For The Greater Good (A Draco Malfoy Story)

Mama

        Color and light assaulted me like never before, resolutely delivering me backwards against a hard chest.

"Lily?" a quiet voice spoke in my right ear as a warm arm wrapped around my midsection. I tried to blink away the many hues clouding my gaze but it only helped to blur everything together. After months of living with only four people, I had grown accustomed to the isolation and the visual solitude. I could usually mute the auras of those I got to know but being abruptly surrounded by so many new people was overwhelming.

"Um. Is-Is there somewhere quiet I can just go for a moment?" I said, trying to keep my voice sturdy and my eyes closed. Draco's arm held me steady as he ushered me to the left where I assumed a room was available for use.

"I've got this," Draco murmured, presumably to Gabriel as I only felt his presence next to me as we walked away. Whispers followed us with every step until I heard the door promptly close.

"You can open your eyes now."

He seemed to sense my hesitation because I felt his cool hand rest against the side of my face, his thumb pressing on my temple gently. "Open," he whispered. I did as he commanded and felt all else fall away into the oblivion that was silence. Too often I felt this energy simmering beneath the surface, ready to take over and seep into every thing within a fifty foot radius. Did he feel the same when he was all alone with that darkness and evil infecting him every time he took a breath? Did he still with the mark gone? As I looked into his eyes of slate, I realized we were the same, Draco and I. Of different upbringings, choices and lifestyles but still the same. I felt our connection every time his gaze cut into me and the shutters were pulled back. Was that why I couldn't shake him? We had hardly even reached the official status of friends back at Hogwarts. Hell, we were enemies at first. Then he had pulled away from me for months on end as we both furthered our own causes. We were miles apart then...but he had still buried himself into my subconscious like a thin splinter in my skin. And now? He had thrown away everything he had grown up with, his family included, to run away with me. What were we....and could we even be anything?

Yes, you could, a voice whispered in my head. He's already been redeemed.

"Is this a habit of yours? Staring, I mean," he said lightly, his blonde eyebrow arching. I felt my neck flush with embarrassment before smiling sheepishly.

"Not usually, but you're a curiosity, Mr. Malfoy."

"I'm not the one fainting in front of people like a bloody woman," he smirked slightly, a glint of who he used to be entering his eyes. My own eyes narrowed and smacked his shoulder not roughly.

"You try walking into large crowds and having them shine a thousand bright lights into your face."

"Um, I'm sorry?"

I shook my head and pulled away from his hold, which I noticed, had stayed around me the whole time before then. "It's the aura thing. New people shine theirs like a damn beacon right into my eyes. I haven't been around many people these past few months, so I just needed time to adjust."

"Right. Well. Should we head back?"

"Don't have much of a choice now, do we?" I sighed and gave him a brief kiss on the cheek before I could give it much thought and walked towards the door. Suddenly, his arm shot out and gripped my own like a gentle vice, pulling me abruptly into his embrace. I gasped as I collided with his chest and his arm held me so close that you couldn't fit a piece of paper between us. "Draco?"

His lips crashed against mine before I could fully release a breath. They molded over mine with precision and tact, sending spiderwebs of emotion through my body as if every single one of my nerve endings were alight and working on overdrive. He expertly bit on my bottom lip, pulling it towards him lightly as if wanting to make it a part of himself. My breaths were coming out in quick pants as his tongue entered my mouth and possessed me, consumed me, marked me. Draco had always been cold, in both manner and skin, but now he was burning me alive the more he deepened the kiss and crushed my body against his. The kiss at the cottage a few months ago had been a walk in the park. This one was a full blown Olympic run on a track field with the wind snapping behind you and your skin and hair being pulled back as if seconds away from tearing because of the ungodly speed. This was running fast enough to break the sound barrier. This was exhilaration and exultation all in one go.