the girl with all of the choices

t w e n t y - s e v e n

2405 words

september fourth- healing incantations and explanations

I started to slowly walk in the direction of the movement.

"Do you think I'm going to hurt you or something?" a familiar voice teased. Draco. He stepped into the light made by my wand, his blond locks shimmering in the most satisfying way.

"You scared me you idiot," I said, closing the distance between us.

"Sorry darling," he said, his hand reaching down to intertwine itself with mine. I let go of my robes and grabbed his hand.

Crap. My hand. My robes.

He noticed the dampness of my robes and pulled his hand back instinctively before reaching back down to grab my hand again, trying to examine it under the light of my wand.

"What the hell happened? Why are you covered in blood? Did Potter do this? I swear I'll hex that git to Paris and back."

"What- No, no, of course, Harry didn't do this. It's a long story."

"Then you better start talking." He turned my hand over, his eyes growing wide when he saw the back of my palm. "You have to tell someone about this."

I pulled my hand away from him. "I'm not telling anyone."

"Addie, she hurt you. What if she does it again?"

"I just won't get detention again." I folded my arms over my chest and looked down at the floor.

I felt his cold eyes piercing me. But it was different. I could tell he was angry, but he was also worried. I had lost quite a bit of blood. He had a good reason to be worried.

He took a step closer to me and I could feel his warm breath on my forehead.

"Let me see your hand, Addison," he said gently.

I lifted my head to meet his eyes. I swallowed my stubbornness and extended my hand slightly towards him. He tenderly examined the cuts, his hand supporting mine.

"I'm going to touch it, okay? It might hurt, but I need to see how deep it is."

"Draco that's really unnecessary-"

"No, it's not. I'm not letting you walk around this school with your hand torn up. It looks like it hurts to use it, so you need it to be fixed. Let me fix it," he said, his grey eyes searching mine, trying to tell me it would be okay.

He was right, it did hurt to use my hand. I nodded to let him know to continue.

His fingers gently traced the words carved into my flesh. Merlin, it hurt. I inhaled sharply and bit my lip at his touch to keep from whimpering.

"You don't have to be all brave, you know," he said quietly, continuing to examine my hand. "You're hurt, you can sound like it. You're not some sodding Gryffindor." He paused. "Besides, I won't judge you. We've been through worse." His fingers started to graze over an extremely tender spot on my hand. I inhaled sharply, in pain. "Shit, I'm sorry," he said. "This is really deep here. You got it bad."

"That's what I get for writing thirteen lines with a blood quill," I said under my breath.

"Thirteen? Are you mad?"

"I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of knowing I'm weak," I admitted, my eyes falling back down to my feet.

"You're not weak. If you were weak you would have stopped at two," he said, chuckling a bit at his words. "No, you're anything but weak. But you are stubborn... and you're fiercely loyal to your friends, a-and you're brave when you don't have to be," he stuttered a bit on his words. I could tell he was uncomfortable, never having said things like this before. "And you're brilliant... and funny, and you're great at kissing, and you're patient, and you write the best letters and give the best hugs. You're not weak. You got through your best friend's death. You're really fucking strong."