He kept his shirt on. Throughout it all, he kept it on. He allowed her to unbutton it, sure, but when she moved to push it down past his shoulders, he took her hands in his and distracted her with more kisses. The first time she didn't think anything of it - she barely noticed at all. The second time, it snagged her suspicion. The third? The third sent alarm bells ringing. But she didn't say anything, and she didn't attempt it a fourth time. Afterwards, though, as they lay in the bed, she couldn't help but feel a tad underdressed. If her career didn't quite literally involve having her body gawked at for all to see, she might've felt self-conscious - but as it was, her thoughts revolved almost entirely around why Draco refused to take his shirt off.
She rolled her shoulders to fend off the shiver that threatened to wash over her, and Draco responded by grasping the covers and pulling them up so that they covered her upper back and shoulders. Marilyn hummed her thanks, one forearm beneath her chin as she lay on her front, watching him where he lay sprawled beside her on his back, both of their breathing slowly returning to normal. It was hot in here - too hot. Obviously they'd worked up a sweat, she could see it in how his platinum blond hair stuck to his still-flushed forehead. There was no reason for the shirt to still be on. No good reason, at least.
"Are you alright?" he was the first to break the quiet properly, eyes hooded as he looked towards her "Did it…are you hurt?"
"I've got a high pain threshold," she shrugged slightly "And it wasn't half as bad as people say it'll be."
"My, high praise," he snorted, but the teasing had no real bite to it.
"That's not what I meant," she replied with a small smile "I enjoyed it. I should've thought that was pretty obvious."
He shrugged lazily "It's easier for girls to fake it than it is for guys."
That was a sound enough point, she supposed.
"It was…you were…nice."
Yes, there had been awkward moments - and a fair bit of fumbling, both of them unsure and trying to find their way - but they had found it, and none of that had detracted from it in the end. In fact, she was sure she'd be lying here a smiling, giggling twit if not for thoughts of the world outside, and of Draco Malfoy's left arm.
He still looked like he wasn't sure whether or not to believe her, and she continued - having a rough idea of what it was he really wanted to ask.
"I don't regret it," she said, and sincerely at that.
That appeased him enough for her to feel happy continuing.
"Do you?"
Maybe she wouldn't have asked if she thought he did, but some part of her still needed to hear it all the same.
"No," he shook his head "Although I probably should. As should you."
"Should, would, could," she murmured.
He made a low, rueful sound of agreement. Marilyn shifted a little there, her mind half made up to move, but then she stilled once again. She knew what she wanted to do. It was just that he wasn't likely to take it particularly well. But if she didn't, she knew she'd regret it far more than she'd ever regret this - not just because of her distaste for bullshit and pretence, nor even due to sheer morbid curiosity, but because she suspected Draco needed her to see it. Oh, he'd put up a fuss and likely hiss and bare his claws like any surly cat did when cornered, but after that? He wasn't…he wasn't well. Whatever weighed on him, whatever they were doing to him, was eating him up inside. She wasn't stupid enough to think she could fix it, but she could listen if only she could get him to talk first.
It took a hell of a mental pep talk - one that ended with if you can get up on a stage and provoke Death Eaters every night, you can damn well do this - but finally she eased her arm from beneath her chin and slid her hand towards the arm closest to her. His left arm. At first he seemed to think she was trying to hold his hand, or maybe he just grasped her fingers in a half-hearted attempt at a distraction, but when she shirked his grasp and her fingertips brushed the cuff of the shirt his entire body tensed beside her.
"What are you doing?" he scowled.
His scowls had long stopped bothering her - years ago, even. Tearing his arm away, he began to splutter nonsense about being cold, but Marilyn threaded her fingers through his and looked at him sadly.
"Draco, I know what's under there. Whether I see it or not, I know. So what difference does seeing it make?"
"If you're so certain you know, then why do you need to see it?" he snapped in return.
"Because I care about you. Deeply. And I'm worried."
Had she only said that last bit - the part about being worried - he'd have brushed her off. She knew that as a fact, thanks to how well she knew him. For a split second it looked like he was going to do so anyway, his mouth opening with some clever remark he probably had prepared since before she'd even spoken. Then, though, her words seemed to actually register with him and any force spite that had previously etched that scowl onto his face vanished with record breaking speed, afterwards he looked how he had when they first stepped into this room. Tired, and hopelessly sad.
Finally, he brandished his arm towards her, holding it ramrod straight and tensed tightly, like he half-expected her to bite it off. Marilyn's chest felt just as tightly wound as all of him was. It took every bit of dancerly discipline she possessed to stop her hands from trembling or faltering as she took hold of the cuff and slowly began to fold his shirt upwards. One fold exposed his wrist and little more, the next the pale skin of his lower forearm. His palm faced downwards, so all she could see was the outer part of his arm. She folded his sleeve up a second time, and a hint of black crept up, just a slither visible. It was enough to confirm her fears, though, and even thought she knew, there was that…and then there was knowing.
And what kind of grand prick would she be if she insisted on seeing, and then crumbled once he gave her what she demanded? So she sucked in a deep breath, steadied herself, and folded the sleeve up two more times - gently, pulling it far away from the skin as she did so, like it was a new Muggle tattoo that was still healing. When Draco didn't turn his arm over of his own accord once she was done, Marilyn wrapped her fingers gently around his wrist. His pulse hammered frantically beneath her fingers, standing in sharp contrast to the utterly expressionless look on his face. Only when she turned his arm for him did he move, and then the Dark Mark was snarling up at her - a grim skull with a snake unfurling from its mouth, blacker than black.
Her breath hitched in her throat, and she had to clear it before she could speak. Even then, her voice was reedy and weak when she managed it.
"When-" she stopped, coughed, and began anew "When did you…when did they…"
"That day in Diagon Alley. When you saw me."
"Oh, Draco…"
He pulled his arm from her grasp and this time she didn't try to chase after it - and she was still too shaken to even feel much surprise when, rather than pulling away entirely, he simply sat up enough to rid himself of the shirt altogether before he settled down again. She remained sitting up, uncaring of how exposed she was, right up until those icy grey eyes fixed her with a doleful look and he held out his arm to her - the right one this time. Allowing him to pull her close, she waited until she was settled down, her face nestled in the base of his neck, to speak again.
"Does it hurt?"
"Only when he wants it to," he said, very quietly "It's fine for the most part. The process of getting it - earning it, they called it - was no fun. Evidently my pain tolerance is not so high as yours."
Marilyn didn't laugh at the half-hearted attempt at a joke.
"I thought it was only his inner circle that got them."
"It is."
"So what does he want with you, then?"
"Thanks, Baxter."
"You know what I mean, Draco, you're sixteen. This is…this is ridiculous."
"I shall pass on your disapproval with his business practises, I'm sure he'll take it well."
"Did you have a say in it?"
"Of course not."
His answer was so swift, so unthinking, that she couldn't doubt it - but they still paused afterwards all the same, and she knew they were both thinking the same thing. A few years ago, this was the sort of thing he'd have openly pined for. Now? Well, now his face said it all. While she wouldn't go as far as to think that she was responsible for the change of heart - not entirely, and maybe not even mostly - she did wonder if she had something to do with it.
"I've been thinking," he said quietly "That we need a signal. A code. Something."
"For what?"
"For me to send you. If you're in danger - if you need to get out, if you need to run. A warning."
"I'm already in danger, I'm not sure it's needed."
"It's going to get worse, Marilyn," he said quietly "Soon. When this war starts in earnest, if I catch wind of something and I find out you need to flee - for the sake of your life - we need something I can say. It also means that if somebody were to find out about us and try to lay a trap, you'll be able to differentiate a genuine warning from something sent under duress, or a forgery."
"Draco, if you sent something like that you'd be risking your own life."
"No more than he already has me doing so."
"What?"
"Forget I said anything," he said.
"I can't forget that. Draco, what is it he has you doing?"
"I can't tell you that," he echoed a version of her own words back to her.
"But it's dangerous?"
He hesitated, and that in itself was an answer. The alarm coursing through her, sharp and cold, was so intense that it bordered on nausea. It left a heavy, sick feeling building steadily in the core of her chest.
"It wouldn't be much of a punishment if it wasn't," he answered finally.
"Punishment? For what?"
"My father failed him. Why do you think he's still in Azkaban? He could get him out if he wished to, but not doing so fully cements our fall from grace. Failure is not rewarded."
"This…this thing he wants you to do. Draco, could you die?"
"If I fail he'll kill me himself. And my family. No more chances."
She didn't have to ask any questions in response to that, nor even reply at all, because now that she'd got him talking he kept going - probably relieved that he actually could talk about it now without being deemed weak or doubtful or treacherous, as his lot likely would if he voiced any of this to them. And what other alternative was there? It wasn't like he could swan up to Harry, Ron and Hermione to voice his doubts, fears, and regrets. Couldn't he go to Dumbledore? If anybody might understand, he would - Snape's presence at Hogwarts given his past (and questionable current alliances, no less) said it all on that score. She was sure if Draco went to him, he'd help.
It was a suggestion she left unsaid. Not only because the more she thought about it, the more problems she found with it - the risk alone was astronomical - but because she knew if she voiced it, he'd think she didn't understand his position at all (however much she could understand it) and lock up. Instead, she only listened as he continued. If it was all she could do, she might at least do it well.
"Even calling this a chance is laughable," he said, his voice small and barely above a whisper, like he feared He Who Must Not Be Named was hiding in the en-suite listening in "What he wants me to do…it's not something even he's managed yet. He's set it before me fully expecting that I'll fail, and then he can exact his real revenge. This is just part of the retribution - a year of nothing but fear and dread before the Killing Curse hits. He delights in it."
His voice grew thinner there - and he took a moment, in which she suspected he was collecting himself until he could trust his voice not to crack.
"I don't want to succeed, but I've no choice. If I don't, I'll die. Even if I do, I might die. If I get caught, if things go sideways if…oh, I don't know. And if I do, and I live? He's not the forgiving sort. Bygones won't be bygones, he'll continue to punish us in whatever way he sees fit because he revels in it. And even if he didn't, if he decided to be magnanimous and we were restored to our former glory in his eyes, it would only last until the next mistake. And if there were no more mistakes? If we were model followers and stood by his side as he enforced his view for the Wizarding world and all that lies beyond it? That's the best case scenario for us, and even that makes me feel sick because that's the one that sees you dead or- or enslaved. Even if you hadn't been doing what you've been doing. There's no winning this, Marilyn. Not for me. There's just…not dying. And sometimes I even ask myself if that's worth it when surviving comes with living with…with all of it, but it's not just my life on the line. It's my mother's. My father's."
He paused again, and then breathed a bitter, humourless sigh.
"That makes me sound far more noble than I am. Like I'd fall on my wand if mine was the only life on the line. I wouldn't. I'd still be here, doing all of this. Perhaps I'm a coward, but at least I'm a self-aware one."
Marilyn was speechless. Not because of all that he was unloading, although that broke her heart, but because of the change in him. Draco I'm god's gift to man Malfoy was lying beside her, denouncing himself as a coward. If there was one thing that was emblematic of the change he was being dragged through now, that was it.
"You're not a coward. Anybody in your shoes would do the same thing."
"Not Potter. He'd be dead already, having smugly refused orders."
"Yeah, well, we can't all be Harry."
"Thank Merlin," he said, and then hesitated before adding "You wouldn't be doing it either."
"You can't know that. Nobody knows what they'd do until they're faced with it."
"I do know that - you're up there risking your life to prove a point every night. Idiotic or not, it's certainly not cowardly."
"You make it sound like I go up there every night absolutely raring to prove my point."
"That does sound like you."
He sounded like he wasn't sure if he meant it as a compliment or an insult, but there was a note of fondness to it either way.
"I don't. That's just what I put forward to hide the fact that I'm absolutely shitting myself every night. Okay, maybe there's some self-righteousness there - afterwards, when I get the adrenaline rush and it's all done and I didn't die, and sometimes I'll cling to my anger just because it's the only thing that overrides the fear, but at this point? At this point it's just easier to keep going than it would be to bottle it and stop. I'm…I'm more scared of what stopping will say to the world than I am of making the big bad folk angry."
"If you knew what they were capable of, those fears would rank differently."
"I've seen it so far. The other night."
Sometimes she almost swore she could still feel the odd streak of pain shooting through the bones she'd broken.
"That? That was nothing. Not in comparison to what they could do. What they want to do."
"I know."
"You don't. You've no idea what he's capable of. The things he wants to…I could almost laugh, when I think to what I used to say only a couple of years ago. You should hate me, you know."
The question there was clear. Why don't you? But Marilyn could make a similar point.
She could hate him no more than she could hate any other kid born into any other bat-shit cult. Especially now that he was no longer the nasty little twerp who had humiliated her in front of the entire Great Hall. If he'd come here still spouting shit about blood purity and her lot getting theirs? Sure. Then she'd have difficulty. Then she'd be fully clothed, if she was even here at all. But as it stood, she could hardly even recall the last time he'd said anything that implied the existence of such beliefs. Sure, he didn't renounce them…but he didn't outright say that he wanted his Dark Lord to lose, either.
If there was a failing, it lay at the feet of his parents. They'd raised him into this. But she knew voicing that wouldn't be wise - not now that his dad was in Azkaban and his mother was worrying herself sick over him and whatever exactly it was that he was being put through. That was one of the few ways Marilyn could sympathise with Narcissa bloody Malfoy.
"I mean, the same could be said for you," she pointed out "You should hate me, too."
It was sort of the whole point of his lot and their stupid bloody war.
"That wasn't for lack of trying. In the beginning."
The TriWizard Tournament felt like decades ago now. It was funny, they'd thought themselves so grown up at the time, but they'd been utter babies.
"Right back at you," she replied, and then offered a confession in the darkness "I will never not be glad that I caved and replied to that letter over the summer, you know."
"You may feel differently before the end."
"Never," she reiterated firmly "I mean it."
His chest jerked a few times beneath her hand, at first she thought he was laughing another one of those tired, humourless laughs that was supposed to hide just how much he was currently despairing. But then his arms wrapped around her, and from the way they held her, she wondered if it wasn't yet another sob attempting to break through his façade. His grip was tight - a cling more than an embrace, and one she returned with just as much vigour - like he hoped that if he just held on tightly enough to her, they'd never have to leave this room. At least not until the world righted itself.
"I don't regret you, either," he confessed, one hand lifting to smooth over her hair "Not even slightly. If I was the noble sort, I would - for your sake. But I can't. I could never regret you. Not now."
Marilyn always thought nobility was pretty overrated anyway. That was the sort of joke she would've made had she not been rendered speechless - and downright bloody breathless - over what was basically a confession of love. So she only held him tighter, pressed a kiss laden with meaning to the hollow of his throat, and tried to will the outside world to disappear entirely.
A/N: When it comes to writing this school year of the fic, I always think to that scene where Harry finds Draco crying in the bathroom. Thinking on it, there's nobody he could actually show that to in the canon. Definitely not the good guys, but also not his side - it would look like weakness, and a lack of faith. Even with his mother, I don't think he'd want to worry her by showing it. But here, with Marilyn? She's the only person I think he'd allow to see it, and to show his doubts and his fear to. Especially considering she'd have a hand in some of those doubts now, as far as his beliefs around blood purity are concerned.
