Sera and Rose want to (stregare) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-06-05 03:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | draco malfoy, rose red |
Who: Rose and Draco
What: Visiting, hair brushing and flouncing
Where: Rose's cottage
When: Recently
Warnings/Rating: Nope!
The door, as promise, was propped open.
Inside, the small cottage was cast in a warm-gold light. The hearth crackled, and something bubbled in a black pot over the fire. Fresh herbs had been hung to dry that morning, and they dotted the wall behind the workbench in patches of purple and green and black. The air smelled like firewood, like green and lavender and the clean rushes that lined the cottage's floor. It was a small place, just the one room and a wooden stair that led up to the open loft and down mattress that was visible from below, a colorful quilt folded neatly upon the white. In front of the hearth, there were chairs and a hand-stitched rug that had seen enough years to fade in places.
There was no sign of Rose in the warm, safe haven.
Outside, the scenery was very different. The clearing was beautiful in the gloaming. Bright green grass, a garden alongside the cottage walls, and a well and outhouse just beyond. The calm lasted for 50 feet beyond, a perfect and magic-crafted circle. Beyond that, the wood was dark and dead, twisted and gnarled. The sounds that came from the darkness were inhuman, growls and hisses and howls.
And from that darkness came Rose, a basket filled with dead frogs over her arm. She was dressed in Mundane clothing - a long, patchwork skirt and a rose camisole - and her long copper hair was messy loose tangles from the brambles and the branches. Her cheeks were bright red from exertion, and despite the darkness of the wood behind her, she was smiling.
Draco had held onto the key he had been given, or rather commanded Andrew to hold it. He knew he would use it again, and he had been tempted more than once. He looked into the wood after he stepped through the door, wand in one hand, broom in the other. His blond hair blew softly in the breeze. “Lumos,” he said, lighting the tip of the wand. It didn’t shine very far, but it was enough to get through the wood. He mounted the broom cautiously, following the general direction Rose had given him, trying to ignore the confusion that brought him here.
He sailed through the wood, around the trees, over and under branches until he broke into the clearing. Flying had always tended to clear his head, something he had done since he was a young lad. It still had a relaxing effect on him in spite of the darkness. He set down on the outside of the circle, seeing the cottage, door open as promised. The blonde smiled as he stepped closer.
Looking in the door, he took note of the inviting cottage, so much smaller than the cold, stone manor he had grown up in. It reminded him a bit of Hagrid’s hut. He had only seen it from the outside, but the fire always crackled and it seemed very warm. He pushed the door in further. “Rose?” he asked, before he heard the crackling of footsteps behind him.
He turned quickly, wand drawn and there she was. The smile returned quickly enough, and the lightest color touched his cheeks. “There you are?” The basket caught his eyes before he could really put too much thought into why he was there. “What are you doing with those?”
"It's for spellwork," she said, giving him a warm smile and a kiss to the cheek as she passed him and entered the cottage behind. "Some women in the north court think they've been cursed with infertility," she said, setting the basket on the counter and looking him over. Her expression turned fond, and her voice softened; she hadn't seem him in ages, and it had been long enough for her anger over things with Harry to boil, then simmer, then cool. "You look handsome and healthy and happy," she told him, a throwaway compliment that came with a hand smoothing her own tangled locks. "I look terrible. It was from chasing the frogs," she admitted, and she nodded toward a seat in front of the hearth. "Sit? Talk to me while I repair the mess I've made of myself," she said easily, bare feet and wildness in the toes that dug into the clean rushes.
She turned her back to him, and she pumped water from the old, handworked pumped beside the work table, filling a basin and then ducking her head beneath the cold, bracing liquid. Her teeth chattered, and she laughed as she jumped back, water flicking everywhere from the ends of her long hair and the vines that lined the inside walls of the cottage shaking from the cold. "Do you know any untangling spells, or am I going to have to talk you into wielding my brush for me?" she asked hopefully, reaching for a bolt of linen that was draped over the work table, then using it to dry her hair. Her magic, even the new things she was learning, didn't help with knotted hair.
Draco stood in his usual black jeans and jacket, although underneath the jacket, his shirt was white, reflecting a lightness instead of pure dark. He left the broom at the door, taking the seat by the hearth. He laughed lightly. “You look quite lovely actually,” he said in a low drawl. “You could have waited for me. I would have helped you collect them. I didn’t know you had started practicing potions. It was my favorite subject at school. I had my own lab at the manor.”
He looked around the hut. It was small indeed, but warm. He liked it. His eyes came back to her as she washed her hair. “No. I know a few spells for glamours, but none for hair. I’m sure Mum would know one, but my hair has never required a detangler.” He actually laughed a little bit, real and almost innocent in tone. “I’ll take the brush though.” He chewed on his bottom lip a little bit, holding out a hand.
“How did you get here anyway? Now that you aren’t trapped in the castle anymore, was this place always yours?” He was a little nervous. A lot had happened since they had seen each other last, but there was still something there that he couldn’t quite identify.
"I look like I've spent the day chasing frogs," she said easily, with her regular bite and a bright copper smile. Her grin widened when he said he would have helped with the frogs, because she couldn't imagine him out there, chasing dirty green creatures on the ground. He always looked too put together, too elegant clean and blond and like something that had stepped right out of Snow's court. But he didn't bother her like Snow's courtiers had, not any longer. He, like Faust, was still here. Even learning more of her intricacies and pieces of shattered soul, he was still here. She was willing to forgive a great many things for that.
"Potions," she said, tugging a screen from beside the hearth and slipping behind it to finish washing up, the sound of water (and her hisses at the coldness of said water) filtering into the room. "I wouldn't have thought to call it that, but, yes. My mother used to sell her magic to the neighboring villagers. They would brave the wood, and they would repay her with things they hunted," she explained amid the rustle of fabric as she grabbed a cloak that was thrown over the edge of the screen. "I'm good at banishing curses and cursing people with prosperity, if you can believe it, but the rest is still more miss than hit."
The screen returned to its folded spot beside the hearth, and she emerged in a thick red cloak that was secured at her waist, the hood thrown back, her hair still damp. She grabbed the boar's hair brush that had belonged to her mother, and she dropped down to sit as his feet. The brush was summarily handed to him, and she sat back against his knees without concern for propriety or any hesitation. "It belonged to my mother," she said of the cottage, though she'd already kind of said that. "Tell me what you've been up to, while you brush, and I'll tell you about nightmares and evil fairies," she said, sounding not at all worried about either.
“Potions,” he reconfirmed. “There are different types of magic. Potions, charms, hexes and curses, transfigurations. The term ‘magic’ is a very broad one.” He wasn’t sure how they classified it in Rose’s world, but in Wizarding Europe, the categories were the same. “Could your mother only make potions, or could she perform spells as well?” There were many who sold potions in Diagon Alley outside of the shops. One had to be extremely careful when buying from an street wizard. There was always a chance of the potion backfiring and leaving the consumer with spots or even worse.
He could see the silhouette through the screen, although he tried to keep his eyes averted as a show of respect, he just couldn’t quite do that. He exhaled when the screen lowered, accepting the brush. His fingers smoothed through her hair before he tried the brush. It would take some work, but it was a job he didn’t mind very much at all. “You know, my skill at potions might surprise you.” He laughed softly, enjoying just the simple brushing. “I don’t look like I would like using rat entrails, but when it comes to potions, it’s scientific for me, no longer disgusting.” His mother used to scold him for coming into the manor dirty, a rip in pants newly purchased. He had learned to be careful. He wondered if he hadn’t had to measure his actions constantly if he would feel as free.
“I hope you are ready for a really short story,” he teased, accidentally pulling on a tangle. “I haven’t really been doing anything. My father was involved in several business investments, and I have been minding those, but I’ve been bored. There were points during school when I wanted a routine of some sort, and now that I have it - .” His voice trailed off as he shook his head. “So what about these dreams?”
"My mother could make spells," she said, "but there's safe money in being a hearth witch, and during our war, witches were persecuted. It was safer not to do large spellwork. Magic became distrusted across the land, and the witches came here to hide," she explained. "And every witch here has their strengths. Mine has always been nature and curse breaking. I have to work at everything else, but not that." To prove it, she glanced toward the window, where one of the vines that grew along the side of the cottage slithered itself between the window panes and stirred the pot on the hearth for her. She smiled.
By the time she was settled at his feet, his fingers dragging through her hair, she realized how much she had missed this. Touch and companionship and the easy familiarity of visiting with someone. She liked the way his fingers felt, and she made an appreciatively feminine sound to let him know as much. Draco, like very few men in her life, had managed to make it beyond being male, and she trusted him, inasmuch as she trusted anyone. She tipped his head back when he told her he might surprise her with his potion skills. "I never said I doubted your potion skills," she clarified. "I doubted your willingness to get dirty." Her smile was all tease and no insult, and she rested against his knee when the brush began its soothing pass through her hair.
When he accidentally pulled that tangle, it was the vine that had been stirring the pot on the hearth that thwacked his shoulder, and she laughed through the quick hiss. "You should have come to see me if you were bored," she said with comfortable flirting, but the subject of the dreams dragged back old ire, and she stared at the hearth for a moment. "Which one? Pitch was a nightmare. He was here, in the cottage, and he crawled into bed with me and tried to harm me. I got him out, and Faust helped with the protection spell around the cottage. The fairy put us all to sleep for two weeks, and I don't even know why. She got nothing out of it at all." She sighed. "I dreamed of the Beast. We fought."
He hummed an agreement, listening to her speak. He had missed her - moreso than he thought. He knew that now, but there were other things that had gotten in the way, paths that needed to be explored lest they drove him crazy, as surely they would have. A low chuckle came from his throat. “I wouldn’t go playing about in the mud, but potions are different. Gathering ingredients is a necessity, and some must be fresh, and used immediately to be effective. Entrails must be used before they harden in death to be truly absorbed.” It sounded disgusting, but it was also a true fact he had come to accept, as potions really were his passion.
“As for muggles, we are also persecuted, hanged and tortured for having magic they don’t understand, which is why our world is still hidden from them.” He smoothed her hair with his fingers, followed by more brush strokes. Her hair was becoming smoother under his fingers. She was truly the only ginger he had ever liked. “That is why our laws stand, like not being able to do magic in front of muggles. That doesn’t stop us at times.”
“Beast really missed his chance. I know he loved you, which was why I didn’t kill him, and part of why I left. That cry in the rafters was one of a tormented lover.” He had thought that Rose would have went for the beast, had he been human, but there was another opportunity missed. “I would love to give that Pitch a taste of magic, and then there is Faust. I did mention to beast that he wasn’t your brother, but it wasn’t because I wanted to hurt you.” No, that wasn’t it at all. He continued to brush, the reason sticking in his mind more than it should. Jealousy was a bitter pill.
"Playing in the mud can be the best part," she said with an easy smile that promised mischief on that count, if permitted. As a child, she had dragged Snow up trees and into bogs, and she was still that girl, even if hundreds of years had passed in the Mundane world. Time in the Homelands wasn't like it was there, and she still had years and years of youth ahead of her, and it showed in that grin. "You're like Snow. You always look perfect," she said, and it was a compliment, even as she chided. She was always a tangled mess with dirty feet. She'd pretended. She'd tried to be a princess, a merchant's daughter and a Beast's captive, but she was just herself in the end, and much calmer for being so.
She made a pleased sound when he smoothed her hair. Her mother had done that, long ago, and Snow had done it since, but it was different with stronger, male fingers. "We have no laws," she said of the Homelands. "Where Snow lives, in Mundane Fabletown, there are laws like that, but there are none here. We're wild," she said proudly. It was dangerous, of course, because nothing stopped anyone from doing as they pleased. Murder wasn't outlawed, and nor was anything else. It wasn't a safe place for the weak, but she loved it all the same.
"Beast might love me, in his own animal way, but he doesn't like me. And the man he is when he's not a beast - Henry - Henry can't stomach me," she said, regret in that admission. She plucked at the cloak she wore, and she sighed. "He despises me. He gave me a farmhouse to restore at the edge of his kingdom, so that he can protect me from the woods," she said, entertainment in the concept of needing to be protected from her own nature, "but I haven't gone to see it yet." She looked back at him when he mentioned Faust, her copper hair fanning across his lap with the movement. "Faust is my friend. He never wants to change me," she said.
“I wouldn’t look so perfect if I played in the mud,” Draco protested. “It’s messy. Quidditch was messy enough. We would play rain or shine, go out and fly all afternoon, depending on how long the match went on. I loved that.” His smile was both fond and excited, obviously a good memory. He and Harry had a rivalry out on the pitch, but this was healthy. They only thing that had offended him were the accusations that his father had bought his way onto the team. Yes, there was new equipment given, but Draco was good enough. He could fly, and he had proven that over and over again.
“I was never wild,” he admitted, although it was obvious. He grew up in a manor, a pillar of society, at least in terms of family. The downfall had brought out a darker side, although he had tried to maintain that refinement. he had always longed for something more, a freedom of his own. He had never really achieved that.
He continued with her hair, watching it smooth out over her back. It was beautiful, hardly like the girl who had just been digging in the mud. “He does love you. I think he sees the situation as hopeless. Faust, well, I thought he might want to get close to you too, and I didn’t like it at all.” That admission brought color to his face. “I didn’t want him that close to you.” He stopped talking, chewing on his lip as he brushed. He was a bit glad that she couldn’t see his face at the moment. The confusion would be there, surely. He hated the uncertainty in his life, and his choices. It wasn’t that he and Harry weren’t close. They shared an experience that most would never quite understand, but he was also trying to come to grips with who he was as a man, separate from everything else.
Quidditch. She remembered the game he took her to, and the memory made her smile. It seemed so far away, and really nothing had changed. She almost asked him about Harry, but she didn't, in the end. "I'm wild enough for both of us," she said instead, when he told her he'd never been wild. There was a playful smile on her lips. "I should challenge you to a run through the Witching Wood. You'll come out looking frightful on the other side," she said, and it was a good smile, the one on her ample lips. She thought he'd look handsome mussed. Because there was no denying that he was precisely what an adored courtier was in the Homelands. He was born for a court, not for a cottage or woods.
"All we do is argue," she said of Henry and the Beast, even as she shifted a little to lean back between his thighs, taking comfort in that. "He doesn't like me very much. He did once, but everything I do is wrong now." She frowned, because she didn't understand how that worked. She'd never had very long-lasting relationships or friendships; she didn't understand how something liked turned into something disliked. She grew up alone with Snow and her mother, and things were always the same with them. The confusion showed on her face, and she turned from her place on the floor, forearm resting against his thigh, when he said he didn't want Faust close to her. She had been intending to ask why people's opinions changed.
"Why?" she asked, instead, her original line of questioning forgotten.
“My mother would have loved you or hated you. I can’t decide which. You are magical though, so it’s a bonus.” His hand slipped through her hair, leaving the brush out of it. “I wish sometimes that I could have done whatever I wanted, didn’t have to live tethered to the manor, and my family. I would have been different.” His history had shaped him, from his clothes to his attitude, and had also slapped him with realities that went against everything he had been led to believe. It had left him confused as to who he was, and what direction he should even pursue.
“If I could run it on a broom, no worries,” he said, thinking she most likely meant on foot. “I don’t do as well on the ground.” He thought of the time when he was walking through the forbidden forest on detention with Harry and his imbecile friends. He might have had fang, but he had hated it. On a broom, he was strong, and confident. He was fairly sure that she was a little braver when it came to dark places. He hated the dark even more now.
His lips twisted, trying to decide on the best answer for her question. It wasn’t simple in any regard, but he did owe her the truth about certain things. Why couldn’t anything be simple? When she leaned back, his hands went to her shoulders, massaging them gently. “Beast probably doesn’t know what to do, so whatever you do is wrong. Nothing will fix him, so he pushes all of it away. It was the same when Pansy and I broke up. I couldn’t change what I was, go back to what we were and turn all of it out. So I let her go. I had to, even if she loved me.” He sighed, continuing to work his hands along her small frame. “Faust just annoyed me. Beast even accepted him and I knew he wasn’t your brother. It just - you seemed to like him.” He was quite sure his face was red, and he was ever grateful she couldn’t see it.
It was proof of how long she'd known Draco now that she didn't need to ask why being magical mattered. She knew about his family's obsession with purebloods, and she wasn't sure his mother would appreciate the fact that she didn't know anything about her father. Her mother had been a witch, but she never spoke of any men save the kings, and even they were distrusted during Rose's childhood. She made another sound of pleasure when he put down the brush entirely, and she closed her eyes trustingly after giving him a smile over her shoulder. "You wouldn't be you," she said of his wish to have lived a different life. "And I like you as you are," she added decidedly, as if her opinion on the matter was of utmost importance.
As for running the forest on a broom, she shook her head, even as his fingers tangled in the heavy weight of her hair. "Flying above the forest would be cheating," she told him, but there was appreciation in her chastisement. She did trust him and his magic, when it came right down to it, and she couldn't say that of many people. "We need to find a way to get you here if Pitch comes," she decided. It wasn't fair that he was another world away, not when bad things happened and there was no way to get word to him.
His hands on her sore shoulders were heaven, and she sighed quietly as he began to answer her question about Faust and Beast. "Henry thinks everything I do is wrong. He's a man, just like you, but more insufferable." She would have continued on about her annoyance, but his mention of Pansy made her go quiet. "Did you love her?" she asked, though she didn't actually believe in the concept in the way most people did. She hated men; it got in the way at times. "How is Harry?" she asked a second later, realizing Draco hadn't mentioned him the whole time he'd been there. When he mentioned Faust, she huffed and stood, perching on his thigh and looking at his face from her new vantage point. "I want Faust for Snow," she told him very honestly. "He's a wizard. You should like him. He's been helping me with protection spells," she admitted. "I'm no good at spellwork."
“No, perhaps not.” He laughed a little, feeling the silk under his fingers, quite like a memory of times that he had missed and couldn’t quite get back to. “I like you as you are too. There is nothing wrong or bad. I would always choose you over your sister.” He knew there was a bit of contention between the girls, but there was no contest for him.
“I was also talking about flying through the forest, not over it. That is how I get here. I’m more sure of myself on a broom than I am on the ground. I can fly right through the branches. I can show you.” A flight sounded fun, a good way to alleviate the confusion. There was more going on in his head that would cause him hours of reflection later over bubbling cauldrons.
He wasn’t sure if there was anything he could do to make the beast see reason, which seemed so obvious to him. However, when she mentioned Pansy, his hand stopped moving. “I loved her.” He exhaled slowly before continuing. “I didn’t at first. Our parents practically had us betrothed. She drove me crazy, but she was loyal, and in fourth or fifth year, I finally knew. After I was marked though, I thought they would hurt her, so I let her go. They already threatened my family, and she was too important to lose.” He looked at his hand, seeing nothing, not sure if he would have made the same choices if he had to do it again. It had hurt him to be alone, to know that she was watching, and to just walk away.
He licked over his lips, quiet for a minute. “Harry is fine.” He wasn’t sure how to explain what happened with he and Harry. The words didn’t come easily to them either. “Harry and I had this rivalry all through school, a deep hatred that was based a lot on jealousy and misunderstanding. There were so many things left unresolved until we saw each other. I hope you understand that I didn’t expect this, because the truth is that I’m pretty mad about you too. That’s mad, as in the good kind of madness.”
His statement that he would always choose her over Snow made her smile in a young, pleased way. When she was small, there was no competition with Snow, but he was right that there certainly was a lot of competition now. His words made her feel warm and appreciated, and she gave him a smile that said as much, all coquette and reddened cheeks. As for flying, she was starting to think that was a good idea. The cottage suddenly felt warm. Not in a bad way, but in a way that indicated she might make a thousand-and-one mistakes just to feel better about herself. She hadn't done anything like that in a while, but she'd always had such a soft spot where he was concerned. Even if she didn't say it aloud, it had taken her some time to get over his choice of Harry. The anger had lingered longer than she wanted to admit, too.
"I'm sorry," she said when he explained about Pansy. The war here had never touched her in that way, and she rubbed his fingers and wondered where the girl he had loved was. She wanted to ask what Pansy was like, but she didn't. She would save that question for a time when his face didn't look like it did now, like shadows and things better forgotten. But she would ask. Rose wasn't very good at not pushing. In the end, she always pushed.
She almost didn't notice when he started talking about Harry. Harry was a sore subject, and she wondered just then why she'd even asked. But she had, and so she listened. Perched on his thigh, she listened. She wasn't sure she heard anything about love in his explanation. Love would matter to Draco; he believed in it. That was obvious in the way he spoke of the Beast's affections. He wasn't like her; he still trusted in the sentiment. "You didn't expect to fall in love with Harry?" she asked, but she didn't actually give him a chance to respond. She was trying to figure out what he meant about madness, what he was trying to say.
She looked at him, all copper and reds to his pale whites, and she leaned forward and kissed him once on the lips. It was a quick kiss, but intimate for how chaste it was, and she pulled back a second later. Before he had a chance to say anything, to respond, to do anything at all, she stood. She was a twirl of robes and reds, there one second and gone the next. Through the door, and sometimes she could still be very much a child. This was one of those times.