Potter's Shadow (Draco Malfoy)

Chapter 43

Today was our first lesson working on our Patronus and efforts were fleeting. The most anybody got was a few wisps from there wands. 

"Make it a powerful memory, the happiest you can remember," Harry called to everyone. 

I held my wand out steadily and thought. I took a deep breath and I was there.

-=-

The snow flickered down catching in my eyelashes, blinking I tried to remove the snow from my vision. The trees whispered in the wind. The stars shone bright in the night sky as I searched the sky for the constellation. 

"Where is it?" I whispered to myself. Ignoring the steady crunch of snow along the path behind me as I looked up from the hill. 

It had been almost a year since I had last been shown the constellation and I was desperate to find it again. I was heading back to Grimmauld Place on the train tomorrow and I wanted to see it in the exact same position as last year. 

Warm arms wrapped around my waist, one hand sliding along to grab my gloved hand. I waited as he raised my hand, resting his head on my shoulder. He looked up and outlined the shape of the constellation. 

"Gemini," He whispered in my ear. My stomach bubbling with warmth as his breath tickled against my neck. 

"How did you know?" I asked breathlessly. 

He turned his head and pressed his lips against my throat, "It's almost the anniversary and it only made sense."

I spared the stars twinkling in the sky one last glance before I spun round to face him. "It's almost our one year anniversary," I smiled as I looked into his blue eyes. The colour reflecting the snow but still filling me with warmth. I wrapped my arms around his neck, while his rested gently on my hips. I looked carefully at him, "If you knew everything you did now, would you still have followed me out here last year?"

"I would never change that decision for anything in the world. It got me you," he pressed his nose in a light nudge against my own. "I wouldn't change any decision since I met you because it all gave me the courage to follow you out here. I'd keep the deeply embedded fear from when I heard you'd been petrified. I'd keep the relief as you walked into the Great Hall when you were revived. I'd keep the scar across your side," he traced exactly where the werewolf scratches marred my side, "because that's when I realised I wanted to keep you safe. I'd keep saving you from the deatheaters at the World Cup because that earned me your trust. I'd keep you throwing that god forsaken handkerchief at my face because it was then that I realised that I liked you and I needed you to be my girlfriend. I'd keep every argument, every mistake because I wouldn't have you without them. I wouldn't have the best thing that ever happened to me."

I moved my hand to cradle his cheek, "And you're the best thing to happen to me." 

-=-

My wand spat out the most wispy magic it had, a small circle managed to form before it surged back through the wand and into me like a snapping elastic band. 

"Allow it to fill you up!" Harry instructed. 

I turned to see him walking through the group, correcting a wand position and whispering support and ideas to people. For a moment he wasn't the arrogant, forceful boy but the selfless brother from the cupboard under the stairs. 

"Expecto Patronum," I whispered as a tear trickled down my cheek.

-=-