Draco Malfoy arrived to Genevieve's wonky cottage precisely at eight in the evening.
Aggressive sunshine had dictated the waking hours that special Friday morning - the morning of their first shared trial - only to be replaced by a spooky mist come nightfall.
It was late now, and the bullfrogs had congregated for their nightly Gregorian symphony in the nearby riparian zone.
Carnivorous irklings had followed the slender wizard at the stern of his heels down the loose gravel path, and many glittering pairs of eyes were poking out from between trunks of mature trees, debating through clicking noises whether launching an attack might actually be a success.
It would not.
Draco Malfoy was not the sort of opponent that a band of deranged irklings would ever stand a chance against. It would be a bloodbath, and thankfully none of them dared a challenge when he was already stood fully on end.
The accumulating condensation of the eventide had fogged up the yellowed corners of Lady Selwyn's reinforced window panes. Just a few meters away it danced overtop her private pond, and was producing a rather deep chill in Draco's birdy bones.
He was dressed once more in a very flattering designer suit devoid of any color. His straight hair was swept in a shinyswishto one side, a white bowtie under his sharp jawline sat crisp and even, and he was holding a bouquet of the blackest roses imaginable tied together in a satin lace bow.
This sort of mindful doting waswelloutside of Draco's natural character, and it was not the dew which had left his forehead damp on the journey over...it was nerves.
He proceeded to hover there on the creaky porch, suffering from a bout of inexplicable paralysis, swallowing on repeat. Up and down bobbed his pronounced Adam's apple, like a buoy in a tumultuous lake.
Unfortunately, by the time his knock rapt at her door, the technically nobleLady Selwyn of Waleshad already clocked fully out to lunch.
In a rare show of human weakness her cool, witty reserve had been utterly dashed.
The anxiousness between them was abstractly shared; she'd found herself completely overwhelmed by tingly anticipation that had pestered her nervous system for hours on end while awaiting his visitation that night.
Consumed so many of the healing drams, the petite witch had, that her attention span was now narrow as a needle.
Evidence of her having worked on each of her creative hobbies in a blundering panic was scattered all over the place, producing tripping hazards and sheer madness throughout the stuffy lodge.
As the front door swung ahead, a look of pure stupefaction on Draco's face certainly spoke to the state of circumstances within, lit barely by oiled lamps and the grand fireplace roaring on, "Merlin'sbeardSelwyn, did the hobgoblins already get inside?"
The only hobgoblin inside of the cottagewasGenevieve.
At that point she was sat in her dry bathtub whittling away at a stalwart branch torn down from a hardwood tree earlier, and there must have been hundreds of sinewy shards piled up around her hips in the porcelain nest.
She pipped nonchalantly, "Nope."
"And what exactly are you doing inthere?"he shut the door behind himself and barked towards the open lavatory, after realizing she was inside, and just out of sight...
Hesitation in his tone of voice indicated that he very much preferred avoiding an awkward encounter on the toilet, yet she did not bother to confirm her level of decency.
Hanging from the exposed rafters were dozens of magical herbs, drying for later use, some tied on strings so long that they were well within radius of smacking the six foot tall blond wizard in the head as he warily wove around the tornado zone.
Once again the freezing October rain had returned to pelt the landscape, including the poorly thatched roof of the bungalow, and Genevieve had lazily responded by allocating dozens of old cauldrons to capture the leaks.
A ubiquitous and uneven melody of collecting liquids played therefore, ceaselessly in the foreground;jingle jangle, pitter patter, drip, drip, drip...
And as if this freckling of heavy metal obstacles weren't enough to nearly take Draco out, she'd also left slippery parchment papers carpeting the floorboards in lieu of banana peels.
From the mess below his loafers Draco determined she'd been dabbling in astrology interpretations for the upcoming blood moon, and there was at least three detailed maps of the extensive Malfoy estate developed from hernot-so-secretmidnight promenades.
Little did she know, he wasalsoa fervent night owl, and filled with mistrust for the intelligent sorceress had been keeping sharp tabs on her activity in the wee hours.
Every sundown like clockwork he'd traced her subtle movements across the landscape with his snoopy telescope, always watching the ethereal maiden from his private terrace as she blatantly disobeyed his mother's draconian trial rules.
Her fierce, rule-breaking attitude, paired with a sense of contradictory propriety, had regrettably piqued his intrigue.
The girl had therefore, been wise to erect curtains in her cottage because...
Well...becauselike any boy of his age his intentions were indeed perverse at times. He'd tried on many occasions to catch her undressing but so far without any luck.
The maps she'd drawn of the property were not of any surprise but the pedigree of the artwork certainly was, drawing his head at a clockwise tilt for a moment of discernment.
The kitchen too was a frightening mess of yet more refurbished cauldrons, cracked alembics, and strange ingredients harvested from even stranger creatures.
Bubbling over the potion pit was a rather incriminatingMaximum Turbo Flatulence Draught.
"Ugh," Draco pinched his nose while inspecting the potion with utmost suspicion, only to turn away and swiftly lose his footing on the glassy bodice of a rogue crystal ball, and it was by the grace of Merlin that he did not lose several teeth in the consequent tumble.
He cursed loudly as his careening leather loafer then landed straight through an oversized dream catcher which she had been weaving out of the stems of belladonna flowers.
Once he'd freed his spindly ankle he kicked the spider web charm a good six feet in frustration, "Seriously, what thefuckis going on in here, Wales?"
Over in the gowned Victorian tub Genevieve's girly sniggering mocked his strife, "Well...it appears that the dream catcher is already detaining nightmares wandering into my midst."
She was not dressed in her appointed 'Malfoy' crested attire as was required during his visitations - instead, Draco finally appeared in the crooked doorframe to discover her in a pastel pink sundress with half sleeves that ended at her elbows.
The revealing outfit highlighted her supple cleavage and clung to her frame in all the most heart pounding spots, and his expression instantly flattened, "Fucking hell."
The stems of the roses in his grasp didn't stand a chance as his fingers subconsciously tightened around them.
Predictably, no argument derived from him regarding the inexcusable ensemble, even though it very obviously represented a victory for Genevieve who'd chosen it for this very reason.
In a show of further defiance she'd weaponized soot from the fireplace to draw her missing quidditch goggles back onto her face, looking especially clownish in the elaborate, hooded wooden vessel..
"I see," Draco's lone blue eye soared between the various glass bottles arranged in a semi-circle around the antique tub's clawed feet, "You're a complete tosspot, is that it?"
When she glanced up at him, face painted in such a ridiculous manner for a lady, he burst out laughing, "Oh that'srich.And here I was expecting you to do the bare minimum Periwinkle, but you'vereallydolled yourself up for tonight."
"All intentional. I thought you might appreciate a visual reminder that I require my eyewear back. Post-haste," Genevieve raised an eyebrow, bouncing as stubborn wood chips gave way to the blade's bite and flew into the air.
The action unfortunately, called Draco's attention straight to her undulating chest with each rippling kickback.
"Post-haste...in your goddamn dreams," he finally managed to snort after staring for far too long, crossing his arms to lean in the doorframe, "I appreciate the visual alright - this wholeLunatic Barbielook is very on-brand for you."
Genevieve hiccupped mindlessly, "I'd wager you already knew I'd be wearing this tonight. That telescope of yours, you realize that it reflects the moonlight? Bloody one-eyed peeping tom - is there ever a moment you aren't invading my privacy?"
For only a millisecond Draco held his breath in guilty horror before brushing it off. Of course, he aught to have anticipated that this perceptive princess would've taken note of her distant surroundings.
His long fingers waved in a dismissive swirl overtop of her, "Let's hit pause on this schizophrenic episode,post-haste,shall we? An hour is required between us, and I'm not particularly passionate about arts and crafts."
She promptly defied his orders, "You can spend it with me remotely then,from out there,perhaps picking your nose or counting to one thousand. Merlin knows you don't actually plan to work on these trials."
As he disappeared into the living area he called back in a darker tone, now fully irritated that his demands were being flouted, "That was not a request. Get out of the fucking bathtub,tout suitetoots, or I'll remove you myself."
She let loose a loud grumble that suggested she was on her way, but unenthusiastically.
He paused by the crowded desk to once again inspect one of her maps, tracing a finger over the perfectly scaled depictions of winding trails and the family cemetery fringing upon the eastern swamp.
Two of the newest buildings closest to the Manor had little tags drawn next to them, reading 'America' and 'Ireland' - a dead giveaway that she'd located the other trial contestant's homes despite being instructed to maintain her distance.
He kindly ignored this damning documentation, for the time being, placing the flowers in a vase on the windowsill.
She boldly strode from the washroom and weaved around him without sparing a glance, infusing the air with the scent of sugary perfume in her wake.
His eye fell upon her fit backside as she went to stir the malodorous potion, acting as if he were totally invisible to her - a form of treatment he had never been served before by a girl, "Is it your last day on Earth Periwinkle, or just standard balderdash to work on one hundred exploits all at once?"
Keeping her back to him, she was likely trying to hide the fear on her features, but it audibly released through the strangulation in her voice, "It may very well be my last day, depending on what you have planned for tonight."
Draco might've been a spoiled brat but he was not at all stupid; he could read her body language plainly, and could tell that Genevieve was utterly terrified of him.
And even though some wicked part of him relished in this masculine power, such a dynamic would not do at all in the long run.
He spoke sharply, and with a hint of offense at what she was suggesting, as if a man of his wherewithal would ever resort to such austerity, "And what exactlyis ityou think I have planned for tonight? I might ask you what the fuck you have planned for that minging potion."
"I don't know, Draco, you tell me," she raised her hands and then slapped them off of her thighs, signaling that her disgust towards him had not waned in the slightest.
"If you think you're going to slip that sodding sludge into my morning coffee without any consequences, then think again," he narrowed his gaze at the back of her shiny white waves, "Regardless. Come here, and find it in yourself to stop making panicked assumptions of me."
She glanced over her shoulder and he instantly caught his breath; even with those silly circles drawn on her face, and with fresh tears brimming, her shocking violet orbs still managed to lasso a total death grip around his heart.
"I said come here," he innocently motioned at the eyesore of a dining table where she'd set up a marble game board of Wizard's Chess to pass time alone.
"Please..,"as if it injured his sense of self to speak in any way politely, Draco forced out the word through grit teeth, his eyebrows flattening impatiently.
His efforts to come across as approachable and safe paid off, if only by a fraction. She nodded hesitantly, and in her frilly pink ankle socks wearily made her way to the other side of the table.
They sat reluctantly across from each other in the unique chair selection, both of their hearts pounding like absolute jack hammers for different reasons.
Ok...this was good...he had her seated and focused...
She defensively bent one knee to her chest, and he could sense her studying his expression while he sorted pieces into their respective positions, "I despise them. The roses."
He finished placing all of the white pieces on her side and the black on his, glancing up at her with a look of shock, "What? Why?"
"They're the shade of cremation aftermath," she bluntly explained.
Ok...this wasn't good AT ALL...
That damn Irish wench had failed to mention such a critical detail...
Draco produced an irritated sound in his throat.
There was an odd flash in his eyes that conveyed internal embarrassment, "Black is traditional here. Should I have the florist send one in every single colour available? Would that satisfy you, your royal highness?"
"What was the reason for them?"she interrogated as Draco felt his ghostly cheeks flooding with heat, "I would have appreciated some degree of consideration for my personal preferences. Have all of the contestants received raven roses?"
He'd moved on to studying the board as if it was the most exciting thing he'd ever seen, completely unable to look into her disarming gaze, "No, they didn't."
In the corner of his eye he saw her fiddling with a homemade triskele symbol hung around her neck, "What colours did they receive, then? You mock me-"
He shook his head in rapid spurts, now entirely fed up with the topic, "-IF I'd known you were going to FUSS over trivial pigmentation, then I would not have bothered with the fucking gesture. The others did not receive anything from me.Drop it."
"Oh..." she guiltily bit her lip, and for an agonizing minute the cottage felt positively suffocating.
It was as if the decibel level had impossibly dropped into the negatives.
Fuck, fuck, fuck...
He'd have to punish Ireland thoroughly when he saw her next, perhaps string her up by her toes from the hanging tree in the arboretum...
Draco's cheeks werecertainlyaflame now and he'd fully frozen, blinking at the board and grinding his jaw.
Genevieve was across from him with wide, curious eyes that felt like deadly weapons tracing his imperfections; a mole on his neck that he hated, the ridges of his scar where that maniac had stolen one of his eyes...
As if under some sort of idiotic trance she was brazenly ogling at his face, and Draco suddenly couldn't take the analysis of his features anymore.
He looked up and with the haste of a fart in the wind held his hands apart, "Well make your move, genius, white plays first."
"I suppose it does," she looked absolutely humbled.
Steepling his ringed fingers, he waited for Genevieve to recover from him having lowered her to his level of humiliation, both of them now red in the face as if the nearby fireplace had the ability to produce sunburns.
She flinched in discomfort, "What a misfortune that clock on the wall is accurate, if it is only eleven minutes past I may lose my mind yet..."
It would indeed be a very long hour and an actual miracle if neither of them strangled the other before it was up.
But this was why he had brought her roses, in the hopes that things would shift from combative to something else more...productive.
From the moment she had opened those insanely purple eyes to him he'd been head over heels infatuated, and even moreso once she'd opened her lippy mouth to insult him.
He'd spent hours hounding Persephone of House Fawley about what she thought of Genevieve from House Selwyn, desperate for answers on how to actually act a gentleman.
It was obvious that the girl was a rarity in many ways, and Draco was quite fond of collecting rare items to show off his wealth and status, but he was monstrously underqualified when it came to actually wooing her...
He'd been pushing all of her buttons for a week and he knew it was turning her off, but he'd only ever been a cruel jackass and had no idea how to handle the anxiety that he felt in her presence.
Having an intelligent girl as a partner was precisely what he needed this time; Astoria Greengrass possessed about as many braincells as she did fingers, and taking a chance on her had been the worst mistake of his life.
In fact, most of the girls he'd screwed around with in the past were of this pattern; simple and pretty, and perfectly set up to be manipulated and controlled.
But Genevieve on the contrary wasverysmart,not to mention drop dead gorgeous, and Draco was practically overwhelmed and consumed by the sheer challenge that she represented.
Persephone had wasted no time pointing out that if he hadn't had the opportunity to trap Lady Selwyn via the Purity Trials then she would have no willing role in his life whatsoever, and that was quite a sobering and humbling fact.
Even though she had zero family and was all alone in the world, she would rather preserve that destitute reality then even bat an eye in his direction.
It was perhaps this deep strength and true resilience in her that scared him the most, and made the achievement of obtaining her affectation feel nearly hopeless.
And then it came; the question that he dreaded the most from her that very first session, "I'm dying to know Lord Malfoy, what wrong does one have to do to a witch to summon such madness as cutting out your eye?"
After she had elegantly shuffled forward one of her pieces with the tip of her wand, his hand shot out and arrogantly slammed down one of his own, levelling his mean gaze on her.
If he could manage it, he would never talk about Astoria Greengrass ever again, let alone with this new girl that he was really crushing on, "You first. What does one have to pull off to end up the very last of their line? Have a serial killing habit I should know about,Genevieve of House Selwyn?"
She shifted another piece after a moment of careful calculation, "If I do, you'll be able to confirm it in no time - from beyond your smellyswampgrave."
He laughed, then commanded another move which resulted in a dark knight raising it's sword and decapitating one of her ivory knights. Leaning back he checked his fancy wristwatch, "Bring it on, babe. Take your shot but don't miss, because I certainly won't."
Genevieve sat there tight lipped for a stinted eon, brushing debris off the tabletop, "Hmm."
Now that Draco was inside of her only safe haven on the property her eyes had begun jerking back and forth once more, but she was not lacking in audacity.
She quickly brought Astoria back up in Draco's face, "In the Ghoulish Gazette, it was mentioned that Astoria Greengrass had passed your first three trials, but was incapable of the fourth. I wonder if you're disagreeable to the female allure. There is talk circulating of turkey basters, Merlin forbid..."
Draco started drumming his fingers on the wooden surface, confirming that she wasn't the only one seeking mitigation through busy behavior.
That fucking Irish witch and her endless fucking yapping...
He hummed obdurately, "There shouldn't be anytalkcirculating on this property that I have not approved of. But were that hearsay true,you'llbe able to confirm it in no time. About forty-five minutes, to be precise."
She fluttered her eyelids, "I worry you've allowed your physical appeal to go straight to your head, Lord Malfoy. Do you think because you've arrived here, in some prissy suit with flowers in tow, that I shall simply fold in half over you like a dimwitted floozy?"
He sent her a cocky smirk, "Are you implying you find me attractive, Periwinkle?"
She stared at him with a blank face, "You're obviously not hideous, Draco, even with that pirate's patch, and you know that. You've clearly used your appearance as a mechanism to your advantage in the past."
His eye trailed around the contents of the cottage, which now more closely bore the appearance of a mad scientist's lair, "I can tell that you're the polar opposite of a dimwitted floozy, Genevieve. But even if you were, I wouldn't lay a finger on your mental arse. The last thing I need is to lose a second eye over yet another worked-up wench."
Genevieve whispered under her breath to instruct her pawns. He could see that she was urging herself to remain levelheaded even though melting away under the tabletop was probably beginning to sound like the best idea in the world.
This time it was onyx marble spraying across the game board.
"I understand perfectly now," she checked the clock again like a child trapped in a classroom on a sunny afternoon and his gaze followed; eight eighteen, only forty-two fudging minutes to go.
"Oh do you?" he raised an eyebrow.
She cleared her throat, adjusted her posture and met his imploring gaze, "Lady Greengrass fell in love with you as a result of the physical closeness exercised in trial four. When she realized that the sentiment could never be returned by the likes of someone such as yourself, she attempted to take your life. And now, you feel it necessary to keep us all at arm's length with the indignant provision of turkey basters."
"A passing grade, but only partly accurate," he trilled in an amused pitch.
Smash.
Smash.
Smash.
The chess board increasingly became a battlefield of littered stone bits as they both mandated whiplash moves.
Eight-twenty seven.
He tisked antagonistically, "Do me a favor and don't mention the baster to my mother. There is only one trial she monitors like a hawk, and it's four. That fertility witch will be screening you at random for evidence that I'm performing my due diligence. So it's either the baster, or the real deal."
After what had happened with Astoria, Draco was traumatized when it came to the concept of physical touch. Even brushing another person in a crowded venue sent tingles of discomfort up his spine. But for Genevieve's sweet virginity, he'd perhaps consider taking down that defensive wall.
His piercing blue eye locked onto hers, twirling his wand around in his fingers once more, "Unless...you'd rather the latter. I might not find you hideous either."
His pulse in his neck was now thumping maddeningly between the flirty conversation, the pheromones between them, and that racy little sundress which was driving him straight up the wall.
She held his gaze bravely, "I'll pass on the invitation. But I do appreciate your decency, Lord Malfoy. I expected far worse from you."
Smash.
This explosion was rather large as another of Draco's knights obliterated Genevieve's queen, causing her to jump in her chair.
He inspected the messy board between them, "I've told you half of my story, let's hear half of yours. What happened to mummy and daddy, darling?"
She took him off guard with her final chess move, shifting forward a piece which successfully cornered his King, driving a sword straight through it's cold stone heart.
"You cheated," he accused in quick outrage, re-reading the playout in search of how she could have possibly tricked him.
Genevieve was not concerned with defending the integrity of her tactics.
The clock proudly read eight thirty-two now, and they had already exhausted their primary means of passing time.
She stood from the table as a cold sweat overtook her body, running her fingers through her long white waves, "Take a guess if you must ask, as I have, Draco."
"It's Lord Malfoy," he reminded harshly, pushing back his chair with a noisy screech to wander off to one of the windows.
He scratched the back of his neck when he saw Genevieve's lower lip begin to tremble in trepidation of the topic. Persephone had warned him not to bring this up immediately but he had very good reasons to ask.
She frantically searched his reflection in the glass for signs as to how much detail he actually knew, but Draco wasn't sure if what he knew bore any merit or not.
Some gruesome information had inevitably escaped to the public, despite the Ministry doing it's best to obscure the investigation given that the sole survivor had been a noble-born minor.
This had either been a blessing or a catastrophe, for it had resulted in scandalous defamation of the name Selwyn via the blathering grapevine of the highborn class.
"The child was born a curse, justlookat it; white and purple, the colours of nightshade, that is," Draco had heard one of the elderly Malfoy witches in a painted portrait sneer at Genevieve's back the day of her first visit to the manor.
The Corpse of House Selwyn; The Deadly, Pale and Final Descendant In A Pureblood Menage- THAThad been the title of the article which had run through the papers the week proceeding the incident, and THAT had become Genevieve's haunting legacy.
When Draco faced her, hands clasped behind his back, he had grown unusually stoic out of fear that he was doomed to royally upset her, "I haven't the foggiest what happened to your parents, only that you were the last to see them alive, and that their remains were...unrecognizable. There are unsightly rumors spreading in the ton, proposing that you are...an omen.I have received precisely forty-three owls this week, most warning me to cut your contestation loose before the same ill fate falls upon my own house."
"Perhaps I am. Perhaps you aught to heed that advice," she spoke in a breathy voice.
Eight thirty-five.Drats.He was only halfway through the session and he'd already caused her to cry multiple times.
He shrugged, pressing his lips into a thin line, "I'm not so easily terrorized, and you'll not so easily escape Wiltshire. You might even say, curiosity has monopolized my reasoning."
She looked so frail, crossing her arms with water in her eyes, that he decided it would be best to end it early before any more damage was accrued.
He crossed the cramped room slowly, one veiny hand ruffling about in his pocket before dropping a turkey baster on her comforter.
"This is as unironic as you're imagining," he stated matter-of-factly, "I'll leave you with what you need to complete this part alone each visit. And I'll reiterate that my mothercannotknow about this, or she will assuredly be furious."
Genevieve looked franklyastonished,gaping at the baster as he disappeared into her bathroom and clicked shut the door. Draco knocked his forehead off the wall multiple times in mortification, growling under his breath.
His mother was the very definition of a helicopter mother and if it weren't for her, none of this horrifying, circumventive bullshit would even be necessary. But after Astoria there was a high degree of angst surrounding the fourth trial, and now Narcissa wanted it worked on from the very start to ensure of a good match.
He peered around him.
Genevieve had decorated the highly outdated lavatory with delicate hand towels and flowery scented candles. And on top of that the whole room had been blown up with jagged wood chips. This, all paired with the whole situation, didn't make it an inspiring space for the sort of manly mindset he'd have to get into to finish.
He heard her socks pitter patter to the ancient doorway in an attempt to rudely peer through the uneven cracks and it only made his skin crawl worse.
Thankfully she had given him that delightful visual of the sundress because it was his only saving grace in that excruciating moment.
When he eventually ripped open the door, disheveled and hot, he noticed that she had relocated to her bed wearing a rather devilish expression and had a hand clapped to her mouth, "How was it?"
"Just bloody terrific, now who's the fucking peeping tom?" he avoided looking at her, dropping an amber potion bottle onto the riddled Wizard's Chess board.
It was only eight forty-six now, but their first session was over as far as he was concerned.
As he was gathering up his jacket she broke the suspenseful silence which had blanketed the atmosphere, "Who on the property should I inquire to for baking supplies?"
He sent her a puzzled look, "You're above a scullery maid, Genevieve. We have a state of the art kitchen and countless elves, there's no need for you to assume those responsibilities."
"I bake out of activity, not necessity," she replied tensely, a sentence which did not compute to Draco whatsoever.
It was painfully distinct that he desired to flee now that the vial was situated squarely between them on the table, resulting in the scowl on his face deepening with each sentence she pestered him with, "You're not confined to these grounds, your apparition has been granted to and from the wards. Go to Diagon like a peasant for all I care."
He stared at her, hard, as Genevieve pulled her comforter out of place into a bundle in her lap, "I can't use teleportational magic."
"And why the hell not?" Draco snarled.
He let his coat slide back down onto the winged back of the kitchen chair and balanced on closed knuckles off the table.
If he had been curious about her parents, then he was about to get his answer.
Feeling small and naked in his hostile presence, Genevieve hid half of her face behind a wall of her vividly bleached hair, her fingers twisting in her feminine bedding.
She had been feeling landlocked and imprisoned ever since her arrival, and he would later realize that this was the only reason for such unexpected vulnerability, "My parents...they passed from a splinching accident. We were...we were returning from the Opera, and my father had been drinking, his-his cast was too weak, and...when we reappeared...I was fine...but they were not."
Perhaps it was the intoxication of so many healing potions ebbing her on. She looked drunk as a skunk to Draco: flustered, stuttering and pawing at her cheeks, "I was nearly three. I didn't understand why we were in a rural field, in the dead of the night...I failed to comprehend why my parents weren't responsive...Until the sun rose...and they began to...tosmellfrom the heat...I couldn't see well in the brightness, but I could tell they were no longer...in tact. It would be three days until a farmer discovered me there, with their decomposing bodies...the flies were unrelenting, and the scent of it has tattooed itself permanently onto my brain."
"Fuck," he let out a heavy exhale.Definitelynot something that should've been brought up immediately.
She sniffled as another lonely tear zig-zagged down her cheek, "I would not expect your pittance, only that you understand what my limitations are while living here."
He puffed out air and paced in a tight loop where the floor was the least messy, "Don't...mistake my silence for anything in particular."
Draco was clearly flabbergasted by the sensitive exchange, and Genevieve wisely tried to steer it in another direction, "That's what I'm working on in the bath. I'm fashioning a broomstick for myself, to practice flying."
She stole a reverent glance at him through her locks.
He was focusing avoidantly on the ceiling, where all of the tiny estuaries of rain water were invading the house. Sounds of metallic tinkling and droplets adding to pooling water produced a serene soundtrack to the uncomfortably serious conversation.
He coughed loudly and snagged up his jacket, pointing loosely at the leaky roof, "I'll uh...I'll have that fixed. And uh...a carriage arranged, I suppose. Expense yourself a Nimbus, you're not a fucking beaver and I don't want to find a mess of this magnitude when I return."
Genevieve flashed him a grateful smile, and he felt relief flooding through his veins, "It's been peaceful in a strange way, the leaks. When I close my eyes at night I've been imagining that I'm asleep behind a waterfall. I often find that circumstances of struggle come paired with unexpected enlightenment."
"Hmm," he stared at the eccentric girl quite pensively, then without any warning rotated and whisked away out of the cottage. Circumstances of struggle were alien to him by astretch.
Now that it was out in the open he practically raced back to his private wing of the manor to point his telescope at her cottage, and was shocked to find she'd intentionally left open her curtains.
For over an hour he chain smoked cigars and watched her bounce around in a teal nightie tidying up. It would seem that no cartography walk was on the docket for that nigh.
Draco couldn't look away, he didn't even dare blink until her candles went out and she was fast asleep.
This witch was something different.
The feelings stirring in his chest were utterly breathtaking, uncontrollable and beyond description; it was as if one hundred humming birds had gotten trapped below his ribcage.
All he could think about washer.
It took him a while to notice exactly why she wanted him to see inside for once; she had moved the inky roses to her bedside table, as a sign that he'd made a good impression afterall.