╭────── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ──────╮
𝐃
I endured the first night, almost as if I deserved the pain.
The Dark Mark burned and pricked my skin with a thousand needles every second. If you dared touch, it is stung ten times more, so any instinct to press a palm against it had to be subdued.
I was always used to the soft touch of the covers in Slytherin Dungeon. Here in the Manor, we used those ancient, embroidered blankets. They were maintained with magic throughout the century but they were harsh against the skin. This particular one was part of my mother's dowry. Despite all our riches, we never bought new ones. We were traditional.
I didn't sleep at all that night, and since it was the first night after returning from Hogwarts for the summer, I felt out of place. I wanted to curl up and forget that I existed. Crippled by sleeplessness, exhausted by pain, I promised myself I would find a way to make myself sleep the next night.
I creeped out of my room late at night.
I tiptoed across the hallway and lost a heartbeat when I heard the blackwood creak under my feet. It felt like I was a child again; out of bed after hours. Only there was no one there to catch me now.
I walked down the stairs and unlocked the door of Father's study with my wand.
The way I remembered my childhood thoughts; I always assumed that this is where my Father had business meetings. Of course, I later noticed that Father had way too many meetings in the dark of the night and with colleagues that were always dressed in black, so I quickly put the pieces together.
In any case, my Father's office was always a mystery, an intrigue. A room I was never supposed to go to. Of course, I was always a curious child, and after many attempts to penetrate the unexplored world of an otherwise boring room, I knew there was a stash of hard liquor in the last drawer of the heavy desk.
I lit up my wand and walked inside.
"What are you doing?"
There wasn't a chance of something happening in this Manor without my mother knowing – which was always contradictory to the dimensions of the large estate. Opposite to my Father, who showed little care about what was happening outside this very office or the West Drawing-room, Mother seemed to have a gift of noticing everything.
"I'm looking for a book," I lied.
"You're not allowed to be here. You know that very well."
Mother leaned against the dark wood of the door to give her tired feet a rest. When she raised her glass to take a sip, the silk of her black nightgown trickled to her elbow and revealed paper-white skin. A bruise of purple, yellow and blue was showing at the wide of the forearm.
"It's not like Father is coming back from Azkaban to scold me," I said but instantly regretted when I met the silent pain in her eyes. My mother may have never told me so, but this was the toughest time of her life.
"You know, the Ministry sent a notice a few hours ago. They set a date for the trial. It's in three days," she explained.
"Does that mean Father is getting out? Is he coming back?" I said and was hoping it would be the first good news in a while.
Mother fell in complete silence. She looked at her glass, she took a sip and didn't speak.
"We have a good lawyer, right? That Avery man."
In my Mother's stillness, I could feel her grief. She raised her eyes to mine and took a long breath in.
"There is nothing we can do for your Father at this moment. He was caught red-handed. This trial is for us."
It was as we had expected it. After the scandal of what happened at the Department of Mysteries a few weeks ago broke to the newspapers, there was no way the Ministry would let us negotiate the release of my Father. Their next goal was to investigate us. If we were found guilty of conspiring with him, we would be put in Azkaban as well.
"Don't you worry, Draco. We are not going to Azkaban. Your father and I have made sure of that. But for more security, the Dark Lord will come here tomorrow evening to conceal our Marks. If the Ministry were to see them, they would send us straight to Azkaban."
The amount of resentment I held for this man was already inconceivable. I felt hopeless that without his help, we could be arrested and condemned for life. I hated how my life depended on him now.
"But what about Father?"
Mother would never admit something she didn't want to. She only walked up to me and ran her hand back and forth securely on my back, the way she always did when I was a child.
"Once your task is completed, the Dark Lord will have more power than ever before. He will find a way of getting him out."
I felt the burden on my shoulders heavier than ever. If need be, Voldemort could take my Father out of Azkaban at any given moment and simply put him in hiding. Last year he had found a way to bring back Aunt Bellatrix and nine other Death Eaters. He could do it for Bella but not his most loyal servant?
Then again, Bella was his mistress and his personal punching bag, and Voldemort couldn't go a day without degrading and humiliating someone. But no, I didn't think it was a matter of importance for Voldemort.
No; all Voldemort wanted was to torture us as a family, as a whole. He wanted more pressure on my task. He wanted Lucius Malfoy never to meet his son again.
"It all comes down to you. Do it, and all will go back to normal," Mother lied with a bitter smile.
There were lies in her eyes. It was a task doomed to fail and with that same purpose. To Mother, to Voldemort, to me, I was a man walking to his death.
When she left, I took the liquor from my Father's drawer, locked my door twice and drank until it was impossible to think straight. I cried and slept otherwise easily.
⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼⎼
After the trial, my mother took a long fall to hysteria. She never shed a tear, only clutched her pillow and screamed in it. I could hear her across the empty halls.
The Ministry set us on house arrest for two months – from the 24th of June until the 24th of August – and assigned Aurors to watch us like hawks at all times.
Mother sold an estate in Wales and managed to buy us some privacy. Who knew Aurors were so easy to bribe? Now they would at least stay at a safe distance outside the Manor and wouldn't bother us throughout the day.
We closed every curtain in the Manor, our own effort to shut the intruders' eyes away. Then again, every curtain in the Manor was either green or grey and effectively blocking out every stream of sun.
The Manor became a dungeon, a prison of our own device, and I was progressively feeling the silk jail closing around me.
"Look at them..." I shook my head while peeking through heavy, closed drapes. "They haven't moved an inch since morning."
"Get away from the window, Draco."
"I swear, next time I see scarhead, I'm going to beat the living hell out of him." I had muttered and hoped that Mother wouldn't hear my sudden outburst.
"Draco!" she exclaimed, not because I was showing my hate towards our enemy but because I rarely made such statements in her presence.
"He put Father in Azkaban. He set me on house arrest," I explained, and Mother fell silent.
Who could blame me for wanting to hurt him? If there was someone I could honestly blame for my fate, it was Harry Potter and his friend.
I spent my days in our library, reading any book that could help me conceive some plan of action for when I would be back at Hogwarts.
"It has to be something he won't see through," Mother kept reminding me. I was now counting the times she'd said that.
I admired her sentiment and her will to help me. All she was doing, however, was put more pressure on me. Soon I felt the need to draw myself away to get some peace of mind.
When we thought it was safe, Aunt Bella came to live with us, which only made the Dark Lord's comings and goings more frequent, much to everyone's dismay.
Bella stayed in the dungeons for more security and the more I studied her, the more I believed she had a sadistic personality disorder, maybe even sociopathy. She was a nasty woman, and I don't know how my mother could stand her, but at least she made her laugh once in a while.
It was lucky I spent most of my days reading because Bella hated our library as much as she hated Firewhiskey without any ice in it. But when Bella wanted to tease someone, she would stop at nothing.
"I'm so proud of you!" she squeaked and squeezed me in a hug. "Our little boy! The Chosen One!"
Even though Bella looked like the kind of woman that resented any human contact, she could switch to a touchy, breathy person, depending on who she was talking to, how comfortable she felt or how much she wanted to annoy you at that certain moment.
"Get off, Bella! I'm trying to study."
She sat heavily across the table, loudly stacked one heeled foot on top of the other and grabbed the green apple that I had saved for later.
"You know you'll fetch me another one from the kitchens, right?" I said when I heard her bite, not even raising my eyes to look.
"Yes, that's definitely going to happen," she said with a high-pitched tone full of sarcasm. Sometimes I know where I get it from. "So!" she continued. "What do we have planned for dear, old Albus Dumbledore?" she said and rubbed her hands together after throwing the bitten apple in a bin across the room. It always annoyed me when people threw away unfinished food.
"I don't know yet. I'm figuring it out," I muttered.
"What are you studying then?"
"Poisons."
"Dumbledore will see right through that," Bellatrix groaned.
"I can find something untraceable," I said and flipped a page loudly.
"You also have to find a way to get it to him, though," she added.
"Yeah, I know! I'm not a complete idiot!" I snapped – or rather, yelled.
"So tense!" she mocked and laughed. "You are wasting your time with poisons. It's easy. You know the spell; just go up to him and do it!"
I casually ignored her, not only because her disdain was incredibly annoying, but also because she spoke the truth that I most feared. I dreaded even the thought of confronting Dumbledore. If I had any chance of surviving this, it was by using my brain.
"I do not understand what you're so nervous about."
"I'm not nervous. I'm annoyed," I muttered. If I had said it louder, maybe she wouldn't ignore it.
"I know you've got it in you! I always knew my nephew was destined for greatness! It's me you take after. The blood of the Blacks runs thick in your veins," she said with an expression on bliss and pride.
"Oh, will you, please, shut it already?" I snapped.
"You honestly have got to relax," she threw her head back.
Bellatrix cackled loudly and unnecessarily but then looked at me seriously with a look that I could only describe as naughty.
"What." It was a demand.
"I heard your ex is back in Bath..." she raised one eyebrow and formed a smirk on her mouth.
"What does that have to do with anything?" I said but instantly regretted when I turned my gaze to her.
"The 'relax' thing?" she said and winked.
I sighed heavily. I should have seen this coming.
"Bella. I'm going to close my eyes and count to ten. If you're still here after that, I'm going to practice my killing curse on you."
Bella would laugh and laugh at any given moment when someone felt uncomfortable. She strolled around the room and threw some hideous tunes and then danced her way out of the library.
After this, I had hoped that I would be able to have some peace and quiet, but not half an hour had passed when Mother knocked on the door and walked in the library without waiting for an answer.
She took a turn about the room, left an apple on a book, made an attempt to smoothen my hair before I waved her hand away, and finally seated herself opposite me, half-empty glass on hand.
"Bellatrix told me that you're planning on poisoning him," she jumped straight into the issue.
"I was just doing some research," I said and returned to my reading; only now, I could only stare emptily at the page in front of me and nothing more.
Mother took a sip of her drink.
"I don't know if it's a good plan-"
"That's why I haven't planned anything. Can you please fuss about something else? Maybe make Aunt Bella comport herself? I heard a vase breaking in the next room. It's a miracle she hasn't been discovered yet, especially with the Aurors over our heads," I snapped.
I hated it when I was aggressive towards my mother. If I knew anything back then, it was that all she did was because she didn't want me to get hurt. No matter how pressuring she became, it was all coming from a place of love.
"You have to think of something that Dumbledore will not see through," she said.
Third time this week. And it was only Tuesday.
I hated how everyone was casually ignoring the things I said and only tried to force their opinions in the conversation. I was losing hope for everything that was outside my room.
"Yes, I know. You remind me every day."
I banged my book shut, slid it into my hand and walked away.
I locked my room's door. I looked outside the window and saw one of the Aurors looking back at me. I drew the curtains shut and made myself a midday night.
I reminded myself that I liked staying inside my room, that there was nothing for me to do out there. However, the more the house felt like a cage, the more I wanted to get out.
It was a lovely summer's day outside, and I wasn't there to see it.
╰────── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ──────╯