Burning Beneath the Skin
Draco woke with a sharp inhale, his chest rising too fast, too hard. His breath came ragged in the dark, the heavy canopy of his bed enclosing him like a tomb. The cold crept in through the cracks of the manor’s stone walls, but his skin burned, his pulse hammering like a war drum in his ears.
The suffocating silence of Malfoy Manor pressed in around him, an oppressive force that seemed to amplify the echo of his own breath. He dragged a hand across his face, fingers trembling slightly as they traced the ridges of his cheekbones, the hollowed-out places carved by sleepless nights and the weight of obligation. He had spent so long in the shadows of this house, beneath the weight of its history, its expectations, that he sometimes wondered if he had become part of it—a living phantom haunting its endless halls.
But no, ghosts belonged to the past. And he was still here, still bound to the body that betrayed him with restless, aching need, with memories that refused to fade.
The room was too still, too full of echoes, of whispered remnants of something he had long since lost the right to claim. His sheets were damp with sweat, tangled around his legs as though they, too, sought to ensnare him, to tether him to the past he could not escape. For the past was a living thing in his veins, seeping into the marrow of his bones, refusing to be exorcised.
Draco turned his gaze toward the window, toward the fractured silver light spilling through the glass. Outside, the sky stretched vast and indifferent, a heavy shroud of darkness speckled with distant stars, their cold fire burning light-years away—untouchable, unconcerned. He had always thought the night was the only place he could find solace, the only time the world did not demand something of him. But lately, even the stars felt like silent judges, bearing witness to his undoing.
The dream still clung to him, sticky and relentless. No—not a dream. A memory.
He could still feel her.
Her lips against his, soft and urgent, trembling with something neither of them had been willing to understand. He could still taste the faint hint of peppermint on her tongue, could still hear the way she’d whispered his name—so careful, so reverent—like she was terrified of it, of what it meant.
"Draco."
His fingers curled into the silk sheets, the phantom of her touch searing through him. He could still remember the way her skin felt beneath his hands, too warm, too alive, like she was burning from the inside out and taking him with her. The brush of her fingertips against his jaw, the way they trembled when he kissed the corner of her mouth, then deeper, fiercer, like he was trying to devour every hesitation, every doubt.
"This is wrong," she had whispered against his lips, but she hadn't pulled away. She never did.
He had drawn her closer, his fingers ensnared in the chaotic mass of her curls, as though grounding himself in the way she shivered under his touch. He remembered the relentless cadence of his own heartbeat, like it wanted to claw its way out of his chest and into hers. It’s erratic rhythm betraying the equilibrium he so desperately feigned.
"Nothing’s ever felt this right."
And yet, the fallacy of memory was its penchant for distortion. In recollection, the moment seemed unblemished, stripped of their sharp edges, making him believe that night had been something pure. But he knew better. Even then, entwined in the illusion of sanctuary, he had understood that the moment would end with blood on his hands. That blood and consequence would cleave through them, unravelling the fragile tether they had dared to forge.
Still, he allowed himself to sink into the spectre of it—just briefly.
The way her grip had tightened on the fabric of his robes, as though resisting the inexorable pull of fate. The hushed, involuntary gasp that escaped her when his lips traced the delicate curve of her jaw. The barely perceptible tremor that coursed through her when he had murmured her name into the hollow of her throat.
It had been the closest thing to salvation he had ever known. And the most damning evidence of his own inevitable undoing. He had never wanted anything more. And he had never hated himself more for it.
Draco swung his legs over the edge of the bed, the stone floor biting against his bare feet. The weight of the dream—of the past—pressed down on him like iron chains. He reached for the glass of firewhiskey on the nightstand, the amber liquid burning his throat as he swallowed it down too fast. It didn’t help. Nothing did.
Hermione Granger haunted him in ways he couldn’t afford.
She was a weakness he should have excised long ago, a foolish remnant of something that never should have happened. He could still see her sometimes—in the heat of battle, in the screams and smoke and flashes of green light. She moved with a fierce kind of grace, her wand an extension of her fury, and for a fleeting moment, he would forget what side he stood on.
He buried his head in his hands, exhaling shakily. He could still feel the way she had touched him that night—the night before everything shattered. The way her breath had ghosted over his neck, the way her hands had framed his face like she could hold him there forever if she just pressed hard enough.
"You could leave," she had said once, when they were nothing more than two students tangled in something dangerous. Her fingers had pressed against his chest, right where his heart beat too fast. "You don’t have to be like them."
He had scoffed then, shrugged her off with a sneer, but the words had stayed. Now, they echoed in the hollows of his mind, whispering in the cracks that had been carved into him over the years. The cracks she had left behind.
Draco let out a slow, shuddering breath, staring at his reflection in the darkened window. The boy she had kissed, the boy who had whispered her name like a prayer, was gone. In his place stood a man carved from ice and shadows, a man who wore the Dark Mark like a noose around his wrist.
And yet, he couldn't stop himself from wondering—if he saw her again, if she looked at him the way she once did, would he crumble? Would he fall back into her, into that impossible warmth? Or would he do what was expected of him?
Would he kill her?
The thought twisted inside him, and Draco slammed the glass down onto the nightstand, the sound shattering the silence. He was a soldier now, a weapon honed to perfection, and the past was a luxury he couldn’t afford.
But still...
Her ghost lingered in his veins, in the quiet moments between orders, in the weight of his own choices pressing down on him like a curse.
And he hated himself for it.
He pushed himself up from the bed, dragging a hand through his dishevelled hair. The fire in the hearth had burned low, casting flickering shadows across the walls, making the room feel cavernous, empty. He pressed a hand against his chest, right where her touch had lingered in that long-gone past, and let himself remember. Just for a moment.
The stolen moments woven between duty and defiance, where neither of them had spoken the truth but both had understood it. The way her presence had unsettled him—not through words, but through something unspoken, something that gnawed at the edges of certainty. The nights where the air had crackled with things they dared not name, a battlefield of restraint and inevitability. And the way she had seen past his facade, past the titles and bloodlines, to something raw and unguarded.
And then he let it go. He had to.
A soft rustle of wings broke the silence. He turned, just as an owl landed on the edge of his desk, talons scraping against the polished wood. It regarded him with an unblinking gaze before extending its leg, a single scrap of parchment tied neatly with twine.
Draco hesitated, his fingers hovering just above the parchment, his pulse hammering beneath his skin. Slowly, he untied the message, unfolding it with a careful, deliberate motion.
The parchment was worn, the ink sparse—just a place, a time. No names. No explanations. Just a request, veiled in simplicity, yet weighted with meaning.
But he knew.
Hermione.
He had spent too many nights watching her scrawl across endless pages in the library, had memorised the slant of her writing, the way her letters curled with intent and precision. This was hers.
He read the message again, then once more, as if expecting it to change, as if willing it to mean something else. But there was no mistaking it.
She wanted to meet.
His breath came shallow, his fingers pressing against the parchment, feeling the imprint of her touch, the weight of whatever had compelled her to send it. It could be a trap. It should be a trap. And yet, for all the warnings screaming in the back of his mind, he knew he would go.
Because some ghosts refused to stay buried.
And some, it seemed, came back for him.