Bang bang bang bang...
BANG BANG BANG...
bang BANG baaang-
"Go away! Just GO...AWAY!" Genevieve ripped off one of her fuzzy patterned pillows and hurled it at the doorway to her cottage, half expecting to meet the slimy eyeball of a troll glued to the adjacent front window.
Having dealt with so many unhinged woodland creatures for days straight, she was understandably furious when at barely sunrise someone -or something -rudely dared to knock.
But that was right...she had idiotically left open her curtains in lieu of the unexpected compassion young Lord Malfoy had demonstrated during their first private session.
Obviously he was fond of overseeing her eventide activities, and this one time, imprudent action of openness had been intended as a reciprocal peace offering.
It was possible that she was already damning herself with frivolous notions of fondness, where such a seed planted could not possibly grow to fruit between two such differing people.
Head pounding from slugging back healing potions, her eyes promptly crisscrossed themselves as she forced her weighty corpse from the bed and abruptly tripped on a cauldron filled to the brim with rainwater.
As she clung to her throbbing big toe and bit her tongue in agony, the calamity outside revved up again.
BANG BANG, BANG BANG BANG!
"Alright, alright! No need to boil your pumpkin juice," finally reaching the shaking wooden partition she stuck her wand defensively out into the misty void, confused and bleary.
Almost cinematically the fog split and there stood the future duke himself.
He looked as though he'd just leapt out of his trial invitation portrait, darning green and black quidditch robes with the Hogwarts Slytherin crest shining on his shoulder.
And behind his looming statue, holdingfartoo many objects in her feeble arms, was a three foot tall female elf she now recognized who went by the name of Dolly.
Genevieve's dry morning orbs ping-ponged after the gulping slave, who was stumbling from side to side behind her master in accommodation of the teetering pile, "What the devil is this? I thought it was nearly All Hallows Eve - have I slept straight through to Christmas?"
"From the looks of it you've barely slept through thenight,"Draco nonchalantly twisted his neck to whistle at the elf, then sharply waved beyond Genevieve into the cottage, "Wellget in there,Christmas Elf. And fix that bloody roof. It had better be done by the time we return from flying."
Fromflying?
Genevieve actively blanched at the sight of a new shiny broomstick fastened amongst the absurd Jenga tower of wrapped boxes.
"I suppose that makes you the sorriest excuse for St. Nicholas imaginable," she awkwardly shifted aside so that the emaciated elf could wobble at all sorts of dizzying angles just to squeeze through the ancient entry in one ill-advised go.
Draco must've been feeling extraordinarily diabolical that morning. There was no logical reason to prevent a loyal house elf's use of magic, other than to torture.
"Now, now, we mustn't be an ungrateful little orphan," he tisked in his rippling cloak and heavy equipment, handsomely poised with one bony knee bent on the step, "You'll find that any act of generosity from myself may quickly swing in the opposite direction."
His keen attention sent her heart into a guilty constriction for a millisecond before she realized thatshewas anythingbutdapper herself.
She swiftly wrapped her arms around her billowing nightgown which seemed determined to sail away from her bare skin at all points of intended contact, "Flying is out of the question. I am fatigued, and immodest for such an activity. You cannot come barging over here without any warning,Lord Malfoy."
There was nothing to be done about the rat's nest sprouting from her head, other than cringe as perfectly white tendrils whorled into her peripherals.
Worse: shadows of those sooty rings around her eyes were surely still present in fickle regard.
From beneath a droopy hood he sent her a beguiling smirk, "I'll remind you that this ismyproperty, Lady Selwyn, and I shall arrive at any hour to these coordinates without your permission nor presage.Especiallyon days where your agenda has been promised to me."
He wafted a leather glove towards her revealing negligee, shrugging, "It is no fault of mine if you are ill-prepared for my beck. You've only yourself to blame for this...frowzystate."
"A frowzy state? At six in the bloody morning, without any formal conjecture? You really are unconscionable," she scoffed at his amused expression.
Before slamming the door she trilled, "How very silly of me for not sleeping in hair rollers and cage crinoline, in case you randomly stop by at Satan's hour!"
The door was locked with the unfortunate expectation that he would probably huff and puff, and blow the bungalow clear off it's rickety foundations if she didn't ultimately permit his entry.
They had just shared a somewhat promising evening before, but the warming of her feelings towards him might've been mistaken for the warming befuddlement of the intoxicating drams...it was difficult to say.
She plastered her porcelain locks sideways against the vertical wooden grains, lavender eyes wide and searching the air with overwhelm. Her first ever hangover and this justhadto be the nature of the day...
Please go away...
Despite her rejection, the meddlesome boy remained steadfastly rooted on the other side,"Oh come now Periwinkle, you might consider sleeping in the nude - I guaranteethat will garner you stellar reviews if I stop by at Satan's hour."
He'd probably meant it as a crude joke but Genevieve flattened her back to the door and rubbed her eyes out with both hands, stretching her eyelids at freaky lengths in either direction.
Pleaseeeeeee go away, plea-he-he-eease go away...
She heard muffled boyish laughter, shuffling around in the leaves, then a flick of his century lighter as he ignited another one of those foul cigarettes, muttering in a deep voice, "Fucking birds and their fucking drama..."
He predictably tested the limit of the door's elderly hinges once again, rattling her head in place, "Would you rather I returned when the sun hath peaked at high noon, and your blind arse will be unfit to see two feet in front of the broomstick?"
He had a point there.
"It must be pathological, preternatural, this raging sense of entitlement," she mused aloud, wandering to the steamy windowpane to cup her hands.
He was circling the only entrance like a vulture, producing a cloud of smog and sniggering arrogantly.
"Oh but...but the master is-is-is beingverygenerous," Dolly pipped in a jittery whine from the living area, which was now peppered with boxes from upscale French bakeries and luxury boutiques.
"The masteris acting an adulator, more-like," Genevieve shriveled her nose at the madhouse of pleasantries unordered.
Draco had shifted fully below the porch overhang, drawn back his green hood, and tussled his silky straight bangs, looking nothing short of irritatingly gorgeous through the glass.
He checked his watch, and a ridge between his eyebrows deepened by the second - he clearly wasn't leaving any time soon, or without getting his way first.
Dolly approached the window vantage encouragingly.
In her bandaged fingers she held forth a limited editionFulminar 2000 -a broomstick so fast it had been terrifyingly coined after a lightning strike,"It is being not r-r-released yet to the c-co-common rubes, not until the newest of years."
With a defeated sigh Genevieve received the lightweight article. It's golden surface was polished slick, the wick twisted tight like a dewdrop, and the handle had been carved with voltaic patterning expressive of the luxurious model.
She could not help raising an eyebrow at the splintered abomination in the lavatory - the broomstickshe'dbeen formulating from scratch was turning out a bit moreobtuse.
But this was far beyond sensible; the only action which might occur at the speed of lightning was the act of herspinebeing snapped in half. It would be like jumping into a Formula One racecar on the first day of automobile training, when she was not even fit yet to drive a bumper kart.
The elf's large silver eyes came into sharp focus on the other side of the sleek apparatus, insistent that Genevieve perceive the gesture in accordance with whatever program Draco had in mind, "The m-master hasneverbeen doing such kind things for a w-wi-witch. Not even the greener grass."
Genevieve suddenly perked up, "What do you know about Lady Astoria Greengrass? Why did she attack your master?"
"Hmmmmm," Dolly grumbled, showcasing through rigid body language that the topic was deeply disturbing, "D-Dolly is not being so sure, Dolly's b-brother Dobby was being the master's yeoman then. Dobby says only that...the master and the greener of grass...did not-did-didn't share feelings akin, in the end..."
"Is he really capable of them, romantic feelings?" Genevieve asked bluntly, placing the broom down to cross her arms.
"Why yes!" Dolly cried rather emphatically, appearing unnecessarily frantic as she pawed up Genevieve's trailing nightie, "The master is being most fo-fond of the Lady who comes from the place with whales!"
The place with whales?
It was not uncommon for house elves to recite English in a blunder of illeism and misnomers - both due to mediocre education and centuries of servitude - but Genevieve was finding Dolly's particular lack of elegance quite painful on her eardrums.
"Then how on earth did they manage to complete three trials with such depraved chemistry?" she used her toes to curiously flip open a box adorned with polka dots. It was packed with fine flours and yeasts, chocolate drops, and molasses.
Reticence crested across Dolly's brow as her eyes grew thoughtful, "Hmmm...Dolly cannot say, only that...the m-master gets what the master wants, always. The master's wants changed, from what they was in the beginning. Him was being relieved when the great and wise Duchess of Wiltshire discovered the greener of grasses was being...incomplete..."
Genevieve did not press for clarification as to what 'incomplete' meant; it seemed a pretty straightforward insinuation given the context.
She surmised anyways, that the elf had been brainwashed by a case of Stockholm Syndrome and was spewing questionably biased information.
Draco's voice floated into her ears from the day of his trial invitation as she recalled the wickedness in his closing statement, "Relax, Periwinkle. You'll make an excellent plaything."
Plaything.
"So he had a fleeting fancy, confused the poor girl into believing it was love, then grew bored and hired his mother to discard what was left of her. Typical," Genevieve summarized, "I wouldn't be surprised if he was somehow behind the cause of her infertility."
"The good Lady is being so ver-very wrong! The greener of grasses was a filthy trickster! She-she tr-tricked the master!" Dolly mewled, picking up a throw pillow to mash it into her face repeatedly, "Dolly was no good! Dolly too was tr-tr-tr-tr..."
With Dolly mysteriously beginning to throw an epic meltdown in the background, Genevieve nervously returned to the window to see that Draco had been hiding another clever offering within his cloak.
Her attention fell begrudgingly to the latest assemblage of flowers confined within his hold, and she shut her eyelids in dread, "Merlin, if you're there...I would really appreciate a bout of spontaneous hag's boil right about now,anythingto turn this maniac off."
These roses were smaller and baby pink, glittering with perfect sparkly dew drops in a tightly compacted bundle.
Genevieve had never seen flora so stunning and surreal: the only explanation was that a bizarre, secret garden had to be hidden somewhere that he was impossibly collecting specimens from in the dead of the night.
The door was reopened, this time only at a weary half mast.
She squinted mistrustfully through the swirl of his cigarette smoke accumulating on the stoop, "What are you playing at, Draco? I was strictly instructed not to play any mind games myself - this doting business is hypocrisy at it's finest."
"Rest assured that my stance on that matter remains unaltered," still leaning on the wall, he crookedly held the bouquet towards the three inches of crack she'd allowed between them, "Don't tell me these too have escaped your impossible standards?"
She rolled her eyes towards the tops of the emptying canopies, where the twiggy crowns of creaking deciduous trees overshadowed their exchange, "It is a vast improvement, however my favorite color evades your sticky grasp yet. You'll just have to keep guessing."
Snagging the bundle from him she wandered a few feet back into the warmth of her abode, burying her nose in the perfumery blooms.
Fine.
Before he could administer a third course of knocking she returned to grievously give him an acquiescent look, "Very well, thank you, Draco. Wait here while I render myself suitable for the elements."
"Well get on with it, it's not a bloody beauty pageant," Draco grimaced, "Feel free to dress upfantastically frowzy, goggles and all."
Barricaded in the cottage, Genevieve began to suspiciously rip at the packages, nearly jumping for joy when her roving fingers came across a pair of stylish and modern quidditch goggles - a definitive upgrade.
Baking supplies, a broomstick, home repairs, new goggles...
While she hated to admit it, Draco's cheap efforts to purchase her affection that morning were worrisomely difficult to resist.
At a minimum it proved that he'd listened to each and every word, even though he'd immaturely run away from their emotional encounter without providing any verbal responses.
If she didn't keep her wits about her, soon, Dolly wouldn't be the only one infected with Stockholm Syndrome...
She was in the middle of obediently tearing apart her walk-in closet for hardy clothing that would withstand the wind and damp, when she was interrupted by bashful commentary from the working house elf.
"The m-m-missus sail wind will attend the master's annual Hallow's of Eve's bash like a real prin-princess of periwinkle!" ebbed an excited squeal through the closet door.
"Whatnow?" Genevieve paused resentfully, head and arms halfway through a tight black knit sewn out of rugby fabric.
When she came back out, itchy and frumpy in athletics, her jaw dropped.
The elf was up to her eyeballs in gift paper strewn about like a layer of ferns, having insolently unpacked a racy lavender dress and laid it across the bedspread.
Next to it sat a petite crown, formulated out of pure gold and glittering with embedded jewels.
Genevieve had been born into a noble family, yes, but she'd been taken away to the abbey as a toddler. Such extravagance had never existed in her resultingly plain life, not really, save for a few blurry recollections of a tall narrow castle nested secretly in the hills.
Picking up the crown she was shocked by the sheer weight of it, and the blinding refraction of the priceless stones.
Then she ran a hand down the long gown which would surely leavenothingto the curious imagination.
All that would fight against gravity was two narrow straps over the shoulders.
The chest lineplungedin an extreme point down the center - guaranteed to reveal a deadly amount of cleavage.
And someone mad had come along with scissors to slice up one side to thigh height - mad, because why wouldanyonedesign apparel with such a risqué trim? One move and her entire leg would be out in the open.
As the elf hovered nearby with her hands clasped in oozing hope, Genevieve on the contrary glowered at the ensemble, holding it out as if it were a dripping bag of rubbish, "That...arsehole.If he thinks that I shall attend some shameless social gathering dressed up as an unmentionableslag,then he'strulyout of his mind."
Dolly interjected in an awful pitch, "It is being a-a-arealroyal crown!"
The metal object shot to the flooring in a noisy humdrum as Dolly's feeble arm failed to pick it up adequately.
She disappeared into the foliage of packing paper to search clumsily around on all fours, still gushing away, "It is being a prin-prin-princess costume! Dolly is certain that the Lady of the whales will be the most b-beautiful witch at the Hallow's Eve's bash, she will see!"
The Lady of the whales...Merlin...
Genevieve afforded the expensive apparel one last rotten glance, tutting under her breath, "I don't exactly have a choice in the matter, do I?"
· •······················••······················• ·
The degradation did not terminate there; it would be a miserable two hours that morning attending bizarrely mandatory 'flying lessons' with a young man whom Genevieve viewed as aglorified kidnapper.
After hundreds of failed attempts to levitate off the ground, and with only a few minor triumphs, Draco Malfoy had then deposited Genevieve in a battered trainwreck back at her cottage, warning her that she was obligated by contract to appease his scheduling demands.
She was to get herself properly ready for the Halloween party occurring at the Manor that night, in theexact outfithe'd accrued for her, nothing extra andno weird surprises,and await an appointed chaperone.
He'd snarled when Genevieve had continued to appeal the circumstances, practically begging to wear anything but the gown or crown, "Perhaps this has evaded your simplistic pedigree, but that crown cost me a sum unfathomable to the vast population. If I want you in it,you'll put it on, and you'll do it like a good little Lady occupying my court. I'll see you later,princess."
As she'd watched him waltzing away down the lane she'd stuck her tongue out at the back of his captain's uniform, simulating Dolly's mousey chime, "Themaster getswhat themasterwants, always."
Later that evening Genevieve was left hopelessly alone with the quitepersonalandconfusingordeal of dressing herself for her very first party.
She had no experience with hair nor makeup, no resources, and absolutelyzeroenthusiasm regarding an exercise she viewed to be unforgivably vain.
Before enduring the horror of gherself into a skin tight gown, came a piping hot bath which instilled an unhelpful sense of insecurity.
There, in the sudsy slosh of it, with the latest bouquet of roses gleaming in her peripherals, she'd discovered a slew of augmenting bruises defaming her slender legs. All of them had been accumulated from the endless ejections off of her new zippy broomstick over the estate moors.
Draco Malfoy had successfully humiliated her for the umpteenth time, through the very act of consideration she'd presumed to exist far outside of his reality.
It had afterall been an odd courtesy for a decorated athlete to bother teaching a rigid recluse how to fly, seeing as she was still far from a graceful hippogriff and Draco bore exceptionally limited patience.
Once in the glitzy frock and leaden crown, she then anxiously brushed her hair for a good solid hour sat before the animated hearth.
That would be all she bothered to do, for that was the most her tender foot could think of needing to be done, before collapsing in a preemptively enervated slouch on her bedspread.
She felt naked, and terrifically cold, and catching any glimpse of her exposed curves was near enough to incur a total disassociation from her core identity.
There she awaited further instruction whilst nose deep in a thick book, yet her distracted mind kept wandering off the tattered pages, forcing her to re-read the same lines over and over.
No one had ever fawned over her as she had been fawned over that day. All of her clothing at the abbey had been second-hand. Even her birthday presents had been recycled in some creative format by Sylvie.
Now she was dressed up in a piece surely worth someone's annual salary, surrounded by lush trinkets...and her flatterer was a rather attractive criminal, with a disorienting narrative and a penchant for impolite commentary.
Finally her door vibrated at the behest of an invasive set of knuckles, and Genevieve felt her heart skip several beats in nervous anxiety. If he was displeased with her meager work then there was no time now to make amendments.
Except for once it was not a certainblonde blockheadbrooding there to patronize her.
Nor was it the sweet little elf, Dolly, with her digits all twisted in jitters.
It was a total stranger, standing in the effluvium rolling below the reddening blood moon.
Silent lightning split the sky above, like eerie flashes from a distant camera, highlighting the outline of the person.
He was maybe a few years older than Genevieve, presumably in his early twenties, wearing designer clothing under a long, trailing black cloak which detracted from his fancy waistcoat and brand-name belt.
It quickly became apparent that the haggard cloak was intended as part of a dementor costume.
Her gaze fell upon a painted wooden mask of a lifeless black face, sporting large open pits for eye sockets and a soul-sucking cavity of a round mouth.
Thankfully he'd had the common sense to push it up onto his head before knocking, but this only revealed an equally disturbing face below.
A row of significantly tarry teeth were bared at Genevieve, belonging to an expression that truly made her hair stand on end.
She blinked in perturbation at his beady inspection and raspy voice, "Ouu wearea pretty, pretty princess, aren't we? Tell you what love; I'll suck on your face for free."
Ugh...
It would appear that this rakish wizard had been born with an allergy to toothpaste, and Genevieve, out of sheer disgust for his personal hygiene standards, kept her distance.
"One of Draco's acquaintances, are you?" clinging to the frame of the door she bent one arm behind her back, fingers growing sweaty around her wand. The weapon was wisely hidden from his view, but fully at the ready.
He cracked his knuckles, maintaining an unnecessarily sinister smile, "Come to collect his favorite chew toy. Can't be let out to play without a chaperone. Want to go back inside and give that shabby vampire costume a once over?"
If Genevieve had possessed a lick of confidence in her appearance that evening, it had just dissipated into the icy atmosphere.
Of course, he was referring to her deathly pale skin and unnatural, violet eyes, assuming perhaps, that these features were modified for the sake of a holiday guise.
She swallowed and shook her head, put on her Malfoy crested peacoat, and locked the cottage.
As her glittery heels landed on the frozen mud of the yard, the boy stooped to theatrically gather up her dress train, howling up at the moon in wolfish cries, "Ow OW! Aaaa-wooo! Any werewolves out here tonight? We have a tasty snack, right here for the killing!"
Only a hoot from an uninvolved owl warbled out of the treeline.
"Oh piss off, you great ape!" Genevieve immediately misplaced her composure and slapped away his grasp, "I will not stand for this objectification. I needn't be paraded about!"
His scary brown orbs seemed to darken down at her, the unsettling grin reinstating, "Ai. Was told you was a properneatlady, and to takereal good care of you,miss Genevieve of House Selwyn."
"Well you have been heartily fabled to. You would be better off hunting down one of those noisy toads in the pond if you're in search of a courtly woman here," she turned and began to blunder away down the slippery loose path, shocked that for once she found herself wishing it wasDracothatshe had to endure.
At least his breath did not smell of a waterlogged cadaver, and on some minute level, she felt familiar with the limits of his antics.
The path that night stretched ahead ominously, tinted rouge by the changing moon and flashing intermittently from the electrical storm.
"Don't care to askmyname?" the boy ventured injuriously, his gravelly voice echoing off the hardwood elements of the now barren forest. A smoking habit from an early age,too earlyof an age no doubt, had contributed to such a grating resonance.
"Is it perhaps Gregory the Smarmy?" she rebuffed, releasing a cloud of frosty breath.
She heard a loud snort in his throat, "Malfoy said you was clever and to be careful round you. Wonder how long till you've cursed the whole lot of these hoity-toity muppets. Suppose Malfoy's riskin' it till he gets a piece of that fine fanny before cuttin' you lose."
The boy pulled down the wooden mask and sadistically leered at her through the eye sockets, and Genevieve debated stabbing her wand through one of them, "That's what the post been saying, that there's aprophecythey's hiding in Level Nine, oh yeah, and thatyou's a curse, a kiss of death."
She slowed for a moment as a cool wave of inexplicable dread crept down her spine, but not for fear of what he'd said.
Only a few meters away another barn owl had just hooted - but this wasnostandard barn owl.
It's plumage advertised a striking crimson undertone, a shade entirely unnatural to it's genus, and it was wearing it's head backwards like the Exorcist.
The strictly nocturnal bird's white, heart-shaped face stuck out in the suffocating shadows with an uncanny, humanlike quality, sat low on a branch barely eight feet from the ground.
Two pitch-black marbles above it's beak were pointed directly at Genevieve, in such a drilling manner that it was uncontestably fixated on her, still as a stone on the swaying perch.
Luckily there was only one owl - unless ninety-nine more of the creepy bastards were invisible to the naked eye - and Genevieve could not shake Draco's great-grandmother's raving warning;
One hundred red, clockwise owls!
"It's Cassius Warrington, in case you was wondering," her grisly chaperone broke her trance.
She was not wondering that at all.
In fact, Genevieve strongly desired to point out that she could care less what his name was, especially in the wake of his insults.
Instead she convinced herself to bury the conversation before she was going to haveburyhim,and make up some deranged story to deflect from the crime.
For it would be some sort of unfortunate irony if her experience with the Malfoy family resulted in that prophecy ripening. Never before had so many murderous and vindictive inclinations splashed across her complicated brain, and it had only been one week on.