Ardenia | Draco Malfoy 18+

CHAPTER 62

Occasionally we wish we could rewrite our past, not knowing that our future would remain the same.

That's how Claude felt when she looked into his brown eyes. She used to see a fire that burned her heart, starting something that dimmed when she was at her lowest point.

But now the clocks changed, pieces moved in his head, and he was now just Mattheo. Mattheo Riddle. He was no longer hers. He was no longer the person she knew him as.

She grew cold, sick almost, as she watched him stare at her friends blankly, before returning his gaze to the snake that slighted around them. A smirk on his face, appealing to the fears he consumed from watching both the girl and boy.

Voldemort stayed seated, his wand just hanging from the tips of his fingers. He had everything. He could do anything he wanted because he knew it would hurt her. He knew that this hurt her.

Claude cried. Tears fell continuously without a single sound fleeing her lips, she couldn't believe it. She couldn't believe that he was gone. She already missed him. She missed him.

They were unable to do so much. But they weren't incapable enough to try. To try for each other. But it was too late, she was in peril, and he was no longer there for her. Her Mattheo. No longer hers.

But she never stopped. She knew that there was more than what she saw, she knew that while she was gone, they had done something to him. It made everything change. They changed him.

It's been so long since they've seen each other's faces. So long, and she still hadn't forgotten the time she left the small space in the library to see him gone. He just left and hadn't told her anything.

They couldn't force their hearts into something that couldn't happen. It wouldn't protect them from the dark, only then, it's the time they should let theirs go where it should be.

It was the time they had. The time that made them collide into one entire soul. One that burned too bright for the space between them.

She wanted him back. That's all she wanted. She wanted what kept her safe. What kept her living. What kept her alive. What kept her happy– She just wanted Mattheo back.

The girl imagined him gone. The pain of it all destroyed her, but she doesn't have the same life as his. Given what she's been through, she has nothing to offer him, nothing that wouldn't cost her so much. Her love cost her him.

"Take a seat, son. We're not finished yet." Voldemort broke the contact Claude made with the brunette, causing her red eyes to travel towards him and her helpless friends.

The brunette simply nodded and walked towards the open seat not far from the girl. He's dead, blank eyes never once left the girl's side profile.

It was strange, she looked so familiar to him. So familiar in a different way, other than a target. But she didn't know what he thought when he saw her.

He took a seat beside her, leaving one separating them. But he was close enough to get a whiff of her smell, and she of his.

It made her calm, the fact that he was so close, but so well hidden in the depths of his tainted soul.

His presence killed her, and it didn't hurt just to see one place at him. To look into the eyes that saw her. All of her. To look at the arms that borough her warmth and comfort. To feel his heartbeat, one that beat for her – only her.

And so, her head tilted up to the side, she dragged her eyes up the chair he sat on and immediately saw his arm hanging in the armrest of the chair, but she flinched back when his hand moved. Scared that he caught her looking, scared that he would do something.