Guiding Light || OC x Draco Malfoy

Chapter 5:

Several weeks had passed since Draco and I had our little stand-off. Things were awkward for a few days, the tension so think I could've sliced it with a knife if I so desired. And I had really been desiring that recently. Murder and blood was like a drug to me; I was addicted. I've been ripped of it cold-turkey, and my body and mind were not happy about it. The few winks of sleep that I could manage were always plagued with visions of different victims of mine.

The blood of my sister, the vision I was greeted with on the first night, went on to mingle with those of my other victims. My parents, my cousin, and everyone else in America, then the 7 in the mass slaughter in England when I had first fled to Europe. My brain had the annoyingly static feeling of emptiness as my progression continued to France.

Here, there was something straight up missing in my mind. As if feeling the gum beneath a tooth soon after it's fallen loose, the memory and feel of the old resident was still engraved, yet was found to be empty once grazed over; new tissues unaware of touch and oddly numb when engaged.

A lot of my memory felt like that, once I went back over it

I'd been having those type of... urges, for lack of a better word, for days now. Wanting above all else to experience the same rushes that I get form murder. I needed my heart to pound, my adrenaline to spike, and my hands and tongue to be coated in another's blood. Out of pure need to let it out, I had expressed these thoughts to Draco, and after discussion over it, and assurances that I wouldn't hurt him or myself, Draco was called away for the day, and I was left alone for the next 24 hours.

That was yesterday morning.

He didn't see me today. In fact, no one has come in to see me at all. My health is supposed to get replenished in intervals; I'm left strapped to a bed for 22 hours, abandoned, dehydrated, starved, then flooded with food, company, and water. It has repeated day in and day out for weeks. Today, the cycle broke, and my already malnourished body was screaming in protest right now.

As per my request last week, a digital clock was put in my room, a menial thing for someone else, but pivotal for me. With this, I could keep myself sane. See, so long as I have a sense of time and order, I had something to keep me rooted to reality. Back in Nurmengard, the person to have my cell before I was put in it had carved a moon chart into the stone walls. I memorized them and tracked the phases every night, now being able to keep myself tethered to reality no matter where I was put

Time is a powerful force.

It was just over a day and a half since I had last seen another person. My IV had emptied about 14 hours ago and the bowl of chicken soup that Draco fed me the last time we were together was long gone in my stomach. A little while later, forty-two hours since I had last been taken care of, my door finally opened. Relief washed over me, and sighing with all the might left in me, I sat up more in my bed.

"Draco, thank god. I'm absolutely parch—"

But it wasn't Draco. I actually had no clue who it was. A team of nurse-like guards swarmed my room and dove to me. Understandably frightened at their aggressive movements, I tried to pull against my restraints, but tears began to well up in my eyes at the pain of the raw skin and atrophied muscles straining themselves. One of the men grabbed my left arm, holding it still in his strong grasp as he quickly undid the fasteners of the cloth bands. Unable to muster enough strength to fight all of them off, I had no choice but to sit there as they freed me, limb by limb.

Once, every week, the nurse that came in with Draco would undo my bonds. All of my tubes would be disconnected to be cleaned, and I had that 10 minutes to walk around. I wasn't allowed to leave my room, and I was under the supervision of two others, but it was the closest thing I had to independence here. I was forced to lay virtually still for 168 hours, and then expected to move out of the blue; yeah, I don't think so.

My stiff and actively weakening muscles weren't able to support my weight anymore, so Draco had to all but carry me as my legs went through the motions. He was gentle and slow with our 'therapy'. This was way different. These nurses were rough, and the way they yanked on my locked-up muscles made me whimper in pain.

Once they got my last leg free, two of them grabbed me under the arm and lifted me to my feet. After seeing how utterly unusable my legs were, a wheelchair was brought in by one of the backup nurses. I was somewhat unceremoniously placed into the seat and the progression was much greater afterwards. With 2 nurses in front of me, 2 on either side pushing me, and, if I had counted properly when they first came in, at least 2 behind me as well.

I was taken down a dizzying series of hallways, pushed through doors that lead to lord knows where. After around turn 6, I couldn't take any more in and just gave up on mapping my way all together.

Feeling my heart rate spike with overwhelming panic, and my breathing pick up painfully, I leaned forward and clutched my head in my shaking hands. The walls began to fade in and out the longer I looked at them, but we never stopped moving. The edges of my vision went dark, and I only saw a hazy view of everything as we turned yet another corner, but finally stopped at the closest door.

The lead nurses held the metal door open and turned the blinding lights on as the others brought me in. Pressing my eyes closed against the fluorescent lights, I felt arms sneak beneath me, and I was lifted up out of the wheelchair, only to be placed back down, the feeling of cold leather soaking through my clothes.

The hands left me, and I slowly brought my hand up to my face, gently rubbing at my eyes with all the strength I could muster. One eye slowly opened, and I scrunched my face up at the harshness of my surroundings. That's when I felt a hand placed just above my knee.

Jumping at the contact, I was only able to see the bottom of whoever had approached me. An immaculately-pressed pant leg and the tail of a tailored blazer were in my periphery. My brain was still in panic mode, and I was hyper-aware of everything; the hand on my knees as they were drawn up in a fetal-like position, the blood rushing to my head, the humming of the lights above me, and the overwhelming scent of lemongrass with the faintest hints of spearmint. That scent filled my nose, and set my brain alight. I knew that scent, as specific as it was, very well. I knew who smelled like that.

"Dra, Draco?" The grip on my leg tightened momentarily

"Shhh, Adeline. Lay back, please. They're going to be back in a few minutes, and I need you to make this easy."

"What do you mean? What's happening?" The vision in both of my eyes was going in and out of focus as I slowly brought them up to meet his. I only held eye contact for a few seconds before my head fell to the side, leaning against the headrest of the medical chair that I had been put into.

Gentle hands brushed over my cheek as they moved the hairs out of my face. They gathered up the length of my hair and pulled them behind my shoulder. The gesture may have seemed intimate to someone else, but since Draco was the only person that really took care of me, the fact that we've only known each other for about 4 weeks didn't matter. He was the only person that saw me, the only one that truly cared for me. The only one except for—

"They're here." He took his hand off of my hair and used it to gently push my shoulder back to the chair. "Listen, I know that you are feeling ill, and I know that they haven't taken care of you at all—trust me when I say I'm as furious as you, but you need to bear through this. I'll be in the observation room just through there, so you'll be on your own with the...guest. "

Not picking my head up from the warming leather, I nodded my head in assent. He brought his eyes to mine, and held the gaze for a little while, giving me an almost pained yet somehow sympathetic smile as his hand still rested on my leg. Sighing rather heavily, he pulled away, brushing his thumb over my cheek in a way I found oddly comforting.

As he moved to leave, the door opened before he got there. I couldn't see who it was, but the way Draco's body tensed at the mere sight of them told me it wasn't good. The voice that came from them was hauntingly familiar, though I wasn't able to place it in my jumbled brain.

" Good evening, Malfoy. I expect she's ready, yes?" His emotions, which I'd grown rather keen at sensing as the weeks wore on, seethed with anger and resentment, all hidden beneath a stoned face of professionalism.

"Yes, she is. Please take a seat, Minister Granger."