A/N: I did not know I was taking a little break until I'd already posted the last chapter — so apologies for that! Now that it's no longer Camp NaNoWriMo (well, not until the next one in July) updates likely won't be quite as frequent as they were last month, but I'm still aiming for at least one chapter per week. In other news, I'm in the very beginning stages of fleshing out an idea for a Pirates of the Caribbean fic because my love for that flared up again out of nowhere this month, along with an inexplicable new adoration for James Norrington. Apparently it's a year of posh bastards when it comes to my fic writing - so stay tuned if that sounds like your kind of thing!
As always, thank you guys for the lovely reviews, they really do make my day every time one shows up in my inbox!
Marilyn drummed her fingertips distractedly against the countertop as she waited for the kettle to boil. The deep blue nail polish on her nails was starting to chip - barely there at all on some nails. She'd have to do something about that. Looking to the kettle for a fiftieth time, she suppressed a sigh. The old saying about a watched pot never boiling was proving painfully true in this instance.
"Okay, you have to tell me what's wrong."
She jumped and spun to face Sarah who stood in the doorway, a deep furrow in her brow, as she regarded her.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean you go off the radar for a couple of days, then reappear like nothing ever happened, and now you're…off. Something's up."
"I told you," she pinched the bridge of her nose "It was all just a miscommunication. Everything's fine."
"Miscommunication my arse, Lyn - we were ready to phone the bloody police, why are you acting like it's nothing out of the ordinary? Where were you?"
"I was just…" the more questions she was asked, the more she could feel a migraine forming directly behind her eyes "I was here and there. Really. Nothing sinister."
She yanked the kettle up from its stand before it was finished boiling. The water was hot enough - what difference would a few seconds make if it got her out of here fast enough?
"We're worried," Sarah persisted "Is this...is this something to do with him? Did he do something?"
"Who?" Marilyn blinked.
"You know who."
With a sigh, she rubbed at her eyes before finally answering a few moments later when it seemed that Sarah was content to let the silence rest between them, unafraid of any potential awkwardness that it might bring.
"You're making a mountain out of a molehill. How often does Taylor disappear for days, on some mad bender or another? You're always telling me I need to loosen up, you can't get annoyed at me when I take that advice."
It was sheer willpower alone that stopped her from fidgeting now, clinging to the mug with one hand as she stirred the coffee with the other, despite how it burned her fingers.
"That's different, and you know it. You didn't come home hungover in a party dress with half a takeaway tucked beneath your arm, you came home..."
Looking like shit, pale as death, and...foggy.
"What I don't know is why you're making such a big deal out of this," she shrugged, spilling more sugar onto the bench than she actually managed to get into the mug.
"And what I don't know is what's wrong with you. Marilyn, clearly something is wrong, and whatever it is, you need to tell us. Even if it seems like we can't help, I'm sure we could."
She did what she could to block out the part-angry rant, part-plea, splashing milk into the coffee as quickly as she could and dumping the carton of milk back into the fridge.
"There's nothing wrong, I'm just tired," the coffee almost sloshed all over her hands in her effort to get past Sarah and back to her room as quickly as possible.
"How long is he going to be staying?" Sarah called after her.
Rather than answer, Marilyn shut her bedroom door firmly behind her.
"They won't tolerate my presence here for much longer," Draco said grimly from where he sat at her desk.
They no longer sat on her bed together anymore. It felt too intimate. Marilyn offered no response to what he'd pointed out.
"I should leave. Go elsewhere."
"And where exactly is elsewhere?" She asked, settling back down onto her bed.
No answer came. Yeah, that was what she'd thought. The both of them knew that if Draco had literally anywhere else that he might go, he'd be there now. He wouldn't have taken up her offer of shelter to begin with, for that matter. It was plain to see that he wanted to be there about as much as she wanted him there - the looks he gave the window were laced with longing and speculation in equal measure, and she knew what was running through his mind without having to ask. Maybe not the minutiae, but the gist. If he were to leave, where would he go? How would he fare? He wouldn't have the same protection out there that he had by sticking with her, the magical world's most vulnerable target as of late. In helping her, he'd made himself a whole new set of enemies, and the only people who he could hope to help him face them were...well, his old enemies.
Hermione said it herself. His homes were the family homes, his money the family money. And Draco had told her once upon a time that the friends he did have saw his name rather than himself as a person. The name he'd by all accounts just set fire to. There was no checking into a hotel, no crashing on a sofa that wasn't her own. Marilyn knew she wasn't the best of a bad lot of options - she was the only option. Under different circumstances, she might have felt sorry for him.
The wary sort of hope on his face was challenged only by the sheer dread that covered it whenever any sort of noise came from the front door. At one point Taylor had ordered pizza and he fully drew his wand when he heard how the delivery man rattled the door like a one-person SWAT team. Marilyn might have pointed out the fact that any of his lot probably wouldn't bother knocking first, but she was too busy flinching at the sight of that bloody stick to make many jokes. The awkward silence that followed seemed even more enveloping than the one they'd dwelled in over the last couple of days.
No, Draco had no other options. She knew that. But she also knew that she had plenty of options - the chief of which being to leave his ass at that hospital and never look back. So why hadn't she? It was what everybody expected her to do...including Draco, judging by the way his jaw had completely slackened when she'd made her offer. Shit, she'd only found it in herself to do so when she was two steps away from the door, when she could no longer put off the realisation that the rest of her options all rather felt like dead-ends.
She could spew high school psychology bullshit to herself all day about trauma bonding and such, and she could spend from now until eternity trying to work out some sort of mental tally that might make them equal. She'd all but barrelled into his life bringing trouble, and he'd saved her, which put her in his debt...or so she thought, until she found out he'd spent the better part of two decades beforehand despising her simply for breathing air. That muddied the waters quite a bit. But a pesky voice in the back of her head was rather intent on pointing out all of Hermione's very good, if not confusing, arguments on that matter, as well as the fact that he'd never actually done anything directly to her...however marginally that helped matters.
From there it got no less migraine-inducing. He'd brought all of this down upon her, but all the while he'd been working to prevent it behind-the-scenes. He'd opened the door for what had happened to her to take place...but he'd done so unwittingly, and he'd lost everything in order to undo it. For fuck's sake, it would've almost been easier if he'd just bounced and washed his hands of the whole mess rather than rescure her. At least then she might've easily hated him.
He'd told her nothing of his life, while also telling her things he didn't seem to express to anybody else. The man in the papers that the Aurors kept funnelling through to them was not the one locked up in her house with her - and he certainly wasn't the one she'd known these last few months. If Hermione was to be believed, he also wasn't the one she attended school with. But how could all of this be forgotten? How could it be moved past?
Knowing what he'd once been, and the beliefs he'd held - even fairly recently, concerning her 'own kind', regardless of whether or not they'd become weathered down by time and experience - put a terrible, cynical filter on every memory that she had of him. When he laughed at her jokes, was he laughing because he found them funny, or because he was surprised that Muggles could be clever enough to be funny in the first place? Was it the sort of laughter that sprang forth when a child said something unexpectedly wise or clever? When he sought out her company, went out with her, slept with her, was he doing so due to desire, or due to curiosity? None of these questions were particularly fun to ponder.
What was even less enjoyable was considering where they might go from here. Oh, she outright refused to consider the state of their relationship, however that might be defined, at present. Even the thought of such musings filled her chest with a heavy, nauseating dread until she found distraction in some book or alternative thought. There was much too much on her mind now to let it stray there. What she did know was this - if she kicked him out, he would have nowhere to go but back to his family. Depending on who was to be believed when it came to them, he'd either go through a similar sort of treatment that she'd been subjected to at the hands of the lovely Serana and Tabitha...or he'd have to throw himself back into their manner of thinking (i.e. prejudice) with every cell of his being in some last-ditch effort to be welcomed back into the fold.
While she didn't know what she wanted, she knew she did not want either of those two outcomes. The rest could wait. Picking up the book from her nightstand, she opened it and tried to summon some futile hope that it might distract her from the man half-heartedly flicking through the newspaper not six feet away.
'I've enjoyed my hour with you more than I have enjoyed anything for a very long time. You've taken me out of myself, out of despondency and introspection, both of which have been my devils for a year.'
She sighed sharply and closed the book once again. Not so long ago, she'd have blushed and thought of him after reading such a passage. Either the universe was purposely fucking with her at this point, or she was simply in so deep that anything and everything would find some way to remind her of some aspect of her current circumstances. Her money was on the second, but it gave her less of a direct outlet for her anger. At least the anger was better than the despondency, she supposed. Fuck, she missed dancing. Back in the day, whenever anything weighed on her (admittedly, nothing quite as serious as any of this - but 'kidnap' and 'torture' did tend to be universal trump cards) she could practise and practise, over and over until she was too exhausted to move. And then she could sleep, and repeat the whole process come morning until things worked themselves out.
Draco was equally restless, throwing the newspaper back to the desk. She pretended not to notice his gaze on her as she sipped her coffee.
"Isn't it a bit late to be drinking coffee?"
"Only if you plan on sleeping," she muttered.
"You didn't sleep last night, either."
"I know. I was there."
Whatever valiant attempts her soft-heartedness made towards quelling her anger towards him, her tongue made no such efforts. The overtiredness did not help. Everything felt too sharp and too hazy all at once - too much and too little. She felt everything, and she felt entirely numb. She didn't even know how much of it was what she'd been through, how much of it was what she now knew, and how much of it was the fact that she could barely eat, sleep, or really function much at all.
"Sleep will help," he sounded like he couldn't quite decide whether he wanted to sound annoyed or patronising.
She bit back a remark on his bedside manner, but only barely...and mainly because in his indecision, he wound up sounding as exhausted as she felt.
"Only until I wake up," she replied quietly.
He'd been expecting snark. She could see it in the double-take that he did after hearing her words, and realising that they were genuine. Then he bit down on the inside of his cheek, bowed his head for a moment and sighed.
"I'm going to get some air."
What had she expected, hedging towards the territory of talking? While she now was painfully aware that all this time she'd known laughably little about Draco Malfoy, she did know he wasn't much one for comforting. In fact, she felt ridiculous for the pang of disappointment she felt. He'd probably been relieved that they'd gone so long without really discussing what had happened to her, and now she was ruining it.
She nodded, watching as he left the room, and then listening keenly as she heard him walk down the hallway into the kitchen, and open the side door that led out into the garden. From there she could see him again from her bedroom window, illuminated by the light that streamed out from the open kitchen door, standing stiffly in the garden. Only once it was clear that he wasn't going anywhere - when he didn't suddenly disappear into thin air, make for the front door, or...or vault over the garden wall, never to be seen again - did she relax somewhat. Somewhat.
There were many things that she was uncertain of nowadays. One thing, though, needed no internal debate. The only thing worse than having Draco constantly around, acting as a living breathing representation of what she'd gone though, would be being alone. The only thing worse than being reminded of it all, was having no evidence of it. It was bad enough whenever she dipped out into the kitchen to make her hundredth cup of coffee for the day, when her housemates popped in to try to talk to her as if nothing had changed. Everything had changed, and yet nothing had. Not on the surface. It was unbearable. It was driving her more mad than their spells ever could.
She would lose her job soon if she didn't go back to work soon. They'd been so lenient so often as of late, but she knew she was wearing out the benefit of the doubt that her good name had earned her to begin with, and in doing so she was destroying that good name, too. It was a worry that seemed so trivial now that it barely pierced the fog she now dwelled in, but it wouldn't seem very trivial when she wasn't earning a wage, had no bed to mope in, and no food to force down.
But how could she go on through the motions of putting one foot in front of the other after all of this? Planning lessons and going on nights out and putting together recitals? It all seemed so laughable - so pointless. Like ants running around going about their day as the magnifying glass moved into place over their nest. Anything and everything related back to this somehow. Any bright light in a club could be a spell aimed her way, any lesson a danger she was bringing to any and every student she had, every recital an opportunity to look at every parent and child in the building and contemplate how there was a whole community of people out there who viewed them as little more than cavemen. At best.
How would there ever be getting past any of this? Maybe it would've just been bloody well best if her captors had succeeded in their goal.
By the time her thoughts were done spiralling - by the time they'd finally plummeted to rock bottom - she felt like she couldn't breathe at all, her chest tight and constricted while the lump in her throat choked her.
Outside, through her sheer gauzy curtains, she saw Draco's head turn slightly - like he was tempted to glance inside. Curling up, she rolled onto her side so that she faced the wall and closed her eyes tightly shut, burying her face in her hands. It didn't help much in calming her down, but if she pretended to be asleep by the time he returned then it might save her a painful conversation.
Sooner than she expected, though, there was no need to pretend any longer.
The dangerous amounts of caffeine were no match for the exhaustion in the end, it seemed. She didn't even dream, blessedly. If she'd closed her eyes only to see Serana's feline features, she'd have stapled the fuckers open for the rest of her life. But while that exhaustion put her to sleep the moment she dropped her guard against it, it could not keep her asleep...and that was the killer. Because somewhere, between sleep cycles, when the lines between wakefulness and sleep blurred, she forgot where she was.
All she knew was that it was dark and silent, the movie she'd left to play on loop after loop was no longer making a sound, and she was waiting for the next bout of pain to hit. Shooting up, she let out a sad and pathetic cry of fright, smacking her head against the wall in her haste to scramble into the corner. It didn't matter that the surface beneath her hands was warm and forgiving - the very opposite of stone - or that there were no taunts, no feminine laughter, all that mattered was the horror that gripped every part of her.
"No!" She was shrieking it before she could even control herself, and when reality caught up and the cry died in her throat she felt ridiculous - which wasn't helped by the fact that tears were already threatening to spill down her cheeks.
Taking a few ragged breaths in, she remained where she was, curled up in the corner of her bed, clinging to the blankets beneath her hands like they were the only thing keeping her in the present. Sniffling, she wiped furiously at her cheeks with the sleeve of her jumper and tried to calm her breathing, begrudging closing her eyes even just to blink in case it sent her back...there.
On the floor, on the travel cot, she could make out Draco's form, huddled under their spare quilt. At least he hadn't witnessed this. He would've had to go outside for three hours just to get over the awkwardness.
"Get yourself together," she breathed furiously to herself.
"I'm awake."
He said it quietly, his voice cutting through the darkness - although whether that quietness was because it gave her more license to freely ignore him, or because he wasn't sure that he truly wanted her to know he wasn't sleeping, she couldn't say. Hell, she couldn't say if she wanted to know. Were he sound asleep, she could take some small comfort in the fact that her episodes were going on unwitnessed. Of course, then she'd have to deal with them alone.
"Have you ever had it done to you?"
"The Cruciatus curse?"
She flinched at the first syllable of the name, her hands gripping her blanket of their own accord.
"Yeah," she breathed "That."
"A few times," he said it grimly, but blandly — as if she'd asked him if he'd ever been stung by a wasp "It was the Dark Lord's favourite method of showing his...displeasure. My family displeased him rather a lot towards the end."
"Oh."
"However, I've never experienced it in the same manner that you did. Not in such a prolonged way. For us it was always more punishment than outright torture."
"They couldn't work out how to get the effect they wanted," she said "There was some debate on the matter, you see. Whether they should be going for repeated short bursts, or a more continual, prolonged exposure."
Draco was silent.
"In the end they settled on trial and error," she added "One and then the other, before taking note and continuing from there based on whatever results they decided they'd seen."
She tried to keep her voice cool and impassive - like she was giving him some sort of academic, factual recount rather than a confession wrought with fear and horror. But the sad fact of the matter was that she was keenly aware that the more she spoke, the more difficult speaking at all became.
"You'd, uh...you'd think that the short bursts would be better, but they weren't. Not really. You don't really rest - you can't enjoy it. You're just lying there, waiting for it to start all over again. The waiting was almost as bad as the pain. At least when the pain is there, there's no room for fear or- or thought."
Or despair, or hopelessness, or an all-encompassing desire to just bloody well die instead. And it was those breaks, those small and insidious reprieves, that haunted her now.
There were things she could do while she was awake. Okay, they hardly worked miracles, but there were...measures. She could wrap up in layers of thick woolen tights, fluffy socks, and guzzle down mugs of tea until there was no danger of feeling the same chill that had seeped into her limbs and taken over when she'd been lying on that dungeon floor. She could sit with the big overhead light on in every room and never light candles again so as not to be reminded of the wand or, or the torchlight from that night. Shit, she could take it to an extreme level - send out letters to all of those within her social circle, demanding they no longer use any words that sounded any kind of similar to 'Crucio' and refuse to sit or lie on any surface that felt just a tad too solid.
But who was she kidding? There would always be chills, tricks of the light, hard surfaces, and things would always be excruciating, crucial, crocheted, and a great number of other entirely innocent things that would have her flinching like a beaten dog, regardless. No, she had to find a way of dealing with this. Time would be a big factor, she knew that well enough, but it was little comfort to her during any of the five hundred times she jolted awake in the middle of the night, certain she would open her eyes and be back in that fucking dungeon with those crackpots.
The other major factor with any ordeal was talking, and she was coming to the begrudging conclusion that talking might well be the only thing she could do while she tediously wedged time between herself and the incident. As far as talking was concerned, there was only one viable candidate...and he was currently lying on the camping bed on the floor. Unfortunately, he was also the very person who had brought all of this down upon her. And a handful of years ago he would have celebrated it.
It was all too much. Too much too much. Any small portion of what currently weighed down upon her would be a hell of an ask for one person to bear. Had she only discovered that Draco was a wizard, or his history with this Dark Lord, or 'only' been put through torture, she might have been able to bear it with some semblance of grace - it was a really fucking big 'might', and she only dared think so because she prized herself on her resilience. But she hadn't. She'd been through an avalanche rather than a hailstorm or even a blizzard, and she found herself buried beneath it, unable to move, and with no idea which way was up so that she might even begin to think about digging herself out.
More silence followed, which was just downright mortifying seeing as it made it blatantly obvious that she'd begun to sob. When a few moments passed and he made no move to flee, she prepared to do so herself - she'd go to the garden, get some air, hopefully freeze to death and save herself all of this embarrassment. She was nothing if not an optimist.
But then he did move...and rather than make for the door as she expected, he moved towards her instead. Climbing onto the bed, he reclined so that his legs were stretched out before him, and then he snaked an arm around her and pulled her towards him, his grip gentle but allowing little room for protest or embarrassment. Only once she was leaning against him, face pressed into his chest, did he relent. Even then, though, he didn't let go. Instead he just held her, and he let her cry.
The relief that coursed through her, easing the tightening in her chest, only made her cry all the harder. He didn't speak, which was good because she wouldn't have been able to hear him anyway. The hand that belonged to the arm wrapped around her threaded into her hair, curling her tresses around his fingers over and over, while his right arm reached over and simply rested on her hip, his thumb tracing lines back and forth.
There was a logic to it. The one thing she did not experience in that dungeon was a kind touch. So long as she was there, huddled against him, listening to his breathing and his heartbeat, and feeling the warmth that emanated from him, she couldn't forget where she was. However, Marilyn wasn't thinking of this. For the first time since arriving home, she wasn't thinking at all - instead she just cried, and she let herself cry.