𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐃𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐓| 𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐨 𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐟𝐨𝐲✔️

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘𝐎𝐍𝐄|𝐀 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔

MARA WILLIAMS

I'd survived the train ride. Barely. When it had eventually slowed to a halt with a screech Draco had practically leapt out of the compartment, obviously in such a desperate bid to get away from me, and it took almost ten minutes to find him on the busy platform. If I hadn't known any better I would've said he was deliberately avoiding me.

After a tense car ride where I'd slept and the only exchanges had been between Draco and the otherwise mute driver, we finally stood before two gigantic black double doors, a brass knocker carved into the shape of a snakes head glared back at me at almost eye level, with piercing eyes that were formed from green stones, glinting in the sun like tiny emerald stars. I couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of being out of place as I glared back at the brass creature, like I wasn't allowed her, like I was somewhere I wasn't supposed to be.
"...You never told me you were rich." I grumbled, wiping the last traces of sleep from my eyes with a stretch as Malfoy pulled a thick bronze key from his pocket and slid it easily into the lock with a click.

"-You never asked."

It took all my strength not to slack my jaw at the sight before me, tearing my eyes from the boundless grounds only to see what lay beyond the doors.
They swung open like great gates to reveal expansive marble floors, pale stone pillars, and a great winding stair case at the centre of it all that was wide enough for at least five people, leading to the floors above.

"Where are your parents?" I asked to hide my awe, I never even realised that people really lived like this outside of fairytales...

"They're not home." He replied bluntly, not quite seeming to grasp the pure grandeur of his home, instead saying something to the driver who proceeded to begin hauling our bags up the stairs to their respective rooms, once he'd done Draco handed him a few silver coins to which the decrepit man thanked him profusely before vanishing from view.

Seeing our abundance of luggage drew my thoughts back to poor Percy... I'm sure he was fine, Hermione and I had gone about buying all the Chocolate Frogs and mealworms we could find, taking the entirety of Honeydukes stock and bleeding my pockets dry in the process, scattering our succulents about the Gryffindor common room and randomly throughout the castle so that he wouldn't get hungry even if he was still in hiding. Who was I kidding? Percy was probably having the time of his life destroying whatever prized possessions anyone had dared to leave behind right at this very moment...

"Come." Draco ordered, and I didn't argue as he led me up the wide staircase, I couldn't help but run my fingers along the frozen marble banisters as we climbed, soft as milk and smooth as honey.

"That's great and all," I drawled, "But what are they going to think when they come home to find some strange girl in their house?"

I was so busy drinking in the aged portraits that hung off almost every wall that I didn't notice him stop, catching myself just a moment before I would've walked straight into the back of him. Draco turned, a sneering glee casting a silver sheen over his striking eyes. He really was devastatingly gorgeous, and with a wicked tongue too, as if he were one of the devils own creations, put on earth solely to drive us to sin. "Do you seriously think I'd bring a girl like you home if my parents were here?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" The hiss came a little louder than I'd meant it to, and several of the portraits stirred or shot me disapproving looks, one of an elder man muttering something about the youths these days.

He leaned a little closer, lowering his tone so that only I could hear, "-If they knew I had a halfbreed in the house-."

I snapped, demanding hotly, "How did you know that?"

He'd said it to me once before, when we'd first met and even then I'd had no clue how he'd known such an intimate detail of my being. I never told anyone.
-It wasn't because I was ashamed, I could never be ashamed of my mother, even if she was a squib.
Truth was I far more distasteful of my father's pure blood lineage and all the sickeningly gluttonous pride that came with it. Mudblood, halfbreed, I'd heard it all. They weren't wrong, I was both. The scarlet that ran through my veins had some of the finest breeding in the last, a pureblood tree that stretched back to the originals, and yet such fine stock had been allowed to be gained by the blood of a squib... I was anything they wanted to call me, I'd never once denied it, why should I?

"Let's just say I did my research." I expected him to smirk or at least something to that affect. What I did not expect was the ferocity lurking just behind the facade of austerity, like a predator ready to strike at the slightest sign of weakness. "I know everything about you Mara Williams."

This was his way of testing me, I figured out quickly. Draco loved to see how far he could push before I'd snap, it was one of his many fun little games.
-And maybe that's all I was to him, a fun little game, but this game wasn't over until one of us bled and the other stood victorious over a kingdom built from lies and grief and broken promises.

"Somehow I doubt that."

"Guess we'll have to wait and see." He shrugged, pushing open a door made from fine, dark wood. "This is where you'll be staying for the next two weeks..."

A room fit for a queen, I practically threw myself face first on the ginormous bed, exhausted from the day of travelling. Why didn't Parvati and Hermione just stay here with me, it didn't exactly look as if the Malfoy's were short on space, or rooms for that matter. And even so all three of us would've easily fit in this one bed with room to spare, but then people really would talk...

"-Oh, and Mara..." I looked up at the sound of his dulcet tone, as Draco stuck his head around the door with a wry smirk and one final message, "...Try not to wander."

The fact that he told me explicitly not to meant that a few hours later, when the moon had reached its peak and the soft twinkle of stars illuminated my bedroom, I found myself with my door on the handle, ready to wander.

In reality, if he just hadn't have said anything I would've just gone to bed as usual, but the militant opposer within me crept out in the dead of the night, hellbent on finding out whatever it was Draco Malfoy was hiding...

I treaded lightly as not to make a sound, and even the floorboards didn't dare creak beneath my footfalls for fear of the boy with the ghostly grey eyes.

Unsure where exactly I was headed, I wondered down the hall aimlessly, gold framed portraits of elders and fine gentry folk snored quietly whilst a lone swan swam across a stunning painting of a lake cast in bronze before the setting sun. I stood there, watching the bird carve its path and admiring the peach ripples it left in its wake when I heard a small squeak. A familiar squeak...

Maybe it was nothing, or maybe it was something. Either way I followed the sound a few doors down to one that differed from the others.
-It was the only one with a lock...

There it was again, quieter this time, but definitely there and coming from behind the locked door. I kneeled down and pressed an eye to the keyhole, straining to see whatever was hiding inside.

There was no movement, only a strange silhouette illuminated against what little moonlight glinted through the curtains and it took me a moment to work out what it was. -A cage, draped in a dark blanket, or at least that's what it looked like to me.
-He had an animal in there?... Was that the source of the sound?

I felt my heart drop into the pit of my stomach as I heard footsteps down the hall, fast approaching. I practically ran back to my room as silently as I could, shutting the door with a wince as the latch clicked closed before throwing myself onto my bed snd staring up at the sterile white ceiling. I couldn't help but wonder, what was I even doing here? Or the bigger, more pressing question, What had I gotten myself into?

***
QOTD-What do you think Malfoy's hiding?
I'm sorry this chapter is so entirely boring, I promise the next one will be better!
-TFOA