Aionios

Chapter 20

She was afraid.

He could see it in her eyes and in the way she kept biting her nails while she stared at the calm flames in the fireplace. What exactly she was afraid of, he didn't exactly know, but he was starting to learn how to piece together the complicated puzzle of her mind.

"He won't hate you", he said, and she averted her gaze from the warmth of the fire to the warmth of his eyes, "Saint Potter would be hurt that you didn't tell him... But he could never hate you".

"You don't know that", she sighed.

"He's stupid", Draco smirked, "But he's not stupid enough to stay mad at you over something you weren't ready to tell him".

"Hey", she narrowed her eyes playfully, "He's still my brother. You can't call him stupid".

"I've been calling him stupid since I met him", he rolled his eyes with a grin on his lips, "No use stopping me now".

Isabelle shook her head and smiled, and Draco felt proud of himself for making that damn smile appear once again, but it disappeared just as soon as it came.

"I'm...", she sighed, "Terrified", her head shook, and her teeth sunk down on her bottom lip, "That was something I never wanted him to know", she admitted.

"But why?", his face contorted in confusion, "Why would you want to keep something like that? Especially from your own brother".

She curled up into a ball. "You wouldn't understand", she whispered.

But maybe he did understand.

Little by little, he was starting to uncover the deepest parts of her. It's like she was the unfathomable ocean, and he was the reckless diver that kept swimming despite the knowledge of the dangers that grew the more he persisted to reach the bottom.

"That must have been........", he struggled for words

Because how can you explain a heartless act done to an innocent five-year-old? You could't. No words could have surmounted to what she must have felt and what she was probably still feeling.

"Painful?", she forced out a dry laugh, "Yeah... It was painful... But you start to get used to it after a few days. Eventually, you just scream every time the curse hits you, but you don't feel the pain anymore... You're just... numb, I guess".

He didn't like that look in her eyes as she spoke. The green looked so void, so empty, and so lifeless. Like the dullness of leaves just before winter, just before they wilted, just before they died.

"It's the Cruciatus Curse", he pressed his lips together and exhaled, "It's expected to be painful... I wouldn't have expected anyone else to get through something like that".

He smiled down at her, and it was sad, but it also held the tiniest bit of happiness and recognition and admiration and something else that she couldn't really decipher because the storm in his eyes was raging once again.

"You really are the strongest person I know"

Her heart softened, sped up, clenched, and relaxed all at once at those words. All she ever saw was pity whenever anyone found out about her past. She saw it in Kingsley, Moody, Ace, The Minister, and everyone else who heard even just a single fragment of her life before and slightly after the Elite Eight.

She hated the pity.

She hated those eyes that looked down at her like she was some wounded fucking puppy.