I snapped my fingers, "Nibbles!" I cried in a tight voice, still reeling from the slap to my face. A popping noise next to me made me jump slightly in my still nervous state. She looked up at me with big, concerned eyes, "Mrs. Malfoy is hurt! What is been happening to Mrs. Malfoy? What should-"
I cut off her typical rambling with a wave of my hand, "Nibbles, et is fine. Mr. Malfoy and I 'ad a fight. I said some tings I probably should not 'ave." I smiled weakly at her, knowing my face was probably a horrifying scarlet red on one side.
She played with her bandaged fingers nervously and I was afraid that she would cave to the urge to bite under the distressing circumstances. I moved my hands into the pockets of my cloak just in case. "Mrs. Malfoy wants Nibbles to comfort her?" She asked looking tearful and unsure of why she had been summoned.
"No, Nibs. We're going gardening," I stated, removing one hand gingerly to pat her head softly. Her ears went down with the wanted affection and she smiled as though she was a cat being cuddled in a warm bed. She followed me out into the halls and I rolled my eyes at her loud chatting, gripping my lantern before my face.
"Mrs. Malfoy is still the prettiest lady Nibbles is ever being seen. The master will be saying sorry, Nibbles is sure of it. The master is very protective of Mrs. Malfoy, he is always talking about the things Mrs. Malfoy is been wanting, and-" I spun to shush her loudly, as several paintings in the dark hallway had woken up and starting complaining in bleary protest. If they left to their sister portrait frames in the house and warned the other Malfoy's that we were wandering around after nine pm it would not be a happy ending.
"You need to whisper, Nibs," I cautioned and she nodded. I winced, not really trusting her to remember to be quiet as we continued moving. "Besides," I whispered back to her, "Mr. Malfoy is not protective of me." I said it with distaste.
Nibbles suddenly looked shaky and upset at the argument. We were now on the second floor landing when she rapidly blurted, "No! The master is being so fond of his Madeleine. He is always asking if you is being happy when he is away."
I stopped and put the lantern down, wrapping my hand around her tiny mouth. It was a risky move because if she was ever going to bite it was at that moment. "Nibbles, if you don't whisper, we are going to both be reprimanded badly for being out of bed after hours." I gave her a desperate look and slowly moved my hand back.
"Okay," she said in a breathy little tone and I nodded, feeling bad that it had to be that way. If we were the only two inhabitants of the building than I'd let her shout everything she said without a care in the world. But heavens knew where Malfoy had run off to. He could be in any room on any level and he was in an exceptionally foul mood from my hurtful words.
Outside of the Manor fog clung low to the damp landscape and it was cold. Hedges barely a few meters away were difficult to see. The icy-moist temperatures instantly penetrated my cloak and I felt terrible for Nibbles that I couldn't give her anything better to wear than an old potato sac. If I did free her, it would surely mean the death of both of us.
Nibbles wasn't the type to survive in the wild anyways, and she was better off being assigned as my elf. None of the Malfoy's seemed to ever want to see her and Narcissa had made it clear that Nibbles would only cook and be my elf from then on, evidently thinking she'd found a way to dispose of the elf from her own life. Nibbles' bandages were getting thinner by the day and some had been removed entirely as her body healed in my presence. I was proud of her progress and her increasing mental and physical health.
We drifted around the tall manor as Nibbles rambled about not being able to find one her favorite cooking pans that day. She was apparently convinced that Gardie, a stout and apathetic elf whom I'd only seen once when I'd gone to get the thick knife to cut my dress, had stolen it and hid it from her. "Hmm," was all I said in a tired hum, not really paying attention.
My mind was preoccupied with the look on Draco's face when I'd suggested that anything had happened between Harry and myself. Had something happened? Was that why he was so upset and resentful about the concept? And was he being serious that he would rape me if I kept talking about it? I'd never seen him so livid and I couldn't stop the endless questions from dancing in my mind. Questions that would naturally never be answered as I was constantly in the dark with him.
Additionally I was already beginning to feel more clear headed from the pregnancy prevention charm being gone. He'd burned me badly this time, and I was acutely aware of how selfish his motives were. It wasn't just as simple as running for hours to escape him. It would take all of my wits to figure out what to do next. If I stayed at the Manor now, without the protection of the charm, I'd be pregnant and the chains would be around my ankles and wrists forever.
I lowered the lantern when we were halfway across the back side of the Manor walls. I put it on the ground and turned to Nibbles on my heals, "Okay Nibs, just like every other time, we need to be careful incase Lucius is in 'is office. I need you to pick me some Aconite while I check de window. Got it?"
She nodded at me with big eyes of admiration. She loved being in my presence and it warmed my heart. I pet her head and rubbed the bridge of her nose between her eyes where she liked it the most. I left the lantern behind in the pathway as we crept cautiously towards the garden plot, and I mentally scorned myself for having put it under the most dangerous windowsill of the entire property.
We approached and Nibbles went down onto her tiny hands and knees, disappearing amongst the many sleeping magical plants to gather the Aconite. I was practically folded in half as I neared the window, then flattened myself against the building. I pulled my hood back enough to peer an eye into the window and to my horror, Lucius was inside at his desk. Across from him, Narcissa and Draco were standing. They were having some kind of messed up family meeting and I was smack dab in the riskiest position outside of the window.
"-and I have reached the limits of my patience, boy. How it is you did not think to check her for pre-existing charms is beyond my forgiveness." Lucius said in a singsong voice with steepled hands before his eyes.
Narcissa's gaze fell to Draco and she showed him sympathy I'd never seen on her face before. She was always cold and callous towards me, like a mosquito that refused to leave her home and kept her awake at night.
She turned to Lucius who was positively boiling with anger in his chair like a cauldron about to erupt. His blue eyes were like bullets on his family members, "Lucius, Draco has been pre-occupied with the dark lord's work. He has been doing his duties on all fronts. We should consider this overlook a minor setback. The girl will not resist expectancy now that the charm is lifted."
Lucius sat forward at breakneck speed like a striking python and I silently jumped. "He has become emotional again, I can smell it from here," he sliced. Draco's bottom lip trembled with fear and his eyebrows expressed that he was filled with dread. "I will address this if nothing changes. She will be whored out to Potter if it is what must be done. You can place your precious protection charm on her then, and when you get her back all used up from Potter you can continue on with this ridiculous circus of pretending to impregnate her."
Narcissa gaped at the vulgarities, looking like she was searching for the right words. Both of them stood closer together as if Lucius was a wild bear that had gotten into the house.
Completely off of cue Nibbles crawled out of the garden near my toes with fistfuls of Aconite and a gleeful look on her face, "Nibbles brings Aconite!" She said it far too loudly and my heart dropped in my chest several painful octaves. It was a mere fraction of time, but before I could duck down Draco's eyes darted straight to the window and met mine. Then I was down on my hands and feet, running away along the span of the building like a dog with too long of back legs, Nibbles not far from my ankles matching my ridiculous posture unnecessarily.
When we'd made it almost a dozen meters down the building and I felt safe enough to stand and run I made a break for it, hopping through the areas of abandoned gardens frantically. Nibbles had no trouble following along in the gaps of the underbrush. I reached the edge and fought a magical plant that had decided to try and steal my cloak. I was tugging in a frenzy when it finally gave up the argument and I spun away from it, just barely catching my balance before running smack into Draco. He had been watching my quarrel with the plant with crossed arms and I had literally bounced off of his chest.
I looked up at him, panting from running and with no explanation.
He snorted at me with a wicked look on his features right before grabbing my wrist and we were disapparating. We reappeared in a dark room that had deep echoing noises and dripping sounds. I was still breathing jaggedly and turned on the spot, blind in the darkness, trying to identify anything at all. It was freezing and the stench of death and decay was incredibly vivid. I nearly hurled from the reek as my feet sunk into a sludge-like ground.
I felt him drop my wrist but it was so dark I couldn't even see his face, "I told you this day would come. Enjoy your time down here. I'll be back when I think you've earned your freedom." There was another crack and I coughed from the satanic smoke left behind in his wake.
I was finally in the dungeons, probably because he'd mistaken my presence outside of the office as intentional eavesdropping. If I had just been patient enough to wait until the morning to garden I wouldn't be down there at all. Now he was the one who got to sleep all alone peacefully in the bedroom while I would be struggling to avoid touching the slimy floor.
I heard a signature pop and Nibbles' tiny voice echoed around the cavernous dungeons, "Nibbles is deeply sorry Mrs. Malfoy. Nibbles has bitten herself twice as much as usual in punishment."
I coughed and heaved, trying to shut my nostrils from the burning reek of the air. The Death Eater smoke had brought my mood down to a very low and sad place and I was trying to banish the temporary negative feelings, "Nibbles, can you cast some light?" I wheezed through a tight throat.
A tiny orb suddenly appeared behind me and I turned to see her big green eyes in the darkness, "Nibbles is so sorry Mrs. Malfoy-"
"Stop, stop calling me that. Please just call me Madeleine," I fumed at her. She nodded. "What 'appened wasn't your fault," I reassured her with lies, not wanting her to harm herself for no reason.
"Can you cast light all around de room?" I asked in a feeble voice.
Nibbles avoided eye contact with me, looking suddenly uncomfortable, "Nibbles is not wanting Mrs. Madeleine to panic or be distressed. Mrs. Madeleine would be wise to hide against a corner until the Master returns-"
"Why would I panic? 'aving less light would make me panic more den 'aving more light, Nibs," I said sternly.
"Hmmmmm," Nibbles whined painfully, looking very weary.
"Do et," I bluntly commanded, "Light up de entire room."
She started tearing up as she raised her petite, thin fingers directly above her head, then clapped her hands together and upon releasing them dozens of orbs of light spread out like stars across the ceiling that seems to stretch endlessly under arched roofing. It was like a morbid galaxy of moldy bricks and pools of water had suddenly appeared.
I blinked, looking around with my hand clamped across my mouth. This was the best display Draco could've given me that he was truly heartless, having left me in such a horrible place. Nibbles was vividly crying next to me, tugging on my cloak as I teared up myself.
There were bodies scattered everywhere, strewn like paper plates in a public park and left to rot in pools of accumulating water. Rats were wriggling around, squeaking in barely audible conversations to each other as they gnawed at new and old flesh, climbing in and out of skulls and ribcages. The entire room was crawling with maggots, concentrated near the carcasses. The sound of crawling and screeching had me suddenly choking fearfully and heaving in sharp breaths of panic.
"Nibbles warned Mrs. Madeleine..." Nibbles was begging at my side and sobbing into my cloak. I stepped back, checked to see that the wall behind me was tame, clear of insects and bodies and pushed against it, pulling my hood over my head. My heart felt like it might explode from the terror of the caverns.
My eyes flickered from one body to another uncontrollably. The more I didn't want to look the more I looked, transfixed by the awful reality of what had been under our feet the entire time.
"Who-w-who are dese people?" I asked Nibbles in a trembling peep.
"They is The Order," Nibbles cried harder as her eyes followed mine around the room.
I howled loudly into my hand and fell down against the wall, hovering off of the floor by my ankles. I screamed emphatically and agonizingly, as though someone were stabbing me relentlessly. I screamed as loud as my voice would possibly allow it and until my throat began to rip, knowing they could all easily hear me from within the framework of the house. I wept and yelled and tried covering my eyes and ears to block out the sound of the consumption of deceased people all around me.
Finally after at least an hour of thunderous wailing I began to choke on the phlegm in my throat, wearing out and becoming numb inside. How could Draco do this? Was it all him, or him and his father? Was it the bodies that other Death Eater's had captured too, brought there as a shared graveyard?
I wept gently now, and my eyes began to get foggy from the amount of tears. To my horror my vision cleared and a skeleton across the room shook as a rat leapt from it's shoulder, drawing my attention. It was clad in a dirty Christmas sweater. The head of the skeleton tilted with the movement and long brown hair fell down over where it's eyes had been located in the now empty sockets. Neville.
The agony rose again and I screamed bloody murder once more. It had been down there below my feet for a month and a half, and I was the reason for it. He'd died because of me, and I had been up two floors dancing in a ballet dress like a fool over his bones.
I shoved my head back against the wall and pulled my hood directly over my face and tried to focus on breathing steadily. I slumped down into the mud, barely off of the ground by my boots and eventually lost consciousness in the upright position.
When I awoke again there was absolutely no way to tell how much time had passed. Perhaps a few hours, perhaps an entire day. The feast of the dead ensued around me and I turned and finally hurled violently.
"Mrs. Madeleine," Nibbles was still with me, bless her heart. I wiped at my face and turned to her with a broken look. "Nibbles is thinking we try to go to the locked room at the end of the chambers, where the Master hides his secret things. There's being no dead bodies in there."
I blanked at her, "What?" I asked hoarsely, "What secret room? What does 'e 'ide dere?"
"Nibbles is not knowing, Nibbles has never tried to break the lock," she confessed.
"Show me," I ordered her, wobbling to my feet pathetically. The caverns were filled with pools of black water, swirling with pieces of bodies and I lifted my cloak up high as we began tepidly making our way across the battlefield. The arched ceilings consistently met in the middles and came down into hundreds of stone pillars that formed a grid, making the space seem like multiple open, cube shaped rooms. The mud on the floor was extremely slippery with the slime and ooze of rotting bodies and I took very steady, independent steps to avoid an accident. As we chose the clearest paths around the bodies and pools I tried hard to avert my gaze from focusing on their lifelike poses; propped up against pillars as though still alive, watching. We walked for minutes until the bodies slowly became less frequent. The room narrowed into a stone tunnel.
Now that the carcasses and mud were behind me I exhaled deeply, pushing through how weak and dizzy I felt. The stone floor was hard below my boots and I was grateful for the ease of passage. Lined along the sides of the tunnel were small, barred cages. Six in total. Only one contained the remains of a long forgotten prisoner, who's bones were picked entirely clean and blackened from years of abandonment. And at the very end was a door with bars across it, wedged into a stone archway. The bars at the very top opened up to tiny slots and I peered on my tip toes into the room.
There was a massive, rectangular concrete table in the center with a large stone bowl of shiny liquid. White, gaseous vapors swirled out of it and flicked away into the air. The stone bowl had runes on the outside of it that I didn't recognize from any civilization. On the walls were shelves lined to the brim with tiny glimmering vials. There was a glass box in the farthest corner, and in it to my surprise, was floating a golden chain with a brightly glowing blue moonstone on the end. My family heirloom. I tugged at the door vainly not knowing why I expected it to open and the metal shook in place in protest. Of course he would lock it. I screamed again as I eyed the precious and irreplaceable personal item that had been taken from me and locked in the deepest depths of hell.
"Nibbles is trying, but this magic is being very strong," I looked down from where my hands had been wrapped around the open bars tightly. She was standing next to me extending her hand towards the lock, a look of strong concentration on her little face.
I watched as she tried for a long time, and then breathed out in exhaustion. We both slumped down against the door, and I found myself hysterically laughing at the extremely horrible situation. I laughed like I'd been sent St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, and specifically placed in the insane section.
Nibbles squirmed nervously next to me where her head was trying to rest on my bouncing shoulder. She tugged at my long hair that was sticking out of my cloak hood, "What is being so funny, Mrs. Madeleine?"
I wiped at my tears and slammed my head against the doorway, "Oh, everything Nibs. Everything."
