(a Draco Malfoy au) of snakes and stones

chapter twenty one

Draco

"You." He felt the impact of her words absorbing into him before he had truly heard it. "I thought of you."
"You did?" He asked her, his eyes soft. He was worried that he was going to cry. Worried that everything that he'd been through in the last few weeks would come out, and he'd just fall to pieces.
She replied yes through her tears, and Draco wiped them away. "You're too good for all this." He murmured.
"You came back for me."
"Of course I did."
He didn't want to tell her what he'd done. What he'd done to find them. What he'd done to ensure that she'd be left alone. He wouldn't tell her what he'd agreed to do. Wouldn't tell her that she wasn't the only one allowed to make sacrifices.
"I'll always come back for you, love." He watched her give him a small smile as she heard him call her love.
"I'm tired." She said in a muffled voice. "Sleep with me?" He nodded, as he moved to sit beside her. He watched to make sure he didn't hurt her as she lay her head down on his chest. He began humming softly, trying to distract himself from what he'd done.
He'd have to tell her eventually. He couldn't keep it from her forever. She'd eventually find out what he'd done and hate him for it - he was sure of it.
But he kept humming, to distract himself from all the things his mind was telling him, and the dull ache of his left arm.
It was what he'd had to do to ensure her safety. His father had promised that he wouldn't let anyone hurt her. Because, as Juliette has told him as she'd sent him to safety, this is what you do for the people you love.
He'd done what he had to do, and why he'd told Potter was true. He was willing to do it for her. Even if it meant she'd think he was vile, think he was some dark monster. He wondered if she'd listen to his reasons why. Wondered if she'd let him tell her that it was for her. She'd hate that he'd done it to keep her safe, he knew that already.
He looked down at her, her eyes closed and face still. She looked almost as she had that night - the distant night, seemingly thousands of years ago - except for the different colours which streaked across her face. The hint of blue and purple.
"Draco?" Her voice found him, and she slowly moved up to look at him.
"Yes?" He replied, stroking her shoulder softly.
"We'll get through this," she told him and he but his cheek. "Together. We'll see what we can do to make it all stop."
He didn't know what to say, didn't know how to tell her that from now on, she was going to be left out of this. This his father has sworn her safety in exchange for something he wanted more than her answers.
"Let's not think about this right now." He murmured.
"I can't not think about it - I can't ever stop." She told him coldly. "It's never going to go away. I almost died."
The words squeezed Draco's heart, holding it so tightly that he couldn't breathe.
"I'm sorry if I let you down." She added, and Draco froze.
"How did you let me down?"
"I didn't fight hard enough- I didn't fight long enough." She said with her voice shaking. "I've let everyone down."
"God, no you haven't, Juliette!" He didn't know how she could even think such a thing. "You- you literally saved Cedric from being killed, and you performed magic without a wand. You managed to summon your Patronus - you did it all." He paused, his face softened. "There is no one that doubts how hard you fought."
"I could have fought harder though, I could've done so much more-"
He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, quieting her.
"No. Juliette you fought so strongly, I think if you had fought any harder, you wouldn't be here in my arms right now."
"But maybe that would be best-"
"No. Don't you dare say that. There is a room full of people down there that love you. There is someone lying beside you that... that needs you. There's no way that it is what would be best. Where is this coming from?" She pulled from from his arms, sitting up. She stood up slowly, and in the proper light, Draco could see her face clearly. She looked so fragile, so broken and torn apart.
"I-I don't know. I just... I don't feel the light anymore." She whispered across the room as she walked over to the window. "We're home." By home, she was talking about her parents house. He had yet to break the news to her. That she wasn't allowed back to Hogwarts. "Why aren't we at Hogwarts?"
"Ah, Juliette, darling!" The door opened and her father walked in, wrapping her in his arms. She pulled away, flinching.
"Why are we here?" Juliette asked, her eyebrows knitted together in concern.
"How are you feeling?" His father ignored her question.
"Why aren't we at Hogwarts?"
Her mother walked through the door, and saw the state of her daughter. Juliette was getting more and more upset with each passing second in the silence. Draco stood up to go over to her, placing a hand on her back, and she looked over at him, eyes sharp. "What do you know that I don't?" Draco looked towards her mother. Juliette was so upset that she was trembling.
"Juliette, honey, let's get you back to bed." Her mother took a few steps forward towards her, trying to take her hand, but Juliette pulled backwards defensively.
"No... no. Tell me what's going on!"
"You're not going back to Hogwarts." Her father told her bluntly and Juliette froze. Draco could feel her turn cold, her body freeze.
"What?! Why?" She began to step backwards in shock. Draco pulled her into him, and she sobbed into his chest.
"It's not safe for you there anymore. Beauxbatons have offered you a place, considering the exceptional abilities you've shown." Callista told her, and Juliette flinched.
"But I love Hogwarts, and I just moved, I'm not going all the way to France!"
"Yes, honey, you are." Her father snapped at her and Draco felt her flinch. "It'll be better for you to be away from... from all of this drama."
"I'm not leaving Hogwarts."
"That's not you decision." Her mother told her, and Draco noticed that she was tearing up herself.
"Don't make me leave. You always did send me away. I've been to Wizarding schools all over Europe because you don't want me. I've never had the chance to make friends, to... to find someone I love and now you're taking it away from me! It's not fair. I'm not going. I don't want to go to another school. I love it at Hogwarts." Juliette cried, pulling away from Draco. "I am not going."
"Yes!" Her father roared. Juliette got such a fright that she'd have fallen if Draco hadn't have caught her. "Yes you are going!"
Juliette stood up straight, her lips pursed in frustration. Draco watched as she pushed past her mother, and fled the room.
Her mother had her hands to her face, sighing. Robert had his fist angrily on the wall.
He walked past them, hearing Juliette's raised voice from downstairs.
"You all came her for nothing!" She cried at the room of people standing in their living room. "You shouldn't have come, and I shouldn't even be here!"
Draco was at her side, trying to get her to focus on him. "I should be dead."
The words rippled through the room, gasps echoed through the house.
"Juliette," Draco took her by the shoulders, and began leading her outside. "Come with me, love."
"I should be dead." She kept muttering over and over again. "You should have let him kill me."
He guided her outside, where she collapsed in a heap on the stairs. "It would all be so much easier. Better for everyone."
"Why are you saying these things?" He asked her, sitting down beside her. He put an arm around her shoulder. "Because you should be here."
"It's like I said," she told him bitterly. "The light is gone."
"No it's not," Draco said to her, pulling her into him. "It's not gone forever. It might not be there right now, but it'll come back. You told me that once."
"I don't know why."
"Because, Juliette, the light never sims completely. You've got to fight it, the darkness. Even when it's branded into your skin. Even when it's beginning to eat away at you and the thought of it bloody terrifies you." His lip began to shake. "You have the power to choose whether you listen to it or not. And... and it might feel like you have to act on it... it might feel like it's robbed everything good from you, but it hasn't. And-and it won't... if you refuse to let it." He wasn't sure if he was telling her this, or trying to convince himself that it's all going to be okay.
"What if I don't want to see the light anymore?" Juliette was defeated.
"What happened to you?" Draco asked her quietly. "Where are you, Juliette?"
"I think I've lost a part of myself." She admitted to him. "I think I gave up too much of myself to save everyone else. And Nolan was back and he wouldn't stop and my arm hurts and then he was going to kill Cedric and-" She burst into tears. "And I decided that I wanted it all to stop."
He sighed. "Don't give up, Juliette. Please."
"Now my parents are sending me away - to Beauxbaton!" She threw her arms up in the air, standing up with rage. "I'm not going."
"They are just trying to do what they feel is the right thing."
"But I need you. I need to be with you, not on the other side of the country."
Draco stood up, following her with his hands in his pockets.
"I'll run away. Hide in the Room of Requirement forever." She turned to face him, a slight smile on her face.
"I wouldn't argue with that." Draco told her with a grin.
"I'll keep going," she said as she walked towards him. "I'll fight against the darkness, for you."
He leaned down and pressed his lips to her forehead. "Sometimes that's all you can do."
"I'm still not moving to Beauxbaton. And I've embarrassed myself in front of everyone. That's it - I'm never going to live it down. I'm going to move far, far away."
"Everyone just wants you to be okay," Draco assured her. "We'll figure something out. Surely Dumbledore could talk to them... convince them to let you stay."
"He already had to convince them last time - they'll never let me stay." She looked up at him. "If- if they make me go, I'm going to go to Hogwarts. I'll... hide. Anything. I can't be apart from you."
Would she still say that when he told her what he'd done? "I love you."
He's never heard his parents whisper those words - never to each other, and his mother had only whispered it to him occasionally. And Juliette said them as if she was certain that he was the only person in the world she loved. Like he truly, and completely meant something to her. Like they were the only people in the world for that single moment.
And he loved her. He loved her so much that he'd gotten The Dark Mark to protect her. Even though it scared him, cupped her face, and told her,
"I love you. All of you. The light, and the dark."