Malfoy's Moon

the manor and the garden

When the moon steals the sky from the sun, doesn't the sky weep? Doesn't the sky descend into a reverie of black, painted the color of spilled ink? Don't the clouds darken, converging into a graveyard of unearthly ghosts? Don't they shatter the cold air with rain, sending their mournful tears down to the cursed ground? 

She wishes it would rain. It feels like it would. She can almost feel a torrent coming. She wonders if the clouds of her eyes could keep dry any longer, but all she can feel is that torturous darkness compressing in on her. 

That last haunted image of the dark green skull is still imprinted beneath her eyes, but she can no longer see anything now. Everything had gone dark, but not in the way she'd feel while outside at night. No - this, this is something else. The kind of darkness she'd feel if her entire body was gone. For a moment, it feels like that at least. A part of her subconscious still holding up to let these thoughts revolve. 

But no - no, she can feel something. Someone's palm is pressed against hers - so hard, she'd thought it was part of her own hand. Now she can feel his fingers nestled in between the valleys of her knuckles, slipping into place so impeccably, it seems as though they were made for just that. 

No, this is not like before. This time, she feels his hand in hers. This time, she's not alone. Her eyes flicker open and it's almost painful to open them - as though they'd been closed for a very long time. 

Spots burst into light behind her eyeballs and she tries to lift her hand to block the light out of instinct. But that hand holding hers keeps her down. 

And she suddenly becomes aware she's laying down, laying on a cold, hard surface. 

"Astra - " 

Her gaze flits upwards to his face and his hand tightens in hers. Draco staring down at her, his hands on the ground on either side of her body. 

"Where are they?" She wonders if he can even hear her; she could barely hear herself as she tries to lift herself up. 

He pushes her shoulders back down and she lays down, a cut gasp ripping out of her throat. "Where are they? The - the Death Eaters? Are they - "

"Quiet, Astra," he interrupts, but his tone is not irritated, merely concerned. "They're not here. You - you passed out. Right when we Apparated."

Her eyes linger on his face and she notices for the first time that he's completely drenched. His platinum-blonde plastering over his forehead in wet streams, dripping across his jawline. And his shirt - her eyes lower - the white button-up shirt sticking to his skin like glue. 

It must have been raining.

She can see several of the buttons have popped out and it all suddenly comes back to her with the force of a typhoon. The Astronomy Tower, the broomstick, the flashes of light - she remembers fisting her hand at the bottom of his shirt while she swayed dangerously in the air, hopelessly grasping at something firm enough to swing over the broomstick. 

Perhaps he'd seen the panic flare in her eyes because he instantly ushers her back down. "Shhh, you're okay. They're not here anymore."

There's a dry cough to her left and her head whips to the side quickly, her dizzying vision blurring sightly before it clears to see the poised woman standing a foot away. 

She can recognize the dark hair falling to her shoulders with thick strands of ivory and the dark, brooding eyes. 

Narcissa Malfoy. 

That's when Astra finally registers she's at Malfoy Manor.

She opens her mouth to say something and then closes it again at the sight of Narcissa's pursed lips and crossed arms.