✓ WE NEVER SLEEP, draco malfoy

T H I R T Y - E I G H T

"A man's heart is a wretched, wretched thing. It isn't like a mother's womb. It won't bleed. It won't stretch to make room for you."

— Khaled Hosseini

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Rowan sat in Snape's office one evening close to the end of February, fiddling with the ring on her finger as Snape went through some papers on his desk. He'd called her in to discuss Florence once again but Rowan wasn't worried about her sister, she was only worried about what lie she could come up with. She'd been practicing her Occlumency lessons with Draco and Snape had even gotten in on the efforts during their small chats.

She would wind up sitting in the chair for a few extra hours forcing his out of her mind, along with any incriminating thoughts. It put her more on edge and forced her concentration when it was Snape who was invading her mind and not Draco. She was too comfortable with the boy, too willing to let him see everything.

After their Valentine's night, things had been even easier with him. Yes, he never said I love you back but she didn't care. She didn't feel insecure or even scared, there was no worry. He would say it when he was ready and if he wasn't ever, that was something she was clearly going to have to work through herself.

She knew she was capable of being loved, she knew that deep inside him he loved her but he didn't know how. 

"Are you even focusing?" snapped Snape, glaring at her from where he stood across the room from her. His arms were crossed and he was no longer wearing his robe. It seemed she had lost track of how long she had been daydreaming about Draco and it made her cheeks heat with embarrassment. "Do you know how easy it is for me to read what's going on inside your head? Even without truly seeing inside?"

The redness in her face surely got worse.

"Shall we try this again?"

She nodded, planting both feet on the ground and gripping the armrests tightly. It seemed this would be a repeat of a night.

"Legilimency!" 

She hissed, bracing herself as he invaded her. She had been imaging a box, just moments before his magic touched her. She imagined putting every little incriminating detail about her true friendships, she family, and even her sister's love inside the box and squandering it away somewhere deep and dark and unreachable.

She bit her own tongue as Snape approached her. She could see him through the slits of her eyes but there was a burning making its way up her neck, exploding off in her head and she realized she was inflicting the pain as he tried to tear through her memories. He was much more brutal than Draco.

She saw flashes of her childhood, Marlena cooing to her, Bowen standing in the reading room. She saw Florence as a child, her own hands chubby and small, and she saw the beach. Just as Snape was about to unlock something she wanted to keep forgotten, she pushed the memory away and forced a new one to the surface. 

The kitchen in her family home. The smell of a long cooking soup. 

She doubled over in a pant as his magic released her and Snape sighed. When she looked back up, brushing a strand of hair away with a weak hand, she grinned faintly, "How'd I do?"

"Better."

"Only better?"

Snape sighed again. "Remarkably better."