the girl with all of the choices

o n e h u n d r e d s e v e n

8428 words

december thirty-first- three years together, one week alone

~ Addison ~

New Year's Eve was always one of my favourite days. It was nice when I was younger, spending the night with my family and friends at my parents' annual party. 

But it became infinitely better during fourth year. Receiving Draco's letter that morning with his invitation to the Old Astronomy Tower sent shivers down my spine. That night was perfect. Ever since then, it had been one of my favourite days of the year. 

This year was the exception. Last year wasn't perfect considering I had found out about his mark at the beginning of the holiday, but I was with him. I could feel his skin, kiss his lips, run my fingers through his hair, and listen to his voice as he spoke. This year, all I had was the necklace he gave me, his family ring, a handful of his jumpers and other shirts, and the copy of Romeo and Juliet he charmed for me for our one year anniversary. 

I had searched through the bag he packed for me before going back to sleep on Christmas night. When I woke up from my nap, the potion had completely worn off. My chest physically hurt with the pain of being away from him. It was absolutely unbearable. I suffered through dinner as fast as I could, and as soon as I was able to, I went back up to my room and got ready for bed. 

He had packed my book of memories, his jacket that he gave to me before he left to complete his task, an extra pair of shoes, and the rest of the clothes he had chosen. The book was the best part of it. I was especially grateful for it today.

Three years. We had been together for three years. Well, not together, per se. There had been plenty of times when we had been physically apart, or even that month when we were broken up, but we still cared for each other. We were each other's priority the entire time. We always were each others priority. 

I had promised him that we would spend tonight and tomorrow together, just the two of us, to make up for his gift of allowing our friends to come over for the holidays. We were going to make a nice dinner together and eat around the dining table. We might even have gotten dressed up for it. The rest of the night would have been perfect, with the candles I had planned to set up and the alone time. But now, we were alone. I was in his Aunt's house, and he was Merlin knew where inside the castle. I didn't get to keep my end of the promise. I hated myself for it.

It had been a week since I arrived at the Tonks home. I stayed in my room most of the time, not wanting to burden any of the others with my presence. It couldn't have been very easy for any of them. I had just shown up out of the blue, and while they had known of the possibility of my arrival, they didn't know that I would appear on Christmas. 

I cried a lot. My nightmares came back. I would relive Amycus and Alecto's torture session every single night, except it would always end with Draco being captured. I was never able to save him. I didn't tell Tonks about my nightmares, though. They only had a limited supply of the ingredients to brew Dreamless Sleep Potion, and I didn't want to waste their stores on me. I could survive. 

The questions that festered in my mind upon learning what I had during the first few minutes of my residency here hadn't all been answered yet. I would meet Remus down in the reading room in the morning to talk about things. He would make tea and would usually be reading a different book about healing strategies when I joined him. He always left a cup of tea on the table next to the armchair I would sit in.

He answered my questions about the war and the Order. Essentially, the war wasn't going in our favour at all. The Dark Lord had his forces do reconnaissance in other European countries. He had vampires, giants, harpies, many Veela, and a whole slew of other non-human magical beings on his side now. Not to mention, thanks to the procurement program, his ranks of Death Eaters were increasing tenfold. His forces were great at snuffing out Order members and obliterating them.