DISCONTINUED--Letters I Can't Send (draco x reader)

42

Draco's POV

As soon as my lips brush against hers, I think she is pulling away, but as soon as I catch a glimpse of her eyes rolling back into her head—

"Ellis," I say, gripping her face. "Ellis."

I shake her. Nothing.

Okay, don't freak out, don't freak out, I have to tell myself.

I lay her back and into my lap. My fingers find her hair, stroking it, and wait, wishing, hoping for this to end.

I get a strange déjà vu. From last year when everyone was camped out in the Great Hall for the night. I remember finding her, sobbing in a stairwell. Right after the ice-cream man raped her. I feel myself tense up at the memory, of how hurt she had been. Physically and emotionally. I take a deep breath to calm myself down. It angers me beyond imagination.

If anyone ever hurt her again—who knows what I'll do. More than just a punch.

I remember stroking her hair as she laid in my lap, I remember the scratches on her back, the red marks on her neck from where he held her, and identical ones on her wrists.

I glance down at where her wrists lay on her stomach. Without thinking, I pick it up and inspect the skin below her palms. Just as I had thought, scars mare the flesh. I can only imagine what her spine looks like. I shudder slightly.

Then, in only a minute or two that she was out, she's back and sitting up, gasping. "Ellis," I breathe.

She looks up, spins her head to look at me, her features blatantly horrified.

..........

She sits opposite of me on the couch, not looking at me. Her knees curl to her chest, much like earlier.

"I don't understand, Ellis." I start. "This is the second time you passed out or something, and you won't speak to me now."

She glances at me. Then she looks away again. "There's not much to say," she says. "My father was a psychic, and now I am too."

My brows furrow. "What?" I grind out. She glances at me again, her face unmistakably miserable. "So...that was a...vision or some bloody shit?"

She nods.

"Well—so, what did you see?" I lean forward, studying her, intrigued.

She rolls her eyes. "It's not like it's fun or anything," she grumbles.

"Is that why you were crying?" I ask quietly.

"In a way," she's back to not looking at me. "I think this 'tutoring' is over." She gets up from the couch and makes her way to her things, throwing her bag over her shoulder.

I stand as well. "Why won't you tell me what happened?" I ask, catching her forearm. She stops, stiffens immediately and I realize what I've done. I let go without saying a word.

She turns slowly to look up at me. The way she looks at me is dangerous. I've done something wrong. "If you must know," she starts in a low voice that makes me regret grabbing her arm. "it was my parents' wedding."

I pinch my brows further together. "But if it was happy—"

"It's not fun to see, over and over again," she snaps. "to see the people you love and not be able to see them and be with them! It's not fun to see the past of a person you can't ever see again! Because she's fucking dead, Draco! So I can't appreciate it when it's practically unbearable to see her knowing she's gone. So don't try to tell me that it would enjoyable, when you have no fucking idea." She's yelling now.

She used my first name.

She is huffing now, her eyes filling with tears. And she's right. She's always right. I don't know, and how could I?

She used my first name.

I take a shallow breath, and want to say something, but she's looking at me. She's looking at me like she's desperate. Like she needs something but isn't quite sure what it is that she wants.

She's watching me, unblinking, her chest heaving from her passion in yelling at me. She watches me the entire few movements take to cage her against me again. She doesn't protest, so I don't stop. I don't flinch when she pounds her fists against my chest—not because she's mad at me, or doesn't want to be hugged. It's because she is in pain. She's exhausted and defeated and I hate the wave of pity that washes over me, because I know she would never allow me to feel it.

I don't mention how she said my first name, or that I want to hear about what she saw in her vision, or that we almost kissed. I say nothing of the sort.

Until she speaks first. "My mother loved roses," she whispers. "there was always one on the mantle. It was golden. That's what I saw. She must have got the rose at her wedding." Her voice sounds so weak. And it stabs me in the gut.

"A golden rose, yeah?" I say, bending my head down a bit to be closer to her ear. A sudden urgency rushes through me to find all the golden roses in the world and give them to her. Because she more than deserves it.

I lifts her head to look at me. I'm happy to see her cheeks dry, but her eyes are still red-rimmed. I slip my arm around her waist, keeping her locked to me. I tilt her chin up with my finger and inspect her face, a small grin tugging at the corners of my lips.

I watch the color taint her cheeks and my grin widens. I bend my head again, this time to come to eyes level with her, our faces barely inches apart. I feel my stomach flip when I look at her lips.

I hear her breath hitch when I lean closer. Then she shifts away, out of my arms.

She picks up her things from the floor and is out of the Room of Requirement. I watch her leave, now upset with myself for pushing her too far and at the wrong time.

So I wait a little longer, then leave the room, heading the long way to common room.

She said my name.