✓ WE NEVER SLEEP, draco malfoy

F O R T Y - N I N E

"honey, making a lark of misery"

— Taylor Swift, Dorothea

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Rowan decided to do her own research of the symbol Hermione had showed them in the tent. She had drawn it for memory on a slip of paper she kept hidden with her things. It looked like an eye, a vertical line and circle enclosed by a triangle. She had never seen such a symbol before but didn't it seem familiar? 

"Haven't you got a copy of that book Mione mentioned?" asked Rowan as they looked through the shelves in Lucius's study. "Beetle and Bard nonsense?"

Draco, looking through the shelves opposite of them, gave her a shrug. "Mum might've read it to me as a child but I haven't got a clue if we've still got a copy." He glanced at her and she felt his eyes on her as he said, "And it's The Tales of Beedle the Bard, love."

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered, running her fingers over the spines of the books in search. "Can't we go ask your mother?"

"She's busy with father," answered Draco. 

"How is he, anyway?" she asked, genuinely curious. The man had been less rude to her since her incident Christmas, but most people were with near death experiences. It seemed the old man didn't really want her to die, for his son's sake (even if he would never admit to it). 

Draco checked his watch and he sighed to himself. "I've got to help Wormtail."

Rowan scowled. "The rat's here?"

Draco nodded, coming up beside her to kiss her cheek. "Doing business, checking in with Death Eaters, being the dark lord's bitch."

"Will you ask your mother about the book once you're finished?"

He nodded as he headed to the door. "What will you do in the mean time?" He fixed the sleeves of his suit and she let her eyes run over him with a small smile. 

"Continue to search here," she said, waving a hand around. "There's at least a couple hundred books here, your father has quite the collection."

"I'll be back to help soon."

She nodded and gave him a little wave as he left.  Turning back to the shelves, she worked her way from top to bottom carefully from the ladder kept in the room. It was strange for her to picture Lucius sitting down and reading a book, his own fingers running over the spines in search of the person one. He was not the type to sit and enjoy a novel, she didn't even believe he had the patience to do so.

Leaning down, she inspected the old Hogwarts textbooks Lucius must've kept from his years in school. There were multiple copies of the same, no doubt from Narcissa and Draco. Rowan's own library looked similar, filled with old textbooks they couldn't return or pass down. There was no one to take Rowan's copies, she was the last of her family's line and she wasn't even truly a proper Greer. Not like Florence.

Florence had given Rowan her books, her mother and father's given to Florence, like some awful circle closing in on itself. She often wondered how Marlena could even stand to look at Rowan, she was the image of someone else, the daughter of an adulterer. 

It made sense why Florence was so furious with her, she knew more, she experienced more of the lies. Rowan was at the center of it and Florence was her chaser and greatest love.