Briefly: Thanks to my own dragon...always my prat in the hat...and to Fortuna Mirth for her encouragement. She's a remarkable writer, so check her out. The painting Narcissa recalls in this story is by William Blake and is very evocative. Wiki it if you're unfamiliar!
Practicing Peacock
Chapter 2. Great Red Dragon
My baths are sacrosanct. I have always felt that in the scalding water, I am an island to myself. Washing is secondary to contemplation. During the Dark Lord's stay, I warded myself into my bath chamber every evening and prayed for peace. Then, after all was said and done, and the bodies buried and memorials erected…I lowered my defenses.
I should not have done so.
I was submerged, allowing the water to work at rinsing my hair. The muffled hum was soothing, and the clicking of my nails against the porcelain tub was a clanging echo. If only I hadn't needed to breathe…
I emerged in a great splash, gasping, heaving, spluttering. I wiped my eyes and opened them to see –
"Draco!"
He stood beside the tub a few feet away. He was shirtless and his sleep pants now splashed. His feet were bare.
I scrambled for the towel I'd left on a nearby chair, but it was gone, and if I emerged anymore, I would have no modesty to speak of. "What – what the devil are you doing in here?" I sounded crazed.
He held out my towel, but said nothing. I couldn't bloody well reach. My lips thinned. "I said, what are you doing in here?"
He stepped closer, feet slapping in the pool I'd created, and held out the towel. I snatched it. My breaths resounded off the tile. "Turn away," I snapped. He stared. The corner of my plush towel soaked in the standing water. "Goddammit, turn away! Or…get out!" I pointed to the door. He turned away.
I watched him warily as I stood, immediately wrapping the towel around my frame. I wished it was bigger and toed the plug loose. Quietly, the water began to drain. My eyes cut to the table by the door where my wand rested. Was I afraid of my own son?
"Now," I said calmly. "What are you doing in here?"
He looked over his shoulder to check I was covered. His back rippled with the motion. I swallowed.
"I came to talk," he said.
Unbelievable. "While I'm in the bath, Draco?" He nodded. He was so broken. I let out the breath I'd been holding. "May I dress before we talk?"
Then he turned fully. "Must you?"
My full-body flush was weakness incarnate. "I should like to, yes," I whispered. My night gown and dressing gown hung from the door hook.
He shrugged. "Very well." He was waiting.
"Draco, leave!" He closed the door behind him. I dried and dressed hurriedly, trembling. Out in my room, he sat on the edge of my bed. I pulled the chair and my hairbrush from my vanity. I set the chair so I could face him, but before I lowered into it, he reached a hand to me.
"Let me," he said.
"What?"
He gestured to the brush in my hand. "Let me brush your hair. While we…talk."
Insane…I gave him the brush. He made a twirling gesture with his hand and I turned so my back was to him. He was fairly knowledgeable with the brush, beginning at the ends to work the out the tangles. It was soothing. I recalled vaguely my sisters combing and braiding my hair before bed when we were girls. And now my son tugged it, brushed it and seemed to wrap it around his fingers. My eyes fell half-closed and my shoulders relaxed.
"Mother."
I'd forgotten he wanted to talk. "Mm?"
My hair was well-combed, but Draco kept stroking it, realizing I was captive. "Do you think we're cursed?"
Cursed? I pulled away, turned in the chair to look at him. "No, Draco. I don't think we're cursed."
Those grey circles under his eyes… "I think I'm cursed, then," he said. "Or I'm insane as Aunt Bella was."
I hesitated, but reached for his face. I smiled, or tried to. "Why, my dragon? Why do think that?" I took my brush, noticed his hand shaking.
"I can't sleep, mother."
I nodded. "Nightmares?" I'd certainly had my fair share, and sometimes still did.
He shook his head and stood. When he did, his chest brushed close to my face. When had my boy grown into a man? "I feel like there's some kind of…creature upon me. On my back, trying to…press me down. It's arms are like bones around my neck…they tighten." He walked to my window. "I hear it whisper things…awful things."
It was frightening, hearing him speak this way, seeing him the way he was. He looked like his father in the days before his execution; tormented by guilt, nightmares and hallucinations, fearful of the dementor's kiss that he knew was coming. I admitted to myself that I was frightened of my son. I approached him slowly.
He was leaning on the sill. I took a breath and put my hand flat against his sinewy back.
"Son," I whispered. "There is no beast on your back. You simply…have much darkness in your past. And things have changed now."
He turned toward me. My hand slid around his ribs and I felt the tight muscles beneath his cool skin. I pulled the hand away, but he caught it, held it over his heart. It beat like a rabbit's. I struggled with my own beast and did not flex my fingers into his flesh. He was looking down on me, stepped a step closer.
"Draco," I whispered.
"Have things changed, mother?" His hands seemed so big now…one of them cupped the side of my head, tilted it to face him properly. "Is the darkness gone that simply?" His eyes were a darker blue than I remembered, or perhaps it was just the dimness of the room…or the fact they seemed to be devouring me. "I still feel it. Like a devil lurking."
"No devils lurk here," I told him. I hoped to be reassuring him, but suddenly my skin crawled at shady images of horned, gargoyle faces peering around corners as I passed… "Draco, the solicitor said there are healers we can talk to if we need. There would be no shame in…"
He was laughing ruefully, fingers just touching my jawline. "Healers," he mumbled. "Can they heal souls now?"
My mothering heart broke. Every risk I had taken, every painstaking protection I had cast on my boy – magical or not – seemed to have failed. I cracked like a crystal vase and let the shards crumble, pressed my face into his palm, kissing it. I grabbed him and gathered him to me, pressing those same kisses to the man's chest that buoyed me. "I'm so sorry!" I cried. His arms settled around me and I felt his face moving over my head. Was he smelling me? "I tried, Draco! I tried so hard!"
I thought of the souls I'd seen sacrificed – children killed, people slaughtered in my own home, the screams of Riddle's victims freezing me in the night, Lucius and Severus… I sobbed even harder. Poor Severus…
"It's not your fault, mother." He spoke calmly, rubbing gentling hands up and down my back. "Shush. It isn't your fault."
"I can't fix you!" The truth sliced my throat open as it emerged. "I can't help you, Draco. I don't know how! Tell me what you need." I was ready to drop to my knees, to cut out my own heart and put it aside his that he may have two. I would behold the burning Milagro. I would take the devils back to hell myself and stay there if need be. He was my son! "I will do anything," I promised. He stared at me. My hands held his face. He was so still…so quiet.
Some fluttering in my belly… His hands cupped the back of my head, supporting it. "Draco?" No sound save for the crisp 'c' of his name…
Then his lips were on mine.
If there is a place in hell for me – if there is indeed a hell – I hardly fear it. I've burned far hotter than any witch on any stake. I've felt the fever in my mad son's skin, brain and mouth. I surrendered to it, to him. In one of Andromeda's hidden books I recalled a muggle painting. As a girl it had frightened and intrigued me. It was called The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun.
I hardly remember the painter. Maybe I never knew. But I never forgot the work; the hugeness of the horned beast, its spread membranous wings, the towers of its legs and the supine blonde in mortification beneath it.
I was become that woman. The dragon's tongue penetrated my mouth, seeking out every weakness. I'd never been kissed in such a way. Its hands groped, kneaded and caressed my flesh. I'd never been touched that way.
There was some awkward struggle. His hands lowering my arms upset my balance. I backed into the chair I'd occupied earlier and nearly fell over it. But this dragon was quick and graceful. It swept me up and away like a wind.
I was out of the flames. The fire extinguished suddenly when I felt cold against my back and reality enveloped me like my bath water. My arms were captive in my loosed dressing gown, baring my torso. My simple silk gown was rumpled and askew, a peaked breast nearly revealed. And I was on my bed.
The dragon heaved over me, his dark blue eyes nearly black. "This, mother?" He asked. "Would you do this?"
Oh, gods, he was hard upon my thigh – erect. Was he so…big? I shuddered. He felt it and I saw his lip curl. I wanted to scream. "No," I whimpered. "Please, Draco." Please what? He shoved away from me with a small roar and stormed from my room before I could fathom moving. My door slammed shut.
After minutes (hours?), my breathing slowed. My heart ceased its clamor. I sat up. Something pressed into my hip. My brush. I removed it dumbly. My wand. My wand was still in my bath chamber. I walked on shaky legs and retrieved it. I waved it. "Nox."
I climbed into my bed. My core ached and for the first time in a hundred years I wanted to touch myself, to erase the want. Shame was my sheet. I wrapped it around myself and gave in, clenched my eyes tight against the alien wetness my fingers encountered, the memory of what caused it. Oh, pleasure…I'd forgotten…I roiled in the submersion. So quick… I heard the sound I heard when under water and emerged spluttering, colored patterns of light swirling behind my eyelids.
The patterns shifted and danced. I saw the red dragon painting. The dragon shifted and I saw my son.
I wiped my disgusting fingers on my sheets and wept uncontrollably into my pillow. I cried til I could barely breathe. I dreaded the morning, the day ahead, the days to come, the weeks, the years... Sleep took me like a beggar.
I dreamed a peacock prowled the grounds. Its proud feathers morphed into huge membranous wings and it towered over me. I reached up to it. I offered it myself and was eaten up in the sun…
