PRINCESS ➳ harry potter , draco malfoy (OLD VERSION)

105 || It's Always You

A/N (IMPORTANT): This chapter is set just over two months after the previous one. Sorry for the huge time jump but I didn't want to include too many more filler chapters.

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It was midnight. Stars painted the black canvas of the cloudless night sky and the moon hung bright over Hogwarts. Katerina Blair was sat at the top of the Astronomy Tower, her legs pulled close to her chest, staring down over the Lake, the surface of which twinkled in the starlight.

"Can't sleep?"

She did not look around, she did not say anything. Over her last three weeks at Hogwarts, she had learned that if she just ignored Draco Malfoy, he would eventually leave her alone.

Footsteps echoed across the Astronomy Tower and Draco sat himself next to Katerina.

"What do you want?" she asked, not taking her eyes away from the Lake.

Draco shrugged. "Nothing."

"Then why are you here?"

It took Draco about a minute to respond, and when he did, Katie received an answer that she was not expecting.

"I took you up here one night in fourth year, remember?" Draco said.

Katie racked her brain and discovered a memory that she did not even know she had. On the first night of their fourth year of school, Katie was upset because her father had died and Leo and her mother were missing, so Draco took her up to the top of the Astronomy Tower so she could get away from the large crowds in the school below.

This was one of the few times that Katerina saw the real Draco. She had said it before and she would say it again; Draco Malfoy was nothing like his father.

"I was upset about my dad." Katie mumbled.

"And worried about your brother."

"And then Filch caught us." Katie added with a chuckle, smiling as she reminisced on the good times before Voldemort had returned and wreaked havoc on the world.

"You know," Draco began, and his voice was oddly much quieter than it had been moments before. "That night, I.. I really wanted to kiss you."

"But you didn't." Katie noted.

Draco shook his head. "No, I didn't."

For the first time since Draco had sat down beside her, Katie looked at him and she frowned. He did not look any better than he had when they first reunited at Malfoy Manor all those weeks ago. Maybe the moonlight was exaggerating his features, but he seemed so pale and sleepless that he almost appeared dead.

"Why didn't you?" Katie asked.

Draco started fumbling with the hem of his sleeve, avoiding Katie's eyes.

"I didn't think you'd want me to."

Katie gazed back out at the stars. "I always made excuses for you," she said. "I always tried so hard to convince Harry, Ron and Hermione that, deep down, you were a good person."

Draco let out a heavy sigh of dismay. "I know." he mumbled.

Without thinking about it, without stopping to contemplate her decision, Katie took Draco's hand, which seemed to surprise him because his head snapped up and he dared to look the girl in the eyes.

"It's not the fact that you tried to kill Dumbledore," Katie said, shaking her head. "It's the fact that, all year, you were plotting it behind my back. The whole time I was falling for you, you were hiding this huge secret."

"I know," Draco shuffled closer to her. His eyes were welling with tears. "I messed up, Rina, and I'll feel guilty about it for the rest of my life."

Katie chewed her lip. "You promised me, Draco," her voice cracked. "You promised me you wouldn't join him. You promised me you hadn't--"