MEMENTO MORI | DRACO MALFOY

THIRTY-EIGHT

*TRIGGER WARNING: intrusive thoughts

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

      When the clock chimed eight times that evening, Ophelia and Draco left the Common Room silently, ignoring Cassius' calls after her. She hadn't meant to ignore him, she just felt as if her plate was becoming too full, and there wasn't much room for Cassius anymore. Besides, maybe pushing him away would be best for both of them.

      When they reached the seventh floor corridor, Draco spun on her, his eyes grey and stormy, as if he'd been fighting off the urge to say whatever he was about to say for a while.

     "I don't deserve this silent treatment." He muttered, his eyes darting off to focus somewhere behind her. "I get what happened after the party, I heard everything. You don't need to go about this alone."

     Ophelia chuckled and shook her head slightly. "That's where you're wrong, Draco. I do have to go about this alone. Right now, you are free, and who knows how long you'll be that way. I don't want you to waste possibly your last year of freedom before he recruits you as well."

     "I want to waste this year with you." He reached forward and brushed a stray piece of hair away from her face. "Merlin, I feel so pathetic, but I meant what I said before. It's always been you."

Ophelia swallowed the lump rising in her throat. She damned these new feelings, wishing she'd never listened to Draco and never let her walls come down. She wanted nothing more in that moment than to reach for him a kiss him and tell him that yes, it's always been him too, but she couldn't. As frustrating as it's been for the both of them, Draco needed to realize that it wasn't safe for them to be together.

"Draco," she began with barely even a whisper. "You don't understand the severity of all of this. I could not live with myself if I was the reason you died. It's not just me being protective, it's me being selfish. You mean too much to me, and if you died I'd..." she paused. "I don't see this war ending well for me in either way. If the Dark Lord wins, I'm bound to a life of being his servant. If He fails, I will spend the rest of my life in prison, if I'm not killed first. There is no happy ending. Not for me."

Ophelia's eyes finally raised to meet Draco's, and his jaw ticked as he ground his teeth. "Be with Pansy, she can give you everything that I can't."

"I don't fucking want Pansy, don't you get it?!" He bellowed, throwing his hands up in the air in frustration before stepping closer to Ophelia, so close that she felt his hot, minty breath on her face as he lowered his voice. "I started hanging around her to make you jealous, but all it did was push you further into the arms of that fucking oaf, Warrington. Do you know how hard it was listening to him describe the way he'd fucked you? I wanted to knock his teeth in for disrespecting you. You are elegance and class and that brute spoke about you like you were some common whore. I hate myself every day for being the coward who couldn't just admit to you how I felt and for being so cruel to you, because I constantly wonder what would have happened if I did. Would you have gone to Warrington at all? Merlin, every day I think about kissing you, about how soft your lips are, and the way you taste like berries. You're fucking intoxicating to me. I just—"

"Kiss me."

"What?"

"Just fucking kiss me, Draco."

He didn't hesitate. He quickly dipped his head and captured Ophelia's lips once again. It was like a spark shot through her body as their lips collided, and she felt those butterflies return to her stomach as her hands smoothed themselves up the front of Draco's robes and around the back of his neck and into his already tousled hair. Kissing Draco just felt so right, whether it be rough and fervent or soft and delicate, it just felt like it was meant to be, like his lips were made for her. His hands roamed her body, trailing her waist and down until his fingers grazed the skin at the hem of her skirt. Goosebumps erupted along her legs at his touch, and she longed to feel his cold rings against her warm skin, but the sound of students approaching had them pulling apart, and returning to patrolling the corridor as if that was what they had been doing the entire time.