✓ WE NEVER SLEEP, draco malfoy

T W E N T Y - F I V E

"Just now, I felt like I wanted to be alone for a long time, in a folding chair on the lawn with all my private agonies, but then I saw you."

— Ada Limón, from "The Great Blue Heron Of Dunbar Road" , Bright Dead Things

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"Empty your head."

"I'm trying!"

"Completely!"

"It's kind of hard to focus with you-you--"

He smirked. "What am I doing, Rowan?" he purred. "Am I distracting you?"

"Yes!" She nodded, frantically. 

Draco was running his fingers dangerously high up on her thigh, creeping underneath the fabric of her skirt. He had parted her legs, easily, and was now standing close to her as his fingers itched higher and higher. 

"You can't keep doing that," she breathed, her breath getting caught in her throat. "It's-it's distracting me!"

"Good," he murmured, stepping away and taking all his warmth with him. "You need to be prepared, the Dark Lord is skilled in Legilimency, he will work his way inside your brain and find things you haven't thought of or remembered in years. He will see past every little facade you put up."

She brushed her hair down with her fingers, scowling. "Yeah, but he won't be feeling me up as he does it."

"He might torture you, to keep your defenses down."

She looked down at her lap, now smoothing out her skirt as it was left bunched up against her stomach. "I know what I'm getting into." 

"Do you, really?" he countered. He was scared, he had thought once he told her the truth of what he was doing, she would've gone running for the hills. He had hoped for that. It was the only way to keep her safe, to keep her out of it. 

But he should've known better. The Rowan he knew would never back down for a friend, and in their case, she wouldn't back down for someone she was falling for.

He was certain she was, as she gave him a knowing look through her lashes. He almost hoped she had fallen completely, that she would be his and no one else's forever.

It's funny, he thought. How things have changed so much for them. He would never have pictured himself flustered over her before.

"You're risking everything for this, and if you can't keep your defenses up perfectly, he'll kill you," he told her, hitting each word with a scowl. She needed to know what she was getting into and he was the only that could show her. 

"I'm trying," she breathed but he could see the worry. She had gone and told Potter all about what they were planning and the boy still didn't trust Draco. When she told him what had happened, he swallowed his anger until she had left. 

He was risking everything for them, to do the right thing for once in his goddamned life and Potter and his perfect little followers couldn't believe him? Couldn't trust him?

Draco would die before they ever trusted him, and he didn't think even being in the grave would do it well enough.

"Try harder," he spat, but sighed as he saw the dejected look in her eyes. He walked forward, running his hands up her leg to rest against her thighs. They were supposed to only have one night, just one, and he had grown selfish. He was terrified his selfishness would be the end of her entirely. "You just have to focus, deeply," he said in a softer voice. Her skin was warm against his palms and he slid them higher, watching her eyes dart from her legs back to his eyes. "They'll do everything they can to find a reason to hurt you, to kill you. They know your allegiance to Potter, so we have to come up with a plausible reason why you abandoned them."