Deliverance | Draco Malfoy

Twenty-Seven

I remember more flowers being in the garden. Maybe it was just too early in the year? But it was nearing the summer months, and spring had sprung already, so that couldn't have been an explanation.

There were always so many roses. Hundreds of them.

Some were planted by my mother's tomb back at my house when Narcissa had to tell her friend goodbye.

I had explored this maze so many times to the point that I think I had a map memorized inside of my head. I didn't truly know what it looked like from a Bird's Eye view, but I had an idea.

Maybe one day I could be a bird. They always seem free.

Theo doesn't think birds are real. He's zapped nearly a dozen with his wand recently to prove his point that they were made to spy on us, but Narcissa slapping him with another magazine to scold him put a stop to it as quickly as it started.

Blaise and I have been on silent terms. I'll talk when I'm ready. He hasn't reached out. Theo doesn't leave the Manor. Blaise comes and goes like the rain.

At least Theo held true to that word. I still had him.

"There are flowers on the far side, y'know?" My feet stopped on the usual path they walked at this hour every morning. Just as the sun was rising at dusk.

"They're gorgeous. So much work went into planting them as long as this manor has stood, and no one puts in the effort to hike over there to see them." I slowly peeled over my shoulder and thought I was seeing a ghost.

Hallucinating is new. But my psychotic brain has probably reached a low point.

"It's a shame, really. I feel like my great-grandmothers all did it on purpose, though. Why get such a view for free? Beautiful things deserve the most work to earn them. It's like a reward. I sure as hell didn't win you for free."

What do I say? What do I do?

I could hardly feel my knees, but they could buckle at any second. It was him. There was no denying it. I'd recognize those eyes out of thousands. Those grey eyes.

The perfect silver ocean to drown my sorrows in.

"Good morning, my sweet girl." His head of freshly clipped platinum hair tilted to the side as he studied me. Who knew a trait I used to find so annoying and fearsome would become one of my favorite looks on his face? "Did you miss me?" He asked sweetly, as if nothing had ever been wrong before.

I remember how terrifying his mask looked over his face. I remember how angry I was that he lied to me so I'd leave the castle without him. I also remember how bad it hurt when he did it.

But I'd forgotten how charming he looked in his fitted suits. How he made something erupt inside of me that was so warm and comfortable. How much I truly craved him even when he was a few feet away.

"You're mad at me. I anticipated that. I deserve it-" He grunted as my short run between us came to an abrupt stop and I wrapped my limbs around him, leaving the ground below my feet behind. His stiff posture eased at once as he exhaled all the air in his lungs and pressed his nose into the side of my neck. "Hi, angel."

"I thought- no one would tell me where you were, and I thought something horrible was happening to you, and I didn't know what to do because I couldn't just go looking for you, and surely you would come back for me because you sent me to your Manor of all places, but I thought for a while that the forest was the last place I was going to see you and that the last thing I'd remember about you was the image of you putting on that mask and- I thought I'd lost you and that something had happened and if you were gone, I don't know what I would've done, and I know how you feel about me feeling so attached to you sometimes, and I know you don't let me know a million things about you because it pushes your boundaries and makes you feel less secure, but I feel like I do know so many things-"