Betrayal of the Black

forty-eight

"HAVE YOU MADE YOUR DECISION?" asked Draco.

"About what?" she said. "Also, Go Fish."

He cursed, picking up a card from the pile before them. "Are you daft? I'm talking about if you have made your decision on whether your uncle is going to stay around. What other big things do you have to decide that you forgot about Regulus?"

"Well, I'm trying to decide if I should cheat right now," she grinned, before asking, "Do you have an Ace?"

He offered her his Ace of Spades. "How the hell would you cheat in Go Fish?"

"Like this. Theo!" Theo appeared in the room nearly instantly, moving across towards where they sat on the floor. "Can you tell me what cards Draco has?"

"Five and eight of Hearts, ten and two of Spades, King of Diamonds, Jack of Clubs—" he rattled off.

"Hey, stop it! You two are horrible. I can't even play cards with you guys anymore," he complained half-heartedly. "Why are we even friends?"

She snorted. "Because we're related."

"Because I punched Potter in first year," replied Theo.

"That was good, but if that's the only reason we're friends, then I worry," said Draco.

"You complain way too much," said Celestia.

"We're in the middle of a war, I think I can whine a little bit," he said.

Theo joined them on the floor, leaning against the couch, and watched as the two of them continued to bicker in front of him. The fire sizzled high behind them, chasing the cool winter air out of the tent.

Christmas was approaching, but no one has had the heart to bring the topic up. For one, they didn't know if Regulus would still be around then. Secondly, like Draco had said, they were kind of in the middle of a war — would it be more morbid to celebrate it, or to not celebrate it?

There was also the fact that Celestia had been missing during Christmas last year. They never had a proper conversation about the specific days in which she'd been missing.

Draco switched the subject, and the two of them continued to bicker in that sibling way of theirs. Theo chimed in every once in a while, trying to drag himself away from his disastrous thoughts.

Her torture. That was the one thing he didn't know how to talk to her about. If it weren't for her nightmares and the scars around her wrists and ankles, it was almost like it never happened. He wanted to know what had happened, but it was not something he'd ever push her to speak about it.

There was a part of him that wanted to crawl right into her mind to learn every one of her thoughts and feelings; to pull her to his side and melt into her entirely, as if the him before her never existed. He gulped, realising again the depth of his obsession.

Another part of him loved learning what all the movements in her face dictated, what every sound she made meant. By now, he knew nearly all of them. There were some he still didn't know, and some he hadn't yet had the privilege to discover. But one thing he had always vowed was that he would learn every part of her: mind, body, and soul.

She turned towards him then, eyes twinkling, her hair glowing red at the edges due to the fire burning high behind her, and his attention was split between looking into her eyes and glancing down at her lips. She had long ago abandoned the game of Go Fish, and she moved to sit between his open legs.

It was a position they had sat in multiple times before; late nights in the Slytherin common room, and cold mornings at the Malfoy Manor. Still, his brain short-circuited whenever her body was pressed against his.