✓ WE NEVER SLEEP, draco malfoy

F O R T Y - T H R E E

"Is there tenderness at the end of our undoing? I hope so."

— Dodie Bellamy

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When Rowan didn't return with the first batch of Death Eaters, Draco wasn't necessarily worried. It was only after thirty minutes when the last one arrived, did he begin to panic. Wild thoughts swam through his head of her dead or captured or being locked away somewhere. 

He also thought, just for a fleeting second, that maybe she was with Potter. He hadn't been killed, that much Draco knew, but what if he had gotten hurt and she was rushing to his side? Potter's side instead of his?

The hall outside his bedroom was silent and he strained his ears just for a moment and could hear nothing from the dining room or the first floor all together. It seemed the Death Eaters were all silently awaiting Rowan's fateful return and he could only hope she was smart enough to evade punishment.

He heard somewhere downstairs the front door open and he wanted to leave his room and see if were here but he held his ground. Voldemort had asked him not to attend this meeting, since he wasn't apart of the battle. It made sense but it didn't stop the nerves creeping up underneath his skin like little bugs. It was only a few short minutes later did he began to hear screaming. He knew it was her just by the sound alone and this time it did feel as if bugs were crawling over him. 

The sound was sharp and agonizing he wanted to creep himself into her mind but he knew what the dark lord must've been doing to incite such horrible sounds. He was invading her mind, searching for a lie amongst her truth which Draco knew he would never find. Rowan had trained too hard, too mercilessly, to allow such a slip. Snape had made himself a daring teacher, Rowan often coming to him during those last few months before the assassination looking tired and sweaty but there was always a smile on her face.

This time he knew there would be no smile. 

His father had been less then pleased to see Rowan when she arrived with him after the assassination, almost just as unpleased as Draco had been when he saw his father. He didn't even know he had gotten out of Azkaban when they arrived in the manor.

Lucius had gone off on him once Rowan cast the killing curse upon her mother. He was dragged off before he could go to her and his father turned on him in a fury.

"You couldn't do one thing, could you?!"

"You were supposed to kill him. How could you not follow one simple task?"

"That girl distracted you. She's made you pathetically soft."

"Could barely get the cabinet fixed on your own? Are you truly that insolent?"

It wasn't like Draco hadn't heard this all before in different manners all throughout his life. His only job was to be like his father. It was to bring honor and somehow, he'd still failed. He hadn't been able to go through with killing Dumbledore for the simple fact that the man, even with a wand pointed in his face, asked Draco to join him. He offered to protect his family, even after everything he has done.

Draco had a feeling Rowan had something to do with it all, with her secret meetings throughout those last few months but hearing it come from the old man was calming. It made him feel as if everything he's done wasn't all for nothing because someone still cared.

But then Snape arrived and he dealt the final blow and there was nothing else he could do. But Lucius obviously didn't see it that way. He never did and never would.