Manacled by Senlinyu

Chapter 54: Flashback 29

March 2003

When she woke in the morning, she found that she really was in a hotel with Draco. It was so surprising she thought perhaps she was still hallucinating.

She glanced about the room, trying to wrap her mind around it. She wasn't dreaming; she was really, actually in a Muggle hotel suite with Draco. A suite that he apparently occupied while wearing an Oxford hoodie.

If she were still composing a psychological sketch of him, the revelation would have required her to start a whole new notebook. Why was he there? Was it something he did often? Why on earth would he be spending the night in the Muggle world?

She turned her head to look at him.

He was asleep, wrapped possessively around her as though he were keeping her from being stolen. His body was so warm against hers it was almost searing.

As she studied him in bewilderment, the full events of the night came back to her.

She flinched.

She shouldn't have come.

She shouldn't have come, and she shouldn't have stayed.

It had been a mistake.

He was like a dragon. The jealous way he hoarded the things he cared about—there was no moderation in it. He was possessive and deadly. He held her in his arms like she was his.

The temptation to give into it, to let him have her and to love him for it—it terrified her.

Her need to love people and the desperate desire for them to love her back—she had locked it away. Acceded its place to the coldness of logic, realism, and strategic decisions for the sake of the war. She'd shoved it down into a hole where she wouldn't feel it. Wouldn't miss it.

But Draco had dragged it up from the well where she'd hidden it, uncovered it, and set himself to picking the lock. She could almost feel his fingers turning the dial, listening to the drop of every tumbler. Lying in wait for a way in.

His own grief and loneliness, his attention and unwavering constance, and that way he looked at her, the way he touched her; it was slipping through her defenses and coiling around her heart as surely as she had wound around his.

She tried to slide out of the bed before he woke, but his eyes snapped open the instant she shifted. His hold on her tightened, and he pulled her back toward himself for a moment before his expression flickered, and he let her go.

She stilled and looked up at him.

The sense of terror he had inspired in her a year ago had faded entirely. The danger of him—it was still there, cast in even sharper relief now that she had seen how ruthlessly he could kill. But despite realising just how merciless he could be, it made her feel less frightened of him.

Now she knew how much he was holding back. Despite the heights to which he had vaulted himself within Voldemort's army, he was holding himself back. Wiping out an entire squadron of Death Eaters had barely required effort. He had arrived and killed nearly a hundred people in a matter of minutes.

She studied his face, and he stared back at her. His expression was shuttered. Whatever he might be feeling was carefully concealed. But his eyes—

The way he looked at her was enough to stop her heart.

"I shouldn't have come," she finally said.

He didn't look hurt or surprised by the words.

"You needed someone. I just happened to be available. You don't need to worry, it's not going to complicate things for you," he said, looking away from her, his fingers playing lightly along her wrist. "I didn't expect it to change anything."