✓ WE NEVER SLEEP, draco malfoy

F O R T Y - T W O

"a not admitting of the wound until it grew so wide that all my life had entered it."

— Emily Dickinson

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Rowan dreamt of the green flashes. 

She could feel the heat it brought, the scorching hatred and evil burning off of her in sheets of agonizing horror. It was such a vibrant green, something she could only ever see when she closed her eyes. 

Behind the flashes, she could hear the sound of bodies dropping to the floor. It'd been a month and the sounds still haunt her like she was there again in that damn parlor room, pointing her wand and hearing the curse spilling past her lips. It wasn't something she could forget so easily, not when she'd been forced to do it again to a muggle born. 

Voldemort had strict standards and killing was one of them. She had to live up to her sister, she had to prove herself worthy to stay alive and being tied to Draco didn't matter to him. 

She got the dark mark the day after her sister was murdered and her mother was killed. It burned into her flesh like she was on fire, it seeped so deeply into her that it felt like a cold fire, liquid ice that ached and spread. She tried to claw it off that night.

It wasn't easy to dig your own finger nails into your skin but Rowan tried her best. She scraped and clawed and tore until the water in her bath was red and she was sobbing. But this was something she had signed up for herself, she took the job, their sacred oath, and she was getting burned for it.

Rolling over in bed, she reached her hand out across the mattress and didn't need to go far. She knew she was alone. She had separated herself from Draco once the killing curse left her wand. It wasn't right to keep going to him, to rely on him to make her feel better. All she could see was his face as Voldemort aimed for Rowan's chest with his curse and she could see his desperateness to free himself of his father's grip to come to her side.

She didn't need to give Voldemort another person to kill. But that didn't stop Draco. 

The bed was warm where she prodded the spot with her hand. He had been here, held her as she fell asleep and left before she would wake. He would be by her side, no matter how much she protested and tried to pull away. But, sometimes, she couldn't find it in herself to draw away completely. 

She loved him and no amount of fear could keep her away. She hated that part of herself sometimes but as she pushed the blanket from her legs and sat up, she knew she could never live without him.

The bedroom she was occupying in Malfoy Manor was down the stretch of the second floor. It was a small gray room, the only color was the hardwood floor and the quilt she used to wrap herself in at night. There was a little window that overlooked the empty fields of the backyard, giving her a view of the lake that was no long iced over. The summer had treated them right, save for the gloominess that stuck around this place like glue. 

She had expected flowers to start to bloom but she shouldn't have gotten her hopes up. Nothing would ever grow here, not with the monsters lurking behind the corners and hiding in the walls. Rowan trudged over to the window with her quilt wrapped around herself, pulling the black curtains away so she could peer out of her prison.

She hadn't gone back to Greer Manor since she'd killed her mother. She'd gone to collect clothes and to send her poor house elf to Hogwarts in hopes Ruith would appreciate still being able to work. Rowan knew how much the little thing valued his work and no amount of her protesting would change his mind. With Ruith taken care of and her trunk packed, there was no reason to go back. The home held too many memories.