Unfortunately, Draco Malfoy is not mine, he belongs to JKR.
I'm sorry I took so long to update, but I had some RL writing to do for my PhD thesis and unfortunately the job comes first.
Enjoy and feel free to leave a review!
Chapter 5 : Emptiness all around
Standing in the dingy hall that once was the marvellous entrance to Malfoy Manor, the list of expletives Lucinda was stringing together in her head to hurl at Draco Malfoy at the earliest convenience, was growing and growing.
Not only had the great big prat snubbed her at first appearance, he had not spoken a single word to her or acknowledged her presence once. Who did he think he was?
The fact that centuries of Malfoy ancestors had decided to look at her with their pale eyebrows drawn up into a disapproving frown, did not necessarily help the situation.
Unfortunately her tirade was stopped before it even started by a loud, resounding "PLOP" that echoed through the big marble hallway and had both its occupants jumping.
Luckily for them, the PLOP had been caused by a rather cute looking house elve that stared up at expectantly. Unfortunately for Lucinda, it was Malfoy who made the quicker recovery.
"Mimi, please prepare a guest room in the east wing for our guest, then escort her to it. I'll be up in my room, not to be disturbed!" With that he turned on his heal, stalking up the dusty but still splendid staircase, turning around a corner and disappearing out of Lucinda's sight.
Which left her stranded!
In a hallway full of snobby portraits!
With only house-elve for company!
The little, annoying, irritating son of a…
"If Miss will follow Mimi, she will show her to her room", the little elve squeaked, looking up at her kindly. Having said that, she immediately started off towards the stairs and Lucinda could do little more than grab her suitcase and try to follow.
After ten minutes of climbing dusty stairs, crossing dark, dismantled hallways and strolling through grand but deteriorated rooms, she was quite sure she would never ever find her way back to the entrance hall by herself.
She was also slightly worried about whether or not she had moved beyond the assigned distance she should keep to her Parolee at all times.
On the other hand, who cared? It would serve him right to be petrified somewhere in this dreadful manor until she decided to go and find him. Hah! That would be like….never!
Turning around yet another corner, the elve stopped abruptly in front of a double door and proceeded to open it. Or at least she tried to open it. After several attempts and a fine display of house elve magic, the doors were still closed and the elve was getting visibly upset.
Lucinda, well acquainted with house elf histrionics, decided to step in before the little creature would start to fling its head into the closest wall.
" It seems to be stuck the good old fashioned way so all we will probably need is a good oiling spell on those hinges and some brute force to open it up. After spelling some oil on the door hinges and the lock, she took the doorknob and pulled. And pulled some more, without effect!
Stepping back, she suspiciously eyed the door, tried an Alohamora just to be sure and decided that really all they were missing here was some more blunt force.
At the next try, she felt little hand cover her own and the little elve smiled up to her and together they pulled and pulled until finally the door gave way and opened up into a big, dark, blackened room.
To make things worse it was covered in a big layer of dust and smelled like it had not seen a breeze of fresh air for at least a decade. It was hard to discern any colours at all, but if she had to guess, she would say green and silver. Slytherin to the core!
After a quick dust and brush, Mimi the elve had cleaned away most of the grime but was looking disapprovingly at the room. Muttering something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like "will pull his ear until he finds back some of those manners", Mimi pulled open the dark curtains, letting in some rays of light and then left, telling Lucinda that dinner would be served at 7 in the dining room.
"Right", she sighed, sinking down on the big bed. "If I ever find my way to the dining room I will at least not starve". Making her way through the room, she found a adjacent bathroom with a nice tub and a big closet. Not all that bad she thought, although the tub could use a good rub down.
Deciding that a bath would be in order to get of the remnant grime from Azkaban and to sooth her mood before running into Malfoy again, she decided to first clean and than fill the tub.
Half an hour later, she was sinking into her favourite lavender scented bubbles and closed her eyes. As long as she didn't look and thought happy thoughts, she might forget that she was supposed to stay in a grimy run down manor with the biggest snob on earth, all alone without her friends or family.
But instead of feeling better, the eerie silence that surrounded her and this bloody awfull manor, made her feel scarily alone and empty.
Draco, in the meantime, had made his way over to the main wing and had plopped down on his old bed in his old room. If he had calculated right, he would be nowhere close to being petrified.
That was unless, little Miss perfect from the Ministry decided to go and take a stroll around the manor. In that case he most certainly would end up frozen to the spot. He should let Mimi know, not to let her out of her sight and always within the right distance. Right, talk to Mimi!
He had been surprised to see Mimi in the manor.
Mimi who had practically raised him from the day he was born and who had most definitely been set free after he had been incarcerated. He had seen the papers; he had been forced to sign them. There was nothing left of the once so impressive Malfoy Manor House-elve Staff.
Or at least he had thought so. He had counted on having the entire hovel to himself. And than she just had to PLOP into the hall, completely ruining his well thought out plans.
This would make things so much more complicated!
He was quite sure that he could outwit little Miss perfect, but Mimi was a different story.
She would watch his every move and catch his every mood.
He had never been able to do anything at all without her knowing all about it. He would have to do something about that, it just wouldn't do. Well it wasn't like he had any other pressing matters keeping him busy. But first he would take a very long, very hot shower.
The water started running slowly at first. He could here the pipes filling, the water streaming through, cleaning them, filling them, after having been shut down for such a long time.
At first it was cold and less than clean, but after a while it started to clear up and become warm. He could hear the air gurgle in the usually silent pipe system and once again it hit him. There was nothing left of the place he once had proudly called home. All that was there was a sagged down, pilfered shadow of the splendid manor of his childhood days. Dark, dusty and ready to fall apart at its seams. Completely and utterly empty
Just like his life!
After escorting Miss Lucinda to the dreadful East Wing and giving her room a once over, Mimi decided to go find Master Draco and have a word with him. Putting up that lovely young Lady in the East Wing! Without as much as an introduction! Storming of without a proper hello! She seriously wondered what had gotten into him.
It had taken her three rounds off pulling at that horrible doorknob to find out that the young ladies name. And to find out that she was there to stay and watch Master Draco for the Ministry.
Making this even worse! Absolutely and totally impossible! And he would not get away with it.
It was just not done, no matter the circumstances, to act like that towards a guest. Unthinkable! The only place worse would have been the dungeons and even that was debatable, seeing how at least they had not been inhabited by the Dark Lord's finest!
Apparating into his rooms, she found them empty, but she could hear the shower running and decided to wait him out. He had never been one for baths or long showers.
Half an hour later she was hard pressed to storm into the bathroom and get him out from underneath that blasted shower. Instead, she decided on letting him know she was there and expecting him to make an appearance.
"Master Draco, if you are not out of there, dried and dressed within 10 minutes, I'll have to come in and see to it myself!", she squeaked at full volume, knowing very well, she was not to be overheard this way. "And we both know what that means, don't we", she added smirking a bit.
In the end it took him just a little over ten minutes to exit the bathroom, but she let him get away with it, since she knew he was out of the shower.
Ready to fling into the lecture she had prepared, the words died a quick and empty death on the tip of her tongue when he stepped out of the bathroom and she got her first real good look at him.
The first thing that came up in her mind, was said in the clear sneer that once had been Lucius Malfoy's speaking voice; "damaged goods". This was not something she would ever have hoped to use in the same sentence as the words "Draco Malfoy". And still, there she was.
He had changed into one of his old corduroys and a pullover, both of which were sagging around his frame, making him look small and emaciated. He was leaning against the doorpost, an old habit, but instead of doing so in his usual nonchalant way, he seemed to need the post to keep upright.
The thing that really did it however, were his eyes. They had been described by many as being cold pools of ice, or stormy blue like the sky just before a storm, ready for the kill. People used to say, that they gave nothing away. But Mimi, who had known Draco since the day he was born, knew every nuance, every shift, every change and what they meant. She would kow that he was up to something or whether something had happened to him just by looking him straight into the eyes.
But now she was looking at him and there was nothing. Nothing but a great and hollow emptiness.
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