CURSED: FROM THE BEGINNING [D.M]

-epilogue

It's Zilliah's twenty-fifth birthday. But she stays eighteen. She will forever stay eighteen.

And as the sun sinks below the horizon every single day, Draco visits her in her grave. In the clearing in the forest behind Malfoy Manor.

He has just gotten home from work. He has been assigned a new case- his one hundred and sixtieth case as an Auror- yes, he had been counting. But he can't think about that now. He can't think about anything but Zilliah as he grabs the firewhiskey from the kitchen cabinet. He can't even pretend to be interested in talking to Astoria as she makes her way up to him saying she has something very important to tell him.

"It's about last month. That night you-", Astoria says, her voice soft, hopeful.

She should know better. She has been married to Draco for two whole years and she should know better. She should know that there is no hope left for Draco Malfoy.

"That night was a mistake", he bellows out, not even bothering to meet her eyes, not even noticing how hard she flinches. "My mum's been nagging me about a child. I was drunk. I got into bed and fucked you. That's all it ever was."

"But, Draco-"

"And the whole time, I pretended you were her."

Astoria's heart cracks. But Draco doesn't notice. He doesn't care.

"But you won't ever be her. No one will ever be her", he spits out, swinging the bottle in his hand as he makes his way outside. He walks around the compound and reaches the backside and he is tired. He is so so tired from work, from life. But he doesn't stop until he reaches Zilliah's grave.

And when he is there, he lays beside her, downing the whole bottle in one go and throwing it far far away.

"Happy Birthday, my love", his voice is so soft, softer than it has been for the past seven years.

Zilliah has been gone for seven whole years.

He has not felt her touch- her kiss- her breath for seven whole years. He has not heard her talk and he has not heard her laugh in eight four months.

But he still loves her. He has never stopped loving her- even when he was forced to marry another woman by his parents. He will never ever stop loving her- not even if the sky falls down or the earth shatters into pieces.

He reaches into his pocket and takes out the letter that she had written for him. The letter she had asked him to take out of her pocket just before she died. The letter he had cast every preserving charm in existence upon. Because he cannot afford to lose that. No, he cannot ever afford to lose that.

He opens and lifts it to his line of vision.

And then he reads. 

He reads it like he hasn't been reading the same thing every single day for the past seven years. 

He reads it like it is the very oxygen he needs to survive.

.

My dear beloved,

You once asked me to write you a letter and now I know this is rather too late but if not now, then when? If not to you, then to whom? I'm writing this letter in Supernova, the place where it all began. Theo is sleeping inside the cave so I'm free to pour my whole heart into this piece of parchment and that's exactly what I intend to do.

Now, I know my heart isn't something foreign to you. You understand every nook and corner of it. But I still feel obliged to tell you what it screams to me every single time I look at your face. Even as fate tore us apart on this island, our souls found each other again and there's not a day that goes by that my heart doesn't rejoice in it. We are meant to be together, Draco. I knew it right from the start- right from when you were my Luci. Nothing will ever keep me away from you for too long. There's an invisible thread tying you to me and it will never ever break.

My precious precious boy, you are, you know that, right? You better do or I'm going to spend the rest of my life stealing your sweatshirts and boxers. Well- I do that now and I'll continue to keep doing that anyway but you get my point. My heart and my soul and my body- they're entirely yours, Draco. Never have it or never will it belong to any other person. And yours is mine.

Yeah, so basically what I'm trying to say is that you're trapped with me. 

But it's my greatest pleasure to know that you're perfectly happy with being trapped with me. Not that, you have any other choice, really.

That night at the backside of your house- the night you let your defences down and let me see what you really were beneath all that facade- I'll never forget that night. I'm not saying that I will forget everything else but that particular memory is etched onto my mind forever. That place- those fleeting moments- they matter so much to me, even I am having a hard time grasping why. But once this war is over, I hope we can go there and lay on the ground entangled in each other, watching the stars and feeling content in our bones. If I get to do that, at least once a week through the busy schedule our future life holds, I'll be perfectly happy, Draco.

I'll be perfectly happy laying there on your chest. With the moon who probably got ear bleed from how much I talked to him about you. With the stars that will always understand us. And with that entire forest that reflects the forest within us, each and every single tree carved with each other's name.

My definition of peace is you, Draco.

It shall, forever and always, remain you.

With love,

Your Zilliah.

.

The rain pours down, mixing Draco's tears with it as they roll to the ground. He folds the letter and puts it back in his pocket as he closes his eyes and lays there, feeling everything and nothing at the same time.

Her words and her memories are all that remain with him now. But until he takes his last breath, until he is buried right where he is laying now, he will cherish what he has left of her.

"Zilliah", he mumbles her name out loud like he always does, hoping that somewhere, somehow she is able to hear him. "Zilliah Zilliah Zilliah", he repeats over and over and over again in case it doesn't reach her the first, the second, the fifth, the tenth or the hundredth time.

"Zilliah", he says one last time before he makes to get up. But Draco stills- the entirety of him stills as he hears that voice. That voice he has gone so long without hearing. That voice that he will never ever forget.

"Draco", it calls.

And he is frozen in place.