For the rest of the afternoon I resigned to reading in the library on the third floor, sitting cross legged on the carpet by a huge fire and finding comfort in the stormy day. After I'd been there for hours I made my way back to the bedroom, clutching at texts about magical items - I had begun a new quest to find anything that had reference to the mysterious cloak which allowed the wearer to simply vanish.
When I opened the door to his bedroom the candles were lit on the walls and he was at his desk - home at seven, much earlier than usual. I swallowed nervously at the sight of him being so close to where I'd stolen the cloak from but maintained a straight face.
I went to the bed and threw the thick books down on the covers and his head slowly turned to take in the amount of reading I was doing. His eyebrows scrunched up as he evaluated my double braids, overalls and pink sweater, looking positively the opposite of anything a Malfoy would darn, "Are you going to the local farmer's market? What are you wearing?" He lifted his arm to rest on the backside of his chair, twisting his spine to partially face me and genuinely laughed at my girlish appearance.
I pressed my lips into a thin smile and kicked off my slippers, rudely uncaring of where they landed, "I think et es cute." I rolled onto the bed on my belly and my knees bent up behind me as I continued to flip through the pages of a book aptly named Magical Materials and Elements. I kicked my legs back and forth and tried to ignore his icy grey eyes on me.
He eventually turned back to his desk and continued writing, but I heard him laughing under his breath. The storm continued to wail against the glass in front of him and I noticed that the Lionspurt was now huddling into itself, thankfully ignoring Draco in it's fear of the weather outside.
My eyes drifted to him several times as he wrote fervently, the sound of his quill scratching fought to outdo the thunder outside.
He was wearing a shiny silver sweater and dark blue sweatpants. His reflection in the glass before him showed a young man, barely twenty years old. I couldn't avoid feeling pangs of sympathy for him, imagining him as a boy in the multiple, abusive scenarios I'd learned about his childhood that day. Had he been sweet? Had he cried much the way I did now? What was he punished for that would warrant being locked away in parts of the Manor that were scary? He had liked science and craftsmanship, did he still like those things?
I wished none of those details and questions were on my mind but they were, flowing like a river between the cracks of my brain. Suddenly his eyes darted straight forward into the glass reflection and found mine. He turned his head and looked at me blankly and my cheeks went hot with embarrassment. I bit my lip and looked back at my book now wanting to turn inside out.
"Why are you staring at me?" I heard him ask brusquely.
My eyes lifted again with indignity and met his unbroken confrontation. His eyes were wide and questioning, but not aggressive. I shrugged again, feeling silly and nervous.
He gave me a confused look and went back to writing, but I noticed now that his vision frequently flickered up to the glass, eyeing me down to catch me a second time. I eventually slid my books off onto the floor with an exhausted huff and several of the potted plants on the nearby floor hissed with disapproval. I unsnapped the buttons on my overalls, letting them drop with a thud and saw that he was now fully watching me undress in the reflection.
"Now who is staring?" I shot at him accusatorially.
He snorted and his lip curled up, "At least I don't try to hide it." His quill was frozen in place and I could see an ink blot forming under the tip. I stood there in my white lacy underwear and tight pink sweater, not breaking eye contact in the glass, twisting around so he could see multiple angles of me. The room became tense. The air felt thick like water and the sounds of our breathing were unusually loud.
He dropped the quill and was out of the chair in seconds, striding over to me. He leaned his hand on the bed post above my head, hovering over me with deep concentration. Dragging his fingers lightly along my bare waist, his eyes met mine with desire, "Careful. Don't tease me unless you mean it."
I twisted my fingers in his sweater as we locked eyes. The electricity between us was unheard of. He pushed me onto the bed and followed my face down into the sheets, grabbing my ass tightly. Then he danced kisses along my neck and I shrieked giddily as it tickled.
He pulled back at lightning speed appearing worried, "What is wrong?" He looked suddenly like he was a medic on a battlefield assessing where I'd been stabbed.
I laughed at his seriousness, "It was ticklish, dat's all."
He seemed unable to snap out of the uncharacteristically concerned mood. He was frozen above me.
"You are like a rollercoaster. What es dis polarized personality about?" I asked calmly.
It was as though he had an evil twin somewhere in the house and they were taking turns spending time with me. One minute he was ruthless and cruel, the next he seemed warm and sensitive.
He shut his eyes and I saw him retreat somewhere inside of himself. Then he had rolled off of me and onto his back, staring up at the paneling in similar fashion to how I did when I was nervous. He turned his face to meet mine and his eyes looked soft, hopeless even.
My fingers reached across and gently tugged at his, "What es going on wit' you? Sometimes, you are so wonderful and I want you to never leave. Other times, you terrify me..." I trailed off and he must've known what was coming because he squinted at a spot on the wall behind my head uncomfortably.
I had to talk about it, "You know I saw de dungeons, Draco." My lip trembled uncontrollably at the mention of it, and I mentally begged it to stop, knowing that if I allowed myself to cry than it would all be over. My voice had pitched unfortunately high at the word dungeons.
His face looked pale and broken then, like he was subject to start crying as well, "You'll never...I'd never leave you there forever. You don't understand, I had no choice. I never do." His eyes were in fact starting to tear and I turned fully on my side to face him.
"But you would leave me der as punishment? Do you 'ave any idea what dat did to me?" My throat was painfully tight and my tone slightly resentful. He looked sick and turned back to the ceiling.
"I can't imagine what you must think of me," He cried, gasping loudly.
"You are building a graveyard of innocent people below our feet!" My voice was strained as I finally accused him of what I'd seen. It was relieving that I could have the conversation with his compassionate side, although I still couldn't be sure if the mean one wasn't far behind.
He put his hand over his eyes as tears slid down his cheeks. He sobbed before me, but I struggled to feel sympathy for him without any answers. He rubbed at his eyes, still crying and reached over to pull me close to him. Both of his arms wrapped around me as he tugged me sideways across him and kissed my hair and my forehead. His fingers ran down my long thick braids, "I can't tell you why you see two sides of me so often, or... why I have to kill innocent people. Just know that if it isn't that way, none of us at the Manor will be alive for long."
My face was buried into his neck, and I felt confused. I had an aching feeling in my heart and a longing to reconnect with him, but my trust had been snapped. He must've felt how far away I was because he squeezed me against him even tighter and continued sobbing, as though he were holding my dead body. Something had certainly been lost between us, whether or not it was permanent only his ability to be open and honest would tell.
I twisted my fingers in his shirt as a burning lump appeared in my throat. "Draco, will you tell me about us before?" I asked the same question I'd asked so many times since being brought to the Manor.
He rubbed my back and shook his head, clearing his throat, "I really can't, Madeleine. I'm sorry."
"Why?" I asked sharply, annoyed with his unwillingness to communicate. I pushed up suddenly onto my knees and looked down at him in my braids and sweater like a child asking their parents to wake up on Christmas morning.
He frowned at me through desperate red eyes. "It's not that I won't, it's that I can't," he cryptically replied and I smashed my fists into the bed, causing him to jump.
I walked away and slammed the bathroom door. I turned on the sink to mask my actions and opened my end of the cabinet. I dug my fingers into where the balled up invisibility cloak was. After a few moments I found it and pulled out a vile from the stash within, chugged the Wide-eyed potion I'd made earlier without a shred of elegance, and then carefully returned the empty vile to the cupboard. I silently tugged out the rest of the viles so that the cloak was close to the cupboard door for easy removal.
I came back into the room and sat on the bed facing him cross legged. He looked like a sad, lost puppy again, staring at me through hooded blue eyes.
I reached up to tug out the pink silk ribbon around the end of one of my braids. He startled me by shooting his hand out to stop me, "They're cute...really. Leave them." His fingers closed around mine and ripped me back into his arms.
I awkwardly cuddled him sideways as he laced our fingers together and whispered, "I won't be myself again tomorrow. I'm sorry. Just stay with me tonight, please." His heart was dancing rapidly in his chest below my ear. I furrowed my eyebrows in complete and utter confusion. What was he referring to? Did he have a split personality disorder? An actual twin?
He wandlessly commanded the candles out and pulled the comforter up around us. Eventually I felt him falling asleep. He breathed more steadily and calmly, but his body was still rigid and stiff. It would be a horribly long night for myself as I was going to be wide awake for the next twenty-four hours or so.
Several hours passed as I thought about my previous life, my current life, love, Draco and his family, the Death Eaters. I thought of old black and white movies I'd seen from America and what had happened to my favorite hand mirror from my grandmother that I'd packed for Hogwarts.
I was insufferably bored, faking being asleep, when suddenly a small buzzing erupted on his wrist along my spine, causing me to slightly arch away from the rippling assault. It was like a tiny animal was crawling only at perfect intervals and with great ferocity for mere seconds at a time. It continued to produce vibrations and I could see a faint green glow of light appear behind me.
He sighed heavily and then proceeded to cautiously move his arm out from underneath me, unaware that I was completely awake beneath my carefully shut eyes and controlled breathing. The vibrating stopped as he clicked a button on his wrist; the military watch. It beeped twice in a digital tone then he was pushing himself out of my arms and the bed. He moved like a ninja and I was shocked at his ability to detach our bodies with such ease.
Watching from one cracked eye, I saw him wander around the room and then pull his wand out of his desk, careful to lock it again afterwards. So I'd found out where he kept the wand at least; it had already been a running theory that the desk was likely. Then he was approaching me again and I shut my eye, focusing on breathing steadily and lazily. His fingers were on my face, brushing hair away from my forehead. He stood there for a painstakingly long time then I heard him turn on his heel and leave the room.
I spared no time from the moment the latch clicked. Tossing the covers off of myself violently I shoved my feet into my boots. I didn't know if he was going to go outside and boots were essential. I ran to the bathroom and ripped out the invisibility cloak. As I approached the door I threw it over my head so I was completely invisible and quietly pulled the door open and shut. I tiptoed to the stair case where I could see the brightness of his wand moving down the stairs a level below. He wasn't moving very fast as I'm sure he didn't want to rouse a single soul.
I followed him easily, and then he was at the double doors to the abandoned wing. I caught up with him too quickly here, afraid that he would lock the doors behind himself.
He spun, his wand was outstretched towards me where I was standing about ten feet behind him. I watched in horror as his eyes scanned every inch of the hallway, narrowed in the glow of his wand. His face was defensive and he stayed that way for minutes before finally unlocking the doors and slipping through. I reached forward to catch the door mere millimeters before it clicked shut again, holding my breath. Hopefully he'd moved far enough down the hallway beyond that he hadn't noticed the lack of sound.
I waited another minute before tugging it open with a pounding heart. The hallway looked black and empty, and the chill of the beyond wing hit me like a brick. I shivered under the invisibility cloak and moved as fast as I could on my tip toes in the soft boots. I rounded the corner, starting to panic that I'd lost track of him, when I heard a loud door opening at the other end of the hall. I followed the passageway, past the potions room, and saw a light ahead in a tunnel leading below the back stairwell which I hadn't noticed before.
As I approached I noticed with horror that it was a set of wet brick stairs that looked positively ancient, leading downwards. The stench of the updraft confirmed that it was likely the dungeons that I was following him into. A wave of sheer despair crashed into me as I watchfully took each step, making sure not to trap the cloak below my boot and crash down.
Then it occurred to me where he was going; to the room at the end of the tunnel with the huge stone bowl which was housing my family heirloom. I picked up my pace so as not to lose his wand light. I had to know what he was doing in there that caused him to come back as a snarling beast.
It would make a lot more sense to just apparate into the room, but then I realized that magic in the household associated with apparition was probably being tracked. He would have to walk through the sea of skeletons, and so would I. I swallowed as the stench magnified and I came to the bottom of the staircase, which led to an opened iron gate.
The glow of his wand was not very far ahead, maybe five feet. He had fallen against the wall, supporting himself with one hand on the mossy brick. He was heaving and fighting not to hurl.
"Fuck," he whispered and then couldn't contain it. I watched with zero pity as he retched from the horrifying scene before him. He had created this nightmare, he deserved to feel guilty and sick from it. He covered his eyes with his forearm and cried lightly, the tip of the glowing wand angled back awkwardly and directly into my eyes.
Then he was pushing forward, careful to stay as close to the wall as possible where he'd clearly strategized a walking path. I noticed it for the first time and took a mental note to find this wall again if he ever brought me back there. The floor against that alignment was dry enough not to be muddy and I followed him with relative ease. I saw him pause only once and turn his head as though suspicious but then kept going.
We'd suddenly reached the stone tunnel that lead to his secret room. The smell had retracted enough that I saw his shoulders loosen slightly as his shoes met the cleaner stone floor. He went to the huge arched doorway and I sucked in my breath suddenly remembering the brick that I had been chipping at to loosen. He didn't seem to notice, just removed a knife from his pocket and snapped out the blade.
He gasped loudly as he dug a line into his palm and blood rushed to the surface of the skin. He muttered some kind of incantation under his breath and smeared his hand across the top-most plank of the archaic doorway. It was red for a moment before vanishing and the door unlocked with a booming echo. It independently scraped inwards with a horrible scratch of stone on stone. The brick I'd been chipping at wobbled only slightly but remained in place and I breathed out a silent breath of relief.
He went inside and I hovered in the arched doorway with my mouth open in shock. The table in the center which held the huge stone bowl was in fact a stone tomb. The Malfoy Crest was carved into the toe end which faced me. It was a sarcophagus of sorts, and I wondered if the first ever Malfoy was entombed there.
He walked to the wall filled with glass vials and pulled an empty one out of the shelf. I noticed that they seemed to be in some kind of order. The one he'd removed was the first one in the line that was clear, as though he was filling them one by one chronologically.
He stared at it in his hand with a deep frown, as though unsure of what it was. He was thinking deeply, and didn't appear to be motivated for whatever came next. Then he pocketed the vile and instead moved farther down the line running his fingers along the names with care. I dared to drift slightly closer so I could squint at what was written on them. The ones closest to me and the doorway were all labelled with dates from the years before, and many said Hogwarts. Some even had further descriptions like Halloween or Quidditch.
These were memories. I baulked and put a hand to my mouth. He was obliviating his memories, even if only partially, and he was storing them as Lucius had suggested, in some kind of sacred family tomb deep in the Manor dungeons.
He stared at the wall of memories with tears falling slowly down his cheeks. I watched as he plucked out one that said Moonstone and my eyes darted offensively to the locked glass case in the corner where my moonstone necklace twirled slowly.
He poured it into the stone bowl with carving's of symbols all along it exterior, and the mist curling out of it changed faintly to a bright blue. His fingers grasped either side of the bowl tightly and I saw his eyes fade to a dull hue, as though he suddenly had cataracts. I eyed the vile he'd removed with conjecture. The label on the exterior of the glass was much more faded than the others. He obviously was attached to this one.
I could tell he'd gone into the memory and I carefully circulated to the opposite side of the bowl, watching his face with hard concentration. I'd never seen anything like this before - it seemed to be some kind of ancient magic.
I kept moving in a silent creep and then reached the moonstone necklace behind the case, pressing my sweaty fingers to the glass in desperation. It was less than a foot away from me but the glass was locked with magic. I watched the iridescent blue and white colors pulsing within it with longing. I had stared at this moonstone my entire life and never taken it off of my neck. It had always protected my heart and kept it pure. It had always guided me when lost or troubled and I needed it now more than ever.
There was a crashing sound from behind me and I bit my lip to prevent myself from screaming in shock. Draco had fallen to his knees in front of the gigantic sarcophagus. His fingers were pressed into his eyes hard as he wept uncontrollably. His shoulders shook and he cried almost as loudly as I had when he'd first locked me down there.
My instincts were to run to him but I clasped my hands behind my back and shut my eyes. Obviously the memory had caused him great agony and his desperate screaming filled the small room. My heart was pounding as I realized there was no other twin, there was no split personality - there was only a boy with a gentle heart and defensive anger issues, as Nibbles had said. There was only a boy being forced to erase himself time and time again for the sake of his family, so that he could remain a monster with hardly any memory of love or emotion.
I tried not to panic as I realized I needed to escape before he decided to leave and I was locked in the room incriminatingly. I started to slide my foot precariously to the side, taking micromovements towards the doorway. By the time I'd squared myself in front of the bowl he stopped crying and pushed onto his feet, coughing and attempting to compose himself.
I froze only a few feet directly in front him on the other side of the bowl and held my breath painfully. He gathered the moonstone memory back from the mist into it's vial and put it on the shelf. When he turned to place it back in it's place I shuffled a few more feet towards the entrance. I was now closer to the exit than he was.
Then he clutched his wand in his fingers and the empty vial in the other hand with a look of extreme dread filling his face. His lips trembled in a strong frown and his eyebrows knit together. The fingers around his wand were white with the harshness of his grasp.
I had pressed myself out of the doorway and was walking backwards slowly down the tunnel lined with cells. I watched as he brought the tip of his wand to his temple. His fingers shook as he closed his eyes in defeat and whispered the word obliviate. I didn't hold back on moving quicker now, knowing that whoever emerged when his eyes reopened would not be same boy who'd held me to sleep that night. Once I was safely on the dirt pathway again I began to quietly jog back to the dungeon exit, feeling entirely floored by what I now knew.
