The next morning, Briar was sitting snuggled into Neville's side, and she woke up feeling incredibly confused. She felt more rested than she normally did, but she didn't want to open her eyes and lose the tiredness that she was pleasantly feeling. She felt a warmth from beside her, and she gently snuggled into it further.

"I knew it, Fred."

"Yeah, just look at them."

"Not even a care in the world."

"I bet you a sickle that they snogged last night."

"You're on."

Briar's eyes snapped open and landed on the red-haired twins with a fire burning in her eyes. She was still attached to Neville's side and snuggled underneath a mountain of blankets, but her glare was no less intimidating to the Weasley twins. In a hushed voice, she snarled, "Get out of here, you twits."

With a lopsided smirk, Fred leaned forward and whispered, "But, we're wondering, did you snog 'im last night, Davies?"

Briar's eyes narrowed, and she was about to reach up to hit the boy who had been leaning dangerously close to her, but she spotted the pink that had formed on Neville's cheeks from the corner of her eye. She froze at this and turned red herself.

Oh god, Neville was awake.

Fred turned around and stuck his hand out to his twin and smugly smiled. George rolled his eyes before dropping the sickle into Fred's outstretched hand.

Briar narrowed her eyes and growled, "You don't know anything."

"I reckon it's pretty clear what happened last night from the pretty pink on both of your cheeks, love," George drawled with a hint of annoyance still tugging his lips down.

Fred pocketed the sickle before spinning to look at someone else in the room and winking at them. With a sick feeling in her stomach, Briar carefully twisted her body to look at exactly how many people were in the common room. Her jaw tightened when she saw how much of Gryffindor house was standing around, looking at her and Neville.

Neville's breath seemed more shallow from beside her, and she noticed the slightly pained expression on his face.

He was embarrassed.

A monster in the back of her mind wondered if he would be embarrassed with some other girl. Would he have felt this ashamed to have been caught with Ginny Weasley in the common room last year?

Briar's eyes fell on the smugly smiling redhead on the other side of the room, and a burning started in Briar's stomach, but the worst of all of it was the stinging behind her eyes that started.

She pushed the quilts off herself and stood. Once she left Neville's warm side, her face assumed a neutral expression, and she brushed past the twins coldly. She tightened her robes around herself and left the Gryffindor common room with her chin held high. She wasn't embarrassed to have been with Neville, but it hurt that he was.

Once she slipped back into her dorm at that early hour though, she sat down for a moment and remembered how blissful she felt falling asleep in Neville's arms.

She couldn't remember the last time she slept that well in her life.

-

Briar was sitting stiffly at the dining table at the Davies Manor that Easter, and each bite felt like she was forcing herself to swallow rocks. Her only consolation was the gentle squeezes on her ankles when Folsy would slip past and give her reassuring touches. It was the reminder that she had an ally in this house. She wasn't alone, and she could survive this. She had for almost 16 years now, and she wasn't going to stop now.

The meal had gone by fairly quietly until that point. Narcissa and Draco Malfoy were both silently eating, sending placid smiles towards Briar's father and Lucius occasionally while the two men spoke in hushed whispers at the head of the table.

Briar focused on keeping her breaths even and controlled and continued scooping potatoes into her mouth with an intentional consistency. She figured that if she kept her mouth full, no one would address her. Her stomach felt like a vat of hot acid, and each bite made her more nauseous than the last, but she pushed on, chewing her food slowly before promptly putting another spoonful into her mouth. She avoided the others' eye contact, sat up straight in her best dress, and kept quiet. She silently prayed that this would spare her from the conversation that she knew was coming.

Her stomach dropped to her feet when her father and Lucius turned towards her. She flickered her eyes towards their gaze, knowing that it was easier to just do what her father wanted.

Father gave her a slick smirk as Lucius clasped his hands together and announced, "We have great plans and high hopes for the two of you. The merging of our pureblood lines will be quite a powerful day in history... Wouldn't you agree, Draco?"

Malfoy nodded and briefly met his father's eyes to agree, "Yes, father."

Lucius slowly smiled and reached a hand out to pat Draco's hand. He hummed to himself, "Good, good. We are in agreement then."

Briar's father turned towards her and proudly explained, "We've decided that the two of you shall marry after graduation. No matter who your soulmates are; you're the perfect match for one another."

Malfoy and Briar made eye contact briefly before they each looked down to their plates respectfully.

While at school, the two of them would happily tear one another's heads over such a proposition, but while in the presence of their fathers, they knew this was simply not an option. They both knew that their safety ultimately rested in their ability to be cordial with one another at these meetings. To disappoint their fathers was a death wish, and they unfortunately understood one another in that way.

The dinner carried on uneventfully after that. Briar's father and Lucius Malfoy continued to chatter about things as if they were old friends while the table's other three occupants remained quiet while finishing their food. Briar stole a couple glances at Narcissa and curiously noticed the tight expression on her face. She never seemed as pleased to be here as Lucius was. Briar couldn't blame her. She didn't want to be here herself.

After dinner, Narcissa was asked to join Lucius and Briar's father in the other room, so father shoed them upstairs to Briar's bedroom. Once the adults left the room and ensured that the two of them were on their way, Briar quirked an eyebrow at Malfoy and hissed, "Don't get any funny ideas."

Malfoy snarled back, "In your bloody dreams, Davies."

Briar stepped into her bedroom and purposefully left the door open, but Malfoy closed it behind him. She immediately growled, "What do you think you're doing, twerp?"

He shushed her and crossed the room. He hissed, "Shut up. Someone might hear you."

"Excuse you?" Briar retorted with a fire starting in her eyes and her arms slowly crossing over her chest.

Malfoy looked around the room before he dipped his head forward and whispered, "Listen, there's no way in Azkaban that I want to marry you."

"Trust me, the feeling is mutual," She sneered as she rolled her eyes to stare at the window that didn't provide any warmth for the cold house.

He flattened his lips into a line before he rasped, "Well, we have to figure something out. We cannot let this happen. I mean, you clearly fancy-"

Briar threatened, "If you finish that sentence in this house, I will not hesitate to end your pureblood line, got it?"

Malfoy rolled his eyes and snapped, "Shove off, Briar. I just forgot."

"Oh, there's some things I forgot to shut up about too. If you get any ideas, just know that revenge is my favorite game."

He stalked closer and got into her face to threaten, "You don't want to cross that line, Davies."

She took a step closer and glared into his eyes poisonously. She enunciated, "Then don't give me a reason to."

The pair sprang apart when Folsy slipped into the room. The fierce glare Folsy was sending Malfoy in that moment couldn't be missed, and Briar smugly smiled at it. Folsy came over to Briar and looked at her with round eyes and worried glances in Malfoy's direction.

Briar gave her a smile and sighed, "It's okay. This twit won't say anything because he knows better. What's wrong, Folsy?"

Malfoy blinked in surprise at Briar's friendly tone with her house elf. He wasn't used to seeing that. His own parents were the kindest to Dobby, but Briar knew that Malfoy was actually quite friendly with Dobby, despite his reputation as a bully. Folsy was Briar's only ally in that house, and Dobby was Malfoy's main ally as well, but Malfoy also had his mother, like Briar used to.

Briar dropped into a squat, so that Folsy could whisper something in her ear, and Briar furrowed her eyebrows together but nodded. Folsy had just whispered, "Folsy will come back at midnight. Folsy must give Miss Briar something."

She nodded and murmured, "Okay. Be careful."

Folsy gave her a small smile before scurrying from the room again.

After the door drifted shut behind her, Briar straightened and leveled an even stare at Malfoy. She continued their earlier conversation, "Listen, we won't be getting married, and I'll make sure of that."

"How? What can we possibly do?"

Briar lifted her chin and swallowed hard before she sighed, "Disappear. That's what we can do, and it's what I plan to do. I'll free Folsy, and then I'll go somewhere where father can never find me."

"What about...plants?"

She looked at Malfoy's raised eyebrows and took a deep breath. She stared at a blank spot on her wall as she muttered, "There's nothing to lose there. That's been made abundantly clear."

Malfoy nodded and shifted on his feet as he slowly took in Briar's spotless, stiff bedroom. He expected that she would have random sketches skewed all over her space, but it was devoid of color and personal items. Briar had certainly wanted to pin up her sketches over her bland, black walls, but she couldn't. Such things were not considered important to father, and he despised anything that wasn't necessary for her future success.

So her sketches stayed hidden just as Briar did because this wasn't a home. It was a prison, and that was something that Briar had to recognize at age 9.

She didn't have a "home," and she couldn't even imagine what such a place should feel like anymore.

———