Bound By Blood.

ch.95~Try to listen.

"Meet me.

A conversation is long over-due, not the obvious one.

The one regrading a curly haired girl.

I'll even leave my wand at home.

Bring him, too."

Recovered Translated Correspondents between Order Member Alexandra Brooks, to Unknown Death Eater, 2004.

The Safe house, 2004.

Alexandra.

I've learned how to bury things. How to swallow hard truths, how to conceal lies.

War will teach you that.

Lying to your friends for six years, will make you master it.

So when I woke the follow morning, after Mattheo telling me he needed to listen to his father, that he needed to be a Riddle, I swallowed it.

This was a game to him. Cat and mouse. When he wanted me, when it was convenient to forget his fathers words, and listen to mine, he'd come to me.

And when he decided to fulfill his destiny, I was simply... gone.

We've played this game for years, whats a few more, right?

I know what I did was wrong, horribly morbid. I'm very well aware. I nearly killed his best friend, but I had my reasons. The same way he had his behind his actions.

But it wasn't the game of us that worried me, that old chess game that always had the same outcome, it was the pawn he was on another board.

It was his uncontainable desire to live up to his fathers exceptions, how far he'd go to be worthy in his eyes.

Since he was a boy, it's been like this.

I could have him, fully have him, but the second his father called...

How long until it was a call he couldn't come back from?

He could ignore me, I could take it.

But to lose him... that wasn't an option.

I wouldn't allow him to turn a blind eye to his life, to please a snake.

I needed to get out of this bed. I needed to actually do something, figure out how the fuck I could assure he wouldn't...

Fuck.

With a heavy heart, I swung my legs out of bed, the coolness of the floor a stark contrast to the warmth of the blanket, staring down at the horrible choice of sweater I wore to bed last night... his.

The door loomed ahead, an escape from my own fleeting thoughts. Yet just as I reached for the knob, the door swung open, revealing Hermione's wide-eyed shock.

"Whoa!" she exclaimed, stepping back as if she'd seen a ghost.

It had been some time since we'd really talked, not since—well, since everything unraveled.

I could see the worry etched on her brow, the questions bubbling beneath the surface. I wondered if she could sense it too—that bridge I had created between myself and the others while my secrets slowly came to light.

"Um, did you... you were with him," she stumbled over her words, her curiosity dancing with caution. "Why didn't you kill Malfoy?"

A rush of conflicted emotions swirled within me.