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Draco tips his head to either side, sighing silently at the crack it earns him. The relief is both instantaneous and short-lived as Pansy follows him back into his room and perches at the edge of his bed. The canopy curtains fall down around her, Slytherin green drapes framing either side of her scrunched face. Her arms are folded, posture rigid as he takes a step toward her, attempting to close the ever-widening space between them.
She’s upset. More than that, she’s hurt. He can see it in the way the tip of her nose is a shade too pink. In the way she’s jutting out her chin, just a bit, as if to undo the gravity threatening to drip tears from her eyes.
“Please, Draco.” Her voice cracks on his name, crumbles and creaks and tucks itself right up against him. It makes his chest tighten, the fingers on his left hand tugging tighter against his sleeve—the only thing hiding the shame wedging itself between them.
What she’s asking is impossible.
“I can’t, Pans. You know that.” And she does. Has to know—has to understand—that it’s not safe. Not for him or her or anyone else unlucky enough to be known to matter to him.
“You don’t have to go through with it!” she says, voice rising—more desperate than angry.
It hurts him, the pain made plain on her face. Makes him want to curl up beside her and hold her. Makes him want to silence her with hands and lips and all of him pressed against her. He’s suddenly desperate for it. Desperate, too, to press kisses into her flesh as penance until all is forgiven. Until she’s back to being the only high point in this hell he’s trapped in. Until he’s climbing out and clinging on and everything between them is back to good. Back to just a boy and just a girl, without the messy pressures of this.
He’s giddy with it, the need to get back to some version of normal. So he does the only thing he can think to do. A foolproof thing that always gets her going; warms her right up until she’s practically purring for him.
He flashes her a grin, a sultry silly thing that’s meant to be returned, meant to right any wrongs that have passed between them.
Only this time it’s different. This time, she doesn’t buy it—doesn’t even budge. The twinkle he’d been aiming for is muddied, sullied by the tears still clinging in the corners of her midnight eyes.
Even still he reaches for her, risks another step closer so that he’s above her. So that the Slytherin curtain falls around him too—more a shroud than a frame.
His palm finds her cheek, smooth and flush and damp from tears she’s finally allowed to fall. He brushes them away and breathes her name.
“Pansy.”
It makes her shudder, makes her eyes flutter closed as she answers, like she can’t bear to see his face while she begs—while he tells her no, yet again.
“You don’t have to.” This time, the words are barely a whisper.
He sighs again—aloud this time.
“I do.”
She leans away from him at that, breaking their contact, clearly unwilling to let him get too close, judging by the glare she’s giving him. It’s so cold it freezes him on the spot, makes his blood go icy in his veins.
Her dark brows furrow, pulling down over watery eyes as her teeth worry at her bottom lip. It’s tugged into a pout that might’ve made him grin any other time. Might’ve made him join her on that bed and drag her onto him, so that his teeth could worry at her lips too—could tug and lick and nip and do just about whatever it took to smooth out the thread knotting itself across her brow.
But this isn’t then.
She isn’t his—not really. And anything less than the answer she’s seeking won’t be enough. Not this time.
Even though he knows that—even though he wants to give her what she wants—he can’t.
Can’t undo the things already set in motion by a hand far above him, far mightier than his own.
He takes a breath and runs a hand through the hair he’s let grow too long—a shaky, shallow thing that doesn’t help him like he’d hoped. Doesn’t thaw his limbs or win her back to him. All it really does is let the weight of finality settle fully—hanging heavy, dragging him down into hell.
She must catch the shift, because in an instant she’s leaning forward again, her hands clutching his robe like she’s hoping to anchor him there—to her, to something other than the flames he’s set on walking into.
“Please,” she says again, softer now, the desperate edge shapeshifting into something quieter—like the hands she uses to replace his, fingers raking at his scalp as her lips find his temple, sighing the words into his skin. Making gooseflesh rise along the nape of his neck.
“It’s not too late, Draco. You don’t have to do this. We can find a way out.”
In between her words come the kisses—gentle and urgent along the line of his jaw.
He swallows hard. Feels it scrape down his throat like glass.
Feels her soft lips kiss the hurt away.
She breathes more words into him, seals all the sweet nothings she can think of with lips he’s half desperate to agree to.
More than half, really.
“You don’t owe them anything, Draco,” she whispers, her fingers knotting into the front of his robe, fiddling blindly at snaps and buttons as she tastes and teases, her tongue swirling against his earlobe.
“You’ve already given them so much. You’ve given everything.”
Merlin, he wants to believe her.
Wants to scheme a way into their happily ever after as if he hasn’t already crossed the line.
As if this veil could go both ways and someone worthwhile might still be waiting on the other side.
He wants it so badly that it’s not even a question when his hands find her face and pull her lips to his.
When his mouth opens against hers and he tastes her: so sweet and soft and sad.
So eager, so willing to be his—to love him even when he hasn’t earned it. Could never deserve it.
He wants it so badly that he doesn’t even try to fight the tears falling freely now—burning a path down his cheeks that he’s sure she can’t see.
Because those lovely midnight eyes are closed, trapped somewhere in a dream of their own.
He lets them both live it out for a beat.
In that world where things are good and safe and right.
Where he’s just a boy and she's just a girl and no one’s life hangs in the balance.
Only this isn’t that—not really.
Things are far too bad and scary and wrong for them to ever get this.
He’s already made the call. Given the word.
And that word holds his mother’s life in the balance.
Even if he turned back now, it wouldn’t be redemption.
It’d be ruin.
So he pulls away.
Leaves her gasping and reaching out for him.
Lets his lips twitch up into a rueful smile, his voice low and hollow with the knowing of what’s to come.
“Not everything.”
And he’s suddenly so tired.
Exhausted, really, as he turns away—not because he wants to, but because he knows it’s best.
Knows he has to keep his distance if he wants to keep her safe.
He can’t afford to risk anyone he cares about—not now, not when his task is nearly complete.
He crosses to the door and doesn’t turn back.
Doesn’t see her face as he says—
“Not yet.”