Isolation

Chapter 16: Snowy

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Draco's mouth was still damp from their kiss.

He collapsed into the couch, closing his eyes tight and cradling his face with sweaty palms, as the chill coiled around him. He had no idea if he was shaking from the cold, or from the painful pangs that made his chest feel close to rupturing, and he felt completely lost. Despite his perpetual insistences that Granger and this place had driven his mind to ruin, he realised now that her presence actually soothed the turbulent thoughts rattling around his skull. Her twenty days of silence had been torture; his solitude leading to more doubts about blood and what he wanted from Granger.

The echoes of his father's voice and his preconceptions of Muggle-borns were distorted and fragile now; barely whispers in the corners of his mind. It angered and scared him that she had had such an effect on his resolve, but there was also a drugging sense of relief that he didn't quite understand. Kissing and touching her was like cresting the most unusual sense of peace; and while he felt completely lost, it was a...good lost. He imagined it was similar to the bliss one was supposed to experience when drowning, and he was certainly drowning.

And she had just left him here; frustration crackling under his skin and fighting sanity-slicing images of her with Corner. In the back of his battered brain, he knew that Granger was good on her promise that she and that Raven-bore prick were nothing more than friends, but the jealousy ate away at him anyway. He felt capable of a murderous rampage every time his imagination cooked up a picture of them, but what could he do? Nothing, but simmer.

His fingernails stabbed into his temple as another wave of resentment struck him, and he gulped down the bile that had started to scorch his windpipe. A deep and guttural growl made his whole body vibrate, and he willed himself to stay seated, knowing he would most likely slam his fist into the wall until his knuckles were shrapnel if he moved from the couch.

He had no idea how long it had been since she'd left him, barely minutes probably, but it felt like his loneliest hour.

He had always been so...trained and disciplined with his behaviour, but a mere moment alone in a room with her had him being completely driven by his urges, and that petrified him. Control was essential, but his brain might as well be spattered against the wall for all the good it was doing right now. There was a massive gap in his head, which his prejudices had once occupied, and now it was just becoming stocked with her instead.

Her words.

Her face.

Her scent, her smiles, her sighs.

Granger...

He snapped his head up when the door opened, and it completely knocked the air out of him when he realised that she'd come back. Her breathing was erratic and her face rosy-flushed, and her curls had returned to their wild state, framing her face perfectly. Between the heaves of her chest and her dilated eyes, she looked bewildered but bloody edible. The soft sway of her inky-blue dress waved at him, and he was on his feet in a heart's thud; acting solely on instinct.

They locked eyes across the room, and the confusion and tension practically rippled between them, and Draco willed himself to remain stoic. He could very well be getting ahead of himself; Granger might have simply forgotten something, and it would do him no favours to get his hopes up. But from the anxious expression carved into her pretty features, he could tell she was here for a specific reason, and a knot of excitement and apprehension clotted his gut.