dear draco,

thirty-one

After a year and a half apart, Draco and I have a lot of catching up to do. In the long hours we spend in that solitary classroom, I barely skim the surface of all the things I want to tell and ask. But before we know it, the sky outside is pitch black and we have missed dinner by hours, and he is kissing me goodnight and promising that tomorrow will be a better day.

I have a lot to tell him. But there is a lot I don't tell him, because I feel ashamed and guilty and undeserving of his love. I don't tell him that that night, Neville and Ginny are still awake, waiting in the common room for me. I don't tell him how they try to talk me out of it, like the countless times before. I don't tell him how I finally, finally stand my own ground and tell them I can love whoever the hell I want to love. I don't tell him the shame that burns inside of me – I had two years to defend myself and Draco, and I am only doing it now.

The days flick by slowly, like well-worn pages of a weathered book. It's an amalgam of tired smiles across library tables and Draco wrapping his scarf around my neck on windy winter days, of dusty books as we cram for exams that we will soon be sitting - if the school isn't blown apart before then. Of the hungry kisses of two people who have missed each other like crazy. Of averting my eyes whenever Draco rolls up the sleeves of his jumper, of the twisted black serpent glaring up at us. There are monsters on the horizon, hazy and heinous, but I pretend I can't see them.

But even though I am consciously pretending that everything is okay; pretending that we aren't ghosts of the people we once were; I am happier than I have been in months. Everything definitely isn't okay, but with Draco beside me, that is easier to forget.

Draco wills himself to forget with a vigour, aggressively certain that we are alright, that everything is fine now that we're together. This is what he echoes as I point out snowdrops blooming near the crevices of the Great Lake; whisperings of Spring. "Things are getting better," he says. "The world knows it."

I lie on my back, squinting at the February sun. "You think so?"

"I know so."

A cold breeze hits my cheeks. We are lying on a bank by the Great Lake, and as we are the only people around, the only other sound is the faint, cheerful chirping of a couple of nearby birds.

"I'm sorry I didn't listen," I say carefully. "That night after... After the Astronomy Tower. I might have understood, we might have had so much more time together..."

I watch Draco's mouth tilt into a sad smile. "I was kind of glad, to be honest," he says. "I wanted you there, obviously, but I keep thinking that having you hate me was the perfect excuse to keep you away from me. To keep you safe."

I jut out my chin, drawing my hands in patterns along the grass. "You're always trying to keep me so damn safe, Draco. I'm perfectly capable-"

"I know, I know," Draco says. "You can take care of yourself, bla bla bla." He leans over me, smirking. The grass under my fingertips is a deep green, saturated, healthy and cold from the winter precipitation, but I can barely feel it, as my every sense is concentrated on him.

I try to memorize it: the fractals of colour in his eyes; the crinkles at the corners when he grins. The way the sun moves as he does; bobbing in and out behind him; the light breaking through his hair and revealing dozens of shades in the white blond, and through his long, fair eyelashes as he blinks.

"I'm an idiot," I say loudly, and the vision above me raises an eyebrow. "I could have got this – you – back so long ago, but I was too stubborn to see my own mistakes."

Draco leans on his elbow. "What mistakes?"

"I doubted you. I began to associate you with all the stereotypes I've ever known of Death Eaters-" Draco winces at the word – "instead of trusting the boy I knew. Just like I doubted my dad." I squeeze my eyes shut so he disappears from my vision. "I don't know why you even like me."

I feel a kiss on jawline. "Because you're brave."

"You don't have to answer-"

He kisses my cheekbone. "And you're kind, and funny." Then, he kisses my forehead. "And you're cute when you're scrappy."

I groan. "You're so cringy."

Draco taps my nose so I open my eyes. "And finally, because you're the fairest maiden in all the land."

I crack up, and so does he, wrapping his fingers in mine as he laughs.

He flops back on the grass beside me, stretches out his arms. "When this is over," he says, "we'll run away. To a little cottage, somewhere hidden and solitary. You like the sea, right?" I nod, silenced by his gaze – such excitement, such optimism. "We'll go to the sea then," he continues decisively, "and we'll live in a tiny cottage right beside it. We'll lie on the beach and build sandcastles and breathe in salty air all day long. And we'll forget all the people that ever told us no."

I smile, impressed by his hopefulness, but I can't push away the niggling feeling – what if that day never comes?

"Doesn't that sound amazing?" he says when I don't respond. "We'd be so happy."

"I'm happy right now."

He draws circles on my arm. I think, for a moment, I've offended him, but his voice is patient. "Why don't you want to think about the future?"

"I didn't say that," I reply slowly. But Draco is right and I know the answer: he believes the world is getting better, while I believe it's breaking.

I don't tell him this. This happy side of him is one I haven't seen in a long time. Telling him I expect the school to combust into flames at any second would only crush it.

So I lie back, I close my eyes to hide the doubt, and I murmur, "tell me about it then. Tell me about the cottage."

Draco speaks as if he hasn't spoken to another person in years, telling of a house that is covered in cushions and blankets and huge windows where we can sit and watch the rain, and he can read and I can write, and we are the only people for miles. We will go for walks by the shore in the evening, watching the sun dip under the ocean-blue horizon, and sleep in the largest, softest bed we could ever imagine. He speaks and he speaks, and he traces tiny pictures on my arm of a couple dancing on a moonlit beach, never speaking to anyone but each other for the rest of our lives; just the two of us until we are old and frail.