CURSED: FROM THE BEGINNING [D.M]

-(18) it's in his blood

tw// violence, abuse

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DRACO grows curious. Or perhaps, curious might not be the right word to use. For, Zilliah keeps leaving every other night, making one excuse on top of another and she only comes back late. When he asks her where she's been, she doesn't answer to the point and quickly diverts the conversation elsewhere. So, yes.. perhaps curious might not have been the right word to use.

And at times, she doesn't return at all. He understands this at the crack of dawn when he slightly wakes and begins to reach for her, only to be met with blank space- his side, cold and barren without her presence.

But he doesn't ask her, no. He doesn't question it. He somehow never seems to do so with her.

Perhaps it is because he feels this invinsible fragility, this unyielding delicacy to her self that he doesn't want to shatter with his forced invasion.

But it doesn't stop him from thinking about what's wrong though. He is constantly worrying about it everytime he sees the slightest hint of misery and exhaustion slipping through her masks. But he doesn't pry. He has promised himself he wouldn't and he uses every last ounce of will power within him to make sure he keeps that promise.

It was one of those dawns today, he could tell, even without reaching to see if she was beside him this time. He could tell because there was no whiff of her lilac scent or her jasmine hair oil in the air that he breathed. So he does what he always does. He gets up, puts on a coat, grabs his wand and makes his way over to the girl's dormitories.

And she was there, like always, like all those nights she never came to him, she was there. And maybe this part of the disappearances is because of those nightmares that haunted her. Maybe it's because she doesn't want him to see her so vulnerable. It's like she always chooses these nights carefully, like maybe she could feel when it's about to get worse or something along the sort. Or maybe it's because she makes them so. Because even in those nights she comes back to his room, as he wakes, she is already up, either watching him or reading or gazing out, a subtle yet pained smile painted across her entrancing features. Maybe she does that so one night, when she is upon the brink of exhaustion, having no way but to yield, she could know and she could distance. She was very clever, he would give her that, but he was cleverer still. And maybe he wouldn't pry, maybe he wouldn't ask her questions about it but that doesn't mean he won't observe it all and try to understand it in his own way.

So he stands there in the doorway, his hand on the handle, his eyes set on the rapid rise and fall of her chest, her sweaty neck and her trembling hands. He stands there, his limbs etching to get closer, to hold her through whatever struggle she is facing, but she needed space, and now Draco was never one to actually even care about what others needed, but with her, it's different, it's calm, it's important, it's essential.

So one last look over the shoulder, and he leaves, retracing his steps back to his own room where he crashes back down onto the bed. She was in her dorm, safe, atleast physically, and that calms him partly. But it wasn't enough to slip back into that peaceful sleep, so he lays awake, lost in his thoughts, as the sun rises further up the sky. She quite hated the sun, he had come to learn. It is 'truly abominable' she had once said, he remembers with a small laugh escaping his lips.

He showers and dresses up, making his way out the room, slinging his bag onto his shoulders. He heads straight to his first class of the day, History of Magic, not even bothering to get breakfast because he knew she wouldn't either, not today.

The class was already half filled as he steps in, and there she was towards the back of the room, her figure huddled over the table, her eyes cast down onto the parchment before her, a quill lazily placed between her fingers.