Lifelines [g.w.]

lifelines [g.w.]

hi! first fic, pls be nice!

word count: 2300

warnings: none

After Gryffindor turned the tides at the last second, winning the second most important game of the season after a massive setback in the first hour, the celebrations raged harder than ever. Since Hufflepuff had beaten Slytherin to the ground two days ago, the path towards the Cup was clear. Angelina was sitting on the couch, having passed the point of looking pleased long ago, and now seemed almost frazzled by the result. People came up to her periodically, clapping her shoulder or topping off her drink, directing the buzzing energy of the common room straight into her.

Truly, the atmosphere was phenomenal, the stolen food and drinks from the kitchens juicer and a little more spiked than usual. Or maybe it was the sunlight still streaming through the windows as strongly as ever despite the past gloomy week. Whatever it was that made the day so electrically happy for everyone, it showed no signs of stopping.

This type of unrestrained feeling you always imagined started from the back of your head as s little star-like scribble that cast a net over you and spread the intensity throughout. This week it was stronger than it has been in a while.

You felt electric in the stands as you yelled for your team, an invisible line ripping the words from your throat before you even knew you were saying them. You felt elated as your housemates put their hands around you in delight, screaming themselves sore when they announced the winner. And you were feeling the happiness in your hair now, in every single strand from root to end as it swayed along with the bottle in your hand.

This was happy. This was joyful. This was utterly buttery in your chest and electric in the air.

You idly looked around the red and orange common room, which burned with excitement, deciding how to best spend this time before it runs out on Umbridge’s watch and she ruins it.

No. No wasting thoughts on her today. She sucked enough life out of you and your housemates this year, she won’t be doing it off the clock too.

Your eyes settled on possibly one of the strongest sources of this warmth - George Weasley, sitting on the arm of the couch next to his brother. The window behind him silhouetted him in gold perfectly, like the sun offered him to you. It accented how attractive he was, even if he burned a little at the top.

You’ve connected eyes before, talked before, even bantered. One wittier than the other every odd day, you toed the line between acquaintances and friends perfectly. Seeing as he’s very popular, catching him in-between conversations was a matter of luck.

You imagined a line going from the center of your chest to his as you approached him. He pensively looked to the side, observing some goings-on on the far end of the room as you interrupted him.

“That was a good game. You got some very nice shots in,” you said.

He turned to you with a mild close-mouthed ‘hm’, a look, and then a grin.

“You sure it was me?” he cocked his eyebrow and look at Fred on the couch next to Angelina, bumping knees with her and accepting congratulations in both of their names.

“You wear different numbers, genius. I know how to count this time.”

“And you have my number memorized,” he said, his voice glad.

“That would’ve been a great line if you were a Muggle.”

“Pity, I already chose a magical career.” he took a sip of his butterbeer and eyed you up, “Maybe I should start using my magical lines on you. Would those work better?” his eyes widened and his tone turned innocent at the end.

“I think I know too much anti-jinxes for that.”

He pursed his lips in amusement. “Alright. What would work on you then?”

“Oh, I find responsibility and appropriacy really hot.” you shot back, twirling a piece of your happy, charged up hair.

“Contradiction too,” he said, “since you’re still here.”

“I find contradiction a natural state of the human soul, thus if I wasn’t contradicting myself, I wouldn’t fully be here.”

“Hm. Brainy.” he chuckled.

“Judgy. If you need me to simplify you can just say so.”

“I think I can handle your smart mouth just fine.”

“Then why am I winning?”

“I didn’t realize this was a competition.”

“Rookie mistake.” you shook your head dramatically.

“I’m pretty sure it’s a rookier mistake to assume you’re winning. Who’s the judge?”

“My innate inner sense of whether I’m winning or not.”

“If it’s inside you, then how would one file a complaint concerning an unfair ruling?”

“They wouldn’t. It’s a noble and just system that decided I’m in the lead. You just need to accept the truth.”

“Don’t make me come in there,” he said, smirking good-naturedly.

“In where?” you shot back.

“In you.” his smirk held on for a second before he seemed to realize what he said and his face scrunched up in apologetic laughter.

Your mind slipped into the gutter the way new yorkers fall into sinkholes filled with rats - hilariously fast.

Albeit greatly amused, he started to correct himself, “I didn’t mean-”

“No, of course not.” you licked your lips, “I understood you the first time ” Was karma going to bite you in the ass for that lie? Who knows, but you might even be into that. Everything seems possible when the sun is shining. So he shone.

He grinned with his happy mouth and you once again noted how the light from the window behind him silhouetted him in the golden lining that made him look like a cutout glued onto the scene of this funny collage. His hair was aflame and his face was darker from the shadows but just as loudly burning with laughter.

This was happy.

You drew the word in your mind, line by line. H, a smooth move from the bottom, a decorative loop, then a parallel stroke, and a transversal. A, a circle with a tail, sharp move upward, and an even sharper drop for the backbone of p. P’s tummy? Bulge? Nope, your mind shouldn’t slip there in the middle of Binns’ class, no matter how boring he was. Another p, as George’s knee bumped into yours. He was moved from “Mr. Wester, Phillip.” for being disruptive, so he engaged in an under-the-table kind of disruption with his new tablemate.

You smiled. A long diagonal line, and another shorter one that cut into it. Y.

Happy.

You were, truly, right now. It sounded upside down to be happy though, both overall and when stuck in a soul-suckingly draining class, but you were.

George read over your shoulder, then audaciously engaged in over-the-table elbow-bumping-disruption and a cocked eyebrow. You straightened up, feeling a warm line unfold from the back of your head to the core of your brain, through the center of your chest, and straight to your stomach. Your happy line.

I’m happy, you mouthed.

Really? He mouthed back sarcastically yet good-naturedly. I can definitely see why. His eyes darted toward the professor. I say go for it, he’s a catch. You might even be his type.

You burst out laughing, then immediately bit your lip. A few students, including Philip, looked at you as you shook with laughter, but professor Binns carried on.

George, on the other hand, shrugged with his shit-eating grin, pretending he has no idea why you were laughing, thus letting everyone know why you were laughing.

You scribbled, I don’t know. What if it goes badly. I’d hate to be ghosted.

George raised his eyebrows at the Muggle slang you explained before. His hand slipped next to yours on the table and you felt your happy line thrum in approval. His hand was warm as he gently pressed it to yours, slowly took your quill, and scribbled back: Need someone more physical, huh? And I thought you were the romantic type.

Strong words for someone who never bought me dinner, you replied.

Mhm, as soon as I find a good line get you to agree to it.

Keep writing like that and I’ll start thinking you fancy me.

Keep your mind in the gutter and I’ll start thinking you don’t fancy me back. He accented that line with a wink and an overdramatic lip bite.

You pouted sarcastically at him. Of course not, I only want you for your knobby knees.

He chuckled, reminded of the short line of warmth that connected your knees under the table. He pressed his into yours a little stronger, then pulled away.

That’s a funny way of flirting. I’d know, I’m an expert at funny.

Self-proclaimed.

Untrue.

And I’m not flirting. If I was, you’d know it.

Would you? your breath hitched. For reasons you very well knew but refused to sound out to yourself, this short sentence drove the air around you two from joking to serious at breakneck speed.

Know if you were flirting with me? your happy line felt jumbled up in your stomach. He smiled at you.

Would you know if you were flirting with me?

The following week was arduous.

Gryffindors had a record amount of detentions, and Snape tore into them any and every chance he could. Even McGonagall was one edge, meaning lousy or missed homework was a death sentence. You forgot how to read from tiredness, submitting essays patchworked of other people’s thoughts without ever having any information pass through your head. Everything was dull, gray, and dragged out.

Despite that, outside the castle the sky was blue and sunlight streamed through the soft clouds and a sweet breeze would blow around aimlessly. It was both comforting and a little mocking. The sky should be as exhausted and as beaten down as you. Good to know stress made you compare yourself to a literal sky. But maybe that’s a little cruel. Nevertheless, it sounded like nature itself was turning its nose up at you, saying you’re selfish for wanting grey skies, she doesn’t care, she’s above puny human affairs. The world turns and you have to turn with it or stop, then spend the rest of the time catching up.

You haven’t stopped yet, but by all that is holy, you wanted to sleep. As the sun finally descended on a Friday after dinner, you finished your essays in hope that the next week might be kinder if you do everything quickly. The common room was dark, most of the light coming from the fire in the fireplace. It was also oddly empty for nine-thirty in the evening. Apparently, everyone had the same week as you.

Your almost finished essay laid on the table as you dozed, swinging your legs back and forth over the edge of your armchair.

The creak of the portrait opening caught your attention, and George Weasley walked in a second later, rubbing his sore hand and cussing.

Truly everyone had a shitty week.

“Love?” you said teasingly.

He looked up at you with a tired grin.

“It’s late.”

“Not really. You okay?”

“Nothing I can’t handle, love.” he sighed, leaning against the wall next to the fireplace.

“Can I see?” you crossed the room to stand in front of him. Again, the firelight licked at the lines of his face, clear and sharp. He had circles under his eyes and a heavily nibbled lip.

“It’s nothing.” still, George raised his hand. “Love.” he added, distantly. He seemed to be staring right above your head. You looked at the middle line of his lips again. You imagined him biting it.

Was it him that bit it? That one hurt. You hoped it was him.

You took his hand in your and rubbed circles into his knuckles. His eye winced.

“I’m sorry.”

“S'not your fault.”

“What happened?” he closed his eyes.

“Two ickle firsties almost brought the wrath of Umbridge into themselves with some dungbombs. You know how it goes,” he said, a corner of his lip tugging upwards. Your chest expanded looking at him being satisfied with himself. As he should be.

“How… responsible of you,” you said.

His eyes snapped downwards to yours.

“Keep looking at me like that and I might also start being appropriate too, darling.”

You stepped closer, your happy line thrumming against your chest like a quivering violin string.

“What if being responsible is enough?”

“Enough for what?” he breathed out before you pressed yourself against him.

At first, that’s was it was - a press of two warm lips. Then he started to move slowly, almost gentlemanly. How appropriate.

As he touched you, you felt the daze of last week lift. The little star scribble on the back of your head lit up, pulsing with brightness rather than fogging your thought. This was clear, you felt his every stroke that made up his face and chest and hands. The scribble of happiness extended itself into a web, overtaking your brain - you could feel it and you wondered if he saw it too when he looked at you. You pulled away and lifted your head to check. Probably not, but his eyes were glassy and he gave you a dopey smile. He was glad you were there. You pressed your lips against his again. You were glad he was there too.

The web continued down your neck, arms and chest, into your legs until your toes buzzed with light coursing through you. You were more awake than you have been in a long time.

Your hands were the brightest of all, and as you touched his hands, connecting them fingertip to fingertip, things made sense. The web buzzed and his breath was warm against yours, hands pulsing with energy as your every lifeline connected into his.

Andante, Andante [SMUT]

word count: 4122

WARNING: SMUT

—–

Keep reading

1K notes View Post

sagesvenus

4 years ago

breathe — draco malfoy

pairing: draco malfoy x female!reader

prompt: her death leaves behind a void in draco’s chest nothing can ever fill.

t/w: death and mentions of anxiety

requests are open. please refrain from plagiarizing my work!

Five months.

He’s gone five months without her. And he’s determined to keep going—he has to. He has to.

But goddamn does it bloody well hurt.

—

In the middle of a quiet cemetery stands a boy in a black suit and a cluster of white roses clasped in his hands, eyes staring but unseeing as he stands over one of the countless tombstones with his heart in his throat and what feels like a gaping hole inside his chest.

“I miss you.”

Snow falls from the sky. Bits of it sink deep into the fabric of his suit, fall into his hair, some onto his face. But Draco doesn’t feel it, the bite of the cold. His knuckles may have turned a pinkish red from the frost and his blond hair may have turned stiff from the flakes of snow stuck in it, but he doesn’t feel cold.

He’s been cold for five months now. He can’t feel it anymore.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

It has, says the voice inside his head that keeps him company when he feels the loneliest—when the pain becomes too much to bear—the voice that he knows isn’t real and hates that it isn’t. The one that sounds painfully like her.

“Yeah,” Draco continues, bottom lip trembling, and it’s not because of the snow. “I’m doing okay.” He lies. Keeps lying. “I think I’m getting better.”

He’s not. He can’t get better, not when he sees traces of her everywhere, even when she isn’t really there.

He sees a wooden desk and remembers her with her head bowed over a sheet of parchment, tongue poking out of her lips in concentration as she chides him—"Not now, Draco, I’m studying“—he pulls out an old chessboard from the crevices of his closet and remembers her grinning in triumph over winning a particularly intense chess game even though he lost on purpose—he walks past a park and remembers lying on the grass in the Hogwarts courtyard with his head in her lap and her fingers raking through his hair as she told him Muggle stories of love and tears and laughter and everything in between. Stories with happy endings; so unlike Draco’s and hers.

He squeezes his eyes shut; tears fall and trickle down his cheek onto the ground, joining the bundle of snow at his feet.

"Life hasn’t really been the same since—”

A sob tears its way up his throat and out of his lips before he can even think about suppressing it.

“—since you left.”

With his other hand—the hand that’s not grasping onto the bouquet of roses like it’s a lifeline—he wipes his tears away aggressively, almost angrily.

“I’ve started talking to myself a lot lately even though I know you’re not going to respond because I’ve been so used to you being here to listen and now you’re not.”

Another sob. Pathetic, says a voice inside Draco’s head. Not her voice. Never hers. She would never make him feel bad for feeling things—no, she’d crouch down next to him on the floor, wrap her arms around him and say “Everything’s going to be okay, love. I’m right here with you. Right here” and he’d look up at her and start crying even harder, because in a world where his parents expected too much from him and he was never good enough, he had her.

Or, well. He used to.

Draco clenches his fists, nails digging crescents into his skin as his breathing gets uneven and the air suddenly feels too tight. He tries to ground himself by inhaling through his nose and exhaling through his mouth and repeating the process—

“That’s it, love. Keep breathing. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere."

Draco took another shaky breath, trying to focus on her face even though her features were blurred and he didn’t quite know where to look through the tears obscuring his vision.

Panic attacks. He hated them. Hated the hand that felt like it had reached straight into his chest and started squeezing. Hated the tears that slipped out of his eyes almost automatically.

"It’s okay, Draco. Breathe with me.”

He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes, shoulders trembling from the effort. “You’re doing such a good job, Draco,” she said gently. Draco let out a long, shuddering breath. “You’re doing so well. Now breathe. Breathe with me. In through the nose, out through the mouth—that’s it, love, keep going. In through the—the—” her voice broke. Draco couldn’t see it—and maybe it was better that way—but she’d started crying at some point.

“In through the nose,” she continued, swallowing back a sob. “Out through the mouth. I love you, Draco. You’re gonna be okay.”

“I know you’d probably get mad at me for this if you were here, but sometimes.. well.. sometimes I find myself wishing I was dead.”

And even though there’s no one around that’s listening and Draco is the only living, breathing soul among the countless graves, he feels exposed. Bare. Like he’s laid his biggest vulnerability out for the rest of the world to see.

“I wake up everyday,” he says slowly, a crease in between his brows, "I stare up at the ceiling for a little bit. And then I get up, eat, sleep. Get up, eat, sleep. Over and over and over again.“

A pause. "It all just seems so.. pointless,” he bows his head, staring at his shoes as though he's ashamed. And he is. He’s ashamed that he’s like this—because he knows that if she were here (which she isn’t, says that annoying little voice at the back of his head) she’d smack him upside the head and say

“Don’t be ridiculous, Draco,” she rolled her eyes, glancing up for a brief moment before transferring her gaze back to the textbook in her hands.

Draco fell quiet again, staring into the embers of the fireplace. Maybe it hadn’t been the best idea to ask her to drop everything and run away with him on a whim.

A few seconds passed in silence. She looked up at him again out of concern to find that he hadn’t moved at all. A twinge of sadness plucked at her chest and she sighed, closing the book with a soft snap as she set it down on the floor.

Draco lost himself in his thoughts sometimes. It wasn’t a common occurrence, but she'd seen it enough times to know how bad it could get inside his head. It was a side of himself that he only felt comfortable enough showing to her and her only—a side that he'd kept well hidden under the facade of arrogance he always had put up.

It was when he would start thinking about—well—everything. How he never seemed to match up to his parent’s expectations no matter how hard he tried. He'd think about his obligations as the heir of one of the oldest pureblooded wizarding families. He’d think about his future and wonder if he deserved one with her with that dirty mark on his wrist.

Usually it would take quite a while to snap him out of his reverie, but tonight Draco seemed more lost in his thoughts than ever before. When she got up from the carpet to sit down next to him on the couch, his eyes were still hazy and unfocused. “Draco,” she murmured, sitting with her feet tucked underneath her as she turned to face him. “Draco?”

Her hands reached out for Draco’s, fingers slipping into the spaces between his own of their own accord. At this, he blinked, his gaze clearing, and looked at her.

“Love,” he breathed quietly.

She pursed her lips in a small smile, squeezing his hand in hers. “I’m here,” she told him, basking in the silence of the Slytherin common room, only interrupted by the sound of her and Draco’s breathing and the crackling sounds from the fireplace. She shifted on the couch to make herself more comfortable, leaning the side of her head on Draco’s shoulder and ignoring the ache of sadness in her chest that would always come when Draco felt down.

“Galleon for your thoughts?” she whispered.

Draco unlaced her hand from his to slowly trace the lines on her palm with his index finger. “It’d take much more than a galleon, love,” he whispered back, and there was a ghost of a small smile on his lips, but it was blanketed by the worry etched deep into his face.

The corners of her mouth tugged up into a sad smile. There was nothing in the world that she wanted more than to rid Draco of all the worries plaguing his head. He’d grown up surrounded by so much despair and for years he had no one but himself to carry his burden with, but now here she was. And even though she’d already done everything she could to help him—and she continued to do so every single day—it never felt like it was enough.

“You know you can always tell me everything, yeah?” she said quietly, looking up at him from the corner of her eyes.

Draco, with his gaze fixed on their hands, nodded. "Yeah.“

"I mean it. Always.”

He smiled, and it was a real one this time. “I know.”

The snow has stopped falling. Draco tastes tears, hot and salty, on his tongue.

“I’m going to keep going, though,” he tells her. Hangs onto the tiny sliver of hope he has that she is out there somewhere, listening. “I’m going to.. I’m going to keep getting up and eating and sleeping until it doesn’t feel so tiring anymore. Okay?”

Silence. “Does that sound good, love?”

Like shouting into a canyon and waiting for an echo that would never come.

“I know that’s what you’d want,” he says quietly, gritting his teeth. “For me to keep living. Not to give up. So that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Don’t give up.”

Draco snorted out a laugh. “Shouldn’t you be telling yourself that?”

He was sitting with her at their usual table in the library; the one right by the window near the restricted section. She had a Potions quiz tomorrow—Draco being the “smartass” he was (or so she called him), didn’t need to study, but she did. Him being her boyfriend, he'd offered to tutor her, unaware that it was easier said than done. She just couldn’t, for the life of her, get the terms right.

She scoffed. “I don't need to tell myself that. I won’t give up no matter what—you, on the other hand..”

Draco scrunched his nose. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m just saying you have a tendency to stop trying and call it a day.”

“That is a lie.”

“Is not.”

“Well, I suppose it depends on the task—if it’s tutoring you, then anyone’s bound to give up..”

“Hey!” she reached over the table to smack him on the shoulder. He swiftly dodged, laughing. She rolled her eyes but couldn’t suppress the smile on her face as she sat back down. “Maybe I should be getting a different tutor.”

“Or maybe you should just be studying harder.”

“Or maybe you should actually be trying to teach me—”

“I am!”

“—without giving up halfway!"

Draco huffed. "Okay. Fine. Let’s try this again. What’s another word for wolfsbane?”

“Um,” a pause. “No idea. Okay. I’m sorry."

He let out an overly dramatic sound of complaint.

"Don’t give up, Draco,” she reminded him, fighting back a laugh. “Don’t give up.”

Draco crouches down next to the grey tombstone already decorated with all sorts of flowers from friends and family and places his own set of white roses right next to her name. With hands that won’t stop trembling, he pulls out a tiny box from his pocket.

“I was supposed to give this to you after the war,” he says quietly, presses his palm to the snow under which he knows she’s resting, looking as breathtaking as she always has with her eyes closed.

“I wish I could’ve given it to you when I had the chance, but..”

“Don’t do this to me, love.”

Draco couldn’t think straight. He gathered her into his arms and cradled her the way he had done countless times before, except this time she wasn’t smiling up at him with a familiar sparkle in her warm eyes—no, she was limp and cold and her eyes were open but unseeing.

“No no you can't—you can’t do this to me—” Draco was gasping for breath that wasn’t there. Choking on his tears, he shook his head repeatedly, rocking back and forth on the ground, "Look at me, love, you promised you wouldn’t leave—"

In the middle of a destroyed hallway, with the battle of Hogwarts in full fledge all around him, a boy in bloodied robes and an entire ocean caught between his lashes knelt on the ground, cradling the only person who had ever mattered to him in his arms as she did exactly what he was begging her not to do—

“You can’t leave me like this, love. Don’t leave me like this, please please—”

—and died.

Left him. Just like that.

In the middle of the empty cemetery, a boy in a black suit kneels next to a tombstone, hands shaking as they gingerly set down a small, golden ring on the grave marker. Pulling out his wand, he whispers a spell and enchants the beautiful golden band to stay there for as long as the world exists.

Draco closes his eyes, inhales through his nose, exhales through his mouth.

And then he leaves.

Just like that.

1K notes View Post

sagesvenus

4 years ago