Entranced (Draco Malfoy)

•two•

The next day, Dove Taylor is curled up on her favorite green chair in the library, the book Draco had given her resting in her lap. She's two quarters of the way done with it, once again entranced.

But somehow, she's distracted. She keeps looking up every so often, as if looking for someone. She doesn't understand why she cannot get completely lost in the book until his voice breaks through her reading.

"I'm assuming you like the book?"

"Draco!" Dove exclaims quietly, her head shooting up. That's what she had been anticipating or rather hoping for. "You're here."

"You were expecting me?" He asks cockily, looking as if he regretted saying those words.

Dove can't hold back a grin at his obvious regret, before nodding a bit, "I-I wanted to see you."

Draco, who is not one to be surprised often, was one-hundred percent, completely surprised. He gestures to the chair beside her.

"May I?"

The brunette nods, her dark green eyes brimming with gratitude. Draco scoots the chair closer to her before sitting, the chairs now touching.

"While I did want you to come, I'm also surprised you did," Dove admits after a beat of silence. "I thought last night was a one time thing."

Her last sentence echoes within Draco's mind: one time thing, one time thing, one time thing.

"No," he instantly protests. "No. Nothing about you is a one time thing."

Dove can't breathe. The air has been sucked from her lungs as she replays his words. She can't respond, but the boy seems to understand that. She swallows, instead focusing on just gazing at him.

"Dove?" Harry Potter's voice breaks through their moment, momentarily startling the slight girl.

Instead, she looks up at him with a tiny smile, "Hello, Harry."

"I..." He can't seem to get his words out, his eyes keep flickering from her to Draco and back again. "I wasn't aware you two were a couple."

Dove opens her mouth to protest, but Draco is faster than her, "Well, now you know."

Her eyes widen, and she quickly looks over at him, but he doesn't look back. His hand reaches over the chair's arm-handles to cradle hers, rubbing the back of her hand in slow rhythms. She only just manages to hold in a gasp. She swallows, all ability to speak gone. 

She shouldn't be too surprised; she knows how possessive Draco is when it comes to things that he deems his. She especially knows how ornery he gets when Harry is involved. Her cheeks flush red as she looks at their joined hands. 

"Oh, well, right then," Harry quips, looking at her once more before beginning to walk away.

"Harry, wait," Dove calls, and he pauses, turning back around. "Do you need me?"

"Yes."

She made a promise at the start of her second year to her parents, the memory still extremely vivid in her mind.

"Dove, I need you to make us a promise," Lorraine Taylor says to her daughter, voice serious.

"What is it, Mum?" Dove asks, grinning.

She's antsy to get onto the train and to Draco. The two had corresponded all summer, sending countless letters and gifts and owls to the other. He'd asked her just yesterday to sit with him on the train ride, and of course, she'd agreed.

"Harry Potter is the Wizarding World's only hope. There is a storm brewing, I know it." Dove quiets, her happiness chilled. "I need you to promise me that if Harry Potter ever needs you or your help, that you will go to him and do all you can to help him."