Knots In Our Heartstrings [Dramione]

The Nest

A humming woke him. A wavering tune, though the pitch was sound.

A calming lullaby, sung choked on wavering breaths.

Draco was warm all over, a tender prickling grazing over his skin like gentle laps of a flame.

He wanted to stay this way. Warm. Listening to the lullaby.

But the tune was faltering as the warmth grew stronger.

As we opened his eyes, the world was wildly crisp around him.

The sun shone down on his face through the windows in his mother's tea room, and speckles of dust danced slowly in the air before him. With every slow blink, he caught the faintest glimpse of his own pale eyelashes.

"Miss," a voice called out into the morning sun. "He is waking."

The humming stopped. The broken song was no longer straining to make it through to the next bar.

He turned, as if rolling through the clouds, the bed beneath him cushioning him more delicately than he'd ever been cradled in his life.

A parade of bright wide eyes stared back at him, peering over the edge of the bed.

The house elves had gathered. Lined themselves up neatly to watch over him. Standing shoulder to shoulder, side by side, each dressed in their own delicate intricacies. Fiola, the oldest and quietest of them all, clasped tightly at a little sunhat, pressing it to her delicate chest as she watched him from the foot of the bed. Bisley wore a patchwork apron, Bleddri a button-down yellow plaid shirt, Nalke clutched a pair of white gloves, Vimmi a grey knitted cardigan, Teeks and Tibley wore muddied dungarees, and Simbly, in all her layers of doilies and tulles wrapped an intricately woven spread of white fabric around her shoulders. She stood closest to his head, in line with Draco's own shoulders. Her eyes were wide and searching his own. An empty chair had been pulled up beside her spot in line.

"Darling," his mother called.

The clouds upon which he rested dipped and dived as she flung herself beside him on the bed, lifting and wrapping him tight in her arms. Her grasp was gentle for a mere moment before the tight wringing of her arms around him threatened to break his very bones and cave his lungs in.

"Mother," Draco mustered.

She released her crushing grip, hands still firmly planted and grasping at his shoulders.

Her eyes were wild, hair lapping around her face and shoulders, barely masking the trembling of her skin.

"I thought I'd lost you."

The words were barely a whisper. A shallow breath to the air.

"I thought I'd lost you," Narcissa seethed.

"Mother, I'm alright–" he cried.

"You weren't. "

Narcissa sobbed, still holding her son at arm's length.

"You weren't alright, Draco. You weren't."

Draco swallowed. Hard.

He hadn't seen his mother so distraught in years. Hadn't seen her this angry at him since he was a child.

In fact, he'd rarely seen her this angry at him at all. Perhaps she'd never been so angry with him before in her life.

When he was seven, he was cruel. Draco would taunt and tease the peacocks in the gardens just to see the way they'd fan and flare their feathers, and screech their wails of warning.

He'd read a story of a dragon tamer, a wild man that ruled over his great beast so much so that he could command him to carry out his will. Bow , he'd command, and the dragon would bow. Feast, he'd command, and the dragon would feast. Burn, he'd command, and the dragon would roar with all its flames, burning whatever the dragon tamer wished to burn. But the dragon tamer asked too much of his beast. One day, the dragon tamer asked for that which above all else, the dragon would not permit him. An egg.