Hi everyone - I want to say that I'm sorry this update came a bit late (September 2nd was like 2 days ago to me) But this chapter has been done and sitting on my computer for ages now. So please, enjoy this and don't hesitate to pm me if it seems like I've forgotten to update again.
Chapter 12: A Holiday Gone to Shit
Meissa was quick to wake up on Christmas morning. The sound of Draco knocking on her door was one she never really enjoyed - the noise grating on her ears even on the best of days.
In the presence of only his family he normally allows himself to relax his behavior. Ironically, Draco could never experience total relaxation when his father is around. Meissa never liked Lucius Malfoy because her cousin became a totally different person when he tries to live up to his father's ideals.
And she had no disillusions about the Lord Malfoy's involvement in the Wizarding War. He was a Death Eater, just like her mother, but unlike her mother he escaped Azkaban by tricking the government into believing that he had been under Imperius Curse. (1)
So on Christmas morning she was awake before sunrise and downstairs drinking a cup of hot cocoa made to perfection by Remmy by the time Draco was up. His bare feet echoing softly throughout the manor as he ran down to the formal living room.
"Merry Christmas Meissa!"
"Happy Yule day," she returns instead, getting a fond eye-roll from her cousin. They preferred to celebrate different holidays - Meissa preferred focusing on Yule while Draco favored Christmas. Although the two holidays happened on different days Meissa did like to tease him by reminding him which holiday she likes to celebrate.
"Is that hot cocoa?" Draco asks eagerly, pointing to the mug in her hand.
"Yes," she answers before there was a loud crack as Remmy appeared with a mug just for him. "Thank you," she tells the house-elf before she could disparate away, the elf's ears wiggling happily.
"I wonder if mum's awake yet," Draco wonders as he sips at his hot drink. The whip cream on his wasn't as high as hers' but it was still a great deal more than the one he would have gotten from Menny.
Meissa glances out of the window, past the beautifully decorated tree, to see that it was still dark and the skies haven't begun to lighten yet. "I dare say we have another hour before the sun raises," she remarks.
"What do you want to do while we wait?"
Meissa thinks this over for a moment. "How do you feel about Wizard's chess?"
Draco practically grimaced at this prospect. He, in no way, wanted to have his arse kicked by her but it could help past the time.
"Alright," he finally agrees and they leave for the drawing room where Aunt Cissy keeps her set. The ebony and ivory set was slightly worn out from frequent matches between the two of them or between Narcissa and Meissa. Most often Meissa would win against Draco but the real challenge was often against her aunt.
But when Uncle Sevy is her opponent she would be hard pressed to win a single match in five games. Mostly because he likes to have her concentrate on not one thing but on three - reading a tome on whatever topic he wanted her to learn while at the same time she's to focus on keeping a good pace in the game.
After a quick set up - Meissa got the ebony pieces - Draco opened the game with a bold move.
~MJB~
It took Meissa maybe thirty minutes to beat Draco and by that point Narcissa was up and fully dressed for the day. Draco was scowling at the board, studying the remaining pieces while the ebony pieces were doing a victory dance of a sort. The Queen - a dragon normally curled around a seat - was beating her wings furiously as she 'roared' in a show of power.
Meissa was laughing at the chess pieces' antics, idly running her finger along the sleepy Dragon King. She had noticed that the ebony King never liked to be involve in the fight - the ivory King yes but the ebony King never enjoyed being in the middle of the action. The ebony King was actually more likely to obey commands that led to the King evading check or checkmates.
"I don't know why I play against you," Draco grumbles as he tries to figure out where he had gone wrong. It was like Meissa had a very aggressive attack right from the beginning - not a usual tactic for his cousin but it had overwhelmed him in the opening moves.
"Because I keep things interesting," she answers cheekily while Narcissa was handing them their winter coats.
They were headed to the oldest bit of the manor - the heating charms don't quite work as well as they should in the top room.
"I don't know how kicking my arse is any fun," Draco muttered lowly. Though not low enough to avoid being heard by his mother.
"Draco! Language!"
"Sorry mum…"
Meissa was laughing, a hand pressed to her mouth to muffle the sound. Draco was quick to scowl at his cousin while Narcissa led the way up to the tower. It wasn't long before they arrived at the balcony in time to greet the sun and welcome it back to their world.
"Helius, Apollo, Freyr, Sol, Lugh, I welcome you back," Meissa whispers reverently, drinking in the feel of the sun against her face. Draco and Narcissa, silent during this moment, turned their heads to the sun as well. Her breathing evens as she opens her spirit to the warm sun, letting it chase away the chills in her body.
"Helius, Apollo, Freyr, Sol, Lugh - I welcome you back," she repeats and she does it once more before she bows her head, gathering her energies once more. She doesn't know how much time went by but when she was finally ready to turn in she felt a million time better.
When she looks over to her cousin and aunt she found them just as refreshed as she was and patiently waiting for her. She smiles at them, her mind distant and more than a bit blissful, before she joins them for the trek down the stairs.
It was time to open their presents.
~MJB~
Meissa was grinning happily as she leafs through a particular tome, skimming through the various spells - their incantations, wand moments and their various expected effects.
It would be safe to say that she was over the moon with this new book of spells. It was just one of the many tomes she had gotten from Draco.
"Meissa, there's one more gift for you," she hears her aunt call for her attention, prompting her to look up from the tome. She marks her place in the tome with her wand and eyes her aunt and uncle carefully.
Lucius' pale and pointed face was no different than usual - carefully blank with no hint of approval or disapproval. His face was always careful around her - ever since the night she had effortlessly turned back his attempt to use Legilimens on her. She remembered turning back the attempt but she couldn't remember what happened afterwards.
Her aunt was smiling at her, her blue eyes dancing in excitement. She looked like Draco when he was trying to hide a secret and failing miserably at it.
It suggested to her that whatever this last gift was, it promised to be good.
"Who is it from?" she inquires as her aunt pulls her wand out. With a swish and a flick the last present, hidden out of sight until then, was levitated over to her.
"It's from Severus and I," she tells her as the Black heiress arches an eyebrow at the present.
"It looks like a broom," Draco breathes in awe, peering at it.
Meissa glances at her cousin before she tears the wrapping, her eyes going incredibly wide when she recognized the name on it. "The Nimbus 2000!" she exclaims happily while Draco bumps her shoulder into her.
"You've got to let me try it out!" he begs, causing the girl to laugh.
"You sure you want to be on the same broom the Gryffindor Seeker beat us with?" she teases, watching Draco make a face. She just about burst out laughing - she knew how to push his buttons just right.
"On second thought, never mind," Draco grumbles as Meissa reached over to ruffle his hair. "Watch it!" he cries out as he finger combs his hair to try and fix the errant strands.
"You're lucky it's not as long as mine," Meissa grabs her braid which was as low as the small of her back. And when it was unbound - which is how she usually had it when she wasn't busy with something - it hung as low as her hips.
"I don't think anyone has hair as long as you," Draco remarks as he sorts through his gifts, putting the books in one pile, the candies in another, and the questionable in another. The red tint in her hair was obvious in the lighting and her bangs partially obscured her pitch black eyes.
"Let's put our gifts away and play a few rounds of Catch the Snitch!" Meissa suggest gleefully, scooping up her gifts. All but running from the room with her things.
She didn't get a lot, having befriended only a few people. But she did love what she got.
From Hermione she got a book on ancient dueling techniques - she wasn't sure how the Gryffindor knew about her skill in martial magic but she saw this as a way to learn even more than she already did. In addition to the ancient dueling book she also got two more books - both of them were about legends but one was about wizarding legends while the other was about muggle legends.
From Daphne she received a black two inch thick leather wrist bracelet with the Black family crest burned onto the surface. The skull, the fist wielding the wand, and the three ravens were all part of the family crest. Along with the motto - Toujours Pur.
Draco had given her a box of chocolate frogs, a holster meant to be strapped to her forearm, and a tall stack of tomes filled with spells of all kinds. When she tried out the holster all she had to do was twist her hand and her wand should slide into her hand. It was a nifty piece of work and it meant that she had quicker access to her wand - the robes at the school meant she had to push them aside first before she could draw. It meant a delay of at least ten seconds.
She was rather happy with the gifts she had gotten and could only hope that everyone else was happy with her gifts.
~MJB~
"WHOO!"
Draco ducks down as Meissa flew near the ground after pulling off a dangerous near collision dive. When he looked up with snow on his head, he saw that his cousin was climbing up high again. There was literally no limit to how far she could go with the broom.
"Hey, when is it going to be my turn!" he yells up to her just as she was zooming by.
He thinks she yelled something back at her but he couldn't hear it too well with her flying so quickly. He ends up rolling his eyes before he went to grab his own broom - a Comet 260. It's nothing in comparison to Meissa's brand new broom but at least he'll be in the air.
Within moments he was flying, trying hard to race against her and finding that he was having a hard time with the breaking charm. So he didn't perform any of the dives his cousin was well known for. But they did race around trees, split seconds probably all that kept them from crashing into trees and large boulders.
Draco was seconds behind her, the Comet not quite allowing for tight turns and twist, so when his cousin suddenly flew upward he barely had time to react to the fact that there was suddenly a large tree in front of him.
"ARGH!"
"Draco!"
Meissa had flown high in the seconds it took for her cousin to crash into the tree - his cry reaching her and stopping her ascension. She drops into a steep dive, pulling out of it in time to avoid a head on collision with the ground - breathless with worry she jumps off to crouch next to the stunned boy. She lightly slaps him on the cheek, frowning worriedly at the graze on his forehead.
Blood was flowing freely from the gash that stretched from his hairline to the tip of his right eyebrow. She knew of a spell that could knit the flesh back together but she was worried that there was an underlining issue in his head.
"Ugh…"
She smiles warily at him as his eyelids flutter - more than a little bit relieved that he woke up on his own. She takes the hem of her shirt and rips off a strip, wadding the fabric up before pressing it tentatively against the open wound. The strip was immediately soaked but she kept it there, afraid to try and replace it with another.
"Hey there," she grins at him before she stops his hand when he made an effort to lift it to his head.
"What happened?"
Meissa sighs in relief, grateful that he didn't seem to lose any brain cells as a result of the head on collision.
"Flew right into a tree, that's what you did," she remarks as she helps him up. "C'mon, we better get back to the house. Your forehead is bleeding pretty badly." She steadies him, made sure he had a firm grip on the soaked through wad of cloth, before she stooped down to grab his broom. Hurriedly grabbing him when he starts to sway again and hands the broom over to him and manipulated him onto the Nimbus before she took them up.
Her arms wrapped around her cousin's midriff, she steadies him as she rose high above the tree for a straight flight back to the manor. Her concern causing her to hold onto him tightly as she pushed the broom to its' maximum speed.
"Aunt Cissy!" she called the second they landed, Draco stumbling to his feet - his broom falling from his fingers. She couldn't wait for her aunt to show up from wherever so she loops her cousin's arm around her shoulders and helps him up the stairs to the patio and through the back door. "MENNY!"
CRACK!
"Young Master!" the house-elf exclaims when she saw them. Two snaps of her fingers and a pair of chairs were conjured up along with a small bowl of water accompanied by a clean rag. She immediately lowers Draco onto the chair and grabs the rag to press it against his bleeding head wound.
"What happened?!" Meissa hears her aunt exclaim when she came into the room and saw her son.
"We were racing and he didn't see this tree," the girl started to explain when her aunt gives her a look. Aware that she had messed up big time she falls quiet, keeping a watchful eye over them.
She sat still while her aunt was healing the gash on his forehead, the wound healing nicely and leaving no trace of a scar. While she was relieved that he wasn't going to have a scar from the incident she had a sinking feeling in the pit of her belly.
~MJB~
She groans softly under her breath as she stirs - her bones practically popping loudly in the silence of the room. She winces at the pounding in her head and presses a hand to her forehead. "Drake?" she whispers softly, trying to find a way to move without adding to the pain in her body and in her head.
"Drake where are you?" she mumbles quietly, just barely managing to roll over so that she was laying on her belly.
With a groan, her head pounding bitterly, she tries to force herself to her hands and knees. A scream of pain nearly forced itself from her throat when her right arm and left leg buckles, sending sharp flares of pain through her. Hot tears rolled down her face as she bit her lip, trying to find a way to move without using the screaming limbs.
She could barely see in the darkness but she was able to recognize that she was in her room - though she couldn't remember how she got there in the first place. Her sides were burning and she felt an awful stabbing sensation in her sides - like she couldn't breathe.
"Remmy," she breathed, barely able to speak without her ribs screaming in pain.
A moment passed and she didn't hear a crack that would normally come with the elf's appearance. "Remmy," she tries again.
The house-elf didn't show.
She grips the edges of her nightstand and she was barely able to get herself onto her feet, her knees threatening to buckle underneath her. Her right knee was throbbing painfully and her left leg was just one rod of pain that she actually had to stand on her right leg to even hobble anywhere. As it was she could barely keep herself from falling over while hobbling over to the door.
Her hands groped in the darkness for the doorknob before her fingers wrap around it gratefully.
She twist the knob anxious to get out…
Except, she couldn't open it.
"What…" she whispers, panic rising in her throat.
She starts to pound on the door, getting scared the longer she went without being answered. "Drake! Aunt Cissy!" she pounds on the door harder.
"… Help…" she whimpers quietly.
She didn't know why she was locked up inside her room and she didn't know why she was hurting all over.
She slides down to the ground and nervously starts to bite at her knuckles, searching her memories frantically in an effort to recall what happened. She remembered her cousin getting hurt in a head on collision with a tree - remembers taking him back to the manor… but what happened afterwards?
She presses her forehead against her hand, shutting out everything including the silence in the room.
An unknown amount of time passed with her trapped inside her own mind, memories haunting her before she would catch herself and force herself to think of happier thoughts or even of Hermione and Daphne.
Burt in the silence that hung in the room there was a click, the normally soft sound was loud and sharp in her ears. She jerks awake, immediately wincing at the lingering pain in her body, at the noise.
"Meissa…" she hears her aunt whisper before a soft 'Lumos' was heard. The tip of her wand lit up, nearly blinding the girl and causing her to flinch back.
"Aunt Cissy…" the girl whispers quietly as the woman kneels in front of her.
"I'm so sorry, child," Narcissa mutters, the light on the tip of her wand casting shadows onto her face.
"What happened?"
"Nox," Narcissa whispers, extinguishing the only light in the room. "Tergeo," the Malfoy Matriarch intoned evenly followed by, "Episkey." (2) (3) (4)
Meissa arched an eyebrow at her aunt - she recognized the first spell as something that would clear away dried blood from an open wound. She didn't realize that she was bleeding - she knew that her entire body was aching but she hadn't realized that she was bleeding at one point.
"Aunt Cissy?"
"Child, I need to get you out," Narcissa whispers as she hooks her hands underneath Meissa's arms, hauling her up. A pained whimper escaped Meissa's throat as she was lifted up - her ribs were screaming like mad and when she tries to walk her bruised knee threatens to give out on her.
"Who did this…" she asks as she was half dragged, half carried down the stairs to the drawing room.
"Lucius."
A pained half chuckle escaped her, she should've figured.
She had allowed his precious son to be hurt on her watch.
She grimaces as a stumble jars all the aching bits in her body.
"Meissa, you need to go," Narcissa takes a pinch of floo before announcing as clearly as possible while keeping her voice low, "Nigri Sanctuarium!" (5)
The fire turns green and before Meissa could protest this she was pushed into the fire. Spun around and around until she fell out painfully, coughing as the soot settled around her.
"Remmy…" she wheezed, her sight spotting as she tries to stand.
"Mistress!"
"Get Sevy…" she coughs, slumping down just as a loud crack fills her ears.
~MJB~
Meissa was safely hidden in one of the many secret rooms in the manor, prodding at the itchy plaster around her knee - she just barely managed to keep herself from wanting to scratch at her side where there was a half-cast around her chest to keep her from shifting too much. Her fractured ribs were going to take at least one more dose of the Skele-Gro potion to mend the persistent break in her bones.
She's already been confined to her bed for the entirety of the week since her aunt had helped her escape the Malfoy Manor.
Aside from the fractures in her ribs there were at least three more fractures - one in her right arm and two in her left leg which, combined with her bruised right knee, meant that she couldn't do any walking.
The fractures in her arm were among the first to be healed along with one of the fractures in her leg. But the remaining fractures were persistent, even after a whole week, and Remmy - bless her - was doing what she could to keep the girl from going insane from the mandatory bed rest.
It wasn't an easy task - not for Remmy and certainly not for Snape.
Her homework for the winter holidays was already done so she didn't even have that to distract herself. Her gifts from everyone were still at the Malfoy Manor and she didn't see herself going back any time soon. Even if she did have her gifts with her, chances were she was going to end up hurting herself even more trying to hurry her healing just so she could practice her spells.
She still couldn't remember why she had been beaten so badly that she had multiple fractures, bruises on various parts of her body, and more than a few gashes on her person. She was missing more than a few hours and she wasn't even sure how much time had elapsed before she woke up.
"Mistress!" she heard Remmy exclaims before she appeared in the middle of the room, wringing her ears nervously.
"What is it?"
"Post for Mistress!" Meissa groans as she forces herself to sit upright, her ribs protesting loudly. "No, Mistress no move! Remmy bring Mistress post!" the elf cries out and with a crack she was gone.
Meissa groans again, rolling her eyes at her elf's antics. She needed to get out of the bed sooner or later but the house-elf - on strict orders from her godfather - was determined to keep her in bed until the day she had to make her way up to King's Cross Station.
CRACK!
Remmy was back and this time with a decent sized package that looked like it needed at least three owls to deliver.
"Who is it from, Remmy?"
"From Mistress' cousin!" the elf exclaims, placing the package on the bed. Within easy reach of the injured girl.
"From Drake?" she wonders out loud before she asks for a knife to open the package with. She might as well see what he had sent her.
The knife cuts through the rope that bound the package shut and the first thing she sees is a letter from her cousin.
Meissa,
Mum told me that you left the manor after the accident. I'm sorry I didn't see you off but my head was a bit scrambled from hitting the tree so hard.
But there's something that's been bugging me. Why did you leave your gifts behind? I tried asking mum about it but she wouldn't give me a straight answer - that usually means something really bad happened to you. I don't know what it could've been but I hope you didn't mind me sending your things to you. I had to ask mum to shrink your suitcase and broom otherwise I would've needed even more owls to deliver this.
We both know that no owls but mum and mine - maybe even Snape - can deliver to your house.
Hope everything is alright. See you on the train.
Sincerely, Draco
Meissa frowns thoughtfully at the letter - she had no idea how she should react to her cousin's thoughtfulness. She hands the letter over to Remmy who places it with the other letters she keeps.
Peering into the box she sees her things were safely stored away and just like the letter said her trunk and broom were shrunken. "Remmy, put this away somewhere safe," she instructs her elf, handing over her trunk and broom. "I need it for school. Make sure to give it to me when I leave," she tells the elf.
"Yes Mistress!" the elf cries before she pops away.
Meissa arches an eyebrow at the elf before she pulls out one of her books from Hermione - she wanted to read a bit about the muggle mythology. It wasn't restricted to any specific culture too.
She was interested in her ancestor's cultures - she so far managed to identify that her grandmother was French. Some of the books in the library was written in Ancient Greek so she can somewhat say she has a Greek ancestor or was distantly connected to one of the families there.
She honestly had no idea and the research she had put in so far wasn't enough to confirm or deny it. It made sense to her regardless because there's no way to avoid inbreeding in magical Britain. The muggles didn't have the same problem but then again they weren't trying to preserve the purity of their bloodlines.
She pauses at a page regarding a Cerberus in Greek mythology. Cerberus is considered to be one of the many offspring of Typhoeus and Echidna. Both of whom are children of Gaia and Tartarus, Titans from the time before the Olympian gods. According to the book Cerberus guarded the entrance to Hades and was one of the challenges for a demi-god Heracles.
The more she read about the Cerberus' appearances the more she knew that mythology often didn't live up to reality. Because the description said that the hellhound also had - in addition to its three heads - a serpent's tail, a mane of snakes and claws of a lion. She can only reckon that the tail and mane was due to his mother - Echidna, a half nymph and half snake monster.
Meissa sighs as she lowers the book, thinking. Reading about the Cerberus only reconfirmed the information she already knew about the creature. It also reminded her of Nicolas Flamel and his hidden stone.
She still believed that Dumbledore is an idiot for bringing a Philosopher's stone into the school and guarding it with dangerous lines of defenses in a school filled with curious minds. It was just so stupid in general.
~MJB~
Translations:
1) Imperius Curse - places the victim completely under the caster's control. (Date rape anyone?)
2) Nox - Wand-light extinguishing spell
3) Tergeo - clears up dried blood from a bleeding wound
4) Episkey - heals mild to moderate injuries
5) Nigri Sanctuarium - The Black Sanctuary
Please leave a review and lemme know what you think!