𝕋𝕙𝕖 ℙ𝕦𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕪 𝕋𝕣𝕚𝕒𝕝𝕤 | 𝔻.𝕄.

༻﴾ 5 | The Colours Of Nightshade ﴿༺

Draco Malfoy arrived to Genevieve's wonky cottage precisely at eight in the evening.

Aggressive sunshine had dictated the waking hours that special Friday morning - the morning of their first shared trial - only to be replaced by a spooky mist come nightfall. 

It was late now, and the bullfrogs had congregated for their nightly Gregorian symphony in the nearby riparian zone. 

Carnivorous irklings had followed the slender wizard at the stern of his heels down the loose gravel path, and many glittering pairs of eyes were poking out from between trunks of mature trees, debating through clicking noises whether launching an attack might actually be a success.

It would not. 

Draco Malfoy was not the sort of opponent that a band of deranged irklings would ever stand a chance against. It would be a bloodbath, and thankfully none of them dared a challenge when he was already stood fully on end.

The accumulating condensation of the eventide had fogged up the yellowed corners of Lady Selwyn's reinforced window panes. Just a few meters away it danced overtop her private pond, and was producing a rather deep chill in Draco's birdy bones.

He was dressed once more in a very flattering designer suit devoid of any color. His straight hair was swept in a shiny swish to one side, a white bowtie under his sharp jawline sat crisp and even, and he was holding a bouquet of the blackest roses imaginable tied together in a satin lace bow.

This sort of mindful doting was well outside of Draco's natural character, and it was not the dew which had left his forehead damp on the journey over...it was nerves.

He proceeded to hover there on the creaky porch, suffering from a bout of inexplicable paralysis, swallowing on repeat. Up and down bobbed his pronounced Adam's apple, like a buoy in a tumultuous lake.

Unfortunately, by the time his knock rapt at her door, the technically noble Lady Selwyn of Wales had already clocked fully out to lunch. 

In a rare show of human weakness her cool, witty reserve had been utterly dashed. 

The anxiousness between them was abstractly shared; she'd found herself completely overwhelmed by tingly anticipation that had pestered her nervous system for hours on end while awaiting his visitation that night.

Consumed so many of the healing drams, the petite witch had, that her attention span was now narrow as a needle. 

Evidence of her having worked on each of her creative hobbies in a blundering panic was scattered all over the place, producing tripping hazards and sheer madness throughout the stuffy lodge.

As the front door swung ahead, a look of pure stupefaction on Draco's face certainly spoke to the state of circumstances within, lit barely by oiled lamps and the grand fireplace roaring on, "Merlin's beard Selwyn, did the hobgoblins already get inside?"

The only hobgoblin inside of the cottage was Genevieve.

At that point she was sat in her dry bathtub whittling away at a stalwart branch torn down from a hardwood tree earlier, and there must have been hundreds of sinewy shards piled up around her hips in the porcelain nest.

She pipped nonchalantly, "Nope."

"And what exactly are you doing in there?" he shut the door behind himself and barked towards the open lavatory, after realizing she was inside, and just out of sight...

Hesitation in his tone of voice indicated that he very much preferred avoiding an awkward encounter on the toilet, yet she did not bother to confirm her level of decency.