About Last Night

Footprints

Draco knew.

He should have listened to that voice in that back of his head—that same voice that had been whispering in his ear since he was a teenage boy blinded and marked by the Dark Lord, guilty for crimes greater than him. It always told him something was not right. It always told him he would never know anything real, anything pure.

But Draco dropped his defenses for her.

She came into his life as more than a passing shadow, as more than a one-night stand gone wrong. She clutched onto him, refusing to be shaken off until he was forced to accept her. Until he was forced to see her overwhelming light—a light he wanted so desperately to bathe in, to cure him of all the darkness he carried.

He should have known it was an impossible concept. She was his recurring nightmare, after all. By now Draco had learned his demons would never extend a hand out to him, ready to make a truce to heal what plagued his head.

This was his punishment.

"You're wrong," Lovegood told him, blue eyes darkening despite their glistening. A frown had settled on the faint lines of her pale face. Draco thought her entire expression odd. "Your life is not on a loop. That's exactly what these sessions were carefully designed to teach you. You do not have to constantly relive your dark days, nor do you have to keep punishing yourself for them. This is not how forgiveness works, Draco."

With a scoff, Draco started reaching for the firewhiskey at the corner of her desk. Lovegood intercepted the bottle before he did, making him glare when she instead slid a cup of tea closer to him. "You're missing the point," he said with a low growl. "I can't be forgiven. That's exactly what these sessions were carefully designed to teach us."

"The Ministry worked hard to—"

Draco stood from the eccentric, embroidered armchair across from Lovegood's neatly cluttered desk. He buttoned his pristine jacket, looking down at her impatiently as usual. He was inclined to call her a foolish, naive child as he often did, but the rare glisten in her eyes threatened to fall down to her cheeks.

"You tried," he said with a reluctant sigh. "There are some things you just cannot change, Lovegood. The way the world collects its debt for our sins and the way we've learnt to accept it just happens to be some of those things."

Lovegood pursed her lips, nodding once. Draco raised a brow at her; he had expected her to continue preaching, to offer him foreign remedies of how to cure his heartache, but he got none of that. Instead, she looked down at her hands for a brief moment before opening the left drawer of her desk. She pulled out a thin, black file she hesitantly extended toward him.

"You could always Floo in," she reminded with a murmur.

Draco took the file, giving her another scoff, this time without any real malice behind it. "We both know I'm not coming back."

He headed for the door, reaching for the handle when he heard her let out a shaky breath. It made him frown again. He was annoyed at her, but not in the way he usually was. His stomach burned when he realized his frustration had formed out of the unwanted thought that he had upset her.

"Do you love Blaise?" He turned around to look at her, finding her somehow small and defenseless behind her giant desk.

Before his head could fill with the memory of the night she was dragged in to Malfoy Manor, beaten and then thrown into the cold cellar, Lovegood gave him her rudimentary response of, "We're not here to talk about my personal life, Draco. These sessions are about you."

"I'm not asking as a patient. I'm asking as a friend."

A small smile formed at the corner of Lovegood's mouth. "Yes. I believe so."