Bound By Blood.

ch.28~ Goodbye, for now.

"I don't think this will ever reach you. 

I don't know if you're alive... I don't think you are.

I'm long gone now, Brookie. 

But I still remember you."

Recovered Undelivered Translated Correspondents between Death Eater Mattheo Riddle, to Order Memeber Alexandra Brooks, Dated somewhere in-between 2001 and 2002. 

Hogwarts, 1997.

Mattheo.

I held her for longer than I should have. 

I know that. But when she climbed into my lap, and placed her head in the space between my collar bone and my jaw, nothing else mattered. 

The crumbling edges of expectation blurred into nothingness, replaced by the warmth radiating from her against me. 

She anchored me, grounding me in a reality I knew was about to shatter.

Each heartbeat pulsed with the weight of unspoken goodbyes. 

A part of me was already mourning the loss of her. Of myself, because I could tell by the way she wrapped her legs around my body, never lifting her head, never meeting my eyes. 

I could tell I would never ever come close, to how I felt right now. 

I would never feel like this again. 

I would never be so open with another, so accepted by another, so... hers. 

I would never be me again. 

Not truly. 

I felt the irony sting: here we were, wrapped in each other like this was normal, yet soon we would be on a battlefield with the line drawn. 

Because as I looked down on her, silently squeezing the middle of my body, with her head still tucked into me, I realized what I've always wondered, the one question I couldn't ever answer. 

Alexandra Brooks is her own person. She is ruthless, she's snappy, she doesn't care who you are or where you come from, she will never falter to put you back into your place. Not even I was exempt from her sharp tongue, or looks that could so easily kill. And above all, she never failed to do what she believed in, and what she believed in was Harry Potter. So damn anyone who went against her, once again not something I was exempt from. 

She was, and forever would only belong and obey to herself. 

And that is exactly what drew me into her. 

She was so misunderstood, so judged, and quite the opposite underneath it all. 

Because, beneath that exterior, she opened up to me. She showed me her, her fears, her dreams, her hopes and wishes for her future. She showed me her. And in return, I showed her me. Never once did she run, hide, or expose my secrets. Instead, they became hers too. Something, I was so unfamiliar with. 

So as I said goodbye to her, I said goodbye to my self. 

I tightened my grip, almost as if I could shield her from the fate that awaited us.

But I couldn't. 

No one could. 

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