in the stars ✷ draco malfoy
(gif is not mine, credit to the owner) warnings / language, slytherin!reader, half blood prince setting word count / 4.6k
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Y/N LEANED AGAINST THE STONE wall outside of Professor McGonagall's classroom, like she always did, with her arms crossed over her chest as she waited for Draco to meet her outside. She'd come from her Potions class with Slughorn and she couldn't wait to tell him that she'd actually nailed her brew that day. It wasn't uncommon for her to feel lost in that class, finding herself much more adept when it came to Charms or Transfiguration, but that day was the first time in a while where she'd felt like she hadn't totally fudged everything.
She pushed herself off of the wall with a sense of eagerness when she saw Draco's head of striking, blonde hair sail out of the doors. A bright smile painted itself onto her face, expecting him to head right towards her so she could gush about her accomplishment and maybe, just maybe, get a huff of amusement from him as a congratulations, but he walked right past her. It was like he didn't even see her as he walked by, his blue eyes staring straight through her, and her smile faltered.
Sure, he'd been a little quieter than usual and they hadn't hung out outside of class as much as they used to, but he'd never blatantly ignored her like that.
It stung a little, honestly.
Shaking the confusion off of her face and unfurrowing her brows, Y/N took off after him. "Oi, Malfoy," she called and she shoved her way through the crowd of other students parading through the hallways, shooting off one cold glance after another at those who refused to budge right away. "What the hell was that, you git?" she confronted and he didn't even seem fazed. She knew bloody well that she was in earshot, but he was just shutting her out and she didn't know why. "Draco, please." She reached out and grabbed his wrist in one last attempt, hoping to get something out of him.
Before she could plead with him anymore and make herself seem even more pathetic, Draco whipped around to face her. "Bloody hell, Y/N, don't you understand that I don't want to deal with you right now?" he spat, the words biting into her skin like they had fangs, and he ripped his arm from her grasp. "Just piss off already."
After he delivered the final blow, Y/N's eyebrows lifted in shock and she stopped in her tracks. She watched him as he strode away, his black and green robes billowing behind him, and she stood frozen in the middle of the hallway. The students that she'd fought her way through before passed her by once more, some of their shoulders knocking against hers as they maneuvered themselves around her.
Just piss off already.
The words echoed in her head, even after she'd composed herself well enough to make her way back towards the dungeons.
—
When dinner came around, Y/N found herself picking at the food on her golden plate, separating her mixed vegetables into individual piles almost without thinking. Usually, she'd be sat across from Draco, trying to make him laugh at one of her stupid jokes, which would normally result in him throwing a pea or two at her and rolling his eyes, but he'd been distant lately. Clearly. He hadn't even shown up to the Great Hall that night, and she assumed he was probably off doing something he shouldn't be.
He had told her weeks ago, before he'd started to pull away, that he'd been chosen to help the Dark Lord with one of his plans. He'd been sneaking away a lot, to the Room of Requirement, where he'd been working tirelessly in an attempt to repair the Vanishing Cabinet, but as far as she knew, it was all still a work in progress.
She figured that all of it must've been taking a toll on him—that he must've started to feel the crushing weight of the stress—and she wished he could understand that he didn't have to dissociate from her like he was, but Draco had never been one to seek comfort in others. She learned a long time ago that he tended to deal with things alone, even if that meant pushing away the people around him. She never thought she'd become one of those people, but here she was, going through the first day since their first year where she and Draco hadn't properly spoken, and it sucked.
Y/N still had Pansy and Blaise, both of whom she loved dearly, but talking with them wasn't the same as talking with Draco. They didn't understand her like he did, nor did they listen even half as well.
Plus, she had never spoken it out loud, but she cared for Draco much differently—much more deeply—than she cared for the other two.
A sudden pain in her side brought her out of her swirling thoughts, snapping her back into the hustling and the bustling of the Great Hall, and it took no time at all for her to realize that Pansy had just elbowed her in the ribs. "Watch it, would you, Parkinson?" she grumbled, rubbing her fingers over her side even though it had hardly hurt.
Pansy scoffed and tucked a strand of her shiny, black hair behind her ear. "Wouldn't have to if you weren't in sodding space right now. I don't think I've ever seen you so distracted," she pointed out, leaning against her sweater-clad arms which happened to have been crossed over the tabletop.
Y/N rolled her eyes and she looked over at Blaise, who bore the same nosey expression. He washed the food in his mouth down with a sip of the liquid in his chalice and he nodded his head in agreement. "Pans is right. What happened today?" he pried and he set down his fork, so he could prop one of his elbows up on the table and lean his head into his hand. "You look like a kicked pup," he added.
"Bloody Malfoy is what happened," she confessed, knowing it would be no use to hide anything from the two. They'd have bugged it out of her, either way. "I waited for him to get out of McGonagall's, like usual, and the twit didn't even acknowledge me. He told me to 'piss off', can you believe that?" She asked, rolling a couple of carrots around on her plate.
Blaise shrugged his shoulders at that and Pansy sighed. As they recalled, Draco hadn't seemed all-too-thrilled to see them lately, either. "Don't take it personally, Y/N/N. That's just Draco being Draco," Pansy promised, knocking her with her elbow again, but softer and on her bicep that time.
Blaise nodded in agreement. "Yeah, he's been a bit off with us, as well," he included, backing up the statement of the raven-haired girl. "He's been short with us all day."
Y/N furrowed her eyebrows at them, glancing between the two of them. "Short with you? At least he's willingly spoken to you," she bit back, harsher than she'd intended to, and a look of discomfort crossed onto her friends' faces. She felt a pang of guilt at the severity of her tone, but she pushed it down, knowing they wouldn't hold it against her. "He barely even looked at me after class. I was practically begging for his attention," explained Y/N.
Pansy managed a tight-lipped smile. "Surely, it was just the result of a bad day. I can't imagine he's seriously upset with you," she said, trying to sound reassuring, but she came off like she was trying to sound hopeful herself.
Y/N didn't buy it, though, and she shook her head. "I can't believe he's talked to the both of you today, but he chose to blow me off. He's acting like he hates me, now, but it's fine," she vented, trying to blow off some steam but the anger began to bubble up more in the pits of her stomach. How could Draco ignore her like that when she'd done nothing but walk through the fire with him? How could he be so quick to push her away when all she wanted was to help him do what he thought was best for himself? "It's just Draco being Draco, yeah?" she snapped, reiterating what Pansy had told her earlier, and she threw her silverware down onto the table. It clattered across the wood and a few of the other Slytherins turned their heads towards her to send her a glare. She looked around at the few of them, before she pushed herself into a standing position. "If you two would excuse me, I think I'm done eating," she growled.
She hadn't meant to come off as angry at Pansy or at Blaise, because she wasn't, but as she stormed out of the room, she decided she'd apologize to them both the following morning. Right now, she was too pissed off at Draco for ignoring her, at herself for not trying harder to make sure he knew he wasn't alone, and at the fucking Dark Lord for putting this sort of pressure on him in the first place. The entire situation was mad and Y/N was done with it. She was tired after worrying about Draco all day and she much preferred a night alone in the girl's dormitory to one where she picked at her food and wallowed in her own thoughts the whole time.
Her walk back to her dorm had been quiet, due to almost all of the other students being back at dinner. As she stepped into the room she shared with Pansy and a few of the other girls, she figured she had at least an hour to mope around before they all returned and disturbed the peace and quiet.
A sigh left her lips as she shrugged her robe from her shoulders, folding it neatly and setting it on her bedside table after. She ripped off every other unnecessarily difficult part of her uniform—her green tie, her sweater vest, and her newly-polished shoes—and she untucked her button-down shirt. She dropped her shoes on top of the trunk at the end of her bed, threw everything else over her robe, and when she felt like she could breathe again, she let herself flop onto her mattress.
Y/N sunk into it upon impact, relishing in the immediate comfort that it offered her, but when she rolled over to stare up at the canopy over her bed, something crumpled beneath her. She reached beneath her back and pulled out a piece of neatly-folded parchment—or at least it had been before she laid on it. She turned the paper over in her fingers and ran her thumb over the surface.
If this was another note from Millicent Bulstrode asking her to do her Charms homework, she was going to set the girl's entire mattress on fire.
When she unfolded the piece of parchment, she was surprised that she didn't find Millicent's jumbled, blocky lettering. Instead, the handwriting was long, slanted, and familiar. Considering she'd received dozens of letters from him in the past, it didn't take but a few seconds for her to identify it as Draco's.
Meet me in our spot at midnight.
Y/N's heart fluttered in her chest as her eyes flickered over his message not once, not twice, but three times, just to make sure it was actually there. Part of her wanted to rip the paper to shreds right then and there, but the other part knew that because it was the first time he'd been the one to reach out in a while, it must've been important.
Especially if he'd placed it there after what happened that afternoon.
Deciding that she would meet him when the time came, Y/N tucked the piece of parchment beneath her pillow and laid her head on top of it.
—
Y/N's stomach churned as she walked up the steps to the Astronomy Tower, happy she traded her black shoes for her something with a rubber sole, or she would've been clacking the entire way up. She hugged her robe, which she'd snagged off of her table on her way out of the dorm, tighter against her body, hoping it'd be enough to trap her body heat since she'd left her sweater back in the dungeons.
As she stepped up the winding staircase, she half-hoped that Draco would be running late, so she wouldn't have to be the one to start the conversation, but her hopes dissipated when she saw him already leaning against the railing. His elbows were propped against the wood, his hands were clasped out in front of him, and his head was tilted towards the sky. His blonde hair looked almost silver in the night and the moonlight cast sharp shadows over his face, but he looked almost peaceful as he stared into the stars. She found herself wanting to stand there and admire him just as intently as he admired the night sky, because he was all-too-enchanting, but he was waiting for her.
Instead, she hesitantly walked up behind him. "Hello, Draco," she said softly and he hummed out in greeting, pushing himself off of the railing in order to face her. Despite the rockiness between them lately, she wasted no time in stepping closer to him, slotting her arms through his and wrapping them around his torso.
Usually, when she hugged him, Draco would give her an awkward pat on the back, mutter a 'that's long enough, y/l/n', and push her away, but to her surprise, he hugged her back. His arms closed around her tightly, with an intensity she'd never felt from him, and he pulled her in as close as he could to his chest. "It wasn't your fault—when I snapped at you this morning," he murmured. "A lot's been happening. I've been meaning to— I've..." he started to say something, but his words were lost in her hair.
Y/N only hugged him tighter. She ran her fingertips up and down his spine comfortingly, like his outburst that afternoon hadn't even happened, and she propped her chin up on his shoulder. "S'okay. I've missed you, too," she hummed, her stomach lurching as she did, almost nervous that she'd misinterpreted him, but he sighed against her. He seemed grateful that she knew what he meant without him having to force it out of his throat. After all, he'd never been one for sentiment. "Is everything alright?" She questioned and she softly pulled herself out of his embrace.
Y/N took to the railing, leaning against it, and Draco positioned himself next to her. He shrugged his shoulders and ran one of his hands upwards over his, carding his fingers backwards through his hair and leaving it all disheveled after he had. "Nothing's been alright for a while, now." Draco sounded so tired and dreary, and now that she was up close, she could see the purple curves of the dark circles under his eyes. She'd known that he'd been worried about everything for a while now, that the Dark Lord's task had been getting under his skin, but she hadn't realized how badly it'd been eating away at him. "I'm trying to mend the cabinet, but I can't seem to figure it out. Everyone else is on the outside and it's like I'm doing all of this alone, Y/N/N," he confessed and she fought the urge to scoop him back up in her arms again.
"I know it feels like that, but it doesn't have to. I would help you if you needed me to, you know I would," Y/N told him quietly and Draco did know that.
She was as tough as nails when you looked at her individually, but if you threw him into the mix, she would always be weak when it came to him and he knew that. He'd never admit it, but he'd always taken a sort of pride in being her soft spot. It was in times like this, though, that the title came with a price. She must've seen the conflict on his face, because she placed her hand over his softly in an attempt to comfort him.
It was there for all of a second before he ripped his hand away. "No," he told her.
"Draco, you just said—"
"Merlin, Y/N, I know what I said, but it wasn't a bloody cry for help, don't you get that?" He hissed and she flinched at the sudden change in his tone. "He gave this task to me. Me. I don't need your help, you aren't even in the cards."
"Oh, okay." When Draco saw the look that crossed onto her face, the glossiness in her eyes, and the way that her head fell forward in defeat, he wanted to take it back. He wanted to retract everything he'd said, but the damage had already been done. "I was just trying to make you feel better about it. I didn't mean to upset you," she explained quietly and he could hear the whisper in her voice as tears started to well up in her eyes. It wasn't that she was sad, but the fact that it was starting to seem like he'd only invited her there just to bite her head off again was beyond frustrating. "You really have some nerve, Malfoy," she muttered, turning her head away from him as a tear rolled down her cheek, because she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing it.
"Oh, don't—" he started to snap again as he pushed himself off of the railing for the second time, but he caught himself. He sighed and he held his hand out, as if to offer her comfort with a clap on the shoulder, but as he did it, he hesitated. He settled for a stiff hand on her back, instead. Her eyes were still fixated on anything but him. "Look, I know. I didn't mean it that way, alright?" He told her and his hand slid off of her when she finally looked over at him. "I meant there's no place for you in what the Dark Lord's planning. It's dangerous." He hoped she would be less angry with him after his rewording.
Draco honestly hadn't meant to make it seem like he didn't want her around, but as far as he was concerned, Y/N was pure. She might've been a Slytherin and she might've stepped on a few toes for her own benefit here and there, but she hadn't been tainted in the way that he'd been. She wasn't damaged goods. She was kind, she was intelligent, and she had goals for herself.
She used to tell him all the time how she wanted to grow up to work in the Ministry, somewhere in the third level where she could help with the regulation of magical creatures. He remembered the glint in her eyes when she used to speak of it, and he refused to be the one who took that away from her.
"So, you can put yourself at risk, but I, your best friend, can't even help you?" Y/N called him out and he turned away from her.
Draco crosses his arms over the wooden railing and stared at the dark horizon. "You deserve far better than I do, Y/L/N," he told her, but he hadn't expected her to turn around and swat him on the back of the head. He winced. "Bloody hell, do you mind?" he grumbled, reaching up to rub the spot where it stung.
She scoffed, proud of herself. "Don't speak about yourself like that, Draco," she chastised. "You're so smart and talented. Yeah, you're a prat to everyone sometimes, but I've seen the good in you. And, I know you're oblivious to it, but there's people out there that think the world of you," she told him and from the blank look on his face, she knew he wasn't buying a word that she said. She sighed and patted the railing once, to dispel the nerves that were building up in her. "I know I do."
At her confession, Draco's eyebrows lifted and he tore his eyes off of the horizon like to look at her. The sincerity on her face was so intense and she was looking at him with such ferocity glittering in her eyes. Her eyebrows were knit together, a soft crease having formed between them, and he felt a sudden urge inside of him to step forward and kiss it away, but he didn't.
He didn't, because Y/N was good. Y/N was so good and so good to him, of all people, and he never deserved an ounce of it. When it all came down to it, Draco was a traitor—a traitor to his friends and to his school. Y/N knew that and she still showed him how much faith that she had in him and who he was. Part of him wondered if she'd still believe in him like that when he completed all of the Dark Lord's wishes.
When he let the Deatheaters in.
When he killed Dumbledore.
When he betrayed her, too.
"I do enjoy it when you boost my ego, but you think too highly of me," he told her, his voice quiet.
His words were swimming with emotions—hurt, denial, and others she couldn't quite make out—and her heart ached for him. "Maybe," she admitted, but she'd never considered her opinion of Draco to be too high. In fact, she often wondered if she underestimated him. More hesitantly than she had before, she reached out to touch his hand again, and this time he let her. She smoothed her thumb over his skin. "But I've been told that the heart clouds the mind when it grows fond of someone," she whispered in another quiet confession and she could feel the way that his hand tightened on the railing.
Draco looked over at her and she was surprised to see the painful expression that had torn into his features. She could see the conflict spiraling in his eyes, his head and his heart fighting a war amongst themselves, as he shook his head softly. "What's that supposed to mean?" He questioned and it was almost like a plea, a soft begging for her to not say what they both knew that she felt.
"Well, I—" she stopped, taking his longing look in for a second longer, but she knew that this wasn't something she could keep to herself any longer. "I love you," she said and her words went off like a bomb.
"You can't love me, Y/N, don't you understand?" he all-but-shouted. "Don't you see what I've done? What I'll do?" he went on, images of the cursed necklace he'd given to Katie Bell and the bottle of poisoned mead meant for Dumbledore flashed through his mind, but Y/N seemed unfazed.
Instead of taking back what she'd said, Y/N shook her head and looked up at him. "Love is blind, Draco." She waited for a minute for him to say something, but he seemed set on just sitting in silence, letting her confession hang untended to in the air and his breathing come heavy. She waited a few moments longer, holding onto the sliver of hope that he might actually have something to say to her, but she realized after a while that she was waiting for something that'd never come. Her mood changed after that, her heart sank to her feet, and she made the sudden reconciliation that she no longer wanted to be there. She didn't want to continue to stand there, offering him everything on a silver platter, only to have him pretend like it wasn't even happening at all.
She gave his hand a soft squeeze, like a sort of farewell, and she pulled her hand off of his. She turned and began to walk away with her tail between her legs, taking a few steps towards the staircase that would descend back into the castle, but she didn't get far before Draco caught her.
"Wait," he'd called out to her so quietly that it was almost a whisper, but he practically leapt after her.
One of Draco's hands reached out to grab her by the front of her waist and spin her back around to face him, while his other hand cupped her cheek. Y/N barely had any time to register what the hell was going on before he was smashing his lips against hers, capturing them in a feverish kiss, and she hummed at the feeling of his hand slotting itself into her hair. His fingertips tangled in it and he pressed his lips harder against her own. The way he kissed her was so heavily, so needily, so desperately and his lips seemed to tell her everything that he couldn't say himself, because he wasn't good with words. He'd never been good with words. He'd always been so much better at putting his feelings into actions and she knew that.
Of course, she knew that.
She knew everything about him.
Y/N wasted no time in kissing him back in the same hungry, passionate manner, pulling him closer against her by his robes. She poured every little thought and every little feeling she'd ever ever had about Draco into the kiss and she didn't stop until both of their lips were swollen and their chests were heaving.
Draco had been the one to break the kiss, but to remain in close proximity, he leaned his forehead against her own. "I don't deserve you," he whispered when all was said and done and guilt in his voice didn't go unnoticed.
She took it upon herself to reach up with both of her hands, curving them over his cheeks, and she tilted his head down softly. "Everyone deserves to be loved by someone," she whispered and pressed the softest kiss he'd ever felt to the space between his eyebrows. "No matter what they've done." Draco crinkled his eyebrows—like he could trap the feeling of her lips against his skin there forever—and he pressed his face further into her hands.
If he was being completely honest, Draco wasn't sure what he was doing anymore. He'd already done a few questionable things and he still had a lot more to accomplish before the Dark Lord would fully accept him, but he didn't think he knew what was wrong or what was right to him anymore. He felt as though he'd lost his way, but he knew that didn't matter to Y/N. He knew that she would be there for him always, even if he took a few wrong turns along the way.
"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were a Hufflepuff after that," he hummed, in a half-hearted attempt at a joke, and she laughed softly as he pressed a kiss into her hair.
"Oh, shut it, Malfoy," she chided and she pulled her hands off of his face. "D'you want to look at the stars a little longer?" She asked after that, reaching up to smooth out a wrinkle on his shoulder, and he nodded.
"That'd be nice," he admitted and he walked back over to the railing, part of him hoping that Y/N would stay. He let himself sigh in content when she sidled up beside him once more—her side pressing against his—because it was in these two things that Draco seemed to find his peace: in her and in the stars.
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