Tainted Love

Narcissa

IRIS

The car was shaky and paralyzing, wheels bumping over gravelly road, lurching back and forth and shaking Iris's body enough that she had reached out to grip part of the door in the vain hope that it would somehow ground her.

There was no hope of being grounded, though - not now, not in this, not while travelling to meet a woman who Iris thought may hate her on instinct, whose affection had only ever been earned by a handful of people, one of whom was sitting beside her.

Draco was much less affected by the car's movements, which made no sense. He should be less used to cars than her - they shouldn't be taking a car at all, not when they could be apparating, but the threat of nausea had been enough discouragement. Iris couldn't be woozy as she walked into the Manor; her mind had to be sharp and clear.

He was looking out the window, tinted a little bit too dark. It was just after noon, the sun blazing so brightly in the sky that all the whites in the world seemed blown-out, overexposed.

Iris was nervous - that was putting it mildly, really, she felt like she might double over as soon as they got out of the car. She had never been so nervous to do anything, not to go to school for the first time, not to spike the punch at Valentine's dances, not to move across an ocean for a year to work in a place she knew nothing about.

She had met old boyfriends' parents before, a couple of times. It had been fine. She had made agreeable jokes, held their son's hand, complimented everything: their house, their cooking, their placemats, their landscaping, their old collections and new kitchens.

Narcissa was a different animal, one that Iris wished Draco had spent a little more time preparing her to face. But going to the Manor presented problems of its own for him, problems she didn't want to force him to take out and tell her.

I will talk.

In truth, she had forgiven him before he had even said that, or at least she had made the decision to stay with him. From anyone else's perspective (even hers, if she thought long enough about it), her inability to leave him was dangerous.

There was nothing to be done about it, though, nothing that she could bring herself to do. Being with Draco was the only way she could quiet the eternal racing of her body, the only way she could harness her own mind anymore.

She could beg him to be better, she had begged, and, mercifully, he had agreed. He would talk - he had already talked, a little bit, but she knew not to push him.

The car turned and Iris tightened her grip on the door handle, her knuckles lightening with strain. Too dramatic. She looked towards Draco again. He was staring out the front windshield now, his eyes wide and unblinking.

Beyond them lay an open gate, wrought iron with silver embellishments that glared and winked in the sun. It was open, ostensibly welcoming, but there was something about it that Iris couldn't put her finger on.

Murderers and thieves leave doors open behind them sometimes, the real evil ones, as if to suggest that there's no point in closing the door at all - the people inside need no protection. Inviting neighbors and good samaritans in to find bodies slumped over and sticky with old blood.

The Manor was a murder scene, or had been once. To Draco's eyes it probably always would be - he only made the trip for his mother, and then only allowed himself to walk into certain rooms.

He hadn't seen his childhood bed since he was nineteen; if he had it his way he would never see it again. Old toy wands and leather-bound books spilling out from chests and desks and spaces under his bed where he had once hidden too, balled up and gasping with despair.