LOST IT TO TRYING
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The wedding was rapidly approaching, which was most likely why Amora felt permanently on edge. There had been rumours in the papers that they would postpone the date until Minister Malfoy was found; however, Malfoy himself was adamant that this was what his father wanted, and he wasn't changing it.

It was tedious to comprehend. There was hardly anything to do to distract her from the shadow looming over her, whereas Malfoy poured everything he had into his work. He was gone more than he was home, and when he was home, it felt like he wasn't really there at all. His silver eyes wandered, his fingers tapped on oak surfaces, and sometimes she caught him humming absentmindedly.

Her nerves were devil's snare, wrapping around her legs first and forcing her to stay in place. It seemed to prop a mirror up in front of her so that she could watch it climb her limbs, tighten around her stomach and her chest, snake in twirls around her arms and bound her hands together, until it covered her mouth and her eyes and then, finally, her nose. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't see. She couldn't think straight.

Once upon a time, there was a teenage girl who went to sleep every night dreaming about the day her surname would change to match that of her lover. She dreamt of seaside homes and shared libraries—cats on laps and chores with music. She dreamt of being held and holding, of being loved and loving.

Amora's eyes burned into the bag containing her wedding dress, which hung from the wardrobe in her bedroom. Madam Opal had sent it to her, which had left her feeling worse. She'd hoped she would have been able to go and collect it, but with Minister Malfoy's disappearance came stricter rules for women's safety— or at least Amora's.

She had hardly heard the creaks of the staircase before a figure stopped outside her open door. Malfoy glanced between her and the dress.

"Is it not everything you hoped for?"

Amora scoffed a bitter laugh and was mortified when her eyes immediately grew hot and started to swell with fat tears. She strained her eyes to stop them from falling, glancing away from Malfoy and back at the dress.

"It's..." Amora struggled to think of the words. "It's the most beautiful dress I have ever seen. But it doesn't make me happy."

Malfoy quirked a brow. "Twenty thousand Galleons and it doesn't make you happy?"

Amora very nearly winced at the reminder of the cost. Malfoy hadn't so much as looked up at her when she had him sign the check for it. He swiped his signature over the line and slid it back over to her, and that was that. She hadn't even been sure if he had checked the amount.

"Money isn't everything," Amora said. "Material objects aren't everything."

"What is?"

Amora glanced over at him and half-smiled. "That's a sort of deep question, don't you think?"

He shoved his hands into his pockets and studied her face. "Well? What is everything?"

Amora thought for a moment. "Peace. Freedom. To be with the people you love and know they are safe."

Malfoy was silent.

"What is everything to you?" Amora asked him.

He cleared his throat. "I..." Malfoy shook his head. "I'm not sure. I've not thought about it."

"Well, what makes you happy?"

Malfoy went silent again.

"Nothing."

Amora's heart sank. "Nothing?"

"I have no constant in my life that makes me happy," Malfoy admitted. "I feel satisfaction from my work. I laugh at Theo's jokes sometimes. There's... nothing I own that makes me smile."

Amora couldn't imagine words less sad.

"Malfoy, I..." Amora shook her head. "No, that's not right. You must have— Well, what about..." Her face brightened. "Hopes. Your hopes, Malfoy. I don't have peace, freedom, or any of that stuff either. But that's what everything would be to me. That's what I wish I could have. What would you want?"

Malfoy was silent yet again. He burned his gaze into her and pursed his lips. She swallowed.

"There has to be something," she murmured.

"What I want, I could never have," Malfoy said quietly. "There is no point in dwelling on it. It does me no favours."

"But—"

"I should get going," Malfoy cut her off, a sharp edge to his tone. "I'll leave you to it."

Amora stood from the bed. "Wait. I—" She cleared her throat and watched him still in the doorway, expectant. "I just... I need something to do. I can't sit around reading and moping all day long. Can't I help you with—"

"You don't need anything to do with my work," Malfoy replied immediately. "You'll do more than moping around after that."

"We could talk—"

"You want to talk to me?" Malfoy laughed bitterly.

Amora could feel the change in the air. It was so thick that the corset of her dress felt tighter than ever. She rubbed her pointer finger and thumb together to ground herself.

"It's better than doing nothing all day," Amora replied glumly. "Besides, if we are marrying one another in a few days, then perhaps we should be capable of talking to each other for longer than five minutes without blowing up at one another."

"Marriage doesn't mean what you're thinking it does." Malfoy gritted his teeth. "It doesn't mean sitting in the living room every evening with tea, talking about our day, or owning pets together, or sharing a bedroom. It doesn't even mean I will trust you, Buckley."

"Will you always call me Buckley? Will you say, 'I do, Buckley' at the altar?"

Malfoy rolled his eyes at her. "Obviously not at the altar."

"Are you scared to say my name?" Amora pressed, edging closer to him, her brown eyes narrowed. "Do you not like it or something?"

Malfoy barked an arrogant laugh and lifted his chin higher. "Scared, Buckley? I'm not scared of your stupid name."

Amora's chest ignited with fury. Her teeth gritted.

"Say it then," she spat.

"What?"

"Say my stupid name."

Silence. Then, he turned on his heel.

"This is ridiculous. I'm not saying your name like a dog in training," he hissed at her. "Find something to do. I don't care what."

He turned his back on her, and she saw red.

"On the contrary, I think you're ridiculous, Malfoy!" Amora bellowed, and picked up the nearest object to her— a flimsy book— throwing it at his back.

Malfoy turned like a flash of lightning, his glare nearly pure evil, contorted in a way that Amora had never seen directed at her before.

"Did you just throw a fucking book at me, Buckley?"

"It certainly looks that way, doesn't it?"

"Pick it up."

"No."

"Pick. It. Up."

"I'll just throw it at you again."

"You're childish and immature," Malfoy growled. "It's a wonder I ever actually liked you at school."

Resentment blocked her throat, grew in her chest, and became hot in her fingertips. Suddenly, she was seven years old again, and she couldn't control her anger. Her mother and father tried to calm her down while jars flew off the kitchen shelves, and her cousin clamped his hands over his head to protect himself.

"Liked is the understatement of the year," Amora quipped. "You were fucking smitten for me."

Malfoy grimaced and ran a hand through his silver hair. It wasn't a big enough reaction.
"I'd bet anything that you still are."

Malfoy laughed. "You're a fool. An idiotic, self-obsessed, ignorant fool, Buckley."

Amora growled, "You always talk so confidently because you think you're the one in control. You lost that control the second I walked through your front door, and you know it."

"Wrong."

"Right. You occlude anytime things get personal. You turn the other cheek when I say something that I could get my mouth sewn together for. You cook me dinner and give me more freedom than any other woman I've met so far. Is that all for nothing?"

You keep photographs of me in your bedside drawer from a date we went on when we were sixteen.

Malfoy was positively furious. His hands trembled with rage, and he sniffed, lifting his nose higher. The vein in his forehead twitched. He was going to explode. His anger only added fuel to Amora's fire. The audacity of his feelings rubbed hers the wrong way.

"You are nothing special," Malfoy hissed, moving closer. "So help me, Buckley, you better shut up before I end up doing or saying something I will truly regret. If you want me to prove that you mean nothing to me, then fine, I will. I'll report you to the BMA for what you are. A fucking spy for the Order."

Her blood ran cold. Never had he said those words aloud before. Her curled lip trembled ever so slightly. She glanced him up and down, hard.

"I don't work for the fucking Order."

"Then why did the Order change locations after you saw the model village in my office? The one with Pansy Parkinson on it?"

Amora cleared her throat and shrugged. "It must have been a coincidence. That, or you have a traitor among your midst. However, that traitor isn't me, Malfoy. Now stop trying to change the subject."

"A huge coincidence considering you were the only person to see the fake model village in my office," Malfoy pointed out.

So he had set her up. Amora slowly blinked at him. He knew putting Pansy there was like throwing chum to the sharks, or ferrets at a Hippogriff. He knew she would do everything in her power to make sure that it didn't happen. She had fallen for it.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Amora snapped. "How could I have spoken to anybody from the Order, seriously? You're insane."

"I'm insane?" He jabbed a finger at his chest and laughed. "Buckley, you sacrificed yourself for the side that does not give a shit about their army—"

"The Dark Lord doesn't either," Amora seethed. "So let's stop pretending that both sides have perfect morals that all align. I left the Order. I did not want to put up with that bullshit anymore. I talked to Theo. Theo and I were going to leave together. We talked."

"You believe that?"

Amora jerked her head to look at him, baffled. "That is what Theo told me, and that's what I remember."

Though it felt off.

"Eventually you're going to lie to yourself so much that your fucked up memory will believe the gaps you've created for yourself," Draco growled quietly. "If you're not careful, you're going to cause irreversible damage. You're going to lose yourself."

"What do I have to lose?" Amora breathed.

Malfoy's jaw tensed.

"I lost everything," Amora whispered to him. "When you—" Her voice cracked, and she could have kicked herself. "When you did what you did, you left us all behind, picking up the pieces. Maybe I glued parts back together wrong. I'm not the person you remember me to be, Malfoy."

Stinging silence. It felt like being smacked across the cheek or having the wind knocked out of your chest. Malfoy looked anywhere but at her for a second. When silver did finally meet copper, he closed his eyes and pursed his lips for a moment, exhaling a long breath.

"Are you sure you want to go there?"

She could have clawed the lump out of her throat. She settled for scratching it as if to ease that ache. Ugly red and white stripes were left behind, irritated, and she glared at him, her nose curling.

Her pride and her ego battled with her curiosity. She wanted to ask him the hundreds of questions she had agonised over for the last five years, but she also wanted to punch him around the face and call it a night, to not give Malfoy the satisfaction of knowing how much pain he had caused her.

Rage boiled and bubbled. Looking into his eyes, she felt like she was sixteen again. The furious teenager who wanted to both hurt him and take him back. The one who had the saviour complex, who blamed herself, who thought if she ever saw him again, maybe there was a part of her that would grab him and kiss him and try to change him.

"Are you scared to?" She asked him, numb.

"Why do you keep asking me if I am scared?" Malfoy spat irritably. "I am not scared of you, Buckley. I'm not scared of what happened."

"Why did you become a Death Eater?"

More uncomfortable silence. Malfoy ran a hand through his hair. He pulled out the stool from beneath her wooden vanity desk and sat on it.

"I didn't have a choice at the time," Malfoy answered, and Amora was nearly surprised by the calmness in his voice and the willingness to communicate with her. He could have just as easily told her it was none of her business and stormed from the bedroom.

"The Dark Lord was staying here over the summer before sixth year started. He told me that I had to join before the school year or he'd kill my mother and me to prove a point to my father. He was still in Azkaban at the time, for the whole Ministry thing with Potter. The Dark Lord was furious with him. I accepted the Dark Mark the day after your sixteenth birthday. I kept it to myself. Carried out my tasks over the school year. I figured the less people I got involved, the easier everything would be."

Amora's stomach turned. She felt old at twenty-one, nearly twenty-two, imagining a sixteen-year-old Draco Malfoy holding out his forearm, wincing at the branding forced upon him, all to keep his family safe. She felt a tug in her chest somewhere. Maybe because sixteen felt so long ago. When you are sixteen, you think you know everything, and at twenty-one, it's as if you suddenly realise you know nothing at all, and you never did.

"Did he tell you to kill Dumbledore?"

Malfoy gave a short nod. "I had two tasks. Assassinate Dumbledore and rebuild a Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Requirement."

Recognition flashed in her eyes. "That's where you always were."

He smirked, but amusement didn't reach silver. "That's where I always was," he confirmed.

"Did you ever want to tell me?" Amora asked him. "Or did you use me as a cover-up towards the end?"

The silence was deafening. Part of her wished she'd never asked. The cogs were turning in his brain as he picked and chose what he would say next. Malfoy was calculating and cunning. She knew to take his words with a pinch of salt. He'd manipulated her once before. He could do it again if he wanted to.

"Every day."

Amora's head snapped towards him, and she blinked rapidly. Had she heard him correctly? He wouldn't look at her. She couldn't tell by his face.

"And you weren't a cover-up," Malfoy scoffed. "If anything, you being around made everything so much more difficult for me. I'm fully aware I should have cut things off when I first got the mark, but I was selfish. Sixteen. Hormonal and too emotional. Stupid. So I kept you around until it was physically impossible."

Relief tangled with doubt and made her head spin and her chest tight. If Malfoy was telling the truth about their sixth year, should she be pleased? Should the years of insecurities his actions had gifted her vanish? Should she feel better about herself? More valued?

Part of her wasn't sure why she felt worse about the situation, but the sensible part of her brain told her it was because it had made things less black and white. He was a bit greyer now. A boy who was protecting himself and his mother, holding onto his girlfriend desperately, now changed into a lonely, motherless man so wrapped up in a war he had lost any decent part of himself.

"Well, when did you stop loving me?" Amora asked. "When did you move on?"

"Stupid question," he spat.

"Answer it. I'd like to know when you went from... from feeling such an intense urge to be around me all of the time, from loving me with everything you fucking had, to despising me and... and acting like I did something to you."

Malfoy stood from the stool. "Not everything is about you, Buckley."

"Stop trying to make me feel small or selfish– or whatever it is that you're currently projecting," Amora scolded. "I'm– fuck, Malfoy, I'm begging you to just—" She shook her head. "You changed. I can't believe that when I am looking at you, you're... you're..."

"I'm what?" He seethed.

His eyebrows were tugged down into a harsh glare as he dared her to finish her sentence.
"You were him. You were my Draco."

Malfoy's lips parted, and his eyes widened. He swallowed and seemed to compose himself as quickly as he had previously faltered. It briefly occurred to her that this was the first time Amora had said his name. She remembered how startling it had been to hear hers pass his lips for the first time in so many years.

"Listen, Buckley," he said, calmer than he had been since they'd started the conversation. "I can't talk to you about this. None of it matters. We'll marry, we'll coexist, we'll move on. Forget Hogwarts. Forget who I was when I was a teenager. None of that matters anymore. Even if it did, it can't."

Amora burned daggers into the floor. She picked at the skin around one of her fingernails. So many retorts whirled through her brain. There were still a hundred things she wanted to say to him, so many questions left unasked and unanswered.

"At the risk of sounding completely pathetic, why does it not matter?" Amora swallowed. "Does it not matter in general? Or does it not matter to you?"

"How about this?" Malfoy took a step closer. "I'll answer a question if you answer one. Does that sound fair?"

Amora sat back on the bed, drawing her legs into a crisscross position. She eyed him cautiously.

"What sort of questions? Give me an example."

"You tell me what you'd like to know, then I'll meet your match."

Amora thought hard. Her teeth pinched her cheeks inwards, her eyes slightly narrowed as she scanned his face for answers that would not appear without a price. She wondered how bold she was allowed to be. However, she had a feeling that she could get away with murder with Malfoy. She wasn't sure how that made her feel exactly, but she knew she was grateful for it. She wouldn't have made it this far without his lenient attitude towards her.

"I would like to know what role Theo has in all of this," Amora dared and watched the way his right eyebrow rose ever so slightly.

Malfoy thought for a few moments himself. His fingers scratched his chin for a second, and he gave her a short nod.

"Then I would like to know who is helping you contact the Order," Malfoy proposed and watched as her mouth dropped open.

"How is that—"

"That is exactly fair," he cut her off as if he knew her well enough to know exactly what she was about to say, and the annoying part was that he did. "I'll tell you every inch of Theo's involvement with me and his split from the Order. I'll even tell you what those secret parcels are that I can tell you are so fascinated by. But in return, you'll have to tell me who in Hogsmeade is helping you reach Moody or Lupin."

Amora's heart was in her throat for the millionth time during their conversation. She shook her head at him.

"Not possible," she said. "I'm not in contact with the Order. Nor do I particularly want to be."

Malfoy laughed. "You can stop with that bullshit, Buckley. I'm not going to kill them, but there are certain things I don't particularly appreciate you whispering through the fence."

Amora crinkled her nose. "You need to come up with a different question. I physically cannot answer that one."

"How about this?" Malfoy leered closer to her. His breath fanned her skin, and the perfect lock of hair fell loose from his slick back, narrowly skimming his nose as a handsome smirk took over his pointed features. She wanted to shove him away.

"I can make this game even more fun," he said. "We can get Veritaserum involved— how about that? A swig each."

"What's your game here?" Amora huffed at him, folding her arms against her chest. "Why would you take truth serum when you know I could ask you absolutely anything and you'd be forced to tell the truth?"

Malfoy shrugged his shoulders. "There would be rules in regards to question answering. You weren't planning on lying to me if I gave you the answers you wanted, were you? That's not fair at all."

Amora glared and shook her head. "I don't like that idea."

"Then no Veritaserum," he said simply.

"No Veristaserum," she agreed. "But you change your question to one I can actually answer."

"Well, I suppose I could say names? People who I think are helping you?" Malfoy said. "Is that easier for you?"

"No," Amora growled. "Stop it."

"Is it one of the fertility doctors? One of them had been caught before exchanging information for a price. I wouldn't be surprised," Malfoy quipped. "Could it be—"

"I want to change my question," Amora interrupted him. "You can match it."

"Go on."

"What was..." Amora thought. "Did your parents know about us when we were at Hogwarts?"

Malfoy's forehead crinkled. "You already know this."

She gave him a look. "No, I don't— Oh." She realised rather quickly that she must have known, but she had forgotten. "You can answer anyway. I suppose you get a free one, then."

"You met my mother."

Amora stilled and tilted her head at him with a frown. "I don't remember that," she said softly.

Malfoy watched her with a grimace on his face, as if her presence both pained and irritated him. She wasn't sure if he pitied her or if he thought she was completely stupid.

"The three of us had lunch at the Three Broomsticks during our sixth year," Malfoy answered. "She..." he hesitated. "She really liked you."

Amora's heart thudded. "Woah, I..." She had no idea what to say. "I just...What about your father?"

Malfoy shook his head. "Nothing."

He still seemed quite quiet from the mention of his late mother. It was as if all adrenaline and anger and cockiness had been drained from him, and stood deflated in the middle of her room was a hollow Malfoy.

"Well, what's your question then?" She asked, stretching her back in an attempt to ease the tension that had blanketed them both.

"You get to ask another one," Malfoy said.

"But–"

"You already knew that," he pointed out. "I'm not going to make you answer questions in return for information you've forgotten."

Amora felt some sort of swell in her stomach at his decency.

"Okay... Why did you send me to the factory and then make me come here?" Amora asked him.

Malfoy thought. "Then I'd like to know how you think you would have reacted to me being a Death Eater— if I'd told you in the sixth year."

"Deal."

"I sent you to the factory because I wasn't ready for you to come here yet," Malfoy answered. "I had to lock doors, conceal important information... That sort of thing."

Amora furrowed her eyebrows. "But that doesn't take as long as I was at the factory for."
He shrugged as if it were simple. "I wasn't ready to see you."

"So why did you want me to come to your house in the first place, then? You could have let somebody else have me, but you didn't."

He inhaled. "I couldn't."

"You couldn't?"

"You're straying from the original question," Malfoy quipped. "Answer mine."

"The answer is that I don't know," Amora replied. "I suppose it would depend on how far along you told me or how... remorseful you seemed. I would have been extremely upset, but I suppose I would have been glad you told me. Of course, I would have told somebody. I would have had to."

"So Hufflepuff," he managed a smirk.

Amora rolled her eyes at him. "It's been hard living with the fact that I didn't know. Members of the Order accused Pansy, Blaise, Theo, and me of being spies for months. We had to go through interrogation procedures. It was... pretty traumatising."

"They thought you all knew?"

"Especially me," Amora laughed bitterly. "How could I not know? We knew everything about each other. It was the one thing I didn't know, apparently."

"Did they hurt you because of it?"

"I can't..." She shook her head. "I don't remember anymore. That part is all foggy."

Malfoy looked mildly concerned for a moment. "Do you think your memory is getting worse?"

"I'd say so," she said. "It's hard to tell. I don't know what I remember and what I'm forgetting. What I do know is that I went a whole week without thinking about Pansy. And when I do remember her, she's more... more of a feeling than a face that has a body and a voice."

Malfoy remained quiet.

Amora raised a brow. "Is that one of your questions? Do I get to ask you one?"

"Go on then," he huffed with an eye roll.

"Did you ever look for my name in the papers?" She asked. "When there had been bad attacks on the Order? Did you ever check to see if I had died?"

"I didn't have to."

Amora's face scrunched up. "What does that mean?"

Malfoy began to head for the bedroom door. "That answer is worth a lot more than one about your memory loss. Now, I have work to get to. If you'd like something to do, the greenhouse at the end of the garden needs tending to. There are ingredients for certain potions in there that I can't have spoiling."

Amora nearly leapt from the bed. "You're– You want me to handle that?"

"Hufflepuffs are decent at Herbology, aren't they?"

Amora nearly smiled as he left.

D.M + A.B

The next morning, Amora was awake with the birds. With four days left until the wedding, she was growing restless, her sleep broken, her mind jumbled more so than usual. She didn't necessarily mind this morning– the mornings were bright this May time, and today, when she stepped out in her lightest dress, it felt like her skin was burning.

It was gorgeous.

She slipped the sleeves down and turned in a circle, her face pointed to the sky. Her eyes had to shut at the sheer brightness of it— and at such an early time, too. Amora sighed happily.

Her bare feet were careful not to tread on the overgrowing rose bushes on either side of the pavement. She knew she'd need to wash her feet before she reentered the manor, but it was worth it. Amora drifted all the way to the greenhouses and popped the door open.

It was the only area of the garden that had been kept together. She checked on the plants she had watered the night before. The venomous tentacula seemed to be thriving again from where it had begun to wilt the afternoon before. She remembered specifically how Professor Sprout had gushed over the expense of the plant. Malfoy had as much as Hogwarts' greenhouse did.

"Here," she fed it the dried doxies that Malfoy kept in a jar on one of the shelves.
The plant was greedy to take as much of it in as possible. Amora fed the rest of them and was then glad to get out of the sweltering heat of the glass shed.

Her plan had been to go and make Malfoy breakfast to see if he was interested in some more questions and answers, but instead, Amora stopped at a bench near the back porch and sat down. She pulled her dress down past her collarbones and hiked her dress up her legs in a very unladylike fashion.

"Something about the warm weather just makes everything feel so much better, doesn't it?"

Amora jumped at the voice. Malfoy stood there, his hands in his pockets, somehow already dressed for the day and seemingly unbothered by the bright sun beating down over them. Amora was quick to kick her dress back down her legs and yank her top over her shoulders.

"Shit," she cursed. "Sorry."

Malfoy quirked a brow. "Don't worry about it," he said, and sat down next to her on the bench, running his hand along the metal of its arm, which extended into a silver snake, its jaw open and its fangs protruding and large. "My mother used to do the exact same thing whenever my father wasn't home. I never understood why she didn't just... whack a pair of shorts on and sit in the sun if that's what she wanted to do."

Amora quirked a smile at the mention of his mother. The lady whom she had apparently met, and who had supposedly liked Amora. She wished she could remember.

"I would if I owned a pair of shorts," Amora said.

Malfoy hummed.

"I thought you didn't like the warm weather."

"Hm?" He seemed distracted, his own eyes shut as his face tilted to the sky.

"Well, you always said you liked the snow," Amora explained. "Watching it. Not being in it."

Malfoy glanced at her. "I did say that. The thing I said earlier– that was something you said to me once."

"Oh, I see."

"Do you remember?" Malfoy asked and then hesitated before he added, "It was during our OWL exams. We were all revising at the end of the field. You made Theo a daisy-chain-crown-thing, and you said that very sentence— or something very similar, I'm sure. I made a point of disagreeing with you, but I said it later when we saw your mother, just for brownie points. You thought it was funny."

"It rings a bell," Amora said and suddenly produced her brightest smile yet as she laughed. "I think I do remember, actually. Umbridge had just passed that ridiculous rule— boys and girls to be six inches apart."

Malfoy's face lit up in recognition. "That's right. Merlin, that woman was awful."

"She was!" Amora agreed. "I wish I could forget that stupid laugh of hers. I think it's safe to say she's left a permanent mark on me."

She lifted her hand thoughtfully. I must not talk back.

"She's dead," Malfoy said. "If that's any consolation."

Amora arched a brow. "How?"

"A rebel attack a couple of years ago."

"Hm."

"Do you fancy a green tea or something?" Amora asked. "We could drink it out here."

Malfoy considered it for a moment. "That might be nice."

"Okay, wait here."

She headed into the kitchen and flicked her wand at the kettle and then at the cupboard that contained the mugs. Amora felt in a better mood than usual, the sun pouring through the windows and the backdoor wide open, inviting the sounds of the birds and the smell of the plants.

A squawking sound filled her ears as she finished pouring boiling water into the teapot. She stirred the tea leaves and went to pick up the Daily Prophet, which the owl had left right on the backdoor mat.

"Buckley—"

Malfoy's urgent call was drowned out in her ears as her eyes darted over the bold writing covering the front page. It stilled in her hands.

MINISTER MALFOY FOUND DEAD

She gasped, the paper falling from her hand, her hand smacking over her mouth. Malfoy stood in the doorway, his eyes dropping down at it. He seemed to only take a second before his head snapped back up to her.

"Malfoy," Amora swallowed. "Oh, Merlin."

Malfoy hesitated.

Her hand reached out to touch his arm. He looked at it.

"Are you okay?"

Malfoy was deadly silent.

"You are," Amora murmured, realisation settling across her, and she withdrew her hand. "Did you... Did you already know?"

His silver eyes sparkled with what could only be described as amusement. His crinkled forehead ceased.

"What makes you say that?"

"You just..." Amora murmured, her voice getting caught in her throat. "You didn't seem too worried about his disappearance. Did you think this would be the outcome?"

"I did."

"And you don't seem upset."

"I'm not."

There was a long silence.

"Go on, Buckley. Say whatever you're thinking."

You have something to do with it. Just like you had something to do with Nott Sr's death.

"I'm sorry for your loss."

He laughed. "No, you're not. Get those green teas poured, will you? You don't want to overbrew them." He returned to the garden and called, "And for Merlin's sake, chuck those little pyjamas on if you want to sunbathe. I'm not going to report you."

Amora released a breath she didn't know she was holding.

-
Thanks so much to the amazing the_9th_horcrux  for proofreading this chapter!!

And thanks for reading and being patient with the update! Hope you enjoyed it <33

Dyiansobrien

W/c: 5.4k (this book has now reached 88k and draco and amora have yet to kiss)