the girl who lost it all [d.m]

forty one: tolerare

[trigger warning: mentions of r*pe]

tolerare: tolerate, bear, endure

———

DRACO sat by his mother's bedside, both hands clasped around one of hers.

Visitor hours had ended over an hour ago but he hadn't been able to find it in himself to leave her—not when he'd been apart from her for so long already. Plus, no one had come to kick him out so he assumed he was allowed to stay for the time being.

Narcissa's face was pale and gaunt, her cheeks hollow. Her eyes had been shut for over a month now, her lips stained blue from the Nutrition Draught they gave her to keep her body alive.

But she'd been improving. Her vitals had stabilised, shown by the nebulous haze of red that hovered above her bed, displaying her heart rate, her salt levels and her inflammation trackers. She was monitored every few hours and the Head Healer had told Draco that the illness she'd come down with a few days before she fell was finally receding from her system, although it was slow progress.

Draco dropped a kiss to his mother's hand and mouthed an apology against her frigid skin. He had let her down—and he'd never allow himself to do it again. She had loved him and raised him since the very first day he came out of her womb and had done everything she could to keep him safe and happy. Even after the things that monster of a man had done to her in her very bedroom, she'd only ever doted on and loved Draco, gathering him up into her arms when he couldn't sleep because her sobs wrecked his dreams, murmuring against his hair when his ten year old self would cry because of what he'd seen.

He still had nightmares about it—standing in the doorway to his mother's room, seeing her sob and scream, grappling for her wand on the nightstand until the man on top of her seized her wrist and forced it down onto the bed. He still remembered the horror and nausea that had clawed up his throat, the way he'd frozen for a split second before barrelling forward to try and help his mother, to pull the man they'd all trusted off her.

Narcissa had been screaming at Draco to stay away, to get out of the room but he'd ignored her, his voice hoarse from yelling at the man to get off her as he tried to claw at his arm, tried to use all his strength to pull the man off of where he was yanking his mother's nightgown up from her knees.

But the man had only turned and rammed his elbow so hard into Draco's face that he tasted blood and Narcissa screamed again, pleading and begging until the man did it again. Pain burst through Draco's skull and then he was passing out, even though he tried his best to hold on, to stay awake for his mother because he had to help her, he had to—

"Mr. Malfoy, I'm afraid visitor hours ended two hours ago"

Draco glanced up, pulled out of his own mind and shook his head at Healer Emanuel who stepped up next to him, his hands clasped behind his back. "I need another hour."