The morning after the odd Slytherin reunion I awoke as usual without Malfoy. What shocked me the most was when he did not come back to the room at all that night, and I slept alone peacefully, spreading out in the center of the bed without the psychopathic boy breathing hatred around the room.

The days began to drag on like that and I increasingly became more bold in his absence. I tore through every book in his room looking for private entries, making a mess of the perfectly organized system he had in place there. Unfortunately, he'd locked up his desk to my dismay. Then when I had memorized his personal things with little satisfaction I took to going outside as the days were warm and sunny. On more than one occasion I was caught and scolded by Narcissa who seemed to appear out of thin air on the gravel pathway while I was trying to leave through the gates. I decided to switch my approach and followed the tall iron framework of the property enclosure, expecting it to suddenly fade away. It never did, just kept going for miles all the way around the perimeter. The fence was absurdly tall with mean looking spires on the top that were sure to impale any trespassers with one slip of a shoe. That was if they could even pass through the magical barrier as a non-familial person.

After a week had passed I resigned to starting a garden in the warm April temperatures, given Herbology had always been a staple practice in my family. There was a decrepit garden bed behind the house that I chose to rehabilitate, and I spent multiple days fighting with angry magical plants that had been completely abandoned there. Without a wand I had to do everything by hand like a normal human and before long I was covered in scratches and my nails were filled with soil on a consistent basis. I ruined many of the black dresses, choosing purposefully those colors only for gardening since they were my least favorite and made me feel like a widow.

After two weeks I had completely adapted Draco's room as my own. There were flower clippings everywhere, hung to dry or placed in glasses. I had potted so many plants around the room it now resembled a jungle. I'd managed to clear out the chosen garden plot with the help of a begrudging elf named Nibbles, who I later learned was named that way for a reason. She would shock me randomly by biting me if I got too close to her, then would go on to bite herself as punishment. Her arms were covered in teeth marks and it made me ill when I noticed them.

Narcissa had sent her around once she'd noticed my infatuation with the gardening. Nibbles brought me all manners of tools at the snap of a finger, which I'd realized I could simply do and call on any of the elves at any time as a Malfoy.

It was now the third week of April and I hadn't seen Draco in so long that I couldn't even remember the sound of his voice. I had known him for a mere few days before he'd disappeared. The sun was setting and I was making my way back around the house in a filthy dark blue dress, my hair hung in a massive braid off of my shoulder and my cheeks were rosy from slaving away with Nibbles. As I was about to round the corner the sound of dark voices interrupted my thoughts.

"You will bring the Potter boy to the dark lord if it is the last thing you do. You have already failed him once; the mere fact that you are still alive after trying to flee the country is nothing short of a miracle." It was an older man whom I didn't recognize, his tone was maleficent and restless. I flattened myself against the cold, blackened stones of the manor and twisted my neck to peer around the corner.

Draco was pacing in black robes, his hands on his hips. He looked filthy and sick; his platinum hair was covered in dirt and his face had smudges all over it. On the Manor porch stood another courtly man with the same white-blond hair only much longer, and I realized it was the infamous Lucius Malfoy that I had seen on the family tree. He had the same regal posture, pointy nose and freezing blue eyes as Draco. In his fingers was a long black cane with a silver serpent head on the top.

He slammed the cane into the porch brick with a deafening crack and Draco's eyes flew to him.

"I am aware of the dark lord's graces, father. I had Potter in my hands this time. I took out Granger, which will weaken him severely." Draco's face was blank as he said the words but his eyes were flashing defensively.

Lucius broke out into a thin smile that mocked his son, "Well, I surely doubt you were that close to finishing this, if all you managed to achieve was murder the mudblood. Those rubes are still snooping around the property line. This must be ended at once." My hand flew to my mouth in shock as the curse word sliced through the air. It was so offensive and yet Lucius had used it like an every day form of dialogue.

"Despite her filthy ancestry she was a strong ally for him. He'll be exhausted emotionally and resourcefully, and I doubt they'll be able to decipher the ward's magic now," Draco batted back nastily.

It was quiet as the wind at the manor picked up for the evening and I shivered in my damp and muddy dress against the bricks. The sun was rapidly falling out of the sky and I was trapped outside until the Malfoy's before me decided to clear the doorway.

I heard Lucius sniff disapprovingly, "So. You are out of options. Since you have failed to impregnate your wife you will need to use her as a weapon. Had you not earlier suggested Potter's fondness for her?"

There was a shuffling on the gravel as I watched Draco take several steps closer to Lucius, "I will not put her at the mercy of this war. She is the principle and final standing provider for the Malfoy blood line."

Lucius shook his head with an unsympathetic chuckle, "My, my. You have allowed yourself to become delicate with her again. Have you ensured she is aware of her duties? You give me no choice but to place a deadline on this little game you are playing, Draco."

Draco visibly scowled, "I am not delicate with her. I claim her every night. If you haven't noticed, I've only been here to do that for less than a week." I started to shake from the nature of the conversation. It was an awkward concept to speak to one's parents about forcing a pregnancy on your partner, and I frowned at how easily the Malfoy's conducted the conversation.

Lucius' gaze floated to his surroundings as if bored by the discussion and I pulled back from the edge in a panic that he'd noticed me. I heard him continue on, "Narcissa tells me she's been...tearing up the property like a savage, dragging mud into the hallways on some frenzied gardening mission. She's far too liberal and at ease here. If what you say is true and you have been obliviating your memories of her, than she should not sense any pity in you." A long pause hung in the climate as the sun finally dipped below the trees.

"Mark my words, boy," Lucius pushed on and his voice sliced through the air like knives, "If I find that you've been storing memories of her from before, I will personally put an end to your life. You disgrace me with your emotional capacity." I heard the thunderous door of the Manor open and slam shut.

I gasped against the exterior wall, heaving in tiny pants to try and remain silent in case one of them was still out there. I was freezing, but the desire not to expose myself outweighed the lack of warmth in my bones.

Had Draco obliviated his memories too? Perhaps only portions of them, considering he did seem to remember quite a lot from our history together. Had he just obliviated the emotional parts?

Lucius had snarled at the capability of Draco to feel, as though such a human quality was shameful. And now Draco was undoubtedly going to be heartless and inhumane with me to prove himself. My hand flew to my mouth to remain silent as tears rolled down my face.

I decided I was too scared to go back inside and face my newly reprimanded husband. Luckily, I had been outside before he'd returned and had witnessed the conversation. I had forewarning.

In an hour it would be nine at night and my curfew would come, but I didn't heed this information as I peered around the corner again, confirming that they had both gone in. I darted down the gravel pathway now at full speed, remembering my days as an athlete in the muscle memory and form. I was sure that this was the time I had to make a real effort to escape. When I reached the gates that were locked as always, I tugged into the hedges again and climbed with speed and panic. I reached the perfectly sawn off top, wobbling with my feet swimming deep under the slicing leaves of fragile wooden supports.

The hedges were thankfully the same height as the spires. I shut my eyes and braced myself to jump, half expecting Narcissa to reappear as she always did. When she didn't I jumped from at least ten feet over the fence. When I collided with the ground beyond the property I felt my wrist break on the impact. I rolled in silent misery, gasping to shut down the desire to scream loudly. I had no time to waste; it didn't matter if Narcissa had claimed nothing was around for miles. She could have been lying in order to deter me from trying to run.

I pushed to my feet as my wrist began to swell and burn. I ran at full speed through a forested dirt lane as the darkness peaked with the absence of the sun. The woods were terrifying in the moonlight and with every cracking stick my heart lurched.

After a long time it eventually opened up to fielded lanes, and I stood momentarily to let my burning lungs catch up. My knees shook from the untimely, forced cardio. I stumbled forward and walked with a dizzy head. The fields stretched to the horizon and I could see no lights of establishments anywhere nearby.

My dress was caked and hardened from the mud of the garden. It was icy cold in the late April evening. I picked up my pace again and cried out as the lactic acid in my legs begged me to stop. I knew it was well past my curfew now but the mark had not burned yet, and I wondered if he was simply giving me a head start only to mock me later by showing up right in front of me effortlessly. Or even better, he hadn't noticed my disappearance. He didn't always come to the bedroom directly at nine by any means. I mentally kicked myself for not trying to run over the past three weeks while he was away. I'd have had plenty of time to make it far across the landscape before Narcissa or the elves took notice.

Another hour of frantic and depleted jogging had me wavering, suddenly unable to run anymore. My body was already underweight from refusing to eat full meals of the exotic food the Malfoy's fed me. I stumbled on the gravel lane now, having reached flatter terrain. It was only after I had slowed down that I noticed the yellow glow of a home ahead in the distance. Several bright points of light in a cluster suggested human inhabitance.

I laughed half-heartedly at the discovery, not even sure if I could make it there with the little energy I had left. My feet forced themselves to continue forward, even though I was now catching my toes on even the slightest stones or potholes.

I was closing in on the last kilometer of my journey towards the lights, my tears catching in my eyelashes, when I collapsed to the ground writhing in agony from the scorch on my neck. It had never felt so painful and my eyes blurred from near blindness. The crack of lighting blasted mere feet from me and I knew he had come at last.

I rolled my head towards the explosive entrance and saw him approaching me calmly, dark smoke dissipating in the wind. He was bizarrely dressed in black joggers and a white hoodie. He knelt next to where I was lying on the dirt and sighed with severe disappointment.

Several burning moments passed as he just glared down at me like a spiteful parent. I was completely thrown when his words came out softly, "Madeleine, this is agony. We've already discussed this. You can't out run me."

I fought to find a response but I was totally petrified. He narrowed his eyes at my silence and bent to tug me to a standing by my broken wrist and at that point I found my voice, shrieking so loudly he stepped back in shock.

"You broke your fucking wrist, didn't you?" He spat, clearly enraged, "This entire affair is a perfect example of abandonment for your own safety." His long hair blew messily around his face and he shot me a look of disgust, lines appearing between his eyebrows. His fingers clamped down around my dress and he disapparated us back to his bedroom in a split second, and all of the hours of running had been for nothing.

I let myself remain on the carpet in defeat as I had done the day I'd arrived. I was exceptionally fatigued from the hours of exercise, filthy from gardening, and emotionally distraught.

His hand was on his mouth as he stared down at my display of detachment. My eyes slid to his deadpan and I knew I looked dead inside. He shrugged in agitation and waved his hands apart as if to ask what?

Finally he spoke in a tight voice, "Am I missing something? Why are you only running away now?" He turned his head to look at me sideways with pensive eyes. I could see the gears turning in his mind as he mused the endless possibilities for my betrayal. He fidgeted with the string hanging from his hoodie looking horrifically suspicious.

I pushed my head back into the carpet, not wanting to admit that I had been eavesdropping earlier, "You said you remember me, you said you loved me, but now somehow et is different between us. 'ow can dat be?" His eyebrows knit together in confusion. I was hoping he would admit to wiping his memories out as I had just overheard in his conversation with Lucius.

"What?" He asked, shaking his head, "You know I remember you. What the fuck is going on? You had better give me an answer right now." His voice was starting to drop dangerously low with impatience.

My heart started fluttering with what could only be described as romantic nervousness. I was surprised by how much it affected me seeing him again and hearing his voice after so long. Despite his conversation with Lucius, he didn't seem to be acting any more violent with me.

I swallowed and traced the ornamentation of the paneling on the ceiling, "I need to know. Do you remember loving me?"

He raised his eyebrows with wide eyes, "Do you remember loving me, Madeleine? Have you been faking obliviation this entire time?" Suddenly his face was contorting angrily as the idea blossomed in the air around him. I could see his eyes flickering all over me as though something that had been invisible before suddenly was everywhere.

I sat up and frowned, surprised that he would assume I was even capable of that level of fraudulence. Before I could respond he reached forward and yanked me to my feet by the collar of my dress and I was being shoved into the wall. His nose pushed into mine as he bore his pale gray eyes into my soul and suddenly I was blinded by a searing headache.

He was using occlumency to search my memories. He worked his way from the most recent and back, skipping past quite a lot haphazardly. Luckily, he did not hover on the current day's events and missed my eavesdropping. Images of his face as he had sex with me were quickly dismissed, then he lingered on a memory of mine where he'd been talking and I had spent too much time focusing on how beautiful he was as he described something. He pushed past that, past the Slytherin's visiting the manor, and stopped on the day he killed Neville. In the memory he was approaching me rapidly, his wand out as Neville dropped at my feet and my thoughts were that he was the most terrifying person I'd ever seen.

My temples throbbed and ached with the intrusion but I was glued to the wall, frozen in space and time. He delved farther into the day before where I'd seen him on the catwalk and been confused, assuming he was an Order guard. He replayed this one over and over, searching for signs that it was doctored. My memory recounted itself the exact same way each time; me realizing who he was and feeling frightened that my "so-called" rapist had appeared to take me away. Then he moved further into the past into the rusty room where I was shackled and tied to the bed, to my conversation with Ginny and Ron. Them explaining who he was and how terrible it would be for me to ever remember my time with him. Then, them justifying obliviating me before my long coma.

He moved further again and a jagged, broken memory of the car crash echoed between our minds. I felt his breath gasp inches from mine at this one. It was incomplete and gave no real explanation for the event.

He hovered there, watching me acknowledge his hand on the gear shift and then he watched the car hit the guard rail and felt the rivers of pain I'd experienced as the car folded around me.

Finally he kept moving and it was a massive, black void. My memories were empty, and then I was seventeen. A horribly awkward memory of me making love to a French boy on a hot beach in the middle of a summer night appeared between us. He focused in on my gentle movements and the love I was feeling in my heart towards my previous boyfriend. My young, naked body was bouncing in the moonlight. It was sweet and caring and in the memory I was elated beyond imagination, contemplating spending the rest of my life with him. But then, Hogwarts had happened the following week and he'd broken my heart simply suggesting it could never work long distance.

My body squirmed against his, trying to shut down the mind invasion. This was not acceptable for him to be seeing. My fingers trembled as I tangled them in his hoodie, trying with vain to push him off. My wrist felt like it would snap under the pressure.

Then he finally stepped away and I fell to my knees dizzy and blinking. He leaned with both hands on his desk, long hair falling over his eyes. I could see his pointy jaw clenching and grinding as he thought about what he'd found in my head.

"Either you have exceptional abilities to prevent occlumency, or you're innocent," he said quietly, sounding as though he didn't necessarily believe either. He turned to face me again, and pointed his wand at my wrist, muttering a healing incantation. I felt the painful throbbing slowly fading.

He watched as I turned the inflicted limb over before myself, grateful.

"I still don't understand why you decided to run tonight, Madeleine. Did something happen in my absence?" He asked, genuine concern spreading across his face.

I looked at him, extremely confused as to why he was being so considerate. "Non, nothing 'appened. I just...wanted to see 'ow far I could go..." I gave him a pathetic answer.

He stared at me with obvious distrust, "Excuse me if I'm wrong, but it's not really like you to go for twelve kilometer strolls."

It was awkward and silent as we stared back and forth. He finally called me out, "Were you trying to run away? Because if you were than just fess up."

I looked at the floor, slumped on my knees and rubbing my wrist, "Yes. I'm sorry. I...'eard your father was 'ome, and I panicked." I left out the fact that I'd overheard their conversation, hoping he would surmise I'd found out Lucius was on the property any other way.

He nodded, finally accepting my explanation. I looked up at him feebly. "That makes sense, I'd be afraid too," he whispered, looking away at the windows.

I wobbled to my feet ungracefully and made my way weakly to the bathroom to try and bathe, hoping he would skip the routine that night and just let me go to bed. I shut the door behind myself, relieved that I'd made it that far into the evening without further arguments.