✓ WE NEVER SLEEP, draco malfoy

E P I L O G U E

"I think we deserve
a soft epilogue, my love.
We are good people
and we've suffered enough."

— nikka ursula, Seventy Years of Sleep

________________________________________

There is a small cottage by the sea in which they inhabit for a few short years. 

It was right after the war and the sea called them, like it had always called her. 

It was just a little thing, nothing he had been accustomed to growing up, but it was nice and it was theirs and that's what made it so special. 

She grew flowers in the window sills and even in the garden by the front door and the little winding path that lead down to the sandy hills. They often had visitors, friends from school and friends they'd fought side by side with during the war. 

They'd gotten away without trials, being deemed heroes for the things they did to aid Harry Potter and The Order. They'd been spies, sleuths, and killers. They had taken lives during the war but it had been necessary, and the council who would've decided their fates had seen what they'd done brave and necessary.

It had all been necessary. 

They had their marks, still, but over time they watched them fade slowly. There was no one tying them to their skin, there was no one to call forth anymore. 

On good nights, they'd sit down by the beach and watch the sunsets. It was very mundane and honestly, very Muggle of them, but they enjoyed it. It was an escape.

His parents, though, wanted them to return home to the Manor. They wanted to see them finally get married, finally have children, but that would all come later.

First, the peace came. The calm.

For her, it was difficult. He would often find her with her feet buried in the sand and the waves crashing softly against her ankles because she felt a strange connection here. She could feel her sister around her, her presence so tight it was like she had been here all along. 

They had been meant for more. A longer life. More forgiveness. More cherishment.

But not all things were meant for this world. Not all great loves were meant to carry on physically as they were meant to carry on within the heart and soul.

Her sister earned a trial post mortem, shedding light to what she'd done through out the years before the war and how essential she had been in creating the network of spies (Nott, Zabini, and Parkinson got off from their trails, deemed the same as them). Without her, there would've never been corruption within the Death Eaters ranks. There would never have been any doubt of loyalty.

But then the vow occurred and the sisters were joined. 

They would be joined even through death. This life might not have been made for them entirely, but she knew the life after would be. A sisters bond was thicker then blood and bone, it stuck like magic.

The pair in the cottage by the sea attended beautiful weddings. They watched their friends be carried off by family, joined for life, but the pair knew they didn't need that.

They had already been joined for eternity, there wasn't much more they could get from that.

It took some time, though, for them to heal from their wounds (whether physical or psychological). They had nightmares, awful dreams of faces of the dead. Of the dead they had killed or witnessed. It would take years for those trauma to heal but they wouldn't be fully complete. There would always be that residual magic lingering to make their insides twist and their hearts ache. 

But she knows that if he's there, things will be easier and he knows the same. When he looked at her he sees a future, he sees things he never imagined before in his entire life.

He sees children running through the halls of the Manor. He sees flowers blooming in the great fields beyond their home, and he sees the Manor in a different light. It is no longer a fortress holding dark memories and an even darker future. He sees his children's accomplishments being hung up on the walls, he sees story books lying out on tables, cookies and muffins and those little pastries he knows his wife loves.

He called her his wife because it only seems right, even though it's not official but they don't need that, not right now. They'll give their friends and family the chance to celebrate them when theres a few more years under all their belts. 

But he sees his old childhood home in a different light entirely. He sees his mother and father, especially his father, learning and growing and trying to do better by him. He sees him trying, participating, visiting more often. He wants to be a grandfather, says his mother and he can hardly blame him. Lucius always did love the idea of heirs. 

The Manor in his visions is not longer gray and black and white. There is color seeping from the walls and it's no longer a house divided. His children, knowing his brilliant wife, will probably end up falling into Gryffindor or even Ravenclaw, but he knows some of his own Slytherin appetite will rub off on them, but he's not afraid of that.

He's not scared of being a terrible father. He no longer is afraid of his past coming back to haunt him, all his horrible deeds and doings when he was a teenager. He's made up for all of that now. 

They both had.

She sees him as a father, she sees and knows already how great he will do once the time comes and she even reckons they'll keep the little cottage by the sea for a getaway. It only seemed right to keep it for family vacations, to watch their children play in the waves and build sandcastles and even listen to the Muggle radio (she's made him quite fascinated with Muggles after spending a few holidays at the Weasley's home). 

Things are different now, a lot so, and they're okay with it. 

He wraps his arms around her waist and rests his head against her own. He lets his lips brush against her ear and whispers to her the words he cannot stop himself from saying even in his sleep. He lets her know, constantly, because there had been a time when she'd almost left this world without ever hearing them and that simply can't happen again.

"I love you," he whispers, so softly that the words tickle her ear. "I love you."

She rests back against him as the sun begins to set below the sea. "I love you, Draco."

He says it again because he can't help himself, and he says it over and over and over again because it will never get old.

"I love you, Rowan, I love you."