Narcissa wheeled Draco down the damp and dark hallway towards his grandmother's old personal quarters as he muttered barely audible insults under his breath. The painting's along the walls were mainly dozing during the afternoon, ignoring the rare intrusion on the normally silent corridor as they approached the final door in the hallway corner, directly next to a glittering green stained glass window.
Back in the room, hardly any sunlight was able to peak into the space through the drawn black curtains which were as thick as two inches, resembling more carpets than drapes in dexterity. She lit a fire for him as he watched with a deep frown, tears running down his cheeks silently.
"Can you open the curtains? It's like a tomb in here. Might as well leave me here to rot," he grumbled pessimistically.
Narcissa panted in irritation as she moved around the space ripping the thick fabrics open, allowing the summer sunlight to blare into the room. The difference in the atmosphere was shocking, "Enough with the morbidities. You've been informed that you will recover; this is a temporary stage. Be grateful." She opened one of the enormous windows a crack, as that was all it would allow after being shut for so many decades. The wooden creak it released was nearly earsplitting.
Draco rolled his neck, wincing, "That demonic girl isn't temporary. Why did you choose her? Couldn't you have just left Astoria to pester me for the rest of eternity?" His gaze followed her as she moved around the room setting him up to be trapped there in mild comfort like a neglected elderly person in a retirement home.
His mother pulled back the fresh covers she'd added to the ancient bed frame and propped up the pillows. She brought all sorts of parchment, ink and books to the bedside for him to busy himself with. "You chose her, Draco. And if I recall correctly, Madeleine has never been demonic. She sacrificed quite a lot for the war. She saved your life in doing so. Give it time. You both need to heal."
He stared at the fire as his body writhed internally with the agony of having taken a massive hit of the killing curse. Despite being provided exceptional magical medical care, he would suffer for weeks as the recovery would be long and slow, and there was no telling if there would be permanent side effects. It was an unprecedented medical phenomenon.
Little drops of tears left his eyes realizing he would be forced to be inside for the rest of the warm weather, nearly paralyzed for a good chunk of it, and he still had no idea how soon it would be until he could even walk.
He shook his head, "I would never choose a girl like her. Pretentious bitch. Tell me, why does she look so bizarre?" She had been gorgeous in an odd way, but he would never admit that. He was struggling to compute her beady, dark eyes and coy remarks. He would have to continue trying to bring down her confidence so she would stop being so dominating.
Narcissa pushed his chair to the bed and it was another few minutes of his torturous screaming before he was back under the covers, wailing from the excruciation. He continued panting well after he was in a still position, and all of the portraits on the walls of distant relatives had either covered their ears or left to their sister frames elsewhere.
Narcissa used the hem of her long, pristine dress to wipe away his tears and then she brushed his sweaty hair out his eyes, "She didn't always look that way. You'll understand, all in good time. Get some more rest."
After his mother had left he sat there boiling with rage. His eyes were twitching in aggravation at the thought that he'd been married to such a devilish girl. She outmatched his own wicked mannerisms, she had even picked on him when he was so obviously at his lowest point. She thought she was better than him and it pissed him off. The worst part was that he would have to act minimally civil due to the fact that she had somehow saved his life.
He tried to ignore the floor to ceiling mirror that was uncovered across from the bed. He didn't recognize himself at all. He'd aged significantly; it had been after all, three years, and he was now twenty, not seventeen. Whoever was responsible for cutting his hair had obviously quit their day job because it was far too long. He practically had the same haircut as a Weasley, his straight platinum hair was almost reaching his shoulders.
The aromatic breeze of summer taunted him horribly as it flicked in through the thin slot of the ancient window across the room. He could hear insects and birds busily enjoying their time in the afternoon sun, going about their mindless business. He had no wand to entertain himself because his wife had it. It was either that, or face the real possibility that she would try to take one of his cars just for the sake of upsetting him further.
After passing out for several hours the weak boy was wakened by a tiny elf shaking his wrist. He had been sweating in his bed from the heat coming in through the window combined with the fireplace. He wanted more than anything to remove his sweater but the dreadful misery that it would demand from his frail body was not worth it. Outside the sun was setting in a hazy orange glow, creeping up the black comforter towards him.
"Nibbles brings Draco dinner, and potions," she said lightly. He frowned down at the familiar family house elf who was addressing him inappropriately and wearing a miniature dusty-blue dress with a bow at her neck instead of her regular potato sack. His eyes flicked to the plate and medicines at the side of his bed and then back to her in shock.
"Nibbles, what are you wearing?" he asked in an alarmed tone.
The elf smiled widely and he shrunk away from her, half expecting her to bite as she usually did. He hadn't seen much of the small elf since he had been about twelve, when Lucius had forced her to bite herself for hours as punishment. Unfortunately, the incident had produced terrible PTSD, causing her to bite others randomly when overwhelmed, then to bite herself again in equal torment. She'd become a pariah, mainly contained in the kitchen for half a decade.
"Draco may call Nibbles Nibs if he wishes. Nibs is a good friend of Misses Madeleine, who cares for Nibs here. Madeleine has reminded Nibs that Draco needs to be eating, and to give him this back," she held out his wand, then placed it too on the table. The elf had been freed by Madeleine?
There was an awkward silence as Nibbles let out little nervous squeaks at Draco's hard stare. He was completely taken aback by the circumstances; the Malfoy's had never freed house elves, much rather allowed freed ones to roam the Manor.
"Okay, thanks..." he managed to say with a horrified, insincere expression.
"Would Draco like anything else? Nibbles is liking to help," she offered with large, kind green eyes. He was immediately reminded of being a small child and having played with her and several other elves in his endless spare time.
"No, just go," he curtly dismissed her, then changed his mind, "Wait."
He'd caught her just in time as her fingers had met to snap in the air. She stared back attentively. "Tell me about this Madeleine girl," he brutally demanded.
Nibbles was far too excited at the invitation and Draco immediately regretted the inquiry, "Oh! Misses Madeleine is being the most amazing person Nibbles has ever known. She likes to dance ballet and plant gardens. She is being very in love with Mister Draco. And she is being very powerful, too powerful. She is not liking it now and Nibs is hoping she will be able to come back from the evil place she is trapped. Inside." She pointed at his chest and he veered farther back into the pillows to avoid her touch.
His eyes dropped to the obsidian comforter, his face blank. Very powerful, we'll see about that, he thought in contempt. "Why is she trapped in an evil place?" he darkly requested to know, trying to banish the sentence that Nibbles had given suggesting that she was in love with him.
"She is being a Veela. She was not being able to prevent the dark mark latching itself to her Veela powers, and everything was being too much to handle. She was consumed by it," Nibs' voice softened and cracked at the last sentence, and Draco glared at her teary eyes with antipathy.
"Alright, I've heard enough," he grunted in disgust, knowing he couldn't force the elf to leave now that she was free. He was certain that the girl was just being dramatic. He had worn the dark mark since his sixteenth birthday and he was well aware that it was difficult and emotionally ruling, but to suggest that it would take one's soul away was just absurd.
Nibbles pawed at the bed to climb onto it, and Draco shrieked in agony as she pressed one of her dainty hands into his calf in the process. Nibs sat in front of him at the edge of the bed on her knees with an imploring expression, "Draco must try to remember, so he can be saving Misses Madeleine." She pointed at the large watch on his thin wrist, partially sticking out from his sweater sleeve, and his eyes shot to the odd contraption he hadn't seen there before.
He lifted his arm slowly and weakly, breathing deeply through the aching. "What's this got to do with it?" He pressed on one of the nodes around the edge of the cracked interface and a short flickering of green, neon letters appeared and disappeared, then reappeared more pronounced and stable. "Password:" it requested. He pressed all of the nodes, but only the password page announced each time.
"It's locked," he griped.
"Only Draco is knowing the password," the elf said, her pointy ears flattening in sadness.
He raised an eyebrow at her, "Draco is obviously not knowing the password, you daft creature. Get off my bed. This was a waste of time."
The elf whined in protest, but snapped her fingers and then was gone.
He ignored the food at the side of his table, only consuming the potions and now turning all of his attention to the mechanical device strapped to his wrist. He unlatched it and held it up to inspect it on all fronts, turning it over in his fingers. He grabbed his wand and pointed it at the back to remove the protective outer metal and it floated off obediently. It was battery powered, but somehow had been charmed with an infinity charm so that the battery would never run out.
His piercing blue eyes ran over the mechanics, the gears clicking, and the obvious integration of military software. He replaced the back and turned the face upwards once again, and pointed the tip of his wand at the glass edge to run a diagnostic on the magic within.
Coding suddenly floated before his eyes. Extremely complex coding that ran for thousands of digits. His interest had been peaked. Whoever had coded the watch clearly knew what they were doing - it would take him months to decipher it, if he even could.
He proceeded to spend several hours decoding the curious item. The comforter was gradually blanketed by dozens of parchments spread across the bed, and even still he was no where near figuring out the password. He was tapping on the codes with his wand, rearranging digits furiously, when suddenly the watch glitched tragically. The coding began flashing and crackling before him when a deep, digital hum was released and a grainy, holographic video played before him.
His heart panicked as it played, looking rapidly between the watch and the floating imagery. He had to narrow his eyes, but it was unmistakably the same girl, only quite younger.
He was with her in a hallway in the Hogwarts dungeons. She looked distraught and he had a threatening glare on his face. They were arguing, both in Slytherin Quidditch uniforms. Their words were coming out so quietly from the incomplete coding they sounded garbled. Her hair back then was a complex shade of blonde, tied into tight braids and her eyes cast a normal yellow or brown tone, it was very hard to tell. He saw himself pin her against the wall aggressively by her neck. A few minutes later he'd stepped back, and she'd kneed him in the crotch. The image wavered with instability and then the watch went black.
He tapped his wand against the glass but now not even the password prompt was coming up. Perhaps he had broken it. One thing was certain though, it did contain valuable memories as the elf had suggested.
Except nothing promising had been shown to him yet, just an uncomfortable scene depicting the exact same negative energy between them as had occurred that day at lunch. He decided to take it as a hint that his intuitions had been right about her, and placed the watch on the bedside table for further inspection at a later date.