𝒜𝒻𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓂𝒶𝓉𝒽 | 𝒟.𝑀.

50 | ﴾ Killer Gourds ﴿

By the end of the week she had started to show less tension in her posture. On Friday morning he woke up to her cuddling him with her nose buried in his sharp jawline. She had reached across him in her sleep and taken his hand in hers. Whether or not it was intentional or subconscious he couldn't care less; it lifted his heart to have her seeking out affection.

That day she walked around the room more energetically, still silent like a living doll, but with increased vitality. He watched her from a chair by the fire with his hands clasped over his knees patiently, as she wandered about plucking at books, beauty products, and running her fingers along her plants.

He determined that she was sound enough to readjust to her room while he worked on blueprints at her desk. She spent a long while touching almost everything with an empty look on her face, and Draco consistently glanced up with sideways eyes to ensure nothing was going wrong.

He eventually put his quill down and leaned back in the chair to cross his arms when he saw that she was at the wall of windows with all ten of her finger tips up against the glass longingly. Her waves of ivory hair hung down to the base of her spine like a river of silk with her back to him.

It was early October and the air outside was frigid and damp, and he shut his eyelids with a huff; she wanted to go outside, and he felt required to guide her for a walk despite how uncomfortable it would be.

A knock on the door drew his eyes; of course, not Madeleine's, who continued to stand still like a piece of furniture. Narcissa came in at his response in a dark green dress that swirled up to her chin in a tall lacy neck. Her long blond hair was twisted up in a stately bun. "How are we advancing this afternoon?" she asked courteously, shooting her cyan eyes to the figure by the window who was more a puppet than a girl.

Draco raised his eyebrows and also moved his gaze to his wife and back without needing to say a word.

"I see," Narcissa said with lament. "It would seem that she craves exposure to the elements," she commented with her judgemental voice, eyeing down Madeleine's intense stance.

Draco rolled his eyes sarcastically, "Well now that you say it out loud, it does seem so doesn't it?" He flared his eyes at his mother bitterly for having brought it up. Madeleine turned her face, filled with hope, and he sighed.

Draco stood rubbing his neck, looking at his mother, "Do you need something in particular? I'm going to have to dress her now if you wouldn't mind leaving."

Narcissa dropped a periwinkle letter onto Madeleine's pearly bed comforter, "Her family requests to visit. As you have so brashly claimed your governance over the estate, I thought I would leave it up to your discretion to decide how to approach this."

She turned to leave and paused with her hand on the opened door. She looked back over her shoulder at him with serious eyes, "But if I could offer a morsel of advice; perhaps prorogue the concourse. I harbour personal doubts that they will take lightly to her current state. And prepare yourself for the unsightly reality that you have cost them quite a substantive expense." She was referring to the death of Adaleus, and Draco guiltily looked away at the carpet.

He'd managed to thus far swallow his horror that he'd done such a thing, feeling especially better after his reassuring encounter with the ghost himself, but now he would have to face her family in a brutally humiliating affair. He dismissed the letter for the time being, planning to read it to her that night.