Everything within me, from the quivering within my hands to the tumbling of my stomach to the thrashing of my heart told me to turn around and return to the dorm, to pretend I had not heard any of this private conversation in the darkness of night. But my feet remained planted against the flooring beneath, my ear pressed intently against the large wooden door. Night surrounded me, the castle nearly silent in the abyss of darkness other than the whispering on the other side of the threshold and the soft flickering of dimly lit lanterns. The chill of wind danced through the windows of the castle, tickling exposed skin of my arms, and seeping through the thin fabric of my tee shirt. Truthfully, this tee shirt belonged to the owner of one of the voices present beyond the door, a tee shirt he had acquired through many years of quidditch. I often borrowed it when staying the night in his dorm.

           “It has been seven years, Potter,” his voice drew my attention back from the coldness of night. There was an innocence in his voice, a quivering vulnerability I had never heard before, as though he was afraid of her own words. My heart continued its attack against its cage of bones, but it began to ache, hearing the near plead of the regal boy. “I never really realized it, but I have loved you for seven years, Potter. I have craved you. I have imagined you. I have loved you all this time.” The animalistic organ stilled, breaking piece by piece within me for he confessed his love to another, to someone other than me. He had left the bed we shared to confess his desperate need to be with someone else.

           Tears flooded my eyes suddenly, blurring the vision I no longer wished to have. One moment he had been kissing me as though I was the oxygen he needed to survive, and the next he had vanished, he had come here to a random bathroom down several corridors to meet him. How he could hold me so tightly, so desperately when feeling so strongly for someone else was a thought, a concept I could not straighten within my mind. Draco Malfoy. Draco Malfoy, the boy who had stolen my heart three years prior, refusing to ever return the vital organ. He swore he loved me in the most intimate of ways, his fingers tightly wound around my neck, his marks painted across my chest, his rings decorating my fingers. He had whispered it in my ear while my body arched and shivered. He had written it on parchment for me to find after nightly baths. He had promised me his love over and over, those icy blue eyes never breaking their trance on me when those three words poured like honey from his lips.

           “Draco, I…I don’t know what to say,” that voice burned in my ears as though his breath was fire against my skin. Harry Potter. Harry Potter, the boy whose heart I had stolen four years prior without ever meaning to. He had spun me around at the fourth-year ball, holding my hand the entirety of the evening with the most innocent look in those ocean eyes, like a lost puppy begging for a home. I had found refuge in those eyes, at least for that night, as he had held me, swaying our bodies from side to side, eyes burning holes in my gown as others watched with envy and vain. When the ball bored us, we had escaped through the vast corridors to his private dorm where my dress slipped onto the cold flooring beneath. He had whispered his love in my ear while my body adjusted to the intimacy never known before, and he mumbled it again between my legs as his tongue swirled around places I had yet known to exist. I had panted those three words back to him, over and over, as though I had said them a million times before.

           My fingers curled around the handle of the wooden door, trembling while weakly grasping. The impulsive, heart wrenching thought to enter, to storm in on the pair of them as this conversation had stormed upon my heart, but I could not find the courage, the strength to do so, instead remaining stagnant, listening as the brunette continued. “I knew I loved you the moment I saw you, Draco, but…” his voice trailed off, surely, he would end this insanity, he would explain to the Slytherin boy, to his sworn enemy, why this could never work. Surely, Draco would remember me, remember my love, remember he chose me and shake off this moment; surely, he would return to me. But these reassurances dissipated as rapidly as they had raced through my mind, hearing the gentle moans and sighs of the two kissing, intertwining their feelings into something real.

           Any reserve that remained within me curled, thrusting from my throat in an anguishing squeal, a whimper into the night. The strength of my knees failed, my body buckling upon itself onto the chilled floor below. My lungs emptied, hardly able to capture further air through the outcries of excruciating pain whipping through my veins. Squealing, whimpering, became frantic panting and sobbing, loudening to outcries and wailing. The only sound louder than my cries was the creaking of the door against my back opening swiftly. “Y/N,” Draco gasped my name, the sound piercing my ears. “Y/N, what in the bloody hell?”

           He engulfed me into his arms, his knees hitting the ground with an audible thud. I could feel the thrashing of his own heart against my cheek, and though I wanted to push him from one of the windows, I could not gather the strength to fight his hold of me. “Y/N, my sweet girl,” he muttered, his own voice cracking in evident pain, a knot likely tying within his throat. Fingers soothed over my hair frantically, his body beginning the familiar rocking back and forth.

           Another body rested on the other side of me, a gentle, hesitant hand resting upon my thigh, fingers gentle running back and forth. “Y/N,” the brunette spoke now with fear lacing his voice. “Y/N, it’s not what you think.” Except it was exactly what I was thinking because I had heard the entirety of the conversation; I heard the muttered confessions and desperate kissing. I heard the shattering of my heart and the screams of my mind. Everything was exactly what I was thinking and being between the two sources of this anguish felt suffocating.

           Scrambling weakly to my feet, I pushed the two boys away, holding my arms tightly against my chest. Dinner threatened to outpour from my quivering mouth, my stomach tied tightly in millions of unbreakable knots. The brunette and blonde stood, both desperately wanting to reach for me but knowing better than to anger the beast further. “How could you?” I practically screamed, the nausea climbing mountains of my throat, burning along its incline. “Draco…how could you? You said you loved me!”

           “And I do!” he defended, refusing to break the allowed eye contact between us, his hands outstretched toward me. “Sweet girl, I want you! I love you! You are my world!” The lies spewed like venom from his tongue, burning my skin with each syllable. He could not for a moment think I would believe his lies. Reaching for my wand, I swore in this moment I would rid the world of Draco Malfoy. He could never hurt another soul.

           “Wait!” Harry clambered toward me, knocking the wooden stick from my grasp. “Y/N, I still love you, too. I never stopped loving you! Please listen to Draco, please,” he pleaded, his arms tucking beneath mine and lifting me onto him. This action was soothing, something I had not known I would find comfort in and causing a wondering to how he knew. Before I could think lengthily ponder about being within his hold in this way, Draco mumbled something with a flicker of his wand.

           The area surrounding us changed within a singular blink, the once chilled corridors and dimly lit lanterns transformed into emerald and black sleeping chambers with flickering candles, Draco’s dorm. Draco was no longer clad in his robes, his house trousers hanging from his thin frame, his torso and chest bare, porcelain skin shimmering in the candlelight. He perched on the edge of the bed, his arms outstretching toward me, and in this languid moment, I became fully aware of the bare chest before me, the exposed arms holding me.

           Dried tears cracked on my cheeks, my hearts once stillness becoming somewhat of a gentle tapping. The brunette placed me into Draco’s arms, kneeling before us with a gentle, hopeful smile twitching at his lips. “Sweet girl,” Draco began, placing soft kisses to my temple as I curled into his familiar, warm body. “I am sorry you had to hear everything, but you don’t understand.” As he spoke, my gaze remained on Harry’s, the slivers of light twinkling in his now darkened orbs. I could still see the love he promised me, the adoration in those eyes, as he stared back at me. “Harry and I know we both love you, my princess. And…” he cleared his throat, his tone of disbelief. “And now we know, uh, that we…that we love each other.”

           “I want you, my beautiful girl, and I want Harry,” he whispered into my now knotted hair, but his words sounded so foreign, another language to my carousel of a mind. The way his lips so carefully pressed against my head, his fingers running circles along my arms, and the brunette’s rubbing along my knee, up and down the outer side of my exposed thigh. Draco’s voice sounded of the softest vanilla dripping intoxicatingly from his mouth as Harry’s eyes drowned me, stealing every mere breath I fought to take. My hands remained upon my lap, my fingers scratching and toying at one another, anxiously awaiting any continuation of words, any conclusion to this confusing nightmare.

           With a weight-bearing sigh, the Slytherin continued, “And Harry wants you, and Harry wants me.” There was a dizzying pause, a lingering lull in words, in statements as my battered mind reeled over his words and made sense of the Gryffindor’s pleading, needy eyes. “Do you want us both, darling? If not, you will remain mine, and I will remain yours. Harry will…” Draco paused, and I could feel his shifting to exchange saddened glances with the mentioned brunette. “Harry will move on.”

           For the first time since I had tiptoed out of the very bed in which we sat, my mind was silent, no nauseating thoughts or terrifying assumptions. For the first time, I was present in the moment with the two young men who showered me with relentless love and admiration, with security and happiness, who obsessed over my enjoyment and well-being. I had chosen one over the other before, and in this moment, in this moment of anxious stares and pounding hearts, I was able to make the decision I had never imagined being presented. But my words failed me.

           Instead of speaking, of verbally expressing my deepest desire, I placed a gentle hand to Harry’s cheek and offered a smile of relief. As though the golden boy could read my mind, his own smile widened dramatically, an animated look of joyous understanding stretched across his face before he crashed his lips into mine. Draco kissed my head repeatedly, words no longer needed in this space around us. The moment Harry broke the long-awaited kiss, attempting to place his forehead against mine, the blonde grabbed my jaw, turning my head to face him. His lips pressed hungrily into my own, one of his hands gripping desperately at my waist.

           Draco lifted me, wrapping my legs around him without breaking the deepening kiss, and I could hear Harry’s footfalls circling the bed as the blonde laid me down, head resting on the same pillow it had what felt like decades previous. Harry laid beside me, his arm immediately tucking beneath my head, and the exhaustion of feelings overtook each of us, Draco laying his head upon my chest. One of the blonde’s arms draped across Harry’s torso as I pressed into the brunette, our three bodies melting together like decadent chocolates heated in the evening. Their aromas overtook my senses, the weight of their bodies and their feelings dragging at my eyelids.