Chapter 44
No matter how much he had been told she was ill, nothing would have prepared Draco for what he saw. Eliza was so different to how he remembered her from last Christmas, last summer. Different... changed...
Death had always been a part of his life but the whole house seem to be infected by it that summer. It reeked. It was in the curtains and under the floor boards.
The figure on the bed did not move when he came into the room. She would not even know he was there were she awake, he was sure of it. He moved slowly out of desire not to wake her and through fear. This was for him uncharted territory. He wanted someone to come and say that this woman in a coma was not his nana.
But his eyes weren't lying. It was her.
Why had his father not told him how bad she was? Why had he not warned him? And why wasn't he with him?
Draco was at the manor. He was at home. He was near his family. But the fact remained he had not felt so far from them in a very long time.
"I do not mean to put you in an awkward situation, but I had to come to you. You're the only person I think can help."
"Of course, Master Severus please come in," said Jane as she opened the door to him. She had been alarmed as soon as she had seen him. There was only one reason she could think for him coming to see her. Draco was in trouble.
"Can I get you some tea?" she asked. He looked as if he might need something stronger though.
"Yes please," he said as they walked through the corridor that lead to what he could only think of as her modest rooms. He was sure she had been in far better comfort when she had been working at the Malfoy manor. But then she had been about her family.
"Why don't you begin as I brew up?" she said as they walked into her kitchen. So she was kept quite separate from the family dynamic as well then, he also noted.
"I don't know where to start if I am honest." He sighed. He felt so tired. Despite the rooms not being the ones she had had in her job, being with someone from their mis-mash family nevertheless made him feel at home.
"At the beginning." She prompted gently.
He gave a tense smirk. "While he has been at school this year Draco has been making some intimate friendships with some people who his father does not entirely agree with." he explained loosely.
She looked up at him with an expression of pure shock on his face.
"Do you mean he had been socialising with muggleborns?"
"Yes..." He nodded.
She had to say she wasn't sure how to react to this news. She had always seen herself as ultimately a good Slytherin. She had been raised like the rest of them. She did see muggle borns as inferior to the pureblooded race of wizards. But then she had got used to the fact she was a second class citizen as well. She had got used to that when she had been working as a governess, a subordinate. So at same the time she felt she could sympathise with them a little. Maybe if she had been rich like the Malfoy's she wouldn't... but she did.
"Oh my lord, what was that boy thinking…"she wondered out loud. "I have to go and see the two of them; I assume master Lucius is none too pleased."
Severus hesitated. "No ,he is not. I have to say I have never seen him so angry with him, but not only that but Lucius - well, he blames me."
"How is it your fault? I know better than anyone else how wilful and headstrong our young man can be when he is wound up." She said as she put tea into the pot.
"Well it does seem your master Lucius has taken leave of his memory when it comes to how wilful he can be," he said with a small and sadden smirk, knowing even now she was making excuses for him, making what he did sound more gently to her ears. She was a mother, he thought to himself. She could see past the blood status problem. She was still defending Draco.
"He is only just in school – he is experimenting. This is a phase and nothing more most likely."
"And we can both see it. But he cannot and he has banned me from going to the house." He told her. Jane looked genuinely shocked at that.
"But the two of you are brothers, the best of friends. What else is going on?" she asked. She knew her old employers character well enough to know that if he was upset over something enough to shun Draco as well as Severus, then something else was upsetting him as well.
"I have heard from Draco that Eliza has not been well of late."
Her face fell. Her look of shock only increased. "Is it serious?"
"I think it could be." He nodded.
Now that the tea was brewing and she had put milk in the jog, she sat down. She had a look of distress on her face and she put her head in her hands.
"Why hasn't someone told me?" she said to him. They were her family. Why had Lucius not come to her? Surely he knew that she would wish to help.
"I think everything had been rather up in the air," he admitted to her as he took the opposite chair.
"Apparently so," she said as she fought back the tears that seemed to have flooded to her eyes. She wanted nothing more than to go home and see her boy and figure out what had been going on. His letters for the year had been so cheerful, but they had never spoke of anything to do with mudbloods. True, she had noticed he had been rather quiet of late but she had put it down to the school exams and the fact he was most likely getting excited about going back home. "Forgive Master Severus," she said as she blinked. "You know I have often been prone to tears. I am very grateful for you for coming to me." She nodded.
"Not at all, Jane." He said to her. He had to say he was struck by her in that moment. She was hardly the little mouse who had first gone to the Malfoy manor. She seemed a woman who knew who she was. She should be a society dame in her own house surely? "Don't thank me yet, I have not told me what I want yet," he said a little bit apprehensively. "But I shall...I want you to go to the house and talk to Lucius for me."
"Sir, you know I would be willing to try if it were not for the fact we both know that Lucius is not going to be in any mood to think rationally at the moment. I don't think I would do much good, though I do want to see Eliza as well as Draco. It sounds as if things are fraught enough without me putting my nose in if it is not caused for." It had not been five minutes she herself had suggested that she go to the... but for the first time ever going there made her feel awkward.
"Jane, he needs you." It went without saying who he was. "You are right, of course your right. We not know what Lucius is like when he has his blinkers on. Draco is going to need you before the end; he is going need us both before the end of this."
"You think it is going to be like before?" she questioned. "That bad?"
"I think it has the potential –"
"Then I will go to them. Of course I will go to them." How could she ever question it?
"Healer White, I have told you before when I asked her what she wanted she said the last thing she wished for was to go to St Mungos. This is her home; it is always going to be her home." Said Lucius to the healer.
He had had to summon him back when she had taken yet another turn for the worse. But she had begged him only the other night to not let her be taken to the hospital. His father had said the same. He had said if he had to die then he wanted to die in his own bed. That was what she had said boiled down to as well.
"Eliza is deteriorating now. She can hardly keep fluids down."
"I know ... but – she only fell down the stairs, how has this come to be?"
"You have to understand Mr Malfoy that Eliza is not a young woman anymore and her body is having a hard time mending. Not only that but she has contracted a very nasty form flu. I am so sorry Mr Malfoy but if she does not want to leave the house then maybe you should prepare yourself and your son for the worst. She won't be able to fight the infection off."
Everything he had been trying to ignore for the last few weeks was set out in front of him. He was going to lose her. The one who had always been there for him was dying.
He had half a mind to send her off to St Mungos whether she wanted to go or not. But if her time was up then he wanted her to go at home as well. He wanted to be by her side in the room she had occupied for a long time.
She had to be comfortable. He had to be with her.
"Healer White can you go now? I need a moment to myself."
"Of course. If she needs anything else don't hesitate to fly me."
As soon as he was out of his office, Lucius sat down behind his desk and put his head in his hands. He did not want this to be happening.
Not now.
He did not think he had needed her as much as he did then since he had been a child. Not even when he had been in jail, when he had been so desperate to be with his little... She had been in his life far longer than she had ever been out of it and he needed her. Needed.
Trying to gather himself, he knew he was soon going to have to go back to her side for he was unwilling to waste any time he might have with her. But it was so hard to see her as she was. So weak. So unlike she had been...
A knock disturbed him from his thoughts. The knock was so timid he knew which member of his house hold was outside of his door.
"Enter." He called.
His son entered looking shook up. Lucius knew he was having a hard time coming to terms what was happening nana. He was so much younger than Lucius was and he had had less time to get ready for what he now knew was going to happen. They were going to lose her. The paternal heart in his chest wanted nothing more than to hold his son tight and tell him that at the end of the day as long as they had one another; then things were somehow going to be ok...somehow. But all he saw when he shut his eyes was his son and that damn girl. And he was unable to shack it off because he had been raised, born and breed to think that muggle borns were inferior. How was he meant to forget that?
"What is it Pri – Draco?"
"I was wondering what the Healer said. Is nana going to be ok?" the naivety and pleading in his voice was naked to his father's ear and it did tore at Lucius' chest. And for some reason his heart would not, could not understand why he was unable to comfort the lad as he always had.
"Eliza is very unwell. It is unlikely she is going to survive the summer."
Draco looked as if he had just been put under the imperious curse by the Dark Lord himself. Everything he had not wanted to hear had just come out of his father's mouth and he wanted nothing more than to be invited by his father for an embrace which he knew he would find comfort in. But he was not.
"May I go and sit with her for a while father? I promise you I will be quiet." He said with eyes that were filmed by unshed tears. He had got used to the rules of being with Eliza now. He knew he had to be quite.
Lucius nodded silently and watched as his son left the room. His heart wanted to forgive, but his head could not forget.
The tears that had been unshed feel on to Eliza's hands. He knew he was meant to be quiet but the sobs that were escaping Draco hurt too much to be silent. His mother had died when he had been young but he had never lost someone who had known as intimately as he did Eliza before. He could not imagine life without her of, what the manor was going to be like without her or anything. What about birthdays and Christmases?
He longed for Jane. He ached for Severus and he cursed Hermione. This was all her fault, the angry little boy inside of him said. If she had gone to Ron for comfort then none of this would be happening.
Eliza might still be unwell. But at least then he would have people who were about him and willing to comfort him. He knew on his desk he had letters from friends and from his cousins and aunt but he did not have the heart to answer any of them. He just wanted to be with Eliza. Nothing mattered but her.
"Please get better... nana don't leave us yet! We need you!" he did not think the two of them had ever needed her so much.
"Sir, I hope you do not mind that I have come but when I heard that Eliza was so unwell, I just had too." Lucius regarded the women in front of him. In his sorrow and his grief he looked at her for a moment as if he did not know who she was. The young women who had been as a sister to him.
"Of course... Jane. I am sorry you have had to come here under such circumstances. This is no place for a young women," he said to her gently.
"Or a little boy," she added. "Is he home for summer?" she asked knowing the answer already.
"Yes," said Lucius with a perplexed look on his face. He had not looked so old to her eyes before and this concerned her. She wished there was some way she could comfort him in the way she knew she would be able to comfort his son if she saw him.
"I suppose he has taken the news very hard."
"Yes," said Lucius in an almost dazed manner. He had never been good with dealing with death.
They stood in an awkward silence for a moment. She knew he was not going to speak if she did not.
Poor man... when is he going to get a break?
"Can I go up to her room and see her?"
"Yes."
He turned and led her up to her room without talking to her. He didn't want to talk about it. The fact he was living through it was enough.
Just as Draco had been, she was genuinely shocked when she saw how unwell Eliza was. It awakened a fresh aching in Jane for the past as it did for all of them.
Simple days...
"Oh Eliza," sighed Jane as she went into the room, passing Lucius and taking her hand. She did notbelieve this. Had it really been just a year ago that they had been so happy together?
It seemed impossible that was the case now.
"I can't believe this, I don't want too." she chocked out. For a moment forgot why she had been sent there – to check on Draco. All she saw was the old lady she had come to love on the bed.
"It so sudden I know. I should have called you sooner, Jane. " Lucius murmured.
"I think you have had bigger things on your mind." She said as she knelt down and kissed Eliza on the forehead. "I wish you were here."
She wished ... if only...
"Jane!" the first joyful voice was heard in the Malfoy manor for weeks. She turned to see her Draco was there and he looked delighted and refreshed when he saw her. However, he did look as if he wanted to hide from his dad too.
"Sorry," he murmured. He knew he had been too loud.
"Come here!" Jane said to him gently and beckoned him over to her. She did not wait for Lucius to respond, she didn't care for what he was bound to say. She had missed him!
He did not need to be told twice. She was the comfort he had been waiting for.
"Jane," he almost moaned as he settled into her arms for what felt the first time in forever. Lucius could not deny to himself how jealous he felt of her in that moment. She had the heart to forgive. Or maybe she just didn't know what had happened yet.
All he did know was that it should be him who was comforting his boy.
"Are you alright my darling?" she cooed gently, forgetting all formality for the time being. She pushed her lips to his forehead and stroked back his hair. How she had missed him!
"I don't want nana too leave us." He confided in her letting the fears he had experienced over the last few weeks spill out. He did not seem to register that his father was still there. It seemed all he could see was his faithful nurse.
"I know you don't – neither do I, my darling. But there is a time when all of us has to go," she said trying to comfort and prepare him for what was to come all at once. "And you have to remember she has lived a long and happy life with you and your father. And you don't want her to suffer do you?" she asked he quickly shook his head. That was the last thing that the sensitive boy could ever want. "Even when it hurts, at times we have to give up the things we love the most... Especially when we don't want too."
He nodded and then buried his head in her shoulder. He remembered when she had held him as a child and he felt better knowing no matter what he was going to have Jane at least. She'd always be there. She was nothing if she was not constant.
But where was his mother in all this he thought angrily? She had come to him before. So why wasn't she coming now? He knew she could see him. He knew it.
"Come on, young man," she said as Jane slipped easily back into the role she had spent so many years in. "You are exhausted," asides from Severus and Lucius she knew the signs better than anyone. And she knew the master was going to be wanting time alone with Eliza. "You need to get rest, I'll take him to his room sir." she said to Lucius who threw her a grateful nod.
She gave Eliza a parting look, knowing somehow she was not going to get to see her again. She had grown fond of her in the time that they had all been together. She could not bear to lose her but she knew she had to be strong for the little man. If she wasn't then she didn't know who was going to be - from what she had seen that day certainly not his father. She had a terrible feeling what Severus had said to her was true.
She did not miss the longing glance that Draco gave his father when the two of them left the room. It was heartbreaking, and somehow it reminded her of the scared little boy that summer when he had thought he was going to lose his daddy to that – well, she wasn't even going to think her name... she was not worth remembering.
"Come Master Draco. It's ok...I'm here now," she whispered to him. He turned to her and he remembered the two of them had been as thick as thieves when he had been a child. Time alone with Jane would be nice.
As soon as they got back to his room, she realised she had no need to prompt him into telling her what had been going on. He was more than willing to tell her without her questions. She had a feeling he had to unload his apparent guilt for what he had done.
"Do you think I was wrong?" he asked.
"I think you were wrong to deceive father... but then you are a Ravenclaw, you know that," she said as she put an arm about him, sitting next to him on his bed.
"But to be friends with Hermione? Was that wrong Jane?"
She knew if she was going to go along with his father, then she had to say yes it had been the wrong thing to do but he looked at her so innocently that she could not bear to break her little man's heart. She didn't want to tell him he had been wrong when he had been punished enough already.
"As I have told you before, my opinion here counts for very little."
"You can't get out of it like that Jane. You know that I have always valued your opinion!" he insisted.
She knew she was still not going to be able to tell him off for what he had done. "I love you young man and nothing you could ever do could change that."
She did not know if he was going to accept that answers but after a while he nodded and wrapped his arms about her. She didn't remember the last time she had seen him so clingy.
"I missed you and I still miss uncle Sev. Why hasn't he come to see Eliza, Jane?"
Unsure of how much he knew of the argument between his father and his uncle, Jane tried to be diplomatic. "He has had a lot to be getting on with of late sweetheart, that is all." She said holding him tight, wishing his inquisitive little mind would stop asking awkward questions.
"But Eliza is so unwell. Why hasn't he come?"
"I don't know."
"Yes you do!" he said to her. He knew her and he knew that she was lying to him. "Why Jane? Tell me!" he demanded…
"Now that is quite enough! I know you are upset but you do not talk to me like that!" she said to him, for once standing up for herself. She was trying to protect him and she was not going to add to his pain. If she had to rebuke him a little that was better than saying to him that his father and uncle were arguing.
"Sorry," Draco murmured sulkily.
"I didn't mean to take a sharp tongue with you, but you have to understand you are not an adult yet. There are some things – well sir, you're young. Enjoy it, as hard as it may seem at the moment." She said as she let him settle into her arms again.
He needed rest and sleep. As long as Jane was there he was content.
By the time that Draco woke though, his world was utterly changed. Eliza he was told had died in the night. She had been in no pain. She hadn't suffered and his father had been with her. She had died peacefully.
But it didn't help.
As soon as he heard he turned into Jane. Having had her stay the night, Lucius was beyond relieved she was still with them. But still in his grief he found he was unable to break free of his anger and wasn't able to hold his son himself... he just couldn't... his life had shattered about him.
"Come on baby," he heard a gentle voice say to his son. Jane was already ushering the weeping lad out of the room and away from him. If he was going to comfort him, he would have done it by now she thought.
Her poor boy... what was wrong with Lucius? She thought furiously. Eliza's death was no excuse for the way he was treating the lad.
Andromeda was the one who held his hand through the funeral. It was Nymph who gave him tissues to wipe away his tears. It was Ted who told him how brave he had been thought it all.
By the time the day was over, Draco was exhausted. He didn't remember when he had been so tired. He just wanted to sleep.
But not by himself. He didn't want to be alone. Jane had gone. She had had to get back to the twins eventually. He had hated to see her go. It had hurt more than when she had gone for the first time. And now he was alone...
Or...
He remembered a time not so long ago when he had curled up beside his father and went to sleep. How he longed to feel his father's hand rub circles on his back as he had when he was little. The mere thought made him feel peaceful and sleepy.
Guided by memories of his childhood, he suddenly found himself outside of his father's rooms, his fist raised. All he wanted was...
His eyes feel to the floor. He summoned his courage. He knocked on the door and opened it.
"Yes Draco?" his father said to him not taking his eyes away from his book. He was already in bed, looking just as tired as his son felt.
"Father... it is just... I feel sad over Eliza."
"As do we all." Lucius said.
"Can I... it's just... can I stay with you?"he asked to him.
The question seemed to take the oxygen out of the room. It suffocated him. Please answer yes... please dad...
"Don't be ridicules Draco, you're not a baby anymore. Go back to bed." Was the curt and unfeeling reply he received before he went back to his room. But still, Draco was not the only Malfoy to cry himself to sleep that night.
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