Chapter 13

                                    

                                          
Draco snaked an arm behind my back and pulled me closer to him as we walked down the street. We walked through the warm summer night in silence until he turned at a familiar corner and I realised he was taking me to the park where we spent our first date, the very first night we had laid eyes on each other. It had only been four months since that fateful night, but it felt as if I had known the twenty-three years old blonde wizard walking by my side for much longer than that. As we reached the park, we stopped in front of the bench that we sat on during our first date. Draco then reached into the pocket of his jeans and took out something familiar. 
                          
"Is that Lou's Walkman?"
                          
"He may or may not have let me borrowed it. He definitely didn't tell me how it works though."
                          
My parents might had been pure bloods, but father was really keen on muggle's life style, so Lou and I were accustomed to most part of it. Father had bought the Walkman for Lou as his thirteenth birthday present, and it became the last birthday present he had ever received from father. Lou cherished the device with his life, and not trusting anyone with it, not even mother, with the only exception of myself. I wondered what made Lou allowed Draco to borrow it, but Lou must had trusted him enough to lend in to him. I took the earphone from Draco and put on one of the earpiece, as I motioned for Draco to do the same with the other one. I pressed the play button and my favourite song blasted through the earpiece. The song started with the sweet sound of a guitar being strummed and soon followed by the beat of the drums. I felt a smile broke on my face as I savour the bittersweet melody in my ear.
                          
"May I have this dance, fair lady?"
                          
"I'm yours, kind sir."
                          
Draco took me by the hand, pulled me close to him, and put his arms around my waist. I rest my head against his chest as I wrapped my arms around his neck, and we began dancing to the music that was already filling our ear. We danced around the park as if it were a ball room, not caring how silly we looked at the moment as we were too engulfed in the moment. We swayed even after the song ended as neither one of us wanted to let go.
                          
"Via?"
                          
I hummed in reply as I listened to the sound of his heart beating ever faster in his chest. He pulled back slightly and locked his stormy gray eyes straight into my dark green ones. We had stopped moving as I was enchanted by his eyes that always reminded me of the calm before the storm. He caressed my cheek gently and I felt the warmth of his palm transferred to my skin. He took a deep breath as he kept his gaze locked into my eyes.
                          
"For the last four months, you have make me happier than I have ever been in my whole life. After the war, I never thought I'd be able to laugh again, nor did I think I would ever deserve to be loved again, but that was all before you came into my life.
                          
"I've never told you why I came to the bar that night. It was actually the fifth anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, and I was supposed to attend it. It was too much for me to bear, every inch of its wall reminds me of all the terrible things I've done and the many lifes that was lost because of me, so came to the bar as if it was my refugee. I thought the place would be a good place to drink my guilt and sorrow away, but then I saw you, and suddenly everything else was forgotten.
                          
"Every remorseful feeling I had felt that night disappeared as if someone had just obliviated me. I couldn't keep my eyes off of you for the rest night. At first, I didn't think you'd be waiting for me, but then I saw the way you looked at me outside the bar, and I fell in love at that very second.
                          
"I've been planning to do this for quite some time, but I wasn't sure if you were ready for it. I thought I'd hold on to the thought for a few more months. I thought I'd start slow, allowing you to fully register myself by exposing my true identity, my past, to you.
                          
"Throughout the times we've seen each other, I was always careful to hide my dark mark, even though I knew you must've seen it once or twice, because I was always afraid that it would push you away from me like it did to so many people in my life. And yet, you embraced me with open arms when I showed you that it was and always will be a part of me, and so did Lou.
                          
"I realised then and there, that I'd be bloody fool if I would somehow lose you. All my doubts, they all disappeared as you traced your finger against my mark, and it only convinced me more that I'll have to do this now or I'll regret it for the rest of my life.
                          
"Via, you have been a light in the dark for me. You had no idea how much you affected me, you give me back the hope I thought was lost forever in my life, you are the stars that guide me back home. Via, you are my home.
                          
"So I'm standing here, in this park where we had our very first date, under moonlight with the stars and constellations as witnesses as I confess everything to you and asking you, if you, Cassiopeia Keara Black, would do me the honour of being the happiest man alive by giving me the chance to cherish you for the rest of my life, to love you with every beat of my heart, until the very last of my dying days?"