✓ WE NEVER SLEEP, draco malfoy

F I F T E E N

"I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive."
—  Richard Papen, The Secret History by Donna Tartt

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Rowan had Apparated only once before this moment. This violent, angry moment of bodies moving together and through one another like a twisted, shaping mold of something horrible. 

It was when she had been younger, with her sister Florence in an effort to escape the watchful eyes and spiteful hands of a shop owner. Florence had stolen something from the man and he came after the two with lunging grabs that made Florence scream and Rowan begin to cry as she gripped her sister and thought long and hard about home.

Then, in a flash, they were ripped through time and air and fell back inside the safety of her bedroom. Rowan was sick for an hour before she was strong enough to ask what her sister had done and her only reply was that it hadn't been her at all. 

This time around, Rowan had more control. She knew exactly what she was doing, she'd certainly read all about it dozens of times so she knew what she needed to focus on to get her and Draco to her bedroom all the way inside Greer Manor.

Destination. Determination. Deliberation.

She only had to focus and be determined to reach her destination and to move quickly, with deliberation. 

When she felt her body feel like it was nearly being torn apart but also being forced through a small and very tight rubber tube, she knew she had done it correctly. She wondered if Draco had ever Apparated before but she bit back her question, she wouldn't ask him because she didn't care. She was furious he had withheld the information about her sister and family from her for so long.

Sure, he confessed and finally told her, but they could be too late. They could miss everything important that would be said and that thought alone made her nearly shake with anger. But she needed her anger to be moved into bravery, she needed to be brave if she was going to sneak into her home and listen in on her conspiring family. 

She wouldn't stop until she got answers and a reason to confront them. She needed evidence and to understand why this was all happening. Death Eaters had murdered her father and yet, her mother and sister were having a group of them come inside their home and sit in for a meeting. 

When she could breathe and think clearly, Rowan and Draco were spat out onto the old hardwood floor of Rowan's bedroom. The cloak fell from their shoulders and she was breathing heavily with relief, sitting up on her forearms. 

Draco looked pale in the face, but otherwise, completely fine. 

She sat up into a crouch on one leg, taking in the old smell of her room with her eyes closed. It smelled like old books, long grass, and the faint smell of cinnamon. When she opened her eyes, she scowled. She loved her home, but it no longer felt like home to her now that she knew who was in her once safe place.

"Let's go," she murmured, getting to her feet. 

Draco barely had any time to take in the unkempt bookshelves, the dresser that supported moving pictures of all of her friends from Hogwarts, a glass bowl of jewelry, a stack of clean sweaters that resembled, strangely, ones the Weasley's all owned. He didn't even have enough true time to notice the colored sheets of her bed were green and so were the curtains, but when he noticed the art upon her walls, he noted it was all red. Vibrant, swirling, beautiful reds of all shades. 

"Where too?" he asked, standing and grabbing the cloak, careful to keep his footing light. 

"Don't you already know?" she hissed in a low voice, and he saw how distant she was from him now in her eyes. Were things truly ever to be the same after this? When he didn't respond, she shook her head, looking at the ground, "We'll go to the study, at least that's where I'd have a secret meeting with murderers in."