"I lie in the dark wondering if this quiet in me now is a beginning or an end."
— Jack Gilbert, Waking At Night
"You know I don't really want this," he whispered quietly beside her.
Callidora turned, slowly, to look at her cousin's grey eyes staring out of the open picture window. He had a strange, pinched expression on his face Callidora hadn't seen before. Draco's lips were pursed into one thin line, his usually elegant eyebrows scrunched low enough to cast his eyes into shadow. It gave Callidora a funny feeling in her chest, something tight and hot like her heart was being boiled from the inside, so she looked out into the garden.
Malfoy Manor's green lawn rolled for miles— Callidora had once tried to walk its length, but had only gotten a mile out before the containment charm stopped her from going any further. She was watching the long grass sway in the night's breeze when something caught in the corner of her eye.
An albino peacock was roosting quietly in an ornamental oak tree— one of the many trees bordering the edges of her aunt's prized Jardin à l'anglaise— its long tail feathers hanging down from the branches, luminous and shimmering in the moonlight. Callidora liked the peacocks, particularly when they strutted up to her window for bits of bread and sat atop Aunt Cissy's hedges. But she didn't like them when they were locked away in the stables for the winter, leaving her to her own emptiness.
Next to her, Callidora could taste the emptiness rolling of Draco in waves. His own emptiness was different to hers; put-upon and confused. Angry.
Callidora hummed softly. This wasn't a time for selfishness, she decided quietly. "I don't either, Draco. But it's not like we have a choice— toujours pur. We can't really do anything about it; it's already been decided."
His face had grown longer since Callidora had seen him last summer, it made him look like a Witch Weekly pin-up— at least, in her opinion. Draco sighed, and returned Callidora's gaze. "They've gone barmy."
"They're following tradition," she whispered, more to herself than Draco, and she tugged anxiously at the skirt of her dressing gown. It seemed like such feeble excuse for her aunt and uncle's brash decision. She didn't really understand it — not keenly, anyway.
A rash and angry decision met over the great dining room table, with shouts between Draco and Uncle Lucius and Aunt Narcissa until Lucius caterwauled over all of them that if Draco wasn't willing to marry any of the suitable Sacred Twenty-Eight heiresses then he was to wed Callidora. The yelling had been loud enough for Callidora to eavesdrop in quiet horror from the gallery. At the time it had seemed so ludicrous; and Callidora immediately assumed Uncle Lucius must have been having one of his rages. Only he hadn't been, and when Draco had snapped back that, "fine, I'll marry Callidora! She's the best of the lot anyway!" Callidora had felt like Dippy must've mixed a very strange potion into her tea that morning to be hearing such things.
But then Aunt Cissy wouldn't look at Callidora over the breakfast table anymore, and hadn't invited her for tea in the morning room either. Especially with Crabbe and Goyle and that frightening Mulciber man prowling around the galleries and drawing rooms, Callidora had spent most days with a heavy cloud of bewilderment hanging over her. Uncle Lucius only made it worse by separating Callidora's favourite bits of the Daily Prophet from the front pages before giving it to her, like news of the outside world would give Callidora Ideas to run away.
"Nutters," Draco muttered under his breath. Callidora privately agreed.
Her hands twitched and she reached out, laying her palm softly on the shoulder of Draco's robes. To her small surprise, his own hand reached up and covered hers, curling it into his palm. The weird feeling in her chest flared, no less sticky and uncomfortable, and she looked at the glassy nails of his fingers. Their neatness almost made Callidora smile.
"At least it's me, Draco," she compromised, looking into Draco's eyes with earnest, trying to offer some modicum of comfort. "At least it's not that Bulstrode girl or… or— the Abbott girl with a weasel face."
A small smile touched Draco's lips and he curled his fingers even closer around her hand. He must have known Callidora didn't really know whom she was talking about— her opinions gathered from Draco's descriptions and her aunt's scathing gossip— but he didn't seem to care. At least, Callidora hoped so.
"I know," Draco sighed. "At least it's with you."
"Me too." Callidora smiled, her lips spreading as far as they could, which wasn't very far at all. It pinched at the corners of her cheeks and ached. When was the last time she had smiled? She couldn't remember. "I know I'm younger'n you and everything, but we can be friends, right?"
"Of course we can," Draco agreed dully, his eyes wandering out to the grounds again. Callidora looked too, and saw that the peacock had wandered somewhere out of sight.
They didn't speak for a few moments, Draco searching the garden for the peacock, and Callidora watching a moth hover in from the open box window where they sat, fluttering over a small beeswax candle sitting atop her armoire.
Even though Uncle Lucius had once forbid it, Callidora and Draco did exchange letters during the colder months whilst Draco was away at school. Callidora's letters were sparse, mostly small notes on her days inside the manor with little watercolours of the gardens and Aunt Cissy pruning her roses to make the scroll a little thicker. It was Draco's letters she longed for in the long, lonely days during her cousin's school months. WWN plays didn't have quite the political complexity as Draco's tales of Hogwarts did, and Callidora hung on every word. She liked hearing about his lessons, held in classrooms with other people instead of the quiet isolation of correspondence course booklets Callidora did alone in her room, and what Draco had to say about his friends and their escapades. She enjoyed every word of them, drank them up like novels... even if they did get a bit tedious, sometimes, when they were just about What Harry Potter Did Today and That Wretched Mudblood.
Although other times Draco wrote about people he liked. It made Callidora feel strange in ways she couldn't quite explain whenever Draco wrote about Pansy Parkinson, or any of the other girls Callidora recognised as pureblood debutantes. Legitimate and pure-blooded, and no doubt as beautiful as the girls in Witch Weekly's editorials; they were worthy.
They were girls Aunt Cissy would prefer Draco to marry. Girls Draco would be happier with, girls he could have on his arm outside of Malfoy Manor to take to the society balls Callidora poured over in the Daily Prophet's society pages. She could see them, Draco in his finest robes and a girl with pretty hair, hand in hand, walking through the Wizarding Quarter of London during the day and disappearing into gilded ballrooms at night. You know I don't really want this, Draco's voice whispered in a quiet part of Callidora's head, and her burning chest suddenly felt ready to burst open from the pressure of it.
It was a while before Callidora found the courage to speak again. "It's alright, y'know, when you go back you can date the Greengrass girl, I won't mind—"
Draco looked up, suddenly furious. "Have you gone loopy, too? You know what people will say—"
Callidora whipped her around to stare at him, affronted and confused. She was only trying to help. He didn't want Callidora as a bride. Why does he have to be so difficult at the best of times? She thought to herself prudently.
"Draco— you're a boy. I know you like her, y'know, and you're bigger than me so I know things are different for— y'know, boys." Callidora explained swiftly, shifting uncomfortably. The weird feeling in her chest burned a little brighter, a little warmer.
Two red splotches bloomed on Draco's white cheeks and he shook her hand off his shoulder. "No."
"Just pretend I'm not here. Pretend I'm not your— your fiance, and drink firewhiskey with your friends and snog lots of girls." Callidora's words tasted like deceit in her mouth. She didn't want to continue not existing, but Draco's happiness seemed more important. Another two years of hiding away from the wider world Callidora swore she could handle, even if it meant her cousin — fiancé — was courting other prettier, much older, girls.
Only, her words seemed to float off into the night air, carried on the breeze with the scent of roses and hydrangeas flowing in from the ornamental garden. Callidora had thought Draco hadn't listened to her at all until he said obstinately, "no."
"Draco—"
"You're my betrothed and— I don't want to do that, Dora, it's not… not fair to you." Draco said, taking Callidora's hand once again and pulling it into his lap. He played with the silver ring on her right hand, twisting it around the knuckle. An heirloom from their demented grandmother. It hurt her finger, rubbed it raw, but Callidora didn't mind. "I— you're in here, and when we get… married, I know it sounds stupid — but I want to get you out—"
"Even with Death Eaters running 'round the place?" Callidora joked faintly to cut him off, softer than a whisper for fear someone would hear. Nobody would, of course, being that her rooms were too far away from the Malfoys' main chambers. But Callidora still found herself scared of these things. She had always been scared of many things.
And she found herself particularly scared of that funny feeling in her chest, that burned so brightly enough inside her she was afraid it would shine through her chest like a lantern at Draco's… promise. A promise Callidora knew he couldn't keep, no matter how well-intentioned.
The Death Eater jibe seemed to have distracted Draco enough to say, "they're not that bad."
Callidora suddenly snorted, her melancholy falling into derision. Only Draco could find the nasty people in the parlour 'not that bad'. Merlin. "They're killing people who haven't done anything."
Draco rolled his eyes. "Muggles aren't pe—"
"Yes they are, Draco!"
Callidora withdrew her hand sharply from Draco's lap. Silence filled the air again, only the faint rustle of leaves breaking it with each push of a summer breeze. Callidora closed her eyes, letting the wind tickle her cheeks.
It made her sad Draco couldn't see the humanity in the strange little people who walked the path far out by the border of Savernake Forest. She could hear them talk amongst themselves when she pressed herself against the hedge of the kitchen garden, and when she was feeling brave, Callidora would climb up the tallest elm tree to watch them.
Even though they wore funny clothes and rode strange wheeled contraptions like horses and talked about things Callidora didn't understand, she could only think of them as other people. Some even sounded just like the wizards and witches on the Wizarding Wireless Network's radio plays Callidora listened to every night. Muggles had children and wives and husbands and lives and little dogs they called Terrance. They were just different. Different was scary but that didn't mean different was wrong.
Callidora was scared of muggles, intrigued by them, too; but she certainly didn't hate them. She just wished Draco could see that away from the influence of her uncle, away from the black cloaks eating off their dining room table and drinking in their parlour. Away from the muted whispers in the galleries that called for murder and rape and extermination of people without magic in their blood.
"Fancy hearing that from Bellatrix Lestrange's daughter," Draco commented drolly after a while.
"Oh, shut up!" Callidora retorted, giving her fiancé a light slap on the arm. And when Callidora turned to give Draco a look, she saw a smile light up his narrow face and the flame that burned in her chest burst into butterflies.
Toujours pur.
At least it's with you.
A/N: I apologise if anyone finds this squicky; I don't blame you. This was originally posted on AO3 in 2013; however I rewrote and edited it before reposting it over there and submitting it here.
There might be a couple more chapters after this, I have planned them which gives more perspective into the summary and Callidora herself, but who knows! Reviews and favourites would be wonderful if you have the time, they're very encouraging :) and critiques are also welcome! If you have any questions, you're welcome to message me here or on any of my handles listed on my profile.