✓ | RECKLESS AND BRAVE | Draco Malfoy

84 | FINIFUGAL

FINIFUGAL
(adj.) hating endings; of someone who tries to avoid or prolong the final moments of a story, relationship, or some other journey

THERE WAS A SORT OF QUIETNESS THAT ONLY DRACO COULD HEAR. The kind where everything around you came to a pause — even when a war waged everywhere else around him. Nothing else seemed to matter anymore; not when he felt his soul rip away from him and his body shattered to pieces at the realization that his heart was no longer beating.

She lay there on his lap — her body broken from the fall and her mouth parted with blood trickling down the side. It was a sight he could never forget — even if he wanted to with all his might.

Draco knelt on the earth for a moment with her — right there in the eye of the hurricane where he felt a part of him wither away.

     Even before he found out she had the blood of the dragon which made them bonded as mates, Draco had always felt as though there was a part of him that belonged to Tessa.

     Maybe it was his heart, maybe it was his soul, or maybe it was the entirety of him — but whatever it was flickered away. It was a candle whose flame had burned out into nothingness.

     The cord that tethered her to him had snapped — and Draco had never felt so empty and alone as he did at this very moment.

     His body trembled through his sobs as he rocked her in his arms, whispering pleas that she couldn't hear — begging her to come back to him. He didn't know how long he cried for her, he was barely even aware of his surroundings that had turned to gray until a sound of anguish echoed from behind him.

     Still weeping for his lost love, Draco glanced up from where he had his cheek pressed against her hair. "M-Mrs. Potter," he choked out, his stomach twisting at the pure agony painted on the older woman's face.

     Catherine stumbled, her body lurching forward as she fell to the grass. There were tears running down her face that was covered with ash and grime — she'd Apparated once she saw what happened. Draco hasn't had the chance to speak to Catherine again after that one day in his fourth year, the last means of communication he's had was through that letter he sent her asking for her permission and blessing to court and date Tessa.

     But he was desperate and his body and tongue seemed to have a mind of their own. At once, he shifted to lay Tessa back down on the grass as he sniffed and hastily wiped his face with the back of his hands.

     "Mrs. Potter," he said, his voice thick with emotion, "please — please save her." Draco was still on his knees as he begged, reaching over to take Catherine's hands and coating them with Tessa's blood that was on his. "I'm begging you," he whispered brokenly, "please save her."

     Catherine was shaking — her entire body trembled from head to toe as she cried ceaselessly for the loss of her daughter. She slowly dragged her eyes from the mangled body of Tessa to stare right into Draco's shadowed gray eyes. They were haunted — so dark and so haunted for a seventeen year old boy.

     "Please," he said again, another tear slipping down his cheek as his lower lip quivered.

     She gripped his hands in hers, feeling how cold and thin his fingers were. "I have a small favor to ask of you," she started in a quiet voice, hiccuping a sob at the end. "Will you do it for me, Draco?"