BU

For seven years, everyone at Hogwarts believed Draco Malfoy and Isabella Gaunt were destined to end up together. Draco fell in love with Isabella the moment he saw her on their first day at Hogwarts, captivated by the dimples that appeared when she smirked after being sorted into Slytherin. At only eleven years old, he wrote to his mother declaring that he had met the girl he was going to marry. While Isabella initially dismissed his relentless pursuit, Draco refused to give up. After months of asking, she finally agreed to one date during their second year, and within weeks the two twelve-year-olds were inseparable. As the years passed, their childhood romance grew into an all-consuming love. Though Draco was known throughout Hogwarts as cold, arrogant and untouchable, Isabella alone saw the gentle, vulnerable boy hidden beneath the Malfoy name. She became his safe place, his first love, his first everything—the person he believed was his soulmate. Likewise, Isabella loved him with equal intensity, and together they fiercely protected one another against anyone who dared stand in their way. But as graduation approached, Isabella became consumed by fears she never shared with Draco. Terrified that one day he would regret devoting his entire life to the only girl he had ever loved, she convinced herself he deserved the chance to experience a different future, different loves and a different life. Rather than risk watching him leave her years later, she broke his heart first. Draco never learns the truth. Instead, he is left believing the love of his life simply stopped loving him. Three weeks after the breakup, the once-proud heir to the Malfoy family is barely surviving. He isolates himself in his dormitory, surrounded by the keepsakes Isabella left behind, unable to eat, sleep or imagine a future without her. As his closest friends watch him slowly unravel, they realize only one person can save him from the heartbreak consuming him.