Of Doves and Dragons

Chapter Seven: When the Other Shoe Dropped

"The world disarms before a flesh and you are not allowed to be anybody else. Control what you can and confront what you can't. And always remember how lucky you are to have yourself."

-The Maine, (Un)Lost

Ember bounced back fast.

A long week had passed at the manor. Ember gave herself a day to throw herself a pity party and then she locked up the pain and the heartache and safely stored away the key. It wouldn't do to dwell on the inevitable. If Draco hadn't figured out an alternative in the past two years, she certainly wasn't going to find one in a few weeks. She couldn't even remember what her dreams of the future had been, or maybe she never even really had any. It was a moot point anyway. She had been given a new future, one that she wasn't going to make more difficult with a gloomy attitude.

Once the veil had been lifted, and all the important truths had been told, it became much easier with Draco and Narcissa. Their meals had become something Ember looked forward to. The discussions had become relaxed and informative just as her days in the sun with Draco had. She didn't like to linger in the manor more than necessary, so on days when the sun shined she dragged Draco outdoors. Or maybe drag wasn't the right word. She hadn't asked or insisted that Draco keep her company, he always just followed her.

She thought that maybe he was bored and teasing her was more entertaining than lounging in the manor like a house cat. It didn't matter to her, she always welcomed him with a smile, her heart fluttering at the thought that he had intentionally seeked her out.

That smile, so soft and gentle, drew him back to her time and again but it was her intellect that made him stay. He actually enjoyed spending time with her. He enjoyed answering her questions about the magical world that he lived in. He enjoyed just being around her and soaking in her own inner peace like a fucking mosquito. She was a roaring fire in the depths of the dark forest he had been imprisoned in; he couldn't help but huddle near it, draw its warmth, and relish in its light.

They were as smooth as they could be. The waves had rocked the rocky relationship they had built but it proved to be stronger than either anticipated. Perhaps there was something about two souls sharing the same fate that connected them when he thought it would pit them against each other. He knew how lucky he was to have her. It could have been so much worse. He could have been stuck with an overly-pretentious vain bitch. That is what he had been expecting, not the sweet inquisitive girl that sat next to him. He learned that he should never have underestimated or assumed the worst in her. She broke the mold he tried to fit her in every time, without a care.

Draco knew that this time would be short lived. These afternoons where they lazed out in the sun would soon return to foreboding nights. It was only a matter of time before Voldemort showed up. He refused to imagine how Ember fit into that picture. His mother had become jittery, though she tried, and failed, to conceal it around him. He had a bad feeling that the Dark Lord would not take well to Ember or their arrangement. He unconsciously rubbed his mark through his long sleeves, an inescapable sigh slipping past his lips.

"What?" Ember asked from above him. She was sat cross legged in the grass beside him as he laid next to her. She brushed her wavy hair behind her ear and sighed, "I'm boring you, aren't I?"

He shook his head, the ghost of a smile on his face. "No. Just a lot on my mind is all."

"Oh..." She whispered seriously, closing Hogwarts: A History and set it down in the grass between them. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Her voice was soft and hesitant. Somewhere in the back of her mind she had trained herself to not think that she was sitting with her future husband and to remind herself that she was sitting with Draco, who over the past couple of weeks had managed be become her best friend- her only friend. Still, he was reserved when it came to explaining personal details of himself to her. Sure, his culture and his opinions were up for grabs but the him that made him him, she had yet to really see.