he wasn't her Boy Wonder, savior of the wizarding world, thank you very much. If she was interested in that sort of bullshit, he would hold the door for her and see how long Potter could put up with her infuriating, stubborn, hard-headed ways. The Slytherin reckoned Potter could either fight the Dark Lord or deal with the red headed witch, not both. She would be back on his doorstep in a heartbeat, torturing him and trying to nag him into submission.
He couldn't think straight and found himself barreling headfirst down the most dangerous path he had ever attempted to negotiate in his life. She would get him killed. If she would bloody well back off, maybe he could devise a plan to get through the War in one piece. Hell, at the rate he was going, he would get them both killed.
No, he didn't want to hear what she was saying to him and adding increasing decibels did nothing to change his mind. When she grabbed him firmly by the wrist and yanked his hand off his forehead, he merely opened his eyes and attempted to stare her down, silently. Stubborn wench. He shook his head, eyes never wavering from hers. No matter how many times he told her, she would never understand.
Her dark eyes were imploring him. Her fragile hand was on his cheek, holding him in her world, refusing to let him go. Goddamn it. He would not allow her to break him, not here, not now, not like this. Their fucking world was imploding on them, and he knew he wasn't strong enough to hold it together. There wasn't enough strength in the wizarding universe to hold their little illicit world together. Theirs was an ill-fated affair, an abomination, doomed to die a miserable and painful death, squelched under the roar of the War. Her eyes told him she knew the truth of it as well as he did.
Not knowing what else to do, the Slytherin took his frightened witch into his arms, holding her fast to him, cradling her slight frame to his, attempting to comfort her with his love. When she clung to him, desperately throwing her arms around him, he knew she wasn't fooled. What kind of a wizard was he? He was a goddamn impotent wizard was what he was. The War was descending on them faster and darker with each moment, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. There was no place to hide where he could keep her safe. All he had left to give her was his love, and even that was failing her. Here she stood, shaking and terrified in his arms, and he couldn't give her a blessed Knut of comfort.
He closed his eyes and drew in a long, unsteady breath as she began to cry. It started out as a suspicious sniffle or two, and minutes later she was sobbing. After a failed attempt to quiet her with various endearments, gentle kisses on her cheek, and empty words of comfort, the Slytherin fell silent. One elegant hand stroked her silky crimson tresses to no avail. What was he supposed to do? He wasn't equipped to handle this crass display of emotion. Those damn Weasleys had no emotional restraint whatsoever. She was breaking his goddamn heart.
His heart. The blasted sorceress from Gryffindor had managed to find a part of his anatomy he never knew existed. She not only found his heart but had also absconded with it. He had no idea if he would ever see the foul organ again. It had betrayed him, utterly and totally betrayed his Slytherin arse in a most flagrant manner.
In an attempt to stifle her outburst, he pulled her body apart from his and caught her startled eyes as he placed a long, firm, lingering kiss on her tear stained lips, tasting their salt in his mouth, as the pain of their two worlds collided. When she attempted to say something, he ignored her and continued to ardently kiss her and touch her and embrace her in the most distracting ways possible, pouring his heart out to her until she threw herself back at him with abandon. He was dizzy with her like this and shut out all other thought from his mind, focusing his world on her, watching himself revolve around her like an afflicted planet caught in her irreversible and unstoppable pull. She was his magnificent scarlet sun. Her luminous light burned his unworthy skin with every touch, so excruciating was her presence to him now.
He drew her closer, attempting to meld her to him, until he felt her expire and collapse onto him. He was sick with despair and continued to greedily gather her to him, until every point on her flush and sticky body was touching his. Fear? His greatest fear wasn't The War or the pain or even the possibility of death. It was forgetting. He wanted to sear her into his body's memory so he could never forget. She was precious and glorious to him. He would never forget. Never. It would be a sin against her and a violation of his all encompassing love for her.
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Weeks later, the Slytherin and his witch were embattled again. Was she out of her ever-loving mind? Absolutely not. He would burn in hell before he would allow them to continue their relationship. He wasn't sure he could keep himself alive much less her as well. No matter how excellent his occlumency skills, he would never place her life in such a precarious situation. Both their existences would be wiped out with one handy stroke of a wand in the event of their unfortunate discovery.
He stared at her, moonlight splayed carelessly about her fiery silk, her head tilted in defeat, shrouded in shadows so deep he could only imagine the expression on her face. She stood next to him, now silent. How many times did she want to do this? He had had enough. It was too goddamn painful. No, he wasn't in denial. He knew as well as she did what was coming down the pipe.
He didn't want to talk or argue or think about their nonexistent future anymore. There wasn't a goddamn thing left to say which hadn't been said already. All the Slytherin wanted to do was to take his broken-hearted witch into his arms and hold her and caress her and make glorious love to her until they were transported out of their miserable, hellish existence into that other place. The place where only the two of them existed, where there were no divided houses, no fractured wizarding world, no war. Where there was only this boy wizard and the witch who loved him. He yearned for that place.
Turning, he grabbed her slight frame and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tightly, until he felt her relax. He reveled in her magic, in the spell she had cast over his heart, in the strength of her love for him. He believed this love could see him safely through the War and back to her.
He did not see her again for two and a half years.
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