16: You Love Draco

You tried to process what happened as you played.

The person that you smelled in your amortentia, was someone you knew very well. It was the blonde that is currently avoiding you. Somehow, that day when you knew that he was avoiding you, you decided to follow his lead.

Draco was your best friend but you never thought of him that way. Sure, you missed him, but you thought it would be natural since you spent so much time with him. Now that the love potion has made you realize that you actually felt something else for him, you were unsure.

Love potion lets one smell something that attracts them and you smelt Draco.

Was it because you missed him that it made the amortentia smell like him?

Or is it really something else?

Draco was hostile with you at first, but you were able to convince him to be peaceful with you. Soon, acquaintances turned into friends. You and Draco slowly got closer and depend on each other.

Both of you were similar in a lot of ways. But there was also a lot of differences between the two of you at the same time. You balance each other out. Without the other, one would be unstable and chaotic.

Both of you help and improve each other. Draco helped you to be more outgoing. You remembered before you met Draco, you ever only had Luna and Hermione as friends. It's not that you were shy, but you thought that Luna and Hermione were enough. Because of Draco, you were finally getting closer to other students like Harry and Cho.

And you helped Draco to be much gentler and less... hostile. Without you, he would probably get into more detentions than he had during the first 3 years in Hogwarts combined. When you came along, he stopped calling most muggle-borns, mudbloods. Keep in mind, most muggle-borns. He didn't hesitate to call mudbloods when it came to Hermione and a few others that angered him. But, it would be much worse if you hadn't become his friend.

Without each other, both of your lives would never be better. You do not regret your decision for being friends with Draco ever. If anything, you would be friends with him earlier if you could.

Even if the rumours about him being a death eater were true, you know you wouldn't mind at all. You know Draco, you know that he wouldn't want that. You decided that if those rumours were true, you would not leave him and help him through it. He helped you through your parents' death, so it would be your turn to help him when the time comes.

Then, you finally realized something important.

You love him.

Now, it made sense.

You never minded how bad Draco was before, in fact, you helped him to better. Draco was always so kind to you and you never doubted him for it. It was weird but you knew he was sincere. Now, he was so much kinder to you than you first met. Even though at first he was not the best person to hang out with at first glance, but he was different when he was with you. And you saw that, you saw the difference when he was with you and when he was with everyone else. You were glad to see that you were an exception to him. And thus, both of you became inseparable.

Draco helped you through your parents' death. You never got to tell him how grateful you are to him. He stayed by your side through all those nights, he went out of his way to stay with you every night, never complaining about how he had to come out after midnight to accompany you. You never asked for it, but he still stayed with you without you even asking.

Naturally, you fell for him. All the kindness he has shown only to you managed to capture your heart without you even knowing.

Then, you realized that he was special to you too.

You never told anyone else about the pressure your grandmother gave you except for Draco. You never really showed anyone when you played your violin other than Draco. Your parents' death was also something you told Draco pretty easily when it took Hermione and the others weeks to get you to tell them.

Draco already has a very important position in your life. Now realising your feelings for him just made him much important to you than ever. Until now, you never really thought about how important he was to you. Now that you know, you find yourself loving him even more.

It suddenly hit you.

You miss him so much. You finally realized how much you actually missed him.

He was the one who avoided you first, and yet, you respected his decision when you saw how determined he was. You never asked for a reason and just accepted the fact he will staying away from you.

You laughed at yourself, you brought this on yourself.

In the midst of playing your violin, you didn't realize that tears have flowed down to your face.

You sighed to yourself and put your violin down. You laid your back on the tree and just started to feel sorry for yourself.

But you still decided to follow your decision to allow Draco to do whatever he wanted. It hurt you, but you wanted to take his choices into account. So, you ended up letting things as they are.

-

Meanwhile, at the Great Hall.

Lunch started 30 minutes ago and Draco noticed that you weren't there. He got worried almost instantly and went out to look for you.

He already knew exactly where you would be. So he rushed to the Black Lake.

As he arrived at the fields just a few meters away from the Black Lake. He hid behind the tree where he first found you playing the violin.

He watched as you played song after song. With the violin at your hand, the songs you played never seem to fail at calming him down. All the guilt and fear he felt from all that he's done seem to be soothed away by your playing.

After a while, he watched as you put your violin down and sat by the tree. He doesn't know why you decided to come here, but one thing's for sure is that you had something on your mind. He didn't know what you were doing when you sat at the tree until he sees the movement of you rubbing your eyes with your hands.

You were crying?

Draco was surprised to see you crying again. You weren't the one to cry over small matters, you only ever cried for serious issues. The only time Draco has ever seen you cried or sad was when you cried over your parents' death. Seeing you cried now surprised Draco, which got him wondering, what made you cry this time?

Draco was deep in thought when he didn't notice that you already spotted him, catching him staring at you.

His widen when his eyes met yours, he wanted to turn back and quickly runoff, but he was frozen in place when he saw that you were giving a sad smile. Then, he knew.

The reason you were sad and crying was him.

How did he know?

The look you had on your face when you found him gave it away, it was like you were almost happy to see him, but then was reminded of what happened.

You got yourself ready to go back to your dorms when you saw Draco staring down at you, just like that day when you first played for him.

Draco finally noticed that you caught him, both of you looked into each other's eyes. You could see an apologetic look on his face, you know that he's hurting for doing this too. But he's stubborn, he wanted you to keep going and go back to how both of you were for the past 2 weeks.

Draco just stood there as you walked over to him. You stopped 4 feet away from him, trying to keep a safe distance with respect for his decision.

"I missed you," you said bluntly.

Draco froze.

He didn't know what to say, Draco didn't want to say anything more that could hurt you. But he didn't want to say anything else that could pull you or himself back to each other either.

So, he remained silent.

Which you took as a sign that he will continue to do this.

"I don't know why are you doing this, Draco. But I want you to know I'm here whenever you need me... no matter what." You told him, eyes still red from the crying.

Draco could feel his heart clenching; it took everything he had to hold himself back from pulling you into his arms and tell you everything.

Would you still be here for him when he tells you the truth? He asked himself.

His heart already has an answer for himself, but he still doubts and is afraid about what will you do when the time comes.

In the end, Draco just nodded, fearing that he will make a mistake if he opened his mouth and said something.

You managed to tell him what you needed to say, you reached forward and placed your arm on his.

"I care about you, Draco. I'll always be here when you need me. I'll stick by you no matter what." You assured him one last time. You gave his arm one last squeeze. You leave Draco standing underneath the tree.

Draco dug his nails into his palms, constantly apologizing to you in his mind. As much as he wanted to tell you that he needs you, he refused to drag you into this mess.

And so, the both of you left things as they are, hurting yourselves even more as time passes by.