ONE LAST CHANCE | Draco Malfoy

chapter 44

Mature content ahead...

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Draco is a Death Eater.

My blood runs cold as stare at his arm. The familiar stingy feeling in my eyes soon turns into tears, which never fall though. They stay in my sight, blurring my vision.

My eyes only switch from him to his mark, back to him, and back down again. I can't believe what I am seeing.

Is this a bad dream? A nightmare? I feel like I just woke up from a bad dream in the middle of the night. It's dark and scary, lonely. I feel this racing heartbeat inside my chest, hammering and booming against my ribs to be let free. The exact same adrenaline rush after a nightmare in the middle of the night. It's the time when the whole world is dead. When all the lights are off, not a single sound. All you can hear is your breathing while you just lay there in the darkness. As for the only thing that's protecting you is your blanket like it's your armor.
You eventually fall asleep again, but those are the dreams that haunt. The dreams that you can't untangle from. They follow you everywhere you go, because you are scared they might come true.

The people I would lose, the things I loved most, would all be gone. Gone, gone, gone.

I wish this would be a nightmare, because even though they haunt you for a long while after, you know that they will pass. You know that you will forget them sooner or later.

This. This you can't forget or let your brain erase it from your memory. I wish I could though.

"Say something Roselee..." Draco pleads, stepping forward a little. But as soon as he moves towards me I flinch back, leaving him frozen in his spot. He looks at me. His expression tells me his heart sunk deep, just as well as mine did just a moment ago when he rolled up this sleeve. Draco doesn't move. Nor do I.

Nobody says anything. We simply stare at each other in silence.

But then there it is, Draco's features harden as he swallows, nodding. His features firm up and his sorrowful look disappears. Draco build his guard back up which doesn't let me see through him any longer. But he doesn't say anything nevertheless, waiting for me to talk first.

The thing is, I can't. I don't know what to say. My throat feels dry and all my words got kicked out of the way. I want to speak up, but it feels like my voice just disappeared. I lost it.

I know I am giving him the impression that I am afraid of him, by putting distance between us. His look tells me he somehow expected it, too. But am I afraid of Draco? Perhaps I am. I think of the night at the Astronomy Tower when Draco hexed me and broke my bones to test me on my duelling abilities. He was merciless that night, attacking me on every spot. But was that really everything he was capable of? Is he able to do more than what I have already seen? He is brutal. Draco started attacking me without any note. What would happen if he just continued to fight me back then? Would he be able to injure me in way worse ways? Is that why he is so good at DADA, because he can do Dark Magic?

I have a million of questions, flashing through my mind but I only speak out one. "Why Draco?" My raspy voice breaks down in the middle of it.

Draco's icy eyes overflow with dejection. "If you think I'm doing this by choice," he brings out, shaking his head. "Trust me, I'm not."

"Trust you?" I choke out ironically before I can even stop myself from saying that. I feel a tear fall down my cheek and my stomach feels as if somebody stabbed me with a dagger full of thorns of a thousand roses wrapped around the metal. Draco tightens his jaw at my question and I know it hurt him just as much as it hurt me. "You are a Death Eater!"