CURSED: FROM THE BEGINNING [D.M]

-(19) you're equally as mad as i am

ZILLIAH lifts her head up from Draco's shoulder with a small sigh escaping her lips.

"What?", he asks, tilting his face at her slightly. They were still in his room, on the floor, leaning against the bed, staring out at the night sky just as she had wished.

"I just..", she starts, lifting her hand that was entwined with Draco's to wave a little which makes him press down on it soothingly. And whatever discomfort she felt before, oozed out with it. "Nothing", she mutters, her mind set. "It's nothing."

He narrows his eyes in question but she just simply shrugs and lays her head back upon his shoulder, her left hand still interlocked with his right and her right one tracing circles on his knee that was bent up.

It has been two hours since their fight. Two hours since Draco cried. Two hours since the universe seemed to completely shift beneath their feets.

Because Draco Malfoy did not cry. And Zilliah now understands it was because he could not cry. Could not stand to be vulnerable. Or weak. He had to be strong. That was the only way he got out of all the abuse he endured at home (yes, he had told her everything, right from the beginning, by his own will, she would never have forced him to, and at the end of it, she felt like she wanted to just fucking muder Lucius Malfoy, and she will.) And she understands that being tough, being "strong", it was the only way for him. The only way he could've kept his mother and himself safe.

And that just broke her heart in an incomprehensible way. It tore down on her soul and left this lump in her throat. But even through that, she had made sure that he understood the truth- that crying was not a sign of weakness, but of bravery, of real strength.

He had looked at her like a child looking at sunrise or rather a dead parent, something unintelligible to such a young mind. She could hear the aching of her own heart at it.

"I had told you the same that night, don't you remember?", she had muttered, holding his heart wrenching gaze. "There's beauty in vulnerability, Draco. The kind some don't dare enough to find."

And he had pulled her closer, their foreheads threatening to be molded as one, and he had rasped out, his voice the feeblest she has ever heard, all the pain of his trauma painted onto them. "Then why aren't you?"

And her heart dropped. It dropped down into the deepest pit of the ocean. And he could see- she knew he could see it- in her eyes, in her face, in her breath. He could always see. And it's exactly why he shook his head and detached their foreheads from one another before pulling her to his chest.

She had melted into them gratefully, wishing she could just fold herself up and live inside there forever.

She had wanted to tell him so bad. She wanted to be rid of this heaviness in her heart. But telling him one thing meant telling him everything. And she trusted him, she did. But the people that controlled her life did not. She could even hear Severus say 'You know the consequences' in her head. And her mother's 'I have done so much to keep you safe and you're going to throw it all away for a boy?' And the lady- the lady in her nightmares- she could hear her utter disdain in a ringing voice. 'Is this what I paid my life for?'

No.

No. No. No.

She had cast away the thoughts, clearing her mind, simply breathing in his scent, willing to drown in the sheer comfort it offered. And that's how they ended up where there were now, silent and calm on the wooden floor.

Draco heaves a sigh himself and lifts their interlocked hands up to his face, his lips pressing down on her knuckles. She smiles at the gesture, her heart growing warm as she fixes her gaze back upon the stars.