𝒜𝒻𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓂𝒶𝓉𝒽 | 𝒟.𝑀.

64 | ﴾ Noumenal Conception ﴿

In the time that passed since striking my deal with Theodore to free Draco, I had been forced a few nights a week to sleep at his ghastly castle, listening to the moanings of his poor victims in the lower levels and talking to him about his quite lonely and morbid upbringing. The more that I learned about his life, the more that I unfortunately sympathized with the malignant boy. He had planned for it to be that way, I was certain; banking on the law of proximity at play in combination with the law of attraction.

I hated myself for it, but kissing him was beginning to get easier with time, especially due to the fact that I continued to inwardly stew over Draco's much worse cheating in eighth year. It was an open wound in my heart that could not be resolved because we were no longer even talking, and now it was starting to get infected.

The second biggest issue with Theodore's introduction to my life - besides the fact that he was effectively destroying my marriage - was that I had frequently stopped wearing my Ministry cuffs at night. Luckily the Aurors had started to write me off as a lesser threat and it went right over their heads in my morning check ins, but it did not go unnoticed elsewhere in my life.

I found myself waking up all over the place in the frightening castle with a shivering terror in my system from undesired visitations with my satanic Creator. I could tell that she was possessing me in the Realm of the Living while distracting me simultaneously within the Realm of Moons. It was foolish by all degrees to let it go on, but when Theo made me repeatedly sleep over multiple days in a row, I had no access to the cuffs that I had stupidly left behind at the Manor.

Ascelin took advantage of these nights, going so far as to plague me with dreams of her wickedly seducing Draco in my place. It provided me with conflicting emotions and a bizarre form of jealousy, even though it was my own body in the nightmares. Everything about the surreal visions felt stunningly authentic. Dream Draco acted exactly like himself, felt like himself, and it was vexing to imagine him being victimized by an evil Goddess in my skin.

Two weeks into the affair I was forced to go back to castle Nott on that Friday night. Thankfully he was getting less rough with me the more behaved I was when requested.

That evening he surprised me by filling his bedroom with beautiful plants of multiple varieties, colours and forms. I walked in with wide, pleased eyes to drink in all of the exotic species, some of which I had always dreamed of seeing in person.

Theo watched me with a crooked, appreciative grin while he worked at his chalkboard on his latest nightmare as I floated around, delicately plucking at the flowers with my fingers and inspecting their properties.

"Tell me about your pets, Theodore," I prodded him in my pixy tone with my back to him.

He put down his chalk and leaned against the board with his smoldering blue eyes zeroed in on me. I looked over my shoulder at him with rude eyes and he smirked at me, "Why? What have you heard?"

"Only what I can from dis room. It sounds frightful, and torturous," I commented in a feminine tone, slinking around the room like a detached minx from a nineteen-forties romance movie.

He watched me for a moment with a blank face before inhaling sharply, standing up straight, "Well all I can say is that you cannot possibly judge just from Lockhart's infuriating wailing if he is in unjustified pain."

"I'll decide dat for myself. And yes, 'e is in unjustified pain. You're an asshole, Theo," I purred, sharply jutting my chin to him again.

He chewed on his tongue with revelry while I held his gaze, "I have a girl here too who roams freely. She has her own room. I buy her things, in a plutonic way of course. She broke her back during the war, and I brought her here immediately-"