The same street corner, different chase. My feet pound against wet pavement as I run after Harry, my lungs burning with each breath of cold night air. This scene is becoming too familiar - me, desperate and pleading, while he walks away with shoulders rigid and fists clenched. I can’t remember the number of men now. Different men, different mistakes, and always the same ending: Harry discovering what I've done.
I could blame it on a lot of things. The thrill of secrecy, the rush of something new, the way danger makes my heart race. But the truth is uglier than that. Something in me is broken, has been broken for a long time. And despite knowing exactly what I stand to lose - despite loving Harry more than I've ever loved anyone - I keep destroying the one good thing in my life.
The worst part? I know I'll do it again. Even as I chase him, even as my chest aches with the thought of losing him forever, some dark part of me is already thinking about the next time. It's like watching myself sink deeper into quicksand, fully aware I'm drowning but unable to stop struggling against myself.
"Harry, please!" My voice cracks as I call out to him. He doesn't turn around, doesn't even flinch.
I can’t even blame him. After all, how many times can you hear 'I'm sorry' before the words lose all meaning? How many times can you forgive someone before it starts killing something inside
you? But what I didn’t know that day is how accurately I'm going to understand him. I barely manage to catch up to him before he spins around, eyes blazing. Before I can even draw a breath, Harry grabs me by the collar and slams me against the cold brick wall of a nearby building. The impact knocks the wind out of me, and I gasp, feeling the rough surface scrape against my back.
"Why, Draco?" Harry's voice is a low growl, barely masking the hurt and something much more sinister underneath. His hands are gripping my shoulders so tightly that it hurts, and I'm not sure
if it's the pain or the anguish in his voice that brings tears to my eyes. "Why do you keep doing this to us?"
"I don't know," I choke out, my voice trembling. It's a pathetic answer, and I hate myself for it.
But it's the truth. I don't know why I keep ruining everything good in my life. "I love you, Harry. I swear I do."
His grip loosens slightly, but he doesn't let go. There's a flicker of something in his eyes—something like hope, or maybe just exhaustion. "I want to believe you," he says softly. "I really do. But I don’t see how.”
And just like that, the anger seems to drain out of him, leaving only weariness in its wake. He pulls me into his arms, and I collapse against him, sobbing into his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Harry. He holds me tight with a heavy sigh, whispering words of forgiveness I don't deserve. There's a brief, fragile moment where it feels like everything might be okay, like maybe this time things will be different. “ It's okay. It's going to be alright. This time, I’ll make sure of it.” But what I don't see—what I can't see—is the shadow in his eyes. I didn't hear the cruelty in his voice, the pain, the anguish. The part of him that's already given up, that's finally realized I won't change.
That this time, I've gone too far. Harry had snapped, and neither of us knows it yet.
Steam rises from my Earl Grey as I turn another page, pretending to read words I haven't absorbed in hours. The morning light catches my wedding band, sending golden sparkles dancing across the kitchen wall. Fifteen years. Sometimes it feels like yesterday when Harry proposed, sometimes it feels like several lifetimes ago. I adjust my long-sleeved shirt, pulling it down to cover the fresh bruises blooming like violent watercolors of red and purple across my wrists. The ones on my shoulders throb in quiet protest as I shift in my chair. I've gotten good at this—wearing high collars in summer, explaining away the occasional visible mark as a clumsy accident. "Oh, I slipped into the shower," “ Oh, it was so silly of me, I accidentally bumped into the door, I'm such a klutz!” I'll say with a laugh that
sounds hollow to my ears only.
The proposal had been perfect. A beautiful sky of glittering stars in the middle of a forest, a vast shimmering lake which reflected the endless sky above , and Harry on one knee, promising me forever. "I know we've been through rough times," he'd said, voice thick with emotion, "but I want to spend my life with you. We can build something beautiful together." And we did, for a while. The first two years were everything I'd dreamed of—gentle touches,lazy Sunday mornings, inside jokes, and shared kisses. Until the night Harry found another text message I shouldn't have sent. I remember the sound his fist made against the wall, inches from my face. I remember trembling in fear for the first time because of the man I loved. "You made me do this," he'd whispered, and maybe he was right.
I take another sip of tea, wincing as my split lip touches the porcelain rim. Fifteen years of "I'm sorry" and "It won't happen again" and "You know how you make me, Draco." Fifteen years of believing I deserve this because I broke something in him that can never be fixed. And the worst part is I’m probably right. The bruises are my penance for all those times I strayed, for the person I used to be Sometimes, in quiet moments like this, I remember who I was before—young, reckless, unfaithful, yes, but also alive. Free. Now I'm faithful, perfectly faithful, to a man whose love feels like warfare. But isn't this what I asked for? To be kept in line, to be made honest, to pay for my sins?
The front door clicks. Harry is home early. I straighten in my chair, pull down my sleeves one more time, and prepare my smile. After all, I made my bed. Now I have to lie in it, even if it feels more like a grave with each passing day.
The morning light feels wrong. Too bright, too ordinary for a world that's just ended. Harry lies still in my arms, his body growing colder with each passing minute, while I press my face against his chest, waiting for a heartbeat I know I'll never hear again. My tears soak into his favorite red t-shirt, the soft cotton one I'd given him last Christmas.
Twenty minutes ago, everything was different.
He'd slipped into bed after the worst of his episodes, the one that left new bruises painting my ribs in shades of purple and blue. But something was different about him—gentle, almost like the Harry I'd fallen in love with all those years ago. His fingers had traced the marks he'd made, each touch an apology.
"I'm sorry, Draco," he'd whispered against my skin, his breath warm and alive. "I'm so sorry for everything. For what I became. For what I did to us. Just because you cheated, doesn’t mean I have to control you like this. I just loved you too much." His arms had wrapped around me, holding me close—too close. I should have known then. Should have felt the wrongness in his embrace, the finality in his words.
"I'm going to set you free."
Six words, and my whole world turned to ice. I knew. Merlin help me, I knew exactly what he meant. I fought like a wild thing, clawing at his arms, trying to break free, to reach the floo, the medicine cabinet, anything. But Harry had always been stronger. He just held me tighter, his grip firm but gentle, so different from the bruising holds I'd grown used to. "Please," I begged, my voice breaking. "Please, Harry, don't do this. We can get help. We can fix this. Please don't leave me. You can’t do this to me." The words tumbled out between sobs, desperate and raw. He'd just smiled—that same soft smile from our first date, from our wedding day. "I've taken care of everything," he'd murmured, his voice growing fainter. "The manor is yours. The accounts, the investments—enough to take care of you for thirty years or more. You'll never have to worry about money again."
"I don't want money!" I screamed. "I want you! Please fight this. Please stay with me!"
But he'd already made his choice. Had planned it all, down to the last detail. The pills he'd taken before coming to bed. The letters to the Weasley- Granger's confessing his transgressions. The updated will. While I'd been making morning tea, he'd been writing his final chapter.
His last kiss tasted of salt—my tears or his, I couldn't tell. "I'm sorry," he whispered one final time. "For breaking us both."
Now I lie here, clutching his body, unable to let go. The morning sun crawls across our bedroom floor, marking time in a world that shouldn't still be turning. The bruises on my body throb in time with my heartbeat, a rhythm that feels like betrayal because I'm alive and he's not. Somewhere in the house, the floor call is ringing. Soon, I'll have to answer it. Soon, I'll have to call someone, say the words that will make this real. But for now, I hold him, remembering both the monster and the man, the love and the pain, the prison he built and the freedom he chose to give—in the only way he thought he could.
"Hey, love." My weathered fingers brush away fallen leaves from your headstone, the marble still pristine after all these years. Thirty years of weekly visits, of one-sided conversations, of slowly piecing together a puzzle that took both our lives to solve.
The irony still makes me laugh, in a sad sort of way. All those years of blame—you blaming me,me blaming myself, both of us blaming each other—and in the end, the real culprit was biology.
A car accident from your summer with the Dursleys that left invisible scars on your frontal lobe, turning my gentle Harry into someone who couldn't control his rage. And me? Bipolar disorder with manic episodes that sent me spinning into compulsive behavior I couldn't understand or stop.
"We were quite the pair, weren't we?" I settle down on the grass, my joints protesting the movement. "Two people who loved each other more than anything, trapped in bodies that betrayed us, minds that played tricks on us."
The fresh plot beside yours is ready. Cost me the last of that money you left—fitting, really. Thirty years almost to the day, just like you planned. The healers gave me six months at most; the cancer's spread too far. But I didn't want treatment anyway. Not when I knew where I was heading.
"Remember that day in the forest? When you proposed?" My fingers trace your name on the stone. "You said we'd build something beautiful together. And we did, Harry. It wasn't what we expected. It wasn't what we wanted. But god, we loved each other through it all, didn't we?
Through every mistake, every hurt, every moment of confusion and pain. That love was real. It isn’t something you can fake. That love was ours." A cool breeze rustles the autumn leaves, and I pull my cardigan tighter around my shoulders. The sun's setting earlier these days, painting the cemetery in shades of gold and amber.
"I forgave you a long time ago, you know. Once I understood about the brain injury. I hope... I hope wherever you are, you've forgiven me too. Now that you know about the mania, about how
hard I tried to fight it."
I struggle to my feet, bones creaking. The pills are waiting at home, arranged neatly on the nightstand beside a glass of water and the letter to my Pansy. Everything planned, everything in
order, just like you did.
"Won't be long now, love." I press my fingers to my lips, then to your name on the stone. "Save me a spot up there, will you? We've got a lot of catching up to do—with our real selves this time. No damaged brains, no mental illness. Just us, the way we were always meant to be."
The setting sun catches my wedding ring—the same one you placed on my finger all those years ago. It still fits perfectly, just like we did. Two imperfect people, loving perfectly, trapped in bodies and minds that never quite worked right.
"See you soon, Harry."
I turn away from your grave for the last time, smiling. Tomorrow, they'll find me in our bed, peaceful at last. And somewhere, beyond all this, you'll be waiting with that crooked smile I fell in love with, arms open wide, ready to give us the forever we always deserved but never quite managed here on Earth