The unsettling lunch concluded, mainly due to Draco sobbing and begging to be brought back to his room.
I had watched in incredulity as Narcissa brought out a white wheelchair for him. It was completely stunning to see him too weak to walk. He'd wept through the painful process of being pulled carefully to a stand and having to take three simple steps to the chair.
"I can't do it, I can't," he'd whispered, shaking in her firm grip. I reached out my hand to take his other arm with a dead pan expression, following my sense of propriety. Through teary eyes he'd finally agreed to let me help him and we both guided him to the seat. He let his head hit the back of the chair, staring at the bright sky like a broken doll. His eyes shone nearly aquamarine in the sunlight, "Why didn't Potter have to deal with this much pain?" he complained avidly.
"Harry Potter survived for very different reasons than you did," Narcissa stated factually. "You took a lot of the degenerative magic after the initial absorption from the stone."
"'ow did Draco survive? What stone?" I urged already guessing with dread what it was. He pawed away the tears from his eyes with his palms, his fingers bent at ghastly angles.
Narcissa smiled gently. Her hand disappeared into her dress and pulled out fragments of rocks and a burnt chain. She placed them in my palm and I immediately recognized the charred remains of a very valuable family heirloom; my moonstone.
In it's original state it had been a large, glowing blue stone on a golden chain, clutched in talons. Now it was cracked into at least four pieces, the remaining stone ruins were glowing green with the killing curse magic, and the golden chain had scorched far up the length providing it with a rusty amber appearance. I had given it to him years ago at Hogwarts as a token of my love for him.
"I am grateful every single day that you gave him that stone. Had you not, and had he not been wearing it in the exact place where the dark lord shot the curse at his chest, he would not have survived," Narcissa said, petting his hood protectively as he peered with burning curiosity at the destroyed remnants in my hand.
"You call this surviving? Just take me out back and shoot me," he huffed, his eyes puffy from crying.
Narcissa gave me an exhausted look, "We shall be taking you back to bed, that much is certain."
Draco scowled across the property, taking in the gorgeous summer day, "At this hour? Am I eighty years old?"
Narcissa closed her eyes again. It was a move they both apparently made when annoyed and I stifled a giggle at the similarity I had never noticed before, "What would you rather be doing? You cannot walk, you cannot push the chair yourself, and you need rest. Perhaps Madeleine would be up for entertaining you, but you must be in bed regardless."
Draco and both shook our heads to dismiss the concept with passion. He'd just been unbelievably rude to me all of lunch, and I had other matters to attend to. I wanted to send owl's to several people including my family and members of The Order. I also needed to go into London and check on the status of my financial affairs and run errands.
I ignored his gaze, turning to Narcissa who had her head hung down impatiently, "Where is my wand, Narcissa?"
Her voice was stiff and regretful, "It was destroyed in the battle. Apparently the core was not prepared for the degree of dark magic you suddenly inflicted upon it. The wood was burnt completely I'm afraid. Your hand should tell you as much." She gestured to the white glove on my right hand.
I looked back down at Draco who's eyes had shot to the glove with interest, "I need to go to London to replace my wand. Can I borrow yours to get dere since you do not need et today?" His mouth fell open in outrage at the perfectly reasonable request.
Narcissa started pushing the wheelchair and I followed along side as they slowly weaved through the dining room furniture, "Of course. Draco will be asleep most of the day anyways."
"I will not!" he argued fiercely, "This is fucking ridiculous. She can't take my wand!"
I gazed down at him, "And what are you going to do about et? You can 'ardly raise your finger."
His eyes widened venomously, and I imagined that if he did have his wand he would have killed me then and there. I didn't doubt it after the way he'd hunted me like prey during the Hogwarts battle. He let out a breathy sideways smirk, dripping with acidity, "Well as soon as I can, I'll pull your eyeballs out in your sleep."
I laughed at the hysterical comeback, my damaged lung's wheezing awkwardly, and Narcissa looked sick at the way we were speaking to each other. The watch on his left arm glinted in the candlelight as we reached a fork in several of the hallways. "You don' even know what room is mine," I argued back light heartedly, hoping he would continue to shoot me humorous retorts.
There was an unmistakably livid glint in his piercing blue eyes, "I'll find it. You can be sure of that. Then we'll see who's laughing." It appeared that he was genuinely angry which only made me want to laugh harder.
Narcissa seemed to read my mind as I saw her twist the chair suggestively towards the abandoned wing, hoping to break up the childish bickering. It was the only part of the first floor with bedrooms in it, "Unfortunately he has to sleep downstairs for now, given this...wheelchair situation. We're doing what we can to make it more accommodating for him. I know you are aware of how forgotten these rooms are."
I was well aware. The rooms in the abandoned first floor wing were awful. They were consistently freezing, filled with the Manor's creepiest and rudest paintings, and everything was rife with stench and must. His own room was inconveniently on the fourth floor. I knew I should've felt bad for him but there was only a pin prick of pity able to blossom in my blackened heart.
"Can I take one of de cars den, since 'e does not want me to borrow 'is wand?" I mused rudely, speaking to Narcissa as though he were not there between us, knowing it would drive a spike of rage through him.
Narcissa scoffed and looked disgusted, "If you should desire to take one of those god-awful fuel-based machines than be my guest. Feel free to leave it behind in London for that matter."
"You. Wouldn't. Dare." Draco breathed fire at me through barred teeth and slit eyes. His arms were crossed in his lap weakly, but I could see him digging his fingers into the fabric of the white hoodie. His collection of valuable cars in the abandoned cathedral was one his most prized possessions. He'd spent countless years buying, building and modifying the dozens of different vehicles. "I'd bet half my limbs that you can't even drive," he jabbed.
I bit my lip, "You don' 'ave any limbs to bet." I couldn't explain why being so cruel to him was entertaining. I had never treated Draco like this, but he of course didn't know that. His first impression of me was horrific. It was like some sadistic force was living inside of me, edging me on.
"Fine, I want to go to sleep. Take my wand," he growled in defeat. It was obvious that he simply wanted to be as far away from me as possible in that moment. Narcissa handed his sleek wand over and wheeled him away through the double doors that led to the abandoned wing, and a frigid gust blew down the corridor in their wake.
I strolled back to my room twisting his wand around in my fingers and sat at the desk, setting it down in front of me as I wrote letters. One to my mother to let her know where I was and that I was alive, and to ask for her forgiveness for becoming a Death Eater. My father had died during the war, and I wasn't even sure if I was permitted to come home and pay my respects. The funeral would have concluded already, yet, the event was still sensationally fresh and my mother and brother would be entirely devastated. I wrote another to both Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, in case they were not currently in the same location. I needed answers on the conclusion of the war and their well-being.
Then I went down to Draco's room on the fourth floor and entered with ease. I was thrown by the micro flutter in my heart as my eyes scanned the well-known space I'd spent so much time with him in. At one point we had shared the room, and memories were in every corner. The wall of windows and his old desk were still monstrously charred from an incident involving my Veela magic. His bed was unmade as though he had just jumped out of it.
My fingers trailed along the bed post as I thought of the powerful and more matured Draco I had come to know, the one who had gone to work every day as a Death Eater and returned at night to claim me. The one who had met me every Friday night on the rooftop in London when we were separated during the war. The boy in his body downstairs was not even a close comparison, however, he had the singular advantage of skipping over much of the torment his former obliviated self had gone through.
I went to the horned owl's cage and coaxed him out nervously, knowing that the owl preferred to interact solely with Draco. It's yellow eyes blearily opened in protest, then it swiveled its face around in a freakish clockwise circle, evaluating my demand. Finally, and thankfully, it decided to take the letters and I instructed it to go to the mega owlery in London which operated as a wizarding post office.
Once that task had been concluded I decided I was well enough to travel after all, and disapparated from the property to Diagon Alley. Several witches and wizards in my vicinity sent me hateful glares which I chose to ignore as the signature Death Eater smoke curled away from my arrival point in sickly snaps and sparks. I popped a pointy black umbrella and strolled along authoritatively, twisting it behind my long white hair.
"It's the White Witch!" A little boy shouted without hesitation from beside his father, pointing at me in excitement. He was abruptly silenced by the hand of his parent clamping down onto his mouth. I halted mere feet away from them and hovered my black eyes down on the boy, feeling perplexed by the mysterious title.
His father who was evidently terrified of me sent me a begging and apologetic look, "I'm so sorry, he is but an infant. Please, forgive us." I walked on with my eyebrows furrowing together from the bizarre interaction.
The streets there were mainly empty and I wasn't surprised. The war had bored fear into the British wizarding world and it was still quite fresh. Those who could avoid leaving their homes were still doing so wisely.
I gathered up a newspaper from a local vender and tossed it in my bag. After I'd confirmed that my access to my family's vault at Gringott's was still permitted, I took out a hefty sum from the massive account which would still likely go unnoticed. It would be good to be prepared for anything. Then I brought myself to Ollivander's old shop which was now run by a different elderly gentleman after the unfortunate murder of Ollivander himself during the war.
The shop was unnecessarily bleak and I blinked in the darkness. The thick scent of wood clung to the air. I approached the desk in trepidation of the eerie silence and seeming abandonment of the shop. I was about to give up, coming to the conclusion that perhaps they were closed when a riotous clammer of metal rolling against wood erupted to my left.
A squat old man with long white hair that stuck out like a poster of Einstein was hanging off a library ladder that he'd just driven in my direction. He adjusted what looked like Quidditch goggles over his eyes to squint at me, "Oh, I'm terribly sorry. I wasn't expecting any customers."
"Hmm," I nodded as he disembarked from the last step and slid clumsily on the floor next to me as if a bucket of soap water had been sloshed there.
"A wand, I'm assuming?" he catered, gesturing for me to follow him down a narrow walkway which had crooked shelves leaning on both sides towards the center. "Say. You wouldn't happen to be a Malfoy would you?" he inquired boldly as he stepped up yet another ladder and started pulling down boxes of black wands.
"'ow did you know?" I challenged.
He held out a bunch of boxed wands for me to try, "Just a hunch. The hair, the clothes, the uh, demeanor. I've read about your family - it's everywhere in the papers." I glared at him, probably not helping the case.
It was at least ten minutes of casting misfired spells around the shop before I found the right one that beckoned to me. The shop owner seemed to sense that I was dealing with a change of personality and powers, and helped guide me through the different sections of the shop, shoving boxes at me as he went along.
My wand before I'd taken the dark mark had been Chestnut with crafted swirls, but the shop owner had passionately argued against going to that section again given my description of my new tendencies and abilities. He shook his finger in my face with short, slow wags, "Yew. It is yew, I am certain of it now."
It was with incredible fortune that the first Yew wand he pulled down sent electric shivers through my body the moment my skin connected with it. I turned it over in my hand with wide eyes, admiring the carved feathers along the wand's pale pinkish-brown tone. "Et es perfect," I looked at him with sincerity. He nodded wistfully, with a small hint of worry in his eyes.
"It is rarely assigned," he anxiously pointed out.
Once I had apparated back to the Manor I called on my elf Nibbles to see if she would consider updating me on the status of the household. I collapsed onto my bed and laid on my back to look up at the ceiling as she annoyingly bounced on the bed next to me in one of the little dresses I'd bought for her to wear.
I had set her free months ago right before the war had concluded, deciding I no longer cared if Lucius found out or not. At the time I had grown fond of her being that she'd been assigned purely to me, and she'd been helping me for a long time to achieve what I needed to. We'd become friends over my entrapment at the Manor for the few months it had occurred, before I'd finally been released by Narcissa and Draco.
"Nibbles has been very nervous that neither Misses Madeleine or Mister Draco would wake up these past few weeks. Mister Draco is been seeming very odd today at lunch." Her voice pitched up and down as her feet collided with the mattress rhythmically, tightening her diaphragm on impact.
"Mister Draco..." I whispered the name in colossal amusement under my breath. Nibbles no longer felt the need to address members of the family as "Master" when she was living there of her own free will, simply choosing to help out as a resident herself. It was that, and she simply refused to leave the property. There was very little effort anyone was truly willing to go to just to forcibly remove her now that her biting habit seemed to be under control.
I huffed in impatience, "Yes, must you be reminded 'e was completely obliviated Nibs. 'E thinks 'e is seventeen again. And de only way to access 'is memories 'as become impossible to break into." I tapped my wrist to suggest the watch we both knew about.
Nibbles stopped bouncing and jumped to hug me, and I robotically patted her back. "Nibs is also noticing Misses Madeleine is different too."
I sighed heavily as I traced the design on the ceiling, "War will do dat. I'm afraid I've lost myself, Nibs. I'm trapped in a dark place deep inside my 'eart, and I don' know 'ow to get out of et. I feel empty inside."
Telling her this only procured an undesirable crying session in which I had to spend another aggravating fifteen minutes or so calming her down.
Finally when she had regained her composure I passed her Draco's wand and reminded her that he needed it back, and to make sure he ate something. He'd looked very ill when I'd last seen him, and had cut lunch short barely eating anything. Nibs was the right person to take care of anybody. That way, she could focus her intense emotions on Draco who needed it, and leave me alone to focus on my priorities.