Can I Love you?

OneShot: In times of War, the most cherished has to pay.

Does it always feel like this?

The thought fluttered through her mind, twisting into her blood, sizzling with awareness as she attuned her senses. A tremble in the cool wind, tiny icicles of snow floating around in her vision. She pressed closer with a shiver, flushing as ice grey eyes travelled down her flesh, a gentleness softening deep within them as hands pulled her closer, shielding her from the moonlight.

"Still cold, Dove?" He muttered against her throat, chuckling as he left a nip on her bare shoulder, his lips briefly following the delicate gold chain on her neck, eyes flashing with satisfaction and hunger as he glimpsed the heavy black object that hung from it. The signet ring glittered in the darkness, a possessive heat warming her skin. Of course it would be almost sentient to her, so much of it's masters nature infused into the gold and metal. She was all that sang in his blood.

She gasped, muffling a giggle by nuzzling her face into his neck, eyes closed as a warm heat slowly pooled deep inside her belly, her body never made sense when it came to him. It was never enough. She had been so naive back then. He was nothing but volcanic heat, determined to consume her every waking moment. He would chase her into dreams if he could.

"Next Christmas, I want an actual gift, something I can sit in front of the fire and wrap". A throaty chuckle left him at her whining, his hands dipping across her skin with practice, an ease to his movement. There was no rush when it came to them. Nothing that could distract from this moment. The Astronomy Tower was silent, empty save the pair wrapped up in each other at the top of the stairs, small dropping of snow gently falling over them, a winters chill in the breeze, giving them their privacy, the castle ensuring in its own way, that they would not be heard. They could not be seen. A mournful shiver ran through the dark walls, the magic humming within the ancient structures as it observed them. It had once seemed that all of time had stretched out for these two, days bleeding into weeks and months, for years. The Tower had watched what they had become to each other, what they had become for each other. Hogwarts knew the way their magic had settled into each others souls, without them even knowing the full truth of it.

But Time cannot stop for anyone.

"The weather didn't stop me unwrapping you Dove" quiet arrogance laced his voice, a glint of his teeth as she scoffed, pushing her nails against his chest briefly with a roll of her eyes, cheeks flushed with shyness. He pressed his forehead to hers, nose running gently across her hers, his warm breath drifting across her face. He fingers reached up and tangled into his hair, her face filling with a peaceful sort of happiness that she would never forget in her later years as she pressed a kiss to his cheek.

A gentle ticking behind her ear, had her shifting away from him, pulling away from his mouth with a soft moan, smiling helplessly as he rolled his eyes at her actions, pulling her into him with a groan.
She looked around the empty floor, the ticking quickening in its pace and becoming louder. "What's that noise, Draco?", she turned to look at him, and froze. Terror lancing through her heart as a guttered scream broke from her throat, large frightened eyes watching as he blurred in front of her vision, melting into the floor.

Kiara gasped, her eyes blinking open as she jolted upright in the chair she had been chained to. Her muscles screamed with protest, ribs twisting painfully in her chest as she sputtered and gagged, the smell of blood and filth filling her senses again. There were no tears, not anymore. A shiver ran through her as she cast her eyes over her torn clothing, caked in her blood, the skin underneath lined with the evidence of what they had done. Her eyes shut, forcing her thoughts away from her as she trembled in the chill of the basement room they had been keeping her in. How long had it even been? Where was Hermione? She couldn't think of Draco, not now. All she had left was the grey of his eyes flashing through her mind. She didn't even know how long it had been since she had seen him. The times were so few and far in-between lately. Did he even know about her?

Any sense of reluctance and horror the first time they had marked her, had thoroughly been cleansed as more and more deaths had ensnared their conscience. The shock and grief that had plagued their nightmares when they had realised who she had been begging and pleading for, her eyes filled with a desperate terror as she had begged for them to listen to her, she had pleaded for the kindness and love she had once known from them. Never would it be spoken outloud, but the wail that had been wrenched from her throat as the first Crucio had hit, the screams of terror and grief that torn from her throat. It would follow them to their graves. During all of it, her hands had never moved once from what she had desperately tried to protect within her. Futile, really.

They could not afford to ever think on it. They had agreed amongst themselves in the aftermath, a wildness in their eyes, blood pounding in their ears as she had shattered in front of them. "He'll never find out, she never got to tell him and there's no fucking way I'm letting her out of here without finding out how the fuck our positions were given up. My family need to know I did everything to make him pay for what he let happen to them, my mum needs to know I did it for her". Any dissent did not have the freedom to be voiced.

The only goal was get answers to their desperate questions. And with Kiara not having the answers they wanted, breaking her was their only shot at burning his soul and carving horrors into him that he would never be able to extinguish.

After all, it didn't matter who she was, what she had done for them. The courage and love and strength she had given to help them. To save them. She had to pay. She had to feel what they felt, it was the only way they could make him understand. A Crucio was nothing compared to the pain they felt at not even being able to find enough body parts of their loved ones to bury. A beating, the slice of a knife against her soft skin was nothing compared to watching the fields ablaze with fire and death, their people trapped in the chaos.

That is what they had told themselves. It was getting harder to believe but how could they disagree with the one who had turned his rage on her? He had lost everything, how could he be expected not to seek vengeance in all it's forms? There was nothing left of what he had been, even with all of his pretense, the cracks were showing.

He had not once let up in his conviction.

How could they ever have believed that Malfoy was on their side? How could they ever have believed that he was forced into his actions, to keep his cover, to keep them in with a chance to survive the hell that they had been thrown into those years ago? Maybe once, maybe when he had first saved them, when he had the information they had needed to protect their weak and vulnerable, to lay their traps for his once kinsmen, to outsmart and betray the closest servants of that giant snake cunt. But years had passed, the deaths had been too devastating to accept. Too cruel to explain away Malfoy's inability to fight freely for them.

That is what he ranted and raved about down in the basement to the small group he had trapped with their grief, all of them hiding away from the eyes of those who would have turned in horror and disgust, to those who would save the girl that had been infused with love and kindness and light towards so many. They would not be able to justify it. Even for all that they had lost.

A jolt of fear shot through her as the door opened, her eyes cracking open slowly as the lights filtered through the crack in the doorway. How long had it been? She felt a stupid sense of satisfaction at the fact that her hands were tied behind her back, he would not see them shake in terror and exhaustion.

"D-darling, how I've missed you. Come to me for an explanation again? I h-have to say I'm not surprised that you haven't got it through your head yet. But even Hermione knew you were the stupidest fuck in school right? Always the weakest link" she spat out through her exhaustion, ignoring how foolish she was even now.

"K-Kiara"? A voice trembled, filled with shock and concern. She froze, her breath trapping in her lungs as her heart beat furiously, the figure in the doorway becoming clearer in her vision as more light was let in.

Kiara whimpered, her eyes spilling with with hot tears as she gaped at the frozen figure in the doorway, a desperate relief hitting her. God, she knew she had been right when she had told him that he was the easiest one in the world to love and bring into her small family. Her big brother.

"Theo?!"