Chapter 9

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𝄞 i know better, but you're still around 𝄞

*

Rain pours in torrents as Harry arrives at the Manor.

Narcissa is nowhere to be found in the house. He darts across the garden to the solarium, from which a deep auburn glow emanates against the rest of the grounds, still shrouded in darkness.

The door clicks shut behind him, and Narcissa looks up from the wicker chair at Draco's side. She has a book spread open in her lap. She looks content. He doesn't bother with a drying spell.

Draco lies peacefully, as always, tucked within the creaseless white sheets like a porcelain doll. A serene expression graces his face, soft lashes fanned over high cheekbones.

Narcissa greets Harry with a warm smile, identical to Draco's in how it crinkles her nose. He carefully walks forward, ducking under low hanging plants. Rain drums on the glass overhead, the only light coming from a small conjured orb.

His heart hammering from the rush of running, he pauses to catch his breath and, while Narcissa's here, thinks over the plan in his mind. He won't tell her about his discovery from the Pensieve.

He stands quietly beside the chair as she continues reading a passage from the novel, her voice rising and falling with the melody of the words in the same way Harry imagines she must have read to him as a child. He likes to think Draco can hear her. It's his favourite part—where the protagonist travels inside her brother's body in order to save him. Ironic, really.

Once finished, she sets the book down on the side table next to a vase filled with sunflowers, and offers Harry her seat.

"That was lovely," Harry says. She clasps his clammy hands, squeezes with a solemn smile, then quietly leaves. He waits for the door to click shut, for the glow of a light to appear within the Manor, and when it does, he lets out the breath he's holding.

Wasting no time, he casts an advanced locking spell, slips a small phial of Calming Draught from one pocket, a phial of Focus Potion from the other, and necks them both. It hits the back of his throat, cold and metallic, spreading under his skin, leaving him relaxed and raring to go.

Rain continues to hammer overhead. He gazes down at Draco—who looks vulnerable, almost child-like in his stillness, ghostly pale under the singular orb of light floating above. He takes another deep breath, wasted on his racing heart.

Draco's life depends on this. All other efforts have been exhausted. He only has one chance.

"Forgive me, sweetheart."

In one hand, he raises his wand. In the other, he threads his fingers in the spaces of Draco's delicate hand, closing it around his own. The tip of the wand trembles inches from Draco's forehead.

"Legilimens."

The light at the tip of the wand erupts around him, and in the blink of an eye, the solarium is swept from under his feet.

༺ ༻

Harry had often dreamt of what it would be like to stand here, in the recesses of Draco Malfoy's mind.

A tapestry of elegance and opulence, perhaps? A landscape akin to the paintings that once graced the walls of his home—a polished childhood, rich and magical—pierced with fragments of a life interrupted. Woven throughout would be pockets of a friendship, passion and acceptance, and, if Harry hoped enough, a boundless presence of love.

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⏰ Last updated: Sep 30 ⏰

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