25 March 1894 — Somewhere in Northumberland
Raphael Malfoy

Madness. This was madness, what she was about to do.

It’s not as if it’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done, a voice at the back of her mind told her. Rowan conveniently ignored it. The office was completely empty and she was just about to finish up her work for the night. It was a time of day that she knew most people would have gone home (the important ones anyways) and that meant that she could send the owl that she was about to be on her way, and slip away to use the floos to save herself having to apparate there. It also meant she could save herself having to answer any questions her siblings might have of where she was going this late at night. They would chalk up any absence merely to her working at the Ministry and not going to Raphael Malfoy’s house unchaperoned (though, the last time she used a chaperone it had been…well, nevermind).

Earlier in the day she had sent Malfoy a note of when he should expect her; looking at the clock now, Rowan realized she was running a quarter of an hour late. Cursing the fact that she’d lost focus, Rowan burst into movement, standing up from her desk and hastily gathering her report to file it away in a drawer. She capped her ink, put her quill back in it’s holder, and deposited the day’s reports on her superior’s desk before she grabbed her satchel from the back of her chair, her cloak from the coat rack at the entrance, and hurried out the door.

Mercifully, she saw no one on her way out save for a few of the late night stragglers (too engrossed in their own work to really notice) and the cleaning crew, whom she didn’t have to worry about overhearing where she was going. Rowan hurried up to the floo and walked through the emerald green flames. A few dizzying moments later and she had appeared where she needed to be, then apparated the rest of the way until she couldn’t.

She walked until she hit the wards, then began the process of undoing the few she needed to in order to gain access. Slowly the shack materialized in front of her. Abandoned and dilapidated it might have been when they first started using it, but now it was in a better state. The outside had been redone with a new coat of paint, and the roof had been repaired so it wouldn’t leak. The feeling of anticipation sat heavy in her stomach as Rowan approached.

What she hadn’t told Malfoy was that in the year he was gone, she’d been a constant visitor to this place. At first it was because she’d hoped he might appear one day. She’d apparate there every week, take down and redo the wards and hope that she would look up to see his imperious, infuriating impatient expression greet her at the door as if she’d been searching the wrong abandoned shack all this time. After Rowan convinced herself that he wouldn’t appear, she still kept coming back. And then gradually, she’d come back with supplies to redo the outside of the shack. And then within an afternoon, it had a new coat of paint.

The next week, it had a new roof. And then the next, a clean interior. Then a repaired fireplace, and even two plush high-backed chairs with a matching side table. Rowan had managed to salvage most of the furnishings from a particularly nasty case where the home-owner (a well-to-do socialite from Greece) had decided to merely leave the country and move back home, leaving the rest of her possessions to be auctioned off. Once the decision had been made, Rowan had discovered the antique set in the attic which hadn’t even been affected by the magical accident that had called her team in the first place. Knowing it wouldn’t be missed, Rowan quickly shrunk what she needed, pocketed what she could, and started on inventory for the estate. As she had taken the things she needed, she could hear Malfoy’s voice in her head, admonishing her for the crime of theft, but also likely criticizing the choices. Hell, she knew he would likely have furnished the inside himself if he could. He probably would now that he’d seen it for himself.

It had all been the bare minimum that she could do, but she found herself going there more and more often as the time had passed. Found herself missing him. So it was with her heart in her throat, its beat thundering in her ears as she approached the door, turned the handle and stepped across the threshold.

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He would not spiral.

He’d been prone to mental weakness at one point. Forced to remain behind the evergreen walls and blacked-out curtains for nearly an entire year with minimal interaction with the outside world, Raphael had gone days where he hardly remembered the calendar date. He’d stared at clocks for hours on end while bedridden after experimental treatments with contracted curse-breakers, played the same short tune on the piano for hours at time until his footman had spooked him from his stupor.

This was another type of weakness altogether.

It had been too long since he’d gazed upon the violent glint in Yaxley’s ebony eyes. Even longer since he’d seen her struggle to fight a smile. The promise that he would see her here, tonight, was one of the only things carrying him through this otherwhile banal day. She’d always been prompt—too prompt, if you’d have asked him a year and a half ago—but here he stood, standing in the middle of a room that was so thoroughly Yaxley, without any idea if the woman herself would make an appearance.

And somehow, despite the anger he’d felt at her initial icy reception, and all the frustration her unwillingness to easily forgive him had caused, he couldn’t find it in his heart to blame her. He knew this was his doing. He’d been the one to leave—however unwilling—without notifying her. It was him who had taken her to his bed, him who had alluded to promises he hadn’t kept. If she hated him, he couldn’t blame her, and that perhaps made him the angriest of all.

He forced himself to move from his spot in the middle of the room, his eyes seeking out the nearest and most accessible object. The shack had been filled with all sorts of trinkets and mismatched furnishings, but somehow it felt more spacious than before. His good sense rebelled at the sight of silver figurines placed atop gold-painted dishes, only to be replaced by a tightness in his chest upon picking it up. She’d held it once, just like this, and she’d decided to put it here. He couldn’t smell her or sense her magic, but he knew she’d been the one to do this.

“Nobody else has such terrible taste,” he muttered, placing the little figurine (which looked like it was supposed to be a dormouse, except the painted design was so appalling that it made it hard to make out the details) back on the shelf. He went to pick up the next figurine (another equally appalling animal-shaped object), but just as his fingertip grazed atop one of the bumpy ridges, he heard the door creak.

His whole body jolted at the noise, his heart nearly beating out of his chest. His hand knocked into one of the figurines as it turned, causing it to land with a jarring thump on the shelf.

He didn’t care, though. He didn’t even turn back to look at it. She was here.

“Rowan,” he said hazily, her given name slipping off his tongue for the first time in too long. She looked like she was just out of work. Hair pinned up nearly, robes swallowing her whole. She was perfect. He cleared his throat and forced himself to stand straighter—something that didn’t come as naturally to him nowadays. “I thought you weren’t coming.”

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set by lady <3

The sound of her name - her given name - had Rowan pausing, hand on the doorknob as she stared at him in the middle of the room. He was here. In the middle of the room having knocked over one of the figurines, but that hardly seemed to be of a concern to him given that his full attention was on her. Rowan felt her cheeks heat quickly; far too quickly for her liking, she thought, as she closed the door behind her.

She thought that she might have wanted to greet him frostily, like the last time they’d seen each other in public. But perhaps that was a blessing in disguise, because now the shock of seeing him back in England had worn off and she no longer felt like pulverizing him. Well, maybe she felt like throwing something at his head like a medium sized book, but she no longer was dreaming up of all the curses she might have been able to secretly cast on him in retribution.

Her eye caught the adjustment in his posture and it hit her just how much he had changed since she’d last been able to look at him. There was still that proud air about him - as if anything could change that - and she could tell he looked leaner, less bulky than he had before. He gave the impression of someone having just come home to convalesce and Rowan couldn’t help but feel a pang of worry for him. She caught herself hoping that his staff was treating him well, knowing that if it were her needing recovery, her mother wouldn’t stop until she’d been fed all sorts of traditional remedies. But of course, that wasn’t her place to worry about him. It never had been, had it?

With this in mind, Rowan forced herself into motion. She hung her cloak on the stand near the door before facing him fully. The fact that he had been gone for so long and their last time together was so intimate…she could feel herself wanting to be closer to him. It was maddening. “I just got caught up with some paperwork.” she heard herself say; a far cry from the slightly emotionless response that she’d had queued up in her mind. “I’m sorry if I made you worry.”

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He's had plenty of time to consider what he'd say to her. Since she'd agreed to meet him, he'd spent hour after painful hour imagingint up scenarios of how it would play out. Ones where she refused to look him in the eye, ones where she sliced him with cold condemnation, ones where she yelled and raged and demanded he leave her be. In every scenario he’d tried to reason with her; in some, he even begged. But never had he envisioned a scenario where she'd be so… warm.

Even when she wasn't trying, Yaxley had a warmth to her. It was the dimple between her brows, the rosiness of her cheeks. It was the smoothness of her voice, the way it dropped by an octave when she spoke to him. Even when she probably hated him, and even when he was certain she was still angry at him, Yaxley was warm in every way he felt cold.

If only he knew what to do with that knowledge.

His gaze flickered back and forth between her and the coat rack with uncertainty. Every time he met her eyes his heart dipped, leaving his breath uneven and his mind reeling. He’d thought of so many things to say—so many ways to win her back to his side—but his mind went blank the minute she spoke.

“I wasn't worried,” he said, despite having spent the last quarter of an hour doing just that. But after leaving her to worry for a year with no word from him, he felt he had no right to worry. He had no right to anything from her. “I— I would have understood if you didn't come,” he said quietly. But I hoped you would. I needed you to, he silently added, willing her to hear the words in the silence.

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set by lady <3

Rowan nodded because she believed him. And she believed him because that was easier than the alternative: being disappointed at his having not worried at all. The air felt heavy between them, filled with things left unsaid. She studied him for a moment, trying to discern what he had been doing with his time before she arrived. Clearly he was inspecting the room. Had knocked over one of the figurines in the process of doing it. Her eyes flitted to the figurine in question. A million things flew through her mind, chief among them was wanting to ask how he really felt about the decor in the room. Before he had left, Rowan might have even tried to act as if it was her idea of fashionable decor, just to see if she could make a vein jump in his forehead.

But now, she hardly knew where to start. It was Malfoy that had called this meeting anyway; she’d only set it up, being the one of the two of them with the more rigid schedule. Her tongue flicked out to wet her lips, and she bit her bottom one as she moved towards one of the chairs. “Well,” She began, now nervously fiddled with a fold on her skirt. “I debated it. But I thought about how I suppose the whole thing is my fault to begin with.” She raised her gaze to him again. “After all, you wouldn’t have been cursed if it wasn’t for me and my foolish decisions.”

He wouldn’t have been sent that curse if he hadn’t stepped in and tried to diffuse the situation at the pawn shop for her.

“So now it's the least I can do to hear you out.” She finished, taking a seat in one of the chairs. As she leaned back, she couldn’t help but let out a sigh; she’d been on her feet for most of the day, and the rest was a welcome reprieve.

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It was (or had been, rather) his instinct to meet her admission with teasing. Something about how he’d never gotten into trouble before meeting them. Something about the curse not even being the most dire situation they’d endured together. He wanted that relationship back—where he could poke at her, needle her in all the ways he knew would earn him a petulant glare or a snarky remark. He missed the easy way they toyed with each other. He hated having to tiptoe around her, haunted by the fear that he’d say the wrong thing and lose her forever. It was codependent of him for certain.

Yet he couldn’t bring himself to care.

He lowered himself into the seat across from her, only inches separating them. What would she do if he reached out and touched her knee? Flinch away? Lean into him? Would she berate him, outraged at his presumption? Or did she too miss being close to him?

“I told you before, and I meant it. I had no intention of being gone for so long, and I never meant to hurt you.” There was that part of him—maybe it was a mask he wore, or maybe it was truly part of him, nestled deep in the crevice of his heart—that recoiled at his own words. He didn’t want to have to apologize. It had been him who suffered. Him who had been locked away, away from home, poked and prodded with every type of magic, weakened until he could hardly bear to step outside in the harsh sunlight.

Why couldn’t she understand? What all need for… for begging?

And yet he would, and he did, because he needed her. He didn’t deny that part of himself any longer. Yaxley had become his person, by no choice of her own and certainly not his.

He hated it. If only he could hate her as easily. But all he wanted was to soak up her features and earn her smile. Her forgiveness. Her trust.

“I never mean to hurt you,” he said, leaning forward so he could rest his elbows on his knees. He sought her eyes, imploring her to see him even if she refused to hear him.

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set by lady <3

She promised she would listen to him; and listen, she did. It wasn’t a terribly long speech, but it struck her all the same. Perhaps because this was Malfoy, who was talking. The one who, back when she’d tutored him, had fought tooth and nail to not have to explain himself for anything; the one who always seemed to have a retort at the ready whenever she needed information from him, like he was trying to figure out the most strenuous way for her to prise an answer from him. And now, they had been together in the same room for less than a quarter of an hour and he had sat down across from her, all seriousness and hardly a trace of that smug pride that always seemed to be woven into the very fabric of his being.

His words from that day in Diagon Alley rung through her mind again. It wasn’t my choice….wanted to write….sickly….barely a moment alone…

There was a day, somewhere in the depths of their past together, where if he had given her this same excuse she would have brushed it away; would have stormed off thinking about all the ridiculous lies and deflection he was spinning. But somewhere along the line things changed. Maybe it was one of those many times they’d saved each others asses, or that time he had helped her bury a dead body, or perhaps that time she had made him invade her mind for lost memories; the possibilities, it seemed, did not stop. Whatever it was had led to this moment now where Rowan sat in the chair listening to him, her heart in her throat as she heard his apology.

His sincere apology.

I never meant to hurt you.

All the tension she had been holding ever since she saw him left her in a staggering breath. If it weren’t for the fact that she wasn’t crying, it might have sounded like a sob. She leaned forward to put her head in her hands. He’d apologized in Diagon Alley, but then she’d been too angry, too livid at him to want to listen. Now, she could see how sorry he was, and how much this…rift between them was affecting him. It was affecting him just as much as it had affected her when he had first disappeared.

Sighing, she raised her gaze up, sitting back and biting her lip. “I thought…since the last time we saw each other was…” At your place. “I thought when you had left, it was…because of me.” The memory was clear as if it was yesterday; of the horrible whooshing in her stomach when she realized he might not be coming back, that he might have just left her without a care in the world. She looked at him now, feeling the first pricklings of tears at the corners of her eyes. “I thought you had gotten what you wanted from me. Your prize,” her stomach turned again just at the thought of the nightmares she’d had of him laughing at her. She felt the tears finally spill over. “And I thought you’d had enough.”

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There wasn’t a time he could remember where they’d both seemed so… defeated. It was the nature of their dynamic that one was always strong while the other was weak. When he panicked, she had a clear head. When she was desperate for help, he dropped everything. Even through all the arguments and snark and fighting, they’d always balanced each other out. It was one of the unspoken agreements between them, dating all the way back to when they were in school and he’d relied on her to get him a passing grade.

But it wasn’t until her tears began to fall and he realized how truly useless he felt that he understood why they’d gotten to this level of codependency.

He reached out and enveloped her small hand in his much larger one. Seeing her cry was worse than being the target of her anger. He knew how to hold his own. It was the one thing his father had nailed into him from childhood: never show weakness. He could keep his calm, show indifference, even snark back. But he’d hardly been coached on how to handle a crying woman. Had she been broke, injured, or afraid, he could’ve solved it. Money could be thrown around, healers could be called, aggressors could be driven away. But what could he do when he was the cause of her misery, other than apologize?

“I am not the type to… do that,” he said slowly, trying to avoid looking at her tear-stained cheeks. His gaze latched onto the piece of flyaway hair hanging in front of her ear. The wrinkled sleeves of her robe. The little dimple on the tip of her chin made noticeable by the way she leaned into her palms. “And—you’re not just some prize. I…” He looked up at the ceiling helplessly, as if some magical force would send him the right words.

“There were night there, in New York, where all I wanted to do was have you in my bed at night,” he said instead, dipping his chin to catch her eye. “Not to bed you, not really—although it’s not like I would have said no—but that’s beside the point.” His knee began to bounce, and he gripped her hand a little tighter. “What I mean to say is that I wanted you… with me.” Which was perhaps the understatement of the century, given that he’d considered paying someone to snatch her from England on more than one occasion.

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set by lady <3

When his hand enveloped hers, she took it like a life raft thrown out to sea. It helped; to have a point of contact. An anchor. Her eyes caught the sharp angles of the scar on the back of his hand, and she resisted the urge to trace it with the pad of her middle finger. But she still looked at it, looked at his hands. She’d missed the shape of them, she realized, and ran her thumb over the back of his knuckles.

I am not the type to do that, he’d said. And she believed him; at least until the point where she believed that he’d never do that to her. It gave Rowan some solace, but she kept looking at him, wishing he’d meet her gaze as he spoke. She wanted to see it in his eyes; wanted to see something in those clear blue pools she knew she could drown in if he gave her the chance.

She could see him struggling through his words but there was precious little she could do other than let him continue, and to keep running her thumb over the ridges, the lines pressed into his hand. When he finally looked at her it was the moment in the conversation Rowan might have pulled away, except he held her fast, insisting she be present with him as he got through his explanation. Her eyes moved from him to his knee. It bounced like that when he got nervous or frustrated, she’d noticed. It was one of the things she’d missed about him.

But to hear that he had wanted her…

Rowan felt her heart stop beating in the most delightful of ways. And when it started back up, beating fast as a hummingbird’s wings, she was sure he might be able to hear it. She could only nod. She didn’t trust her voice. The tears had slowed; only a stray one ran down her cheek, one that she didn’t bother to pay any attention to because her focus was on him. Raphael. Her lips parted slightly as she took him in. “I’m…I’m here now.” She finally said, so softly she wasn’t sure if he would be able to hear it. And this time she shifted her hands so they were around his. Her gaze flickered up to him as she turned his hands over, tracing the lines there. “I’m here now.” She whispered, and dipped her head to press her lips against the skin of his palm.

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His fingers twitched at the gentle caress of her lips against his palm. It had been so long since he'd been touched outside of the clinical touch of a healer and the momentary embraces he shared with his mother and sisters when he returned from the continent. Rigidity replaced restlessness as he wanted her with wide eyes. His knee stopped blinding. His wandering gaze locked on her closed eyelids as she kissed his curse-scarred hand. His stomach turned—out of nerves, out of discomfort, out of confusion, out of anticipation.

She'd said she was here. Did that mean… now? Moving forward? Maybe it was her way of saying he was forgiven. Maybe it was a promise. If only it was so easy to offer her one in return.

He wanted to hoard her for himself. He didn't want to share her with the world when he'd been deprived of her for so long. She could stay in the shack, in his bedroom, anywhere—and he'd lock himself away with her, ignoring the world around them. But he knew he couldn't, and that's what caused the tightness to build in his chest all over again.

He curled his fingers around her chin, tracing the line of her jaw with his pinky, then then the line of her lower lip with his thumb. He ran the curve of his palm up her cheek and across her delicate cheekbone, over the end of her eyebrow.

“Do you forgive me?” he murmured, needing to hear her say it.

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set by lady <3

Rowan was so acutely aware of his presence next to her. It had been so long since they’d been in the same space. She’d been nervous to touch him, she had just realized. Nervous that when they did eventually make contact, that it wouldn’t feel the same, and that she wouldn’t be able to feel the hum of anticipation just below the surface. But he caught her chin and she watched his eyes track his own movements. She’d missed his eyes. She’d missed his touch. She leaned into it, wanting to bottle this feeling and take it with her. How was she supposed to fall asleep tonight knowing what she was missing?

Just a few moments ago she had been rigid, ready to run in the opposite direction, but now it seemed like a light had turned on bringing with it a warmth that Rowan wanted to curl up against like a cat in a sunbeam. How fast things changed. Or perhaps things hadn’t changed all that quickly; perhaps she’d just been resisting for that long.

She savored his question, not because he was asking for her forgiveness, but because she could sense the vulnerability behind it. She knew what it took from him to say it. For as long as she could remember, Malfoy had always been about maintaining control, never revealing his cards and keeping them close; even in small arguments they’d had. But Rowan had also seen glances of vulnerability here and there. She wanted to see more of this, but she doubted he would make it a regular habit.

She gave a soft laugh. “Yes, Raphael.” She said quietly. “For what it’s worth, I don’t know if you need it. After all, I thought such horrid things about you when I thought you’d left…I should have given you more credit than that.” It shamed her to think about them now, and she bowed her head apologetically. “But if my forgiveness is what you need, then you shall have it. All of it.”

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This was a side of Yaxley he wasn’t used to seeing. Even when he’d fucked her, it had been just that—fervent, fast, a culmination of sexual tension that had been building for years. He’d wanted her, and she’d wanted him, but that was the extent of the feelings they’d revealed. Even in the post sex haze he hadn’t been this aware of every inch of her.

Her eyes still glistened and she was smiling. Raphael had earned very few of those smiles in the past. It was almost uncanny how different she looked when she smiled. Her cheeks were warm against his palm, flushed with heightened emotions. And her laugh–e tried to remember the last time he’d heard it.

And her voice. Had it gone up an octave, or had she merely spent years retraining her tone around him? It sounded so light and airy and he wouldn’t have recognized it had he not been watching her lips move. He couldn’t help the way the corners of his lips lifted at her words, his soft smile mirroring hers.

“It’s behind us, then,” he said, despite knowing all too well that it would never truly be behind him. The social isolation for a year had changed every fiber of his being. Even his magic was not as cantankerous as it had been, the crackling at his fingertips he felt every time he cast a spell replaced with a cooler, slower sensation. But he could do his best not to let it affect the time he spent with her. She missed the Raphael he’d left behind in England, and he would do his best to make sure that was the Raphael she got, whatever that looked like.

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set by lady <3