Draco Malfoy | Forbidden Love

The first thing you remembered was the cold. Not the sharp winter cold outside, though there had been plenty of that. The cold stone beneath your knees. The cold metal of the chair you had been tied to. The cold touch of a wand pressed against your skin. After that, your memories became fragments.

A voice. A curse. The sound of someone laughing. The sudden, blinding pain that had made the world disappear. Then darkness. Then more pain.

You had been taken during the winter holidays. Hogwarts had been nearly empty by then, the castle slowly becoming quieter as students returned home to their families. You had left the protection of the school grounds believing, as you had done countless times before, that you were going somewhere safe. You had been wrong.

The Order had warned everyone to be careful. You had been careful. It had not been enough. The people who found you had known exactly where to look. You remembered the masks. You remembered the black robes. You remembered fighting. You remembered trying to reach for your wand. You remembered someone taking it from you. After that, the memories became less clear.

There had been questions. They had wanted information. You had refused. So they had continued. By the time you were dragged into Malfoy Manor, you were barely conscious. Your clothes were torn. Your body was covered in bruises. Blood had dried along your face and at the corner of your mouth. One of your wrists hung uselessly at your side, your fingers trembling from exhaustion as a masked Death Eater pulled you forward by the back of your robes.

You stumbled. The Death Eater jerked you upright.

“Move.”

You tried. Your legs nearly gave out beneath you. The doors ahead opened. The room beyond was enormous. The walls of Malfoy Manor rose into darkness, illuminated by candlelight that cast long shadows across the polished floor. A massive table dominated the center of the room, surrounded by Death Eaters dressed in black.

Lucius Malfoy sat near the head of the table, his pale face rigid with controlled attention. Narcissa sat beside him, perfectly composed. Bellatrix Lestrange lounged in her chair with an expression of almost childish delight, her dark eyes immediately finding you. Alecto Carrow. Yaxley. Dolohov. Rookwood. Faces that had become familiar in the nightmares of an entire country. And at the head of the table sat Lord Voldemort. Nagini rested beside him. The enormous snake moved slowly across the floor, its body sliding through the candlelight as its head lifted, tongue flicking in your direction.

The room became quiet. You were pushed forward. Your knees struck the floor. The sound echoed through the room.

And then Draco Malfoy looked up.

He had been sitting several seats away from his parents, dressed in black robes, his posture rigid and controlled. He had been listening. He had been pretending to listen. Because the moment he saw you, the entire room seemed to disappear. For a second, Draco did not understand what he was seeing. His mind refused to put the pieces together. The blood. The bruises. The torn clothes. The way you were struggling to remain conscious. The way you barely seemed capable of holding your head upright. His eyes moved over you once. Then again. As though looking a second time might somehow make the image different. It did not.

You were a student at Hogwarts. His classmate. Someone he had seen in corridors. In classrooms. In the library. Someone he had argued with over assignments and every possible thing two stubborn people could possibly disagree about. You were supposed to be at home. Or at Hogwarts. Or somewhere safe. Not here. Not on the floor of his family’s house. Not surrounded by Death Eaters. Not looking like this.

“Well,” Voldemort said.

His voice was soft. Almost amused. The silence shattered. Draco’s eyes moved toward him. Voldemort was watching him. Not you.

Him.

That was when Draco understood. The Dark Lord had noticed. Of course he had. Voldemort noticed everything.

“An interesting discovery,” Voldemort continued.

Bellatrix smiled.

“She was far more stubborn than expected. She refused to tell us where the others were.” Her eyes moved toward you. “Several times.”

Draco’s jaw tightened, his fingers slowly curled against the armrest of his chair. He did not know. That was the part that struck him hardest. He had not known. You had been working for the Order of the Phoenix. You had been fighting against them. Against his family. Against Voldemort. And somehow, you had managed to stand beside him at Hogwarts every day without him realizing.

“How unfortunate for her.” His voice sounded calm. Controlled. Cold. It was almost convincing. Almost.

Voldemort leaned back in his chair.

“Is that what you think?”

Draco’s eyes lifted.

“My Lord?”

“You know her..."

It was not a question. Draco said nothing. The silence stretched.

“She was in the Order,” Voldemort continued. "All this time...”

Draco said nothing.

“You shared classes. You worked together. You spent a considerable amount of time alone with her.”

Draco’s expression did not change. But his fingers tightened against the chair. Voldemort rose slowly from his chair. The movement drew everyone’s attention. Nagini lifted her head. Voldemort began walking around the table. Every step was deliberate. He stopped beside you. You barely reacted. His wand lifted. And Draco stood before he realized he had moved.

The chair scraped sharply against the floor. Every eye in the room turned toward him. Draco froze. For one terrible second, nobody spoke. Voldemort looked at him. Then at you. Then back at him. The smile that appeared on his face was almost gentle.

“Ah. That is interesting...”

The entire stadium was waiting for Draco Malfoy to win. It was not an unreasonable expectation. He had spent years making certain that people expected nothing less.

The Slytherin stands were a sea of green and silver beneath the grey November sky, banners snapping violently in the wind while hundreds of students shouted from the stands. The pitch below was slick with rain, the grass dark beneath the clouds, and the air carried the sharp, electric tension that always came before a match.

Draco thrived in moments like this. He belonged above the ground. On the pitch, no one could question his name. No one could challenge his position. No one could pretend that he was anything other than exactly what he had spent years insisting he was. The whistle blew. The match began.

Within seconds, the sky became chaos.

Players shot across the pitch, cloaks snapping behind them as the Quaffle passed between hands and Bludgers tore through the air. The stands erupted with every near miss, every successful pass, every violent collision.

Draco barely heard any of it. His entire attention was focused on the Snitch. A flash of gold. There.

He turned sharply. His broom responded instantly, diving through the rain. For several seconds, the world became nothing but wind. The stadium disappeared behind him. The roar of the crowd became distant. The Snitch flashed again. Draco reached for it. And then someone overtook him.

You.

For one impossible second, Draco simply stared. You had come from nowhere. Your broom cut across his path, forcing him to pull sharply to the side before the two of you collided. The Snitch disappeared between you. The crowd erupted.

Draco’s expression changed. Not fear. Not surprise. Offense. Pure, immediate offense. He turned his broom toward you.

“You did that deliberately.”

The wind tore the words away, but you heard him. He accelerated. So did you. The two of you raced through the sky, weaving between the other players while the crowd below screamed with excitement. Draco had always been fast. He had always been better. He had spent years training until his body knew how to move before he had time to think. He understood the pitch, the wind, the angles, the way the Snitch moved when it sensed pursuit. And yet you remained beside him. That was the problem. You remained beside him.

The Snitch appeared again. This time, you saw it first. Draco saw you see it. His eyes narrowed.

“Don’t.”

You accelerated. Draco swore then followed. The two of you shot across the pitch, nearly level with one another as the golden ball darted through the rain. The crowd was on its feet now. The match had stopped being a match. Everyone was watching. Draco could feel it. Every eye. Every voice. Every expectation.

He was supposed to win. He always won.

The Snitch twisted sharply. You followed. And Draco followed you. You reached for it. So did he. Your hands closed around the golden ball at exactly the same time. Your hands closed around the golden ball at exactly the same time. For one breathless second, neither of you moved. Then the whistle blew. The stadium exploded. The referee descended toward you, shouting something about a simultaneous catch.

Draco stared at the Snitch. Then at your hand. Then at you. Slowly, very slowly, his expression became something dangerous.

“You.”

Near midnight, Hogwarts became a different place. During the day, the castle was loud with movement. Students hurried between classes, portraits shouted at one another from their frames, staircases shifted without warning, and the corridors remained filled with the constant noise of hundreds of young witches and wizards living beneath the same ancient roof.

At night, all of that disappeared. The castle fell silent. Not completely, of course. Hogwarts was never truly silent. Somewhere in the distance, a suit of armor occasionally shifted. Portraits whispered behind their curtains. The wind pressed against the tall windows, making the glass tremble faintly in its frame. The castle itself seemed to breathe around you, old stone settling into old stone as the corridors stretched endlessly beneath the moonlight.

You were late. Not by a few minutes. Late enough that the patrol should have already begun. The Head Students’ office had been empty when you finally arrived, the parchment detailing the night’s patrol left untouched on the desk. You had assumed Draco would have gone ahead without you.

You were wrong.

A figure leaned against the stone archway leading into the corridor, arms folded across his chest, his posture relaxed in the particular way that suggested he had been waiting for some time and was determined to make certain you knew it.

The silver Head Student badge pinned to his robes caught the moonlight. Draco Malfoy looked up as you approached. His pale eyes moved slowly over you, taking in your appearance with the sort of deliberate judgment that made it clear he had already decided to be unimpressed before you had even spoken. For several seconds, he said nothing. Then his gaze returned to your face.

“You’re late.”

His voice was cool. Not loud. It didn’t need to be. Draco had always possessed the irritating ability to make even the simplest statement sound like a personal accusation. He pushed himself away from the stone wall and adjusted the cuff of his sleeve with a sharp, instinctive movement before beginning to walk.

“I told McGonagall that making us work together was idiotic.”

He passed you without waiting to see whether you followed, his shoulder brushing against yours as he moved by.

“Not that she listened, obviously.”

The corridor stretched ahead, lit only by the pale glow of the enchanted torches mounted along the walls. Draco walked with the effortless confidence of someone who had never once questioned whether he belonged wherever he happened to be. Even in the middle of the night, even with the castle asleep around him, he carried himself like the corridors belonged to him. Perhaps, in his mind, they did. After a few steps, he glanced back.

“Well?” His expression sharpened. “Are you coming, or do I have to explain to McGonagall that my partner for the evening was defeated by the terrifying challenge of arriving on time?”

He turned away again before you could answer. For a moment, the two of you continued through the empty corridor. The silence between you was familiar. So was the irritation.

You had spent the entire year competing with one another over grades, authority, responsibilities, and nearly every other subject Hogwarts could possibly provide. If you were not arguing over a disciplinary decision, you were disagreeing over patrol schedules. If you were not competing academically, you were finding new reasons to challenge one another in front of everyone else. Being appointed Head Students together had not improved the situation.

If anything, it had made it considerably worse.