A couple days had passed and still I heard nothing from Lucius. The fear of the unknown was now more terrifying than anything I'm sure was hurtling towards me. 

I tried my best to play it cool, like I didn't care. Like I was ready for anything but god...I'd never been so petrified. I was leaning on Draco constantly for comfort and reassurance and every time I found myself disappointed by empty promises he had to fill me with to pass the fear even if it was only for a moment. A promise of a life beyond this...if it even existed.

Sometimes I saw the look in his eyes when he heard me repeat myself for the 100th time about all the possibilities that where lying ahead. Like it took a whole lot of strength not to snap, or tell me to just shut up for one second and even though it was never said it didn't have to be. That's where we were a million miles away from each other. My mind was erratic, scrutinising over any tiny detail having to talk and talk endlessly about the most insignificant little thing that may or may not have some relevance to what was going on...and for him it was the opposite in so many ways. He shut off. Became numb to turning world around him. So in the time we spent just us two together the comfort we both needed desperately could never happen. Yet the agonising pain of being away from him was even more haunting than the silence. We couldn't win..we were both already losers in a battle that hadn't begun.

The Astronomy Tower had become a place of certain sanctity for us, for Draco the time without having to engage in a conversation he couldn't bare being in lifted him slightly and for me the flickering noises of students talking, laughing going about their day had become a warmth that I didn't anticipate i'd ever need. That now I had to cling onto any piece of normality that was left roaming around me. 

"Do you ever wish you could start again" His voice alarmed me slightly, I'd become so used to the quiet that I near enough jumped out my skin.

"What do you mean?"

He looked up to me now, only for a moment before dropping his gaze to the ground far beneath us. "If you had the opportunity to start your whole life completely from the beginning, knowing everything you know now would you do it."

For a second the obvious circulated my thoughts, the things I could of prevented, the life I would have and people I would have with me but before my mind nearly took off I was shortly grounded by the reality of the hypothetical question that indeed it was just that. Hypothetical. 

"Does is matter?"

The long breathe he forced out of him seemed to last longer than usual, like he was pushing every last bit of hope that he had buried deep down out of him. "No I suppose not." Draco looked down to his wrist checking the face of his watch before looking at me. "I need to go. Will you be ok?"

The tedious smile I was now so used to found its spot back on my face. "I'll be fine." Draco's tired eyes held the pain that matched from inside of me. I knew he knew I wasn't but god what was he supposed to do? What was anyone supposed to do?

Both of us so broken we were using the stitches that held us together to try and repair the other. An agonising circle both too terrified to break.

A screech from behind sent the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up in shock. I twisted my head round to an owl already making its way back to whether it had came from and there left on the floor was an Ivory letter with the most articulate handwriting I'd every seen.

Miss Drayheart

My stomach felt like it had exploded into a thousand pieces, my heart pulsing through my neck. I didn't need to open the letter to know who it was from. I knew exactly who it was and I knew what was in it. I knew that the moment the seal of that envelope broke my life was going to be different forever, out of my control. Torn away from me before it had even started. 

I had no idea how long I had been stood staring at the letter but with that last piece of energy I had left in me, I crouched myself down to the ground. Lifting the words that were sent to destroy me delicately in my hands.

Draco will tell you everything you need to know about the Vanishing Cabinet but you need only assist if he requires with that, you are needed elsewhere. Your attention is now on Dumbledore. The night Draco succeeds with his duty you must succeed with yours.

Kill Dumbledore. 

Despite how heavy the words I had read were the letter drifted it's way to the ground as if it were a feather. As I waited for the tears to fall from the familiar burn behind my eyes nothing came. Not even a drop.

My body had finally run out. I had nothing left in me. 

Like the last breath was being sucked straight out of me I fell to my knees. No longer able to bare the weight I was having to hold. No longer able to keep myself upright for the sake of Draco. I was on the floor. I had finally been defeated. I could no longer play the game. I was empty.

All consuming images of my family tore through the final threads that were holding me together. All I could see was them... and all I could feel..was nothing.

"Ivy why don't you just come- Ivy? Ivy! What's wrong?! Ivy look at me!"Draco's face was in front me, I watched his mouth move, I felt the grasp around my shoulders, I felt the the pressure of him shaking me begging for a response but I couldn't because a part of me had just died. I was gone. 

"Ivy?! What's going on?!" His eyes darted all around me until it landed on the tainted piece of paper lying on the floor.

"No......no..."His head folded to the ground, clutching the paper in his hand until his grasp became so tight it was now crumpled inside his palm. "NO! NO! I CANT- YOUR NOT DOING THI-I...I..FUCK!:

His words rang around for a moment before I was greeted by the silence that I had never craved before but now it was all I wanted.