𝒜𝒻𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓂𝒶𝓉𝒽 | 𝒟.𝑀.

12 | ﴾ Good Girl ﴿

Back at the Manor Draco made a less than graceful re-entry straight into his old bedroom on the fourth floor, with the expectation that he would likely be trapped there due to his physical limitations. He dropped to his knees next to the cage of the little cat he had brought back with him, dry heaving and fighting not to faint from the pain of the travel magic.

The cat moved to the front of the cage and pawed at the exterior latch holding it within, and he smiled faintly at it's quick show of wits. He watched it through a narrow gaze, working at the latch for several minutes until finally it's paw caught at precisely the correct angle against the metal and the door creaked open in a pitched screech.

Effie sniffed at the door hesitantly, her crystalline eyes watching Draco hold his side where a shooting pain was gradually fading away. When the cat emerged cautiously, all the while calling out little words in a feline language that he could not understand, it raised it's tail and then came to sit before him in a regal posture with tall arms stretched before it's toes.

He had previously owned a pet cat as a young boy before Lucius had hung it by it's neck off of the second floor balustrade in the middle of one summer that he seemed to be in a particularly foul mood with Draco. Before losing the cat in such a detrimental manner, Draco had grown to be quite fond of it's mannerisms and general company. The experience of finding it strangled in the front lobby at the ripe age of seven had changed him forever.

He had learned then that getting attached to anything living meant that he would be subjecting it to the potential of having Lucius harm or even murder it to exact authority or punishment over Draco.

Never again had he taken another pet save for the large horned owl he'd placed a silencing charm over and kept obediently in his room. Nor had he felt it was safe to be emotionally vulnerable with friends or girls in the chance that a risky connection would form. That detached approach to life had been a constant for over a decade, until a bold French girl had apparently come along and he'd apparently decided to subject her to the dark world of Lucius. She had somehow come out on the other side of it all, but at an obvious price.

Ergo, he had initially decided to get a cat once again for the purpose of utility and nothing more. He had no intentions of bonding with it out of sheer defensive habit, but there were instincts buried in him somehow still alive after so many years of brutal torture. He gingerly lifted a shaking hand and the little cat reached up a paw to touch his outstretched finger with playful pats.

After that day he remained in his room for over a week while recovering slowly, pouring through the piles of runes once more that he had Kreacher bring up from his grandmother's suite. He had been given three weeks in total from the day of the trial to heal effectively enough to report for duty at the Ministry, and he didn't plan to waste a moment of his remaining freedom.

During the day he would let Effie out of his room with the trust that she would return and she never let him down, coming back several times at random intervals. Despite the cat's incessant conversational tendencies which sometimes tested his patience, he had in fact become enamored with his newfound companion, allowing it to sleep on his desk while he worked in the hot evening sunshine by the wall of windows.

The first time he sat at the burnt desk - brimming with resentment towards Madeleine for scorching his room for an unknown reason - he tried all of the drawers to see if his former self had left him any clues. It was incredibly confusing when he discovered a massive stack of letters in one of the locked bottom drawers, covered with French stamps on them addressed to Madeleine years prior when they would have met at Hogwarts.

They were written completely in French cursive, evidently from her loved ones, and rife with serious worry and concern about why she had stopped communicating with them. Some letters had a strong level of anger, hinting that they were confused about this Malfoy family that would not allow them to directly speak with her. Others demanded to know information about her so-called upcoming wedding.