Page 120 of Penance

His touch is gentle, but his words are jarring.

My heart stutters, tripping over itself.

Wife?

House?

The word echoes through me. I search his face for any sign of doubt, or the tell of a lie, but there’s only certainty in his eyes.

“But… but, why?” I stammer, my thoughts spinning.

“You don’t want to marry me?” he counters.

“I didn’t say that,” I whisper back.

“Then what are you saying?”

“It’s just…” I sigh, trying to think of the words to say. “Why are you doing this? We didn’t talk for fifteen years, and now all the sudden you’re here and I just—”

I stop.

I don’t know what else to say.

I think of my parents and the life they planned for me.

It was so different from this—from him.

Trusting Draco is like leaping into the abyss, and right now, I’m not so sure I can make that leap. I always thought I wouldmeet someone and fall in love. I always thought it would be a fairytale, not a marriage of necessity.

Do I love him?

CouldI love him?

“I… I don’t know what to say,” I admit, defeated. I feel small, overwhelmed.

“You don’t have to say anything, Mercy,” he says. “I understand. It’s weird. It’s weird for me too.”

“Then why are we doing it?”

There’s a pause, but it’s short.

“Why not?”

I sit there, frozen, and I let him grab my hand. Draco doesn’t wait for me to speak, to agree, to disagree. Instead, he just… does.

He shifts, the mattress dipping under his weight as he moves. His strong arms wrap around me, pulling me into his chest before I can even think, let alone respond. The mattress falls away, and he moves with me as if I weigh nothing, and something about it is somehow so terrifying but so comforting all at once.

I can’t quite put my finger on it.

He moves with me through the dark hallway, a shifting mass of shadows and harsh angles.

He’s planned this, I realize dimly.

He’s thought out every step, every detail.

Marriage.

A house.

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