the sweetest con [d.m]

seventeen

Draco sits with his back against the gates to Malfoy Manor, knees pulled to his chest, arms draped over them.

His team left a long time ago — but he's still here, still hoping. Still looking for any sign, any trace of everything he's lost.

He can't seem to drag his eyes away from that one spot on the grass a couple feet away — evidence of a scuffle. There's blood too — and after a couple routine tests, his team had informed him it was a mixture of Aumutage's and Mavi's.

At least that means they're both injured. At least that means maybe Mavi got away.

But deep down, Draco knows it isn't true. As soon as she'd triggered the Wards, all Draco had been able to glimpse in the hazy image that appeared before him was her eyes — wide and terrified and pleading — and then she was gone.

Like she'd been pulled back. Like someone had yanked her back.

It had taken Draco all of three seconds to Apparate to the gates — but it'd been three seconds too late. She was gone — and he knew there was only one person who could've inspired the fear he'd seen in her eyes.

It's been six hours since then — and Draco hasn't moved from the gates, even when his friends had tried to coax him to sleep. He'd barely even felt Deiji's hug as she left, summoned by Vera to work on the evidence gathered at the scene.

Draco bends his head, his eyes burning — and he lets himself cry. Lets himself mourn the person he's become, the person who drove Mavi out of the house and into Aumutage's snare. Lets himself mourn the person he might have been, had he been brave enough to just let her explain. It never would've gotten to this point.

A crack of Apparition resounds through the air — and he doesn't have to look up to know who it is. Deiji told them, no doubt — and so the twins stand in front of him, the breeze stirring Idris' curls and Nadia's scarf.

"Mate," Idris murmurs, his voice breaking and Nadia sniffles, footsteps quiet on the grass as she takes a couple steps away to compose herself.

"Why did I let her leave?" Draco's voice cracks. "Why didn't I go after her?"

"You can't blame yourself for this." Idris steps closer, leaning down to drape a jacket over Draco's shoulders. "It's not your fault."

"I should've gone after her."

"You couldn't have known."

"I had Aurors patrolling the grounds for this very fucking reason."

"It was out of your hands."

"He's going to kill her." Draco finally looks up — and he must've underestimated how shattered he looks because Idris blinks in surprise. "If he hasn't already."

"Stop," comes Nadia's hoarse voice. "Don't say that."

Draco only drops his head down against his knees, fingers squeezing tight around his wand like he can somehow channel his grief out through it.

"You have to rest," Idris says, gently, crouching in front of him and placing a firm hand on his shoulder. "C'mon. Let's get you inside."

Draco shakes his head, tears leaking out from under his eyelids as he shuts his eyes, head thumping back against the bars. "I need to stay here. In case she comes back."

The silence carried on the wind is evidence enough of what his friends think of that plan. He knows it's fruitless himself.

Mavi Ilayda Sultan isn't coming back.

A spike of pain jolts through the left side of his chest and Draco makes a strangled sound in his throat, squeezing his wand tighter.

"Alright." It's Nadia who settles in beside him, back against the bars, and her brother takes up Draco's other side. "We'll wait for her to come back."