dear draco,

thirty-two

I know you're happier now but it hurts.     

-

Easter arrives early this year, and before I know it, the Hogwarts Express has rolled back into Platform 9 ¾, the frost on the windows having barely melted from the icy months before. Draco pulls me into an empty compartment, tucks a strand of dirty blonde hair behind my ears and tells me he'll see me soon, tells me to keep safe, tells me he wishes everything could be different but he swears it will be, in time. Kisses me like kissing can save his life.

And when we stand on the platform and he has no choice but to go home, to go back to a house built on unhappiness; when he has turned away and his hand has slipped out of mine and he thinks I am no longer watching, I catch a sour expression pulling at his pale face. The boy who had no choice.

But besides his sharp edges, Draco is becoming more and more like his old self – the boy full of smirks, sarcasm and snarky comments; the boy who pinned me against a wall and murmured in my ear when we were supposed to be bitter enemies. That was the exhilaration I glimpsed today. My head still spins from his touch – on my hands, neck, then my waist, then my legs – and then gone, snatched away from me suddenly as his friends opened the compartment door. Unfortunately.

I jump as a hand catches my shoulder.

"Isobel," says Ginny. She looks breathless and somewhat windswept. "I've been calling your name for ages."

I try desperately to wrench my mind from the compartment, from my fingers in his soft hair-

"Sorry. I was just thinking about something."

Ginny wrinkles her nose. "I hope it wasn't Malfoy. You've gone pink, you know."

I feel my cheeks heat up even more. "Just homework."

Ginny gives me a look that says I might as well have told her I was thinking of proposing to Filch. "Regardless of whatever disgusting things were going on in your brain-" she says, and I supress a smile – "I have something really important to tell you."

She glances at the crowd around us, then pulls me behind a pillar. I frown. "What-"

"Remus Lupin is here," says Ginny in hushed tones, her eyes not on me but darting between the people that swarm around us, anxious to know that no one is listening in. "I asked him if he had any news on Luna. He hasn't heard anything, but is sure all captives are being held in-" her eyes finally fall on mine – "Malfoy Manor."

The words are sharp as knives, and a mass of questions fling themselves at me at once. Are Draco and Luna under the same roof? Are Draco's parents the ones keeping her hostage? Is Malfoy Manor really that bad? I blink. "It can't be. He'd know... Draco would have known, surely, if Luna was being held in his house."

"What if he did know?" says Ginny urgently. "Maybe he didn't tell you. Isobel, this is our only lead-"

"Of course he would have told me," I say, stung that she still distrusts him like this.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Is Remus sure..."

Ginny nods slowly. "Is it possible Malfoy doesn't know? That his parents didn't tell him? Because I really think Remus is onto something. It's a big, intimidating house, with lots of security measures; it's the perfect place for hostages."

As much as I hate the idea of Luna imprisoned in some room, I can feel comfort creeping into my heart - Draco's home sounds a thousand times better than the tiny, cold cell I'd imagined her in.