She promised she would listen to him; and listen, she did. It wasn’t a terribly long speech, but it struck her all the same. Perhaps because this was Malfoy, who was talking. The one who, back when she’d tutored him, had fought tooth and nail to not have to explain himself for anything; the one who always seemed to have a retort at the ready whenever she needed information from him, like he was trying to figure out the most strenuous way for her to prise an answer from him. And now, they had been together in the same room for less than a quarter of an hour and he had sat down across from her, all seriousness and hardly a trace of that smug pride that always seemed to be woven into the very fabric of his being.

His words from that day in Diagon Alley rung through her mind again. It wasn’t my choice….wanted to write….sickly….barely a moment alone…

There was a day, somewhere in the depths of their past together, where if he had given her this same excuse she would have brushed it away; would have stormed off thinking about all the ridiculous lies and deflection he was spinning. But somewhere along the line things changed. Maybe it was one of those many times they’d saved each others asses, or that time he had helped her bury a dead body, or perhaps that time she had made him invade her mind for lost memories; the possibilities, it seemed, did not stop. Whatever it was had led to this moment now where Rowan sat in the chair listening to him, her heart in her throat as she heard his apology.

His sincere apology.

I never meant to hurt you.

All the tension she had been holding ever since she saw him left her in a staggering breath. If it weren’t for the fact that she wasn’t crying, it might have sounded like a sob. She leaned forward to put her head in her hands. He’d apologized in Diagon Alley, but then she’d been too angry, too livid at him to want to listen. Now, she could see how sorry he was, and how much this…rift between them was affecting him. It was affecting him just as much as it had affected her when he had first disappeared.

Sighing, she raised her gaze up, sitting back and biting her lip. “I thought…since the last time we saw each other was…” At your place. “I thought when you had left, it was…because of me.” The memory was clear as if it was yesterday; of the horrible whooshing in her stomach when she realized he might not be coming back, that he might have just left her without a care in the world. She looked at him now, feeling the first pricklings of tears at the corners of her eyes. “I thought you had gotten what you wanted from me. Your prize,” her stomach turned again just at the thought of the nightmares she’d had of him laughing at her. She felt the tears finally spill over. “And I thought you’d had enough.”

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